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?

It's not about the scandals. You will have them in every religion, but their devotees don't care that much about what the people on top do, because their religion is embedded in everyday life, just like Christianity used to be embedded in ours. There are so many rituals in Hinduism or Islam and they pervade everyday living, dictating what people should eat, when to take a bath, when to take off your shoes or whom to marry. In the West we have got rid of those rituals (e.g. who still fasts in Lent, eats fish on Friday, goes to church every Sunday, doesn't have sex before marriage, thinks marriage really is till death do us part, does yearly confession, etc.). People just want to do whatever they please and don't want to follow these rules anymore. Whereas people in Asia and Middle East still abide by their rules, because they are rituals and customs passed from mother to child, and also e.g. in Hinduism there is no "head of the church" and rituals depend on your cast and region where you were born. It's not religion in our Western understanding, but a way of life.

Not true for India though.

A lot of Indians are not educated though. Educated Indians are becoming increasingly non believing even if still practice due to cultural affinity.

still fasts in Lent, eats fish on Friday, - Catholic countries still have those but France, Spain, Ireland, Quebec to some extent Italy are increasingly cultural Catholic rather than believing

I don’t know. Those are difficult questions. But my fear is that by defining the religion as faith-only, and faith as orthodox-only, and working off of those figures, we are turning the majority culture into a minority one.

It might even end up with lower apparent numbers than a religion which makes no such fine distinctions at all, and has no difficulty in counting everyone born into it as an adherent forever, and then where does that leave us?

The New Testament is all be kind and forgive. I visited my very devout Christian mate yesterday. I am a lapsed Christian, read the bible, attended classes, confirmed, you get the picture. I was talking about a party I have been invited to. A man may be in attendance that has a history of violence and has been to prison, the person he attacked is in a wheelchair for life, he has beaten at least one woman for sure as I have seen the bruises and very possibly killed an animal. They are the partner of one of DH relatives.

My friend said God loves him the same as her the devout do good works Christian. I’m not exactly Old Testament and don’t believe eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth but I just really get peeved at having to feel like I have to accept everyone however awful they are.

I was harassed by a man at church and the way they dealt with it was rubbish. He was of course a Church warden and a ‘pillar of the community’. Unfortunately many dodgy men seek a cloak of respectability within all religions. A bit like not all scout leaders are paedophiles but many paedophiles deliberately become scout leaders. A social worker told me many years ago abusers seek specific organisation’s to have access to children or women.

And it's not easy to be public about your lack of belief.
When I refused to attend church many years ago, my mother thought I was bringing shame on the whole family - it got worse because I was the trail blazer, no one in my family went after I said I was done with it. She remained convinced that the whole town was judging her atheist family - she felt she had failed. I felt bad for her - but that sweet taste of freedom from religion was something I prized.
As it happened she joined us, on the atheist bench...took her a few years but the cultural pressure to attend church had weakened. People are not judging as much any more.

Even in India, religious participation is declining in younger people https://www.licas.news/2025/09/05/fewer-rituals-fading-importance-asia-joins-global-trend-of-religious-decline/

I’m not totally convinced by this framing. I think there’s a useful point in there about religion being “stickier” when it’s embedded in everyday life and family practice rather than just private belief — but I’m not sure that’s unique to Hinduism or Islam, or that it explains things as neatly as suggested.

Historically Christianity functioned that way too. Medieval and early modern Europe had fasting calendars, food rules, church courts, sexual and marriage norms, saints’ days structuring the year, etc. It wasn’t just metaphysics on Sunday — it was a whole way of life. So what we’re seeing in the West may more about modernisation (urbanisation, mobility, weaker extended families, state welfare replacing church functions, women working, etc.) loosening religion’s grip on daily routines.

Also I’m not sure it’s true that scandals or elite behaviour “don’t matter” in other religions. We’ve seen pretty dramatic disillusionment in places like Iran, Ireland, or parts of India and Israel when religious authorities are perceived as corrupt. That seems like a very human reaction rather than a specifically Western one.

And practice in Asia or the Middle East isn’t as uniform as it can look from the outside. There’s plenty of quiet non-observance, selective rule-following, or cultural rather than devout identification — sometimes combined with strong social pressure or legal consequences for leaving. Outward conformity doesn’t always equal deep belief.

I mean, Iran- obvious. Afghanistan ditto. Saudi Arabia : apostasy at least theoretically has death penalty etc etc No wonder ME has strong Islamic belief...!

No because the same problems exist in the Christian churches worldwide - the US for example.

and why now - how much moral authority did Henry the 8th have ?

for migrants - its familiarity. Connection to roots. It’s quite normal for second and third generation migrants to lose their faith

I don’t know how you can promote a belief system that triggers so much violence and war. I mean even Christianity isn’t a single thing - you all squabble about who is right and what that moral code actually is

my suspicion is that’s it’s educational standards that matter - that’s why religion is stronger in right wing cultures for example

The CofE is an interesting institution which only quasi exists...
Most people assume that the CofE is an organisation with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the top and a hierarchy below - owning all the parish churches and acting as one organisation...

The reality is far from that - the legal basis of ownership / control / authority is hugely complex - fully integrated into UK law but also with laws, courts and judges of its own. Vicars are not employed in the technical sense of the word but have livings / control over buildings might sit in the hands of churchwardens and funds in the hands of the PCC... There is no one organisation at a legal level that can claim to be the CofE!

