http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/feb/14/richard-dawkins-british-christianity

most of my insights into church attendance have been based upon the Brierly Report of 2001, so it is good to get some up to date information.

Brierly,in his report stated that South Yorkhire was to County with the lowest church attendance in the UK, at 4.5%. i am not too sure whether your figures are calculated County by County or my some other measure? i would be interested to know the details.

in your report you state ” The ‘bottom ten’ range from 3.6% in South Holland in Lincolnshire, followed by Kirklees, Wychavon (Worcs.), Telford and Wrekin, Doncaster, Fenland, Ashfield (Notts.), Bolsover (Derbyshire), Rotherham (S. Yorks), and North East Lincolnshire, which pulls up the rear at 2.6%. I don’t know enough about these areas to suggest why; some may host high proportions of non-Christians.”

I would be interested if you could send me the Sources for your comments above, as i am unable to locate them on the links given.

i am a Christian and a resident in Rotherham and believe that two contributing factors have led to the low Church attendance in this area. Firstly is because of a high mixture of cultures in Rotherham. (according to the 2001 cenus 96.06% are white – but later research places Ethinic Minorities at 7.5%).

However, for me the major factor for a lack of Church attendance is the Social demographic of the White population. Rotherham ranks high in social depravation, and the Church has in recent years took on a middle-class feel to it. For many, christianity is not a “working man’s religion” and for a strong working class community such as Rotherham, the way the Church portrays itself is often irrelevant to those it seeks to influence.

a hundred Years ago it was a different story, the Pentecostal churches in South Yorkshire connected strongly amongst this social group offering a sense of hope and purpose to the Miners and Steelworkers. And a hundred years before that, the methodist church made significant advances amongst the same communities. to this day there are over 20 methodist churches in the borough and at least 7 pentecostal churches.

The men of Yorkshire have a world-wide reputation of being “hard” men, and unless the Church can adapt its approach, or regain the approach it had 100 years ago, it will probably continue to be an irrelevance to the wideer community.

one last point. South Yorkshire has always had a sense of strong community matched by a sense of strong competition. the loyalty levels are very high but when trust is broken, finding forgiveness is almost impossible. i have heard of families who will not speak to certain members of their family because of decisions made 20 years ago.

there is a sense of suspicion and a sense of division across the borough, and that people are very parochial. and to a certain degree in the past, the church has too reflected that same attitude between churches. this is an issue that the Church is only now starting to address.

whilst we would always like to find someone else to blame for the churces decline. we have to admit that the blame lies solely at the door of the church.

the future of the church will depend on its ability to communicate its unchanging message effectively to a changing world.

Adrian Dexter

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/5bal45p4b2/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-27-290112.pdf

Asked whether 26 senior Church of England bishops should continue to sit and vote in the House of Lords, the results were quite similar to those obtained in the survey for THE SUN: 58% opposed, 24% in favour, and 18% uncertain.

Two additional questions were put. In answer to the first, 65% of adults said that Anglican bishops were out of touch with public opinion, against 21% thinking that they were in touch, and 14% undecided.

In reply to the other question, 66% agreed with Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, that the welfare benefits system ‘traps people into dependency and rewards fecklessness and irresponsibility’. Only 19% disagreed, with 15% don’t knows.

The problem with talking about poverty as a structural thing is that the ordinary person can feel helpless to do much about it. We can change the way we live our lives, spend our money, raise our children, but we really can’t change the tax or banking system. We can’t prevent footballers earning milllions of pounds. Many people now have very little faith that politicians can or will do much about these issues, so perhaps the most meaningful option for individuals is to focus on self-help, or to work towards changing attitudes in their local communities, rather than expecting ‘injustice’ or income equality to be abolished by the authorities.

The perceived decline in public civility and personal security has probably also made people less tolerant of ‘the poor’. Sadly, disaffected people often target their own communities – they don’t necessarily go and cause trouble for the rich! People may feel that that disadvantaged communities once stuck together and respected each other – that’s less true today. I suppose it’s harder to feel supportive of people if there’s no trust between you.