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A few weeks ago I did some filming for a BBC One documentary on the future of Christianity in the UK. The initial conversations with the researcher revealed their starting point. They were circling, politely, carefully, but obviously around the thesis “the church is not just shrinking- it’s being taken over by terrifying gay bashing happy clappy loonies”.
I can understand this. As the numbers attending church on Sundays fall, and court cases around sexuality become increasingly high profile, it makes sense that those outside the church would get a pretty binary picture. What the culture hears is: The church is dying, and in its death throes, it’s getting nasty.
The programme was yet unnamed, and so when I saw it listed as ‘The Battle for Christianity’ I didn’t have high hopes that it would be telling a different story. I was however, pleasantly surprised to watch the programme on Tuesday night. It seems the production team, having done their homework, realised that this narrative is not entirely accurate.
The presenter, Robert Beckford, visited Catholic churches full of Poles, and Anglican churches full of Iranians. The impact of immigration on attendance numbers, particularly in metropolitan areas has been widely reported, but little examined. It was noticeable that Beckford, who admitted to having moved away from the conservative social mores of his Pentecostal upbringing, still found himself moved and uplifted in a socially conservative church, saying “ it was lively, engaged, practical, and it was full of hope”. He sought to press the pastor on same sex-marriage, but the answer didn’t really give him much scope to press the “battle” metaphor.
In fact, by the middle of the programme, it was evident that the idea of a war for Christianity’s soul was running out of steam. While the (admittedly deep) differences over sexuality were addressed, it was refreshing to see the media coverage acknowledge that there is more going on than that. When accused of presiding over an increasingly right wing church, the Archbishop of Canterbury was pretty clear that “the kingdom of God is both right and left and doesn’t really fit on a political spectrum”.
So rather than portraying a battle, we saw a lot of smiling, positive people. Happy clappy, perhaps, but not really terrifying. The programme was filled in the main with positive stories, rarely heard. The foodbank in Bolton which makes people of all faiths and none feel welcome. Church plants in Birmingham. Hipster youth churches in south London. The image of church which most people most easily conjured up a generation ago - a church of England church with a robed vicar, peopled mainly by the middle aged and old, is by no means any longer the only picture.
As I tried to point out, none of this means that the original story is completely false. Although we are learning that there may be more Christians around than we thought, it is demonstrably true that fewer of them are in church. The gap between society’s understanding of sexual ethics, and at the very least the leadership of most evangelical churches is a large and potentially off-putting one. And the increasing diversity of approaches to church may be interesting and invigorating, but some fear it’s also risking unity.
As we approach Easter, it can’t be said that we are (yet) seeing the UK church gloriously resurrected. There is a long way to go before that could be said with any integrity. But, as many of our lived experience, and this programme hinted, the church might have an exciting future.
Elizabeth Oldfield is Director of Theos | @TheosElizabeth
Watch the film here (available to UK residents, until 22 April).
