(September 10, 2016 at 9:25 am)Mr Greene Wrote: Watching the situation here in Britain the Methodists will be the first denomination to go belly up, most have already closed down the survivors are those that abandoned their 'no gambling' morals and are holding on by the proceeds of weekly bingo events.
The CofE is on the rocks firmly in denial till Rowan Williams showed up, his reforms and attempts to reconnect with the next generation were bitterly opposed and have now been largely swept under the carpet by the new archbishop and the mass sell-off of parish churches is underway. This is termed 'Consolidating the congregation to the cathedrals' which rather points to the bishop's priorities, I suspect the Catholics will follow a similar course, though Eastern European Migrants seem to be keeping them relatively buoyant.
Presbyterians seem to be evaporating whilst Baptists have gone in for an extended round of back-biting with single churches splitting up into a number of smaller churches none of which will talk to each other and rapidly collapse due to cash-flow problems, however these give a false impression of growth as the actual number churches rises temporarily, also the congregation gets counted in both the new church and the original church further inflating their figures.
I haven't noticed any examples of the churches talking down their figures, it invariably seems to be the opposite with them trying to claim congregation they don't have, but there may be different pressures the other side of the pond.
I agree that the situation has been like that in the UK for nearly a decade now, and is slowly being replaced by Islam. Some old churches in Manchester have been or are being used as mosques at the moment. Consecrated ground where there were cemeteries have been dug up by those who want to use that land to build a mosque. The situation is the same in the Netherlands too, with hundreds of churches being closed and either being turned into mosques or skateparks and any other usage imagineable.
