for thinking Christianity is declining in the UK because the churches lost credibility and community while other faiths didn’t?

[LoveWFH]

This is not about belief in God versus no God. It is about institutions and what people experience on the ground. The Church of England in particular feels like a faded bureaucracy. Empty buildings. Clergy stretched thin. Services that feel performative or stuck in a time capsule. A lot of talk about tradition but very little that speaks to how people actually live now.

There is also the trust issue. Abuse scandals. Cover ups. Financial mismanagement. A sense that when the church fails it protects itself first and the vulnerable last. You can only ask people to suspend disbelief for so long when the institution itself looks morally compromised. Younger people especially are ruthless about hypocrisy and the church gives them plenty to work with.

Then there is the class and culture gap. Christianity in the UK often feels tied to establishment power and respectability. It does not feel like it belongs to ordinary people anymore. It feels like something you inherit rather than choose. Something you tick at a wedding or funeral rather than something that shapes your life. When belief becomes purely ceremonial it is already on life support.

By contrast other faiths seem to be growing because they are lived not just referenced. They have visible daily practices. Clear moral frameworks. Strong community networks. You see them meeting regularly supporting each other showing up for births deaths crises celebrations. There is structure and discipline but also belonging. For migrants especially faith communities replace the support systems the state no longer provides.

There is also confidence. Other faiths are not embarrassed by themselves. They do not constantly apologise for existing or dilute their beliefs in the hope of being liked. People are drawn to certainty in an uncertain world. Not cruelty or dogma but clarity. Christianity in the UK often sounds unsure of what it even stands for anymore beyond being inoffensive.

So AIBU for thinking this is not some mystery about secularism but a very predictable outcome of an institution that lost its moral authority community roots and sense of purpose while others doubled down on theirs?

You’re wrong, the real church is growing. That’s people who believe the gospel and decide to follow Jesus. What’s dying is, social fake Christianity, going to church out status or habit but not really believing that Jesus died for them and certainly wouldn’t give up their lives for him. This is a good thing. You can’t be born a Christian, everyone has to make that decision on their own.

But the churches op describes aren't, other churches are.

No one has shown evidence on this thread of increasing interest in the church - there was a Bible Society thing that came out at the end of last year which I think people might be alluding to. But not according to the British Social Attitudes survey: https://humanists.uk/2026/01/28/gen-z-churchgoing-is-actually-still-declining-new-british-social-attitudes-survey-shows/

Actually, I think a lot of it is simply because there is a higher likelihood of those raised religious losing their faith later in life than there is of those raised non-religious later finding faith. Non-theism is sometimes described as a "sticky" belief, in that once people become non-religious or non-theistic they're incredibly likely to stay non-religious, and therefore raise their children non-religious who will then also likely remain non-religious, and so on and so forth.

One professor of sociology and religion, Linda Woodhead, identified "a 45% chance" that "people who say they were raised Christian" will end up identifying as "nones" or non-religious, whereas "those raised with 'no religion'" have a "95% probability" of staying that way. It makes sense, really, that when we see no sufficient evidence for the existence of something that we don't believe it exists. It's a default; Christianity requires some kind of belief in proof of a Christian god, whereas non-theism requires, well, nothing. There's no wonder non-theism is the "stickier" belief, when you look at it that way.

I wouldn't be surprised if, at least in the UK, other religions will similarly decline over time as people marry inter-faith and have children in multi-faith environments. I think, though I have no study to prove it, that we already see a lot less "strict" religion than some other places, with people more likely to culturally practice some elements of faith than others. I know of cultural Sikhs who don't wear turbans, and cultural Muslims who drink and eat pork, in much the same way as I know cultural Christians who don't go to church. I just think that people of other cultural faiths are more likely to still describes themselves as such than cultural Christians, purely because their cultural practices aren't seen as the "default" the way cultural Christianity is. I think it's very easy to celebrate Christmas in the UK without even thinking about the religious origins of the celebration, whereas I imagine it's a lot harder to do that with Eid-al-Fitr, Diwali or Pesach. Cultural involvement in other religions requires more thought and effort, and as such I believe it is more likely to form a part of someone's identity than cultural Christianity is in modern Britain.

I can only add... I need a church that is open more than just a sunday... I need to be able to go when I can. Im not catholic but at least they have churches open more.

Well. AMEN!

Because Christians aren't born to faith as in Islam where to declare yourself apostate is to literally invite severe ostracism from family and community. Christianity now quite rightly does not use disownement as a form of punishment and we allow our children free choice of region unlike those that view religion as a form of ethnicity as indelible as soon colour.

I also think the appointment of a female archbishop of Canterbury is far too woke when religions like it or hate are inherently patriarchal. Feminism has been show horned into the C of E when it is at odds with text and history of the church.

Sorry, to clarify : Christian immigrants tend to be more practising than UK-born Christians, who are more likely to be more lukewarm or maybe non-believing but 'cultural' Christians.

' religions like it or hate are inherently patriarchal. Feminism has been shoehorned into the C of E when it is at odds with text and history of the church.'

• this seems a bit pessimistic. So women in your opinion either have a choice to be non religious or to accept patriarchy? I think that's negative when religion has many benefits, and women have traditionally been the bedrock of the church. It's wrong for churches to be built on women's labour but deny them formal power.

Jesus never said women couldn't be priests and he had female disciples. Plenty of other things are engrained in church history that we now reject : anti Semitism for one, or extreme anti Catholic sentiment.

I agree. The (?protestant) idea that what matters is whether the religion is true, rather than, say, its cultural or tribal or transcendent qualities.

