Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

The fight for the future of the Church of England

When the Church of England talks of trying new things, I prick up my ears. Back in 2004 it announced the need for ‘fresh expressions’ — new ventures alongside the normal parish system. Maybe some vibrant arty experimentation would ensue, I felt. But the main result was lots of nimble little evangelical pop-up churches, mostly lay-led. The idea of innovation seems to energise the evangelicals, although their version of innovation doesn’t always energise me.

On Easter Day this year I dragged my kids to church, but there was no room at the socially distanced inn. The evangelicals round the corner let us in, so I had a glimpse of a style of Anglicanism that I normally avoid. And I quickly remembered why I avoid it: I don’t enjoy being treated like a five-year-old. To express our penitence, we were invited to perform hand gestures, copying some emojis projected on to the huge screen: a fist for anger, a hand covering the mouth for bad words. My teenagers were giggling. I was minded to perform hand gestures of a different sort. We left as soon as it was seemly. The evangelicals dislike mystery. They feel that it should be banished by extreme accessibility.

Recently the C of E has renewed its call for innovation, with the emphasis on post-Covid, belt-tightened streamlining. ‘A vision for the Church of England in the 2020s’, unveiled by the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, calls for a church of ‘networks as well as neighbourhoods’ that is ‘younger and more diverse’, and that is ‘humbler, simpler and bolder’.

‘You’re no longer useful to us as an idiot.’

It’s basically the same rhetoric of 17 years ago. In January, an internal C of E document wondered if this ‘is the moment to embark on radical changes to reshape existing resource patterns and ministry structures’.

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