54% of Uk males non-religious or agnostic.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Awesome. Religion is on its last legs round here.

I recently spent several Sundays mornings driving my disabled cousin around town (UK midlands pop. 90,000) to find a new church for her - she fell out with her old one. The main impressions I got from viewing several congregations was
1) hardly anyone there - most was about 50, worst was about 20, these being buildings that could comfortably accommodate several hundred.
2) Old. At least half of all congregations were retirement age - ranging from recently retired to decrepit.
3) Women. Outnumbering men about 2:1

Counting every church attendee on an average Sunday in my town you would be lucky to reach 500 in a town of 90,000.

Regards

Grimesy

Your observation is pretty much the norm for most areas of (At least) England and Wales.

The cohort effect has thoroughly dismantled the religious landscape. As one generation loses their religion, their offspring continue by not being introduced to it, and so on.

IF we think about things like the sexual revolution in the 1960s, where people actively challenged the religious hegemony on so called 'moral decency', it's no surprise that the majority of people now going to church are people from that generation who rejected the swinging 60s ethos.

A dying breed, literally.

What is most surprising about this story is that 'faith' is still elevated to privilege status here in the UK in a lot of governmental discourse, despite the fact that more than half the population will not be religious by the next decade. I suspect this is more to do with containing extremism than it is appealing to disaffected congregations.