Whilst much attention is focused on views of traditional catholics with regard to the likely impact of the current draft legislation on the Church of England, less prominence is given to conservative evangelical concerns. Many conservative evangelicals believe that having women in positions of authority in the church is contrary to the Bible’s teaching on headship, so what practical concerns does this lead to? This article provides a chance to hear from some such conservative evangelicals.
No definitive statistics exist on conservative evangelicals’ strength within the Church of England, because official church forms don’t ask about such things. Church statistician Peter Brierley comes as close as anyone, in projecting figures from three English Churches Censuses to estimate that 40% of Church of England attenders currently go to evangelical churches – up from 26% in 1989. He also says that 83% of the estimated 175 churches with a Sunday attendance of over 350 are evangelical, although these figures overshoot what we are looking for, in that they include all types of evangelical.
Looking elsewhere to paint a pen picture of conservative evangelicalism reveals that:
- Particularly in the Southern Province of the Church of England, there are probably more conservative evangelicals in pews than traditional catholics. Conservative evangelical churches have a high proportion of the very large churches and often impressive numbers of committed Christian teenagers, students and young adults. Their churches also typically attract an unusually high proportion of men (Ven Norman Russell, Archdeacon of Berkshire)
- Of the hundreds of conservative evangelical churches in the Church of England, about 300 were recently contacted by researchers. Of the 142 that have so far provided information, 38% of congregations are aged under 30; over 425 women are considered to be part of the staff team or are working for para-church organisations and attending the church; just over 345 ordinands have been sponsored in last 10 years (an average of three per church); and most churches have reported significant growth in the last 10 years – with at least 55 plants or grafts mentioned and similar numbers of new congregations within the original church structure. The average weekly attendance reported is 209 (compared with a national average of 53) and there is an average of 200 electoral roll members (compared with a national average of 75). (Susie Leafe, General Synod)
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