The Bishop of London spoke of an impending "spiritual tsunami" in a key note address at last night's Theos Forum at St Bride's, Fleet Street.

Speaking to an audience comprising media professionals, academics, public affairs specialists and interested members of the public, the Bishop talked about the challenges and opportunities of engaging in - and with - today's media.

The Bishop said: "At a national level the Church with its 1950's polity and style is constantly convicted of fidgeting and dithering with an in house ecclesiastical agenda while the real battle is raging elsewhere. We have invested a huge amount of time and effort in elaborating defensive committee based structures which confuse and inhibit communication."

Dr Chartres then went on to describe the changing nature of society and the opportunities presented by this.

"The tide on DoverBeach which Matthew Arnold viewed as a symbol of the Sea of Faith has gone out unnaturally far. One girl on a Thai holiday beach read the sign correctly and shouted to her family to run because such a dramatic recession of the tide is one of the signs of an approaching tsunami.

"There is a spiritual tsunami building in the new housing areas of greater Cairo; in the shanty towns of South America. The population of most the rest of the world is very youthful and it is already clear that they are not going to follow the pattern familiar from the experience of North Western Europe over the past three centuries in which modernisation and secularisation have gone hand in hand."

Following the Bishop of London’s address, journalist, public relations pioneer and now Anglican priest, George Pitcher chaired a discussion between the Bishop and Sarah Sands, appointed as the first female editor of The Sunday Telegraph in June 2005 and now consultant editor on The Daily Mail.

To read the full text of the Bishop's address, click here.