We’re no longer a Christian country? Don’t panic, I say (and I’m a vicar’s wife!)

Shock! Horror! Three-quarters of Church of England clergy believe Britain is no longer a Christian country!

Well, I’m married to a clergyman. And to this news, I say: thank goodness.

Imagine the alternative: “Clergy desperately cling to the fantasy that most of country still believes…” despite overwhelming evidence for much of a century.

Parish priests are supposed to be in touch. But let’s face it – that isn’t the case for some in the hierarchy. We invited our bishop to a farewell for my clergyman husband, Shaun. His Grace looked around the hundred or so there and hardly recognised a face. “Are these from your church?” When I answered in the negative, he said, “How do you know them all?”

They are known, my Lord, as friends. Very few of whom have ever darkened the door of a church.

When Shaun was appointed parson of Parsons Green in the early 1990s, the overwhelming majority of the parish was not Christian. Happily, after a few years, quite a lot of the congregation weren’t either – outsiders were finding church worth attending. When we were undergraduates even longer ago, despite the Christian Union being the largest student body, most of the university wasn’t either.

Is this because the Church is hopelessly unbusinesslike? When a parish priest moves on, it’s become standard practice to have an interregnum of up to two years – to save money. Imagine: the CEO of a major company retires and leaves an intentional vacuum for 24 months. Do you predict share prices rocketing? Similarly, without a priest, congregations decline and don’t recover with the new appointment. And one of the predictable consequences of this is that the money going into the collection plate dwindles, too.

Perhaps a business model is inappropriate for a church anyway: money lavished on “think tanks” and “mission statements”, dioceses heaving with suits, paid far more than local clergy. Is this what Church is about?

An influential member of our congregation complained that the vicar wanted to appoint someone simply because he was prayerful, faithful and keen to serve: “But we aren’t looking for someone with his gifts; you couldn’t run a business like that!” Maybe not. And maybe Church isn’t a business. Maybe God sent him our way.

Or perhaps the Church of England is using the wrong business model? If the Church is like a chain of corner shops, then a vast staff in IT, PR and HR (with almost no one behind the counters) ain’t going to sell much, is it?

Most parish clergy are now in charge of multiple benefices. How can you live in the parish if you have 15 to run? That’s not even an exaggeration – that was the case for a friend of ours.

How can they be a constant, soothing presence in the pub, the school and the community if torn in so many directions? How can they be available night and day, as we were, if paid a quarter of a stipend and having to supplement income in order to live? How can they make toasties for the homeless at their door – as our children grew up doing – if they live, say, 10 miles away?

It makes me wonder if the Church of England simply doesn’t have the courage to see the business model through.

Take the heartbreaking farce of the last century: the selling-off of the priceless community centres that vicarages were. Archdeacons for decades have argued it’s inappropriate to have big houses with clergy expected to be available. It worked for us – and more importantly, our parish: Sunday school in every bedroom, prayer meetings in our sitting room, church parties in the garden.

This has now replaced by “executive” (indisputably middle-class) homes, with privacy. And perhaps that’s what modern clergy (if not congregations) need. If so, then go the whole way: remove Church accommodation altogether and pay clergy enough to buy homes and have parity with their flock.

Or perhaps this is all irrelevant. Perhaps Christian decline is nothing to do with Church policies.

“Strait is the gate and narrow the way… and few there be that find it.” It is very clear indeed that Jesus expected his followers to be a small, persecuted band – a view consolidated in the New Testament. The last thousand years have been an anomaly. In some ways, our Christian history has been benign and beneficial, in others exploitative and shameful.

But never expected.

The Church of England has declined before – the decadent morals and celebration of “reason” of the 18th century combined to see a huge drop in Church attendance and allegiance, until the Wesleys and the Evangelical Revival, which changed the face of England.

Nor will trying to align Christian doctrine with 21st-century sensibilities – on sex or anything else – necessarily fill our pews. Far more traditional, orthodox churches elsewhere in the world are growing just as ours decline.

Ultimately, does it even matter if the Church of England dies? Personally, I’d be very sad, but if Jesus is who he claimed to be – if not, the sooner debunked, the better – then his true, universal Church can never die.

So I’m sorry to disappoint, but this news is no news at all. Even if it were, it really might not matter much.