Unapologetic Christianity

An 'apology' for the church

The figures are obvious. The church in the UK is in serious decline.

In 1900 55% of children were in a Sunday School of some kind. In 2000 that number had dropped to 4%. In addition, there has been a rapid growth in population so that the number of church going Christians, old or young, becomes ever more obviously a minority.

Why is it happening?

What is the cause of the decline? Many people imagine that it began after the Second World War. The baby boom generation of the 1950s grew up without the traditional commitments of their parents. The 1960s cultural and sexual revolution saw an entire generation turn their backs on church going. Therefore, the decline is often seen as a product of the past 50 years.

But the statistics do not bear out this interpretation. In his study (The Empty Church Revisited, 2003), Robin Gill demonstrates that the decline in UK churchgoing began long, long before the 1960s. In fact, the high watermark for Anglican church attendance was 1851 and for free churches was 1880. In fact, many of our chapel buildings were built since the decline set in and so many of the small, struggling chapels around the country have always been like that. There is something of a myth of chapels and churches bursting at the seams on a golden Sunday in 1900, but, even with the best estimate, 45% of children were not in church that day.

The remnant

Of course, for many evangelicals these statistics do not suggest that anything has gone wrong. They simply present the sorting of wheat from chaff. Nominal church going has been in terminal decline. Who wants to spend time on a Sunday worshipping a god they don’t believe exists? So the remaining small percentage represents true believers. This remnant has probably only ever been a minority in society at large. Whether we live in the mediaeval state of Christendom or the contemporary state of Secularism, true Christians have always been a small, and sometimes persecuted, minority.

More to it

But I think there is more that these figures can teach us than that. No doubt the large numbers who attended church in the early 1800s included many nominal believers, many forced to be there by families, landowners or cultural expectations.

Granted all this, something has happened to put off many people from bothering to have anything to do with the church or Christianity. So what else can explain the decline in church attendance in the UK?

Consider again that the high watermark for church attendance was around 1851. What else has changed since then? What we call the Victorian Age was part of a greater cultural revolution across Europe called the Enlightenment. This period witnessed great technological advance and intellectual progress. The dead weight of tradition, superstition and authoritarianism was being replaced by freedom of thought and enquiry. The Industrial Revolution benefited from the inventiveness of scientists. The political landscape of the West was changed by increasingly free, democratic progress. In biology, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species in 1859, which undermined the idea that human beings were the special creation of God.

In the area of theology a new movement called Higher Criticism changed the way the Bible was read. Rather than being considered the inspired word of God, the Bible was itself a record of the slow, muddled progress of religious thought. The church itself began to pedal a theology of the Enlightenment devoid of miracles and wary of revelation. This was called liberal theology and it found voice in pulpits across the land.

Is it true or not?

In the light of later church decline we might as well say that the church hit its own self-destruct button. Christianity lost its authority and appeal as it lost confidence in its own foundations. Is it really a coincidence that the decline of church going matched the rise of liberal theology? The church might try to offer moral teaching, psychological wellbeing, political reform or mystical experiences, but if the core of its teaching is not true then why not look elsewhere? As C.S. Lewis wrote in Man or Rabbit? (1946); ‘If Christianity is untrue then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.’

Apologetics

So, if this diagnosis is correct, what should the church have been doing? Instead of retreating into an emotional or moral subjectivism, Christianity should have been giving an answer. This is what we call ‘apologetics’. Apologetics is not saying sorry. It is not apologising for what we believe. Apologetics is derived from a Greek word used in the New Testament. It literally means to give a ‘word away’ as we answer or reason with those who object to the Christian faith. At the church where I pastor and the theological college where I teach I am convinced that every believer needs a robust confidence in their faith. Apologetics is not some specialised subject for Christians who wear anoraks. Every believer should want to present a credible case for historic Christianity in the modern world. In the months to come I would like to share with you a number of evidences and reasons that we should all be familiar with.

Dr. Chris Sinkinson is pastor of Alderholt Evangelical Congregational Church, and lectures at Moorlands Bible College.

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