I also agree with OP that the CofE serves as an inoculation against full-blown religion.

Just like the edgy kids in China are rarely Marxists. Marxism there is just the empty words you have to study.

The biggest factor is education. Well-educated populations are generally less religious. There will always be individual exceptions but it is true on a population level.

I'm not sure if that's fully true re China. There have been youth movements which protested the government's lack of Socialism /Marxism. But these were fiercely clamped down on, at the same time as some (but only some) of their concerns re workers' rights, rural poverty, were addressed to some extent.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2147487/why-beijing-isnt-marxist-enough-chinas-radical&ved=2ahUKEwj3yuCH7tCSAxWARkEAHTNmBQ8QFnoECE4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0nC8X0sda3vGmDXy4qBTjU

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chinas-New-Red-Guards-Radicalism/dp/0190605847/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2CIXSE8JEWYDY&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.s5DB-Qf7Pytb2NmlE--V8Q.8ArvGIRd8SQZ1x8tZ_58861oMqY-89gNKMs-WqB2Q0Y&dib_tag=se&keywords=china%27s+new+red+elite&qid=1763665557&s=books&sprefix=china%27s+new+red+elite%2Cbooks%2C101&sr=1-1

This book was from 2019. One of the 4 millenial women profiled in Yuan Yang's book Private Revolutions had also been involved in an underground Marxist movement.

I think think religion including Christianity and the c of e may have stated to turn a corner.

Since WW2 people have had a massive increase in living standards, technology and knowledge. We felt we were heading towards some form of peaceful utopia created by humans.
In recent years it has become clear this isn't happening. Young people have poorer job and housing prospects than their parents, technology isn't universally good, but can harm.
Is it not surprising then that people are looking to things outside this world for answers. This is what surveys are showing that younger people are now likely to be theistic than their parents.

They did this to my friends and I when I was a teen. It was a happy clappy ‘life church’. They intentionally tried to indoctrinate teenagers through rock music. I believe Gareth Gates was a member as a child. My friends and I would walk around the town centre together on a weekend and they’d approach us asking if we wanted to ‘come to a free party’. We were shrewd enough to know what they were up to but not everyone would be.

We actually went once for a laugh and it was absolutely ridiculous. Essentially was one big party with Christian rock music but the teens already heavily indoctrinated were swaying with their arms in the air and eyes closed- it was giving Charles Manson. They walked over and tried to encourage us to keep turning up but there was no way, we left early.

I don’t know, I grew up half Jewish, half Christian and I think both religions face the same sort of issue. They don’t have the strength of faith other religions like Islam in particular do anymore. Most Jews I know are ‘high holidays’ only so basically church at Christmas style Christians. Some denominations or just individual places of worship have tried to ‘modernise’. It’s a tricky balance though- you don’t want to go too far and piss the elders off.

I think the CofE has lost its way and is in danger of becoming a Jesus-themed social club that never asks its members to do any hard thinking, for fear of offending them or making them uncomfortable. Some bits of Christianity are hard and involve difficult decisions about morality and belief. Avoid those and there’s not much point, and the whole thing feels a sham -and people can feel that.

I think certainly for the Catholic Church in western countries the degree to which their members committed abuse particularly sexual but emotional and physical too and how they as an institution weaponised forgiveness and pressurised victims never to speak about the abuse when it was raised and then wholesale covered up abuse and moved perpetrators from parish to parish to continue prolifically abusing more children and then the same pattern of pushing victims into silence, weaponising forgiveness, moving the priest and repeating the pattern showed up enormous gap in morality, integrity ethics which then makes that a very difficult landscape for you to exist in that The abuse scandal was not a few bad apples it was a wholesale rotten to the core culture throughout an institution claiming to be ethical.

Yet 3500 churches have closed in the last decade.

https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/news/closing-churches-cuts-worship-numbers-new-opinion-poll-finds

Really?

religionunplugged.com/news/the-most-educated-really-the-least-religious

My Mum has attended the same Pentecostal church for around 45 years. We were taken there as kids but none of us have faith now. More recently my Dad died and so we have to been to church a few times with Mum. I was astounded to see every seat taken and folk having to stand.

If the only explanation were coercion or birth rates, conversion numbers would not exist at all. Yet they do.

Conversion is not a one way street. Some people convert to Islam. Some leave it. Some convert to Christianity. Some leave that too. The UK is fluid religiously. Headlines often exaggerate stability or growth without acknowledging movement in all directions.

Even in a secular society, people are still searching for meaning, certainty, identity and belonging.

Its growing? Oh ok

https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/news/closing-churches-cuts-worship-numbers-new-opinion-poll-finds

3500 churches closed in the last decade.

The revival only started last year, give it a chance!
Also more people going to church will likely mean more new churches. Old struggling churches will still be closing.
The closing churches will be those with older congregations who are getting older and no new people are joining. I. E. Have populations who are all over 70. It's very hard to join a church like this as a younger person or family because churches are communities and they don't work when there isn't a mix of different ages. It's a bit like a tipping point.

If the only explanation were coercion or birth rates, conversion numbers would not exist at all. Yet they do.

Conversion is not a one way street. Some people convert to Islam. Some leave it. Some convert to Christianity. Some leave that too. The UK is fluid religiously. Headlines often exaggerate stability or growth without acknowledging movement in all directions.

A revival is more than a few random people turning up to church!

That's apparently a fake statistic (as per More or Less).

Growing religions in the UK are those attended by the global majority. So that's Pentecostal churches and Islam.