Mainstream churchgoing has declined in England for two decades.
Recent statistics belie the hope that the fall in Anglican attendance had finally bottomed out. Average annual figures for weekly worshipers are down by about 36,000. One possible reason could be member concern about the state of the clergy.
In a recent random poll of 200 members of the Anglican clergy, only about a third could name all of the Ten Commandments. Some could remember only two. A third do not consider sex outside marriage or homosexual practices to be a sin. About a third do not believe in the virgin birth. George Carey, the archbishop of Canterbury, has been calling for a return to moral basics—"setting forward the Ten Commandments as guidelines for families and individuals to live by." (Sources: The Times , The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times .)
