Protecting parishes

If the leadership of the Church of England wants to take a break from talking about politics, it could consider the state of the Church of England, particularly its rural parishes. They have been hit hard by Covid-19, which has reduced fund-raising and driven attendance down, but also by the preexisting system of finance called the Parish Share – a “voluntary” donation parishes make every year to the diocese. It can run from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands and, as rural churches are usually very old and expensive to maintain, this funding formula is now pushing many into the red.

The principle behind it is that the money from “wealthier” parishes should be redistributed to pay for mission and pastoral work elsewhere – but critics point out that at the same time as the number of stipendiary clerics has fallen, the bureaucracy in the diocese has grown. This year, for example, the diocese of Southwark advertised for a new head of its Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation department. The salary was £40,000.

There is also a fear that the Church leadership would actually welcome some creative destruction, that its future model is a streamlined organisation: sell off church buildings and concentrate efforts in urban areas. Certainly the Church seems more centralised and focused on raising cash, at the same time as it has become more outspoken on politics. Its decision, earlier this year, to ban its own clerics from entering shuttered churches (which it later said was guidance, not an instruction) was seen by some Anglicans as undermining the Church’s spiritual mission.

It needs to pay more attention to parishes which, without fuss, week after week, do the good work of maintaining Christian witness in the countryside.