[378.1] WHY CHRISTIANS MUST CHANGE

New UK opinion poll shows continuing collapse of 'Christendom', Ekklesia. The latest ICM opinion poll confirms the continuing drift away from organised religion in Britain, and the tendency to regard both it and religiosity in its various form (as distinct from 'spirituality') as problematic or worse. Of course there are many sociological and psychological complexities bound up in this. But in the season of Christ's nativity the call towards a dying-to-self in our inherited institutions, and the emergence of a global hope in radically unexpected, vulnerable form, indicates precisely why this poll (and the mounting evidence to confirm it) should not be received negatively, or with defensiveness. Christendom is in probably terminal decay. But the faith of Jesus is of a different order and scale. The full Guardian report is here. The paper’s leader response is here. Also on Ekklesia: Redeeming Religion in the Public Square - beginning to chart a new approach to faith, politics and civil society; Faith and Politics After Christendom - Jonathan Bartley's overview of how and why the church-state settlement is unravelling, and the wayforward for transformative Christianity.

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