How to save the Church of England

The Church of England’s various travails and dilemmas – on controversial issues, like sexuality and safeguarding – are on one level beside the point. Even if it managed to solve these problems, the Church’s drift to the margins of our culture looks likely to continue.

The really fundamental issue is how the CofE can reverse that drift, how it can renew itself. This is harder to talk about, as it has little connection with the news cycle. The renewal of the Church depends on the quality of its worship culture, and the traditional forms seem unable to generate new excitement.

Its main historic attempts at renewal were rooted in worship culture. The Catholic revival of the mid-nineteenth century, known as the Oxford Movement, involved lots of ritual finery and theatrical pomp. It produced many good things, but the ‘high’ style could not really unite a Church rooted in Protestantism.