The CofE doomed? Only because it’s surrendered to phony soullessness

The Church of England is doomed, Lord Carey has said, warning that Anglicanism is just ‘one generation away from extinction’.

To be fair people have been saying this for a long time; in the mid-19^th century the Church decided to make a survey of churchgoing, and were stunned to find out that only a quarter of people in England attended Anglican services and a similar number to non-Conformist services. Half the population wasn’t going at all.

Now you’d be lucky to get that many at Christmas. The Church faces the same problem as all churches, namely that religious belief continues to decline across Europe, and that those religions that do flourish tend to be quite wacky, whether the ‘ah bless, sweet’ variety or the ‘scary, frothing at the mouth’ strain.

Religion is becoming ever weirder to most people as Britain’s Christian legacy fades into the past.