2020 Visions: The Futures of Christianity in Britain

I find myself once again in Lincolnshire, Land of Sunshine. I preached in Sheffield on the Sunday evening and caught the train from there to Heckington on Monday morning. At Nottingham station, several hundreds of persons, including many young children, were patiently waiting in special holding areas while East Midlands Railways staff escorted them onto trains to Skegness. It was like a scene from the glorious 1950s, until, having to change at Grantham, I boarded one of those trains, and my dewy-eyed nostalgia evaporated as I stood for 30 minutes, cramped and jostled.

Despite the heat and an awkward journey, I was able to relax in my hosts’ well-apportioned garden and read. And my choice of holiday literature? 2020 Visions: The Futures of Christianity in Britain. Edited by Haddon Willmer, various academics contributed essays on what they thought Christianity would be like in the Britain of 2020. It was published in 1992, though I had purchased it as a First Year undergraduate in 1997. I had resolved to read it in the year 2020, but I forgot (did something significant happen that year? I barely recall). Rather than waste precious hours poring over it as a student when I could have been playing Golden Eye on the Nintendo 64, I kept it for the future when I would be able to gauge more accurately the quality of these worthy scholars’ prophetic anticipation. I noted with interest that some of them are now dead, but the editor, whom I thought very old back in the late 90s, is alive and well, and still blogging away.

Some of the prose I found to be turgid, written for the amusement or impressing of fellow academics rather than ordinary readers. Furthermore, the text often told me more about Christianity in the late twentieth-century than it did about our own. Several writers spoke of Mrs Thatcher’s influence, of Archbishops Runcie and Carey, of the Cold War, etc. Looking forward, one spoke of the increased role of female clergy, of denominational decline and increased ‘sectarianism’ (a most useful expression to describe stricter churches than the one to which we ourselves belong). Only one mentioned homosexuality, and that in passing. Yet homosexuality, gender, marriage and identity are surely now the dominant issues facing British churches. As denominations and individuals decide whether to hold the fort or hoist the new flag, British Christianity in 2020, and certainly today, is standing or falling on these interrelated issues. It is fair to say that none of them saw it coming. What seems obviously inevitable to we who enjoy the benefit of hindsight, was barely worthy of mention back in 1991-92. From liberalising the position of divorce, remarriage, same-sex toleration, civil partnerships and marriage redefinition, the current culture wars, theological arguments, secession and closures seem like they were always bound to happen.

For Professor Willmer and his colleagues, and the difficult (but fun) task they set themselves, I have some sympathy. If I were to predict the state of British Christianity in 2050, I might be a fool to commit too much to writing. Will it be a final closure of the shrinking and liberalistic denominations? Will we be mercifully re-evangelised by the global south? Will the few remaining churches be persecuted by an established, national religion of Islam, or the long-deified gods of Woke? I cannot say, and I hope I shall not be around long enough to find out. What I do know is this:

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18