So it is impossible to really say that the CofE is growing / shrinking or following any specific pattern other than using rough collated stats, because the CofE doesn't follow a unified approach - there are many different banners or approaches or churchmanships under the one label and different parts have different patterns.

It is true to say that there is a much lower incidence of non-believers going to church regularly, which was the case 100 years ago - so numbers now are a more accurate reflection of belief in the country - but the earlier numbers were artificially inflated by social Christians who went to church from peer pressure or societal expectation.

There are very clear trends that the evangelical wing of the church (i.e. the bit that focuses on the bible and personal relationship with God / discipleship / etc.) is growing substantially esp. among younger people (teens / early 20s) and this has led to a general statistical growth across the CofE. but it is not repeated in all parts of the CofE and there are definitely areas that are dying...

but what is really clear is that Christianity is growing - a belief in the Bible / following Jesus Christ / trusting in God / building a daily relationship with God - that is all about the individual and God - that is what Christianity is... churches are an imperfect but usable solution to growing together - offering accountability / learning / fellowship - but they are not the answer in isolation - a church without God at the heart (and there are many) doesn't offer the Christianity of the Bible, so it is no surprise that they are failing.

Around 20-25% of Indians are illiterate, for one thing. This is higher among women, who are more likely to be religious across the world.

According to a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the quality of India's education ranked 90th in the world, with skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving ranked among the lowest (Source: WEF, 2021).

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=educationforallinindia.com/quality-of-education-in-india-addressing-the-challenges-november-2023/%23:~:text%3DAccording%2520to%2520a%2520report%2520by%2520the%2520World%2520Economic%2520Forum%2520(WEF,Source%253A%2520WEF%252C%25202021).&ved=2ahUKEwic6878ntGSAxU1Z0EAHbdkBzIQFnoECB0QBQ&usg=AOvVaw0mTAJyOYMEw8VN1s01Tovm

I must saw I'm glad we don't have the caste system, either...

YABU @LoveWFH and your are particularly unreasonable to say any other religion is better than Christianity. No religion is better - or worse than any other.

Some might produce better results for various things. Issues : Islam mandates women veil, Hinduism has the caste system, Christianity has gruesome punishments in OT..etc

Some religions have huge communities, e.g. predominantly Jewish areas in certain parts of Manchester, and predominantly Muslim areas in some towns and cities. The various Christian churches don't necessarily have that anymore, and I don't know about other people, but I found it easier to be religious when in a community of like-minded people (in my case, when I was at school and on pilgrimages, because there were a lot of us). Having been to a mixture of secular, C of E and Catholic schools, I found the Catholic schools a lot more faith-based and less wishy-washy about their beliefs. They just seemed to take it more seriously, and it infiltrated through to the daily life of the school. As you left and moved to colleges and universities, it got lost, and perhaps relegated to when you visited family, or going to church at Christmas and Easter.

When you're a lone religious person amongst a lot of atheists/agnostics/people of other faiths, it feels harder because you don't have that support system in place (apart from perhaps once a week on Sunday, if you're lucky), and sometimes you get ridiculed for it.

No one should be ridiculed for their beliefs, that's very wrong

So this is more about worry that the UK will become a Muslim majority country? I don't think that will happen but I definitely agree fundamentalist is worrying.

Ex Muslim groups need our support, and integration needs to be encouraged as much as possible.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=ex-muslim.org.uk/&ved=2ahUKEwjT4eDWotGSAxUhdUEAHa9AGB0QFnoECBAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2wotMCbZWqbO9Q4bWhI8Xb

There's a church near me, opened about 20 years ago, that seems to get busier by the week. They must be doing something right.

It's just in some kind of ex warehouse type building so not glamorous. It seemed to start out mainly attended by the black community, now it's grown and all races seem to attend. It seems a younger crowd, most people look under 50 or a lot younger and quite a few kids and teens. I don't really recognise many as locals, so it must be drawing people from quite a distance.

It's a stark contrast to the CofE Church across the road with it's big steeple. It is massive but there never seem to have many people on a Sunday. They also always send fliers to encourage attendance. Which the 'newer' one obviously doesn't need to.

Only difference I can think of without attending is the singing from the newer one sounds more energetic and fun. A bit more like gospel rather than old fashioned hymns.

It would be interesting to compare what the experience is like at each.

Logically though only a maximum of one of them can be correct..

That's great that the church by you gets busier every week but thousands of churches have closed down in the last decade.

Thousands of churches closing - fantastic news!

Show me exactly where I said that.

Oh please. Anyone with half a brain and one eye can see that the demise of religion did not lead to the demise of ideological, dogmatic and faith based belief. Look at gender ideology. It’s an unevidenced, anti-science, irrational and utterly incoherent belief system that has been adopted uncritically, predominantly by highly educated people. The people whose group identity was based around being rationalists, such as Humanists and Skeptics, fell hard for it.

Your attempt at smug superiority just revealed you to be a highly unobservant and uncritical thinker, parroting slogans and messages you think sound good. Learn to think for yourself.

Yeah I know. And as I say the big traditional one seems like it's not very popular. I'm just interested in what one is doing so well, and maybe others could replicate it or elements of it.