Mystifying and irritating as it may be to a resilient minority of hardcore secularists, Britain has not turned its back on faith. Although only 15% regularly attend a religious service of some kind, as many again describe themselves as ‘religious’ and a further 45% as ‘spiritual’. God, as one bishop recently remarked, is an itch that just won’t go away.
What is changing is the range of ways in which people are scratching that itch. The most striking trend, of course, is the growth of Islam – so much so, that the UK now has more Muslims than active Christians. Confirmation of a shift that research studies have been suggesting for some time comes with the recently published final figures from the 2011 census, which record a Muslim population of 3.5 million.
The passing of this landmark brought mixed reactions, to put it mildly. The New Statesman, quoting Edward Gibbon [see below], proposed in a tongue-in-cheek editorial that New College chapel should be converted into a mosque, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s New Year’s address replaced with a sermon by the leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain. Others went into mourning for the demise of another deep-rooted feature of traditional Britain.
“Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.”
Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776-88, musing on what might have happened if Muslim forces hadn’t been defeated in France in the Dark Ages.
But the energetic growth of Islamic communities, particularly though not only in inner city districts, has brought changes that are often as positive as they are challenging for other faiths. Even five years ago, many of our inner cities were, for the most part, dangerous and run down, with spiralling levels of gun crime, drug use and anti-social behaviour orders. In the teeth of an increasingly ugly form of nationalism, Islamic communities have managed to instil a sense of social order and community pride in many such areas, working in close partnership with neighbouring churches and local police forces.
Perhaps even more impressively, by working with organisations such as the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences and stressing a Muslim’s duty to his brothers across the worldwide ummah or community, these Islamic communities have embraced a global environmental consciousness that is still sadly lacking in much of the rest of the country.
Not that Christians have been silent on this subject. Indeed, the ‘3-D Christianity’ movement, which has gained popularity with astonishing rapidity since its launch in 2006, emphasises the importance of ‘living the faith in three dimensions’ – towards God, towards your neighbour and, crucially, towards ‘the rest of the created order’. With surprising determination (if predictable discipline) the evangelical wing of the various denominations has inculcated a sense of environmental responsibility in their congregations, stressing everything from water conservation and waste recycling to ethical consumerism and fair trade.
Cynics point out that this is at least in part a response to more ‘pagan’ spiritualities, not to mention secular anti-globalisation movements, that have been growing in popularity for over a decade. And it’s undeniable that declining numbers have driven many traditional denominations to the brink. The Church of England, though, despite the slow splintering of the worldwide Anglican Communion, has somehow avoided disintegration – not least because of Rowan Williams’s considerable skills of negotiation and reconciliation.
Over a decade ago one interviewee for a C of E research project described it as “an elephant... because it gently carries on with the herd, takes a lot of beating but somehow avoids extinction”. So it has proved over the past decade. Facing its own crisis of unsustainablity, the C of E has embraced changes that have made it more viable – and more open to the promotion of sustainable development. Most dramatically, large numbers of economically unsustainable parish churches have been closed or, more commonly, modified for new purposes.
In hundreds of villages, deserted by the banks, post offices and newsagents over recent years, residents now use their ancient parish church as a local store, bank, post office, police station, crèche, coffee shop or library, often sharing the building with the small worshipping community on a Sunday. These new multi-purpose community centres are in many ways examples of economic and social sustainability – and have led to new eco-friendly developments such as car pooling. And the need for tight financial management has led to a strong focus on energy saving and efficiency. You might call it the C of E’s distinctive path to ‘resource productivity’ and the ‘Factor Four’ economy.
It’s a trend that has been boosted by the eagerness of successive governments to work with voluntary organisations – whether secular, Christian, Islamic or otherwise – in delivering public services. The old notion of ‘the pub as the hub’ has its analogues both in the fast-growing Islamic centres and in the once obsolescent churches up and down the country. In the C of E, the process of rationalising resources has also led to the creation of a new network of ‘mega’ or ‘minster’ churches.
These can not only boast congregations often running into thousands, but also act as resource centres for much wider local areas, covering huge parishes, and providing a vast range of services to the community. Some have become new public transport hubs, making a contribution to local sustainability. Their congregations now apply for funds to run everything from drug rehabilitation centres to retirement homes. C of E schools, of course, have been part of the social fabric for far longer, but few large towns are now without an Anglican ‘service provider’ of some other kind too.
So there’s more on the agenda than just a symbolic – and sometimes bitter – debate over whether the UK is still Christian, post-Christian or increasingly Islamic. What should be common ground is the fact that the nation’s religious communities can demonstrate a sense of cohesion and purpose which is increasingly being turned towards the goal of sustainability.
This article first appeared in Green Futures magazine
