can choose from plenty of different churches, as in North America, churchgoing flourishes but where the choice is less, as traditionally in Europe, attendance declines. Finke goes so far as to say that an increase in religious supply creates an increase in demand, not the other way round (cited by Davie, 2007, p. 73).
Though the theory has a strong intuitive appeal, it has been remarkably difficult to prove. Daniel Olson has examined attempts to relate the pluralism index – the number of religious groups in an area and the evenness of their sizes1 – to religious involvement for the whole area. He found that
just about any measure of pluralism that one can think of is likely to have a non-causal, mathematically necessary component in its relationship with just about any measure of religious participation and belief. . . . This leaves researchers in the frustrating situation of having many theoretical reasons for thinking that religious pluralism should cause religious participation and belief to either increase or decrease, but with no reliable way of studying these effects. (Olson, 2008, p. 101)
Despite the lack of formal proof, it is highly plausible that if you widen choice, individuals are more likely to find an expression of church that appeals to them and get involved. Failure to widen access, it is fair to assume, has put the church in a missional straitjacket.
Third, the church has been self-limiting in its organization. Robin Gill (2003) attributes much of the drop in attendance to excessive church building, especially in the nineteenth century. Competition between denominations and over-optimism produced too many churches and churches too large for the local population. In some areas, such as Cornwall, many of the churches could never be full, even if a substantial proportion of local residents attended. Over-provision meant that maintaining buildings consumed excessive resources. Clergy were allocated to buildings – often largely empty in rural areas – rather than to people, so that the deployment of clergy failed to mirror the distribution of the population. Maintaining near-empty buildings discouraged local congregations, which bred disillusionment, which led to decline, which bred further disillusionment.2
It was not just that too many churches were built. Gill notes that the rural model of church was unsuited to the urban contexts of the mid nineteenth century. Churches failed to provide the small networks that might have preserved religious communities in urban areas. ‘Fragile beliefs depend for their survival upon small-scale communities. In the absence of such communities, religious beliefs soon withered in cities and a gradual demise of churchgoing inevitably followed.’ (Gill, 2003, p. 3) Once decline in attendance was well under way, Christian belief followed suit. There was no corporate experience to sustain it (Gill, 2008).
Gill’s doubts about the prevailing church model are supported by the mid 1970s research of the Church of England’s Urban Church Project (Urban Church Project, 1974; Wasdell, 1977, pp. 366–70). The research showed that membership of the local church as a percentage of its parish population dropped drastically with a rise in population. Small churches in small parishes reached a higher proportion of the population than large churches in large parishes. Large size constrained congregational growth. A greater number of small congregations would make mission more effective. Subsequent research (for example, Jackson, 2002, pp. 108–45; Schwartz, 2006, pp. 48–50) has confirmed that small churches are more likely to grow than bigger ones. The church has had too many buildings, it seems, but not enough congregations.
The Urban Church Project argued that the self-limiting size of congregations was largely due to clergy-based mission. The laity tended to add fewer people than those who died or left a congregation. It was left to full-time clergy to make up the shortfall. If they failed to do so, the congregation would shrink till a balance between gains and losses was reached. Only in rare cases did the clergy bring in more people than the congregation was losing (Urban Church Project, 1974, pp. 8–11).3
This was a self-limiting model, first, because it discouraged lay mission. If lay people brought in more people than left the church, the church would grow. But the clergy-dominated model made this unlikely. It discouraged lay people from thinking that attracting outsiders was their responsibility, while it allowed clergy – wanting to stay in control – to block lay initiatives. Lay people were disempowered, which reinforced their belief that growth (if they thought about it at all) was the clergy’s job.
Second, extra clergy seemed to produce diminishing returns. A second clergyman typically added 90 Christmas communicants, while a third averaged only 81 (Urban Church Project, 1974, p. 5). Third, there were not enough clergy anyway, especially in the larger parishes. Clergy numbers were actually falling by the 1970s. Fourthly, the amalgamation of parishes to cope with this fall, the Project presciently argued, would force ministers to spend more time on maintaining the institution and less on mission. Attendance would decline further, leaving the church even less sustainable (Urban Church Project, 1974, 1975; Wasdell, 1977).
In short, for centuries the church has been ‘over-capitalized’. That is, nearly all the church’s money has been spent on too many and over large buildings, and on maintaining a clergy-dominated model that has self-limitation built in. Despite some notable mission initiatives, increasingly an institution that supposedly exists for the benefit of non-members has devoted the bulk of its resources to maintaining itself. Why should people outside the church feel it is for them?
A blueprint for change
Can these limitations of relevance, access and organization be overcome by reimagining the church? In 1968, the World Council of Churches published a prescient report, prepared for its Uppsala conference, by a group of West European theologians. The group argued that originally ‘the parish church’ in Europe was a missionary structure. Through it the church reached out to small, comparatively isolated communities. The parish church ‘represented the whole Church face to face with what was, to all intents and purposes, for most people, the whole of life’ (WCC, 1968, p. 29). But people now lead their lives in a variety of arenas. If the church persists in regarding the parish as its normal structure, it will not confront life at its most significant points.
Though the local congregation still has an important role within residential settings, it is failing to connect with people in the mainstream of their existence.
In this situation many local congregations tend to withdraw into themselves; care is directed towards the ‘faithful’, largely by the provision of regular opportunities for worship. The justification for the life of the Church is then found within itself, instead of in its mission in the world. . . . the local congregation is carrying the burden of a divine commission which it is not, in the present state of society, able to bear. (WCC, 1968, pp. 29–30)
The report called for new ‘functional groups’ in different ‘spheres of work and living’ (p. 33). These ‘new congregations’ should be seen as ‘the Church carrying out the original intention of the ‘parish’ church’ alongside it (p. 30). They should be authentic communities ‘in which Christians and non-Christians alike can face the questions which play a determining role in their lives’ (p. 23). These new congregations would seek to discern God’s activity within their contexts