Christmas cancelled (in UK) due to lack of interest

[bin.dare]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=594582

It will be a bleak midwinter for Manchester churches, according to the first major study of seasonal congregations. The capital of the north will have Britain's emptiest pews on Christmas Day.

The city comes at the bottom of a league table of Yuletide attendance, with barely 2 per cent of the population in church on Christmas Eve and the following morning. In contrast, towns such as Guildford in Surrey can expect a flood of "Christmas tourists" - a breed of worshipper who expects what the authors call a "high-class version of the pantomime".

Dr David Voas, a specialist in religious change at Manchester University, said the Christmas worshippers are "confident enough to go into their parish church although they are not seen the rest of the year". The Government-funded research, published today, is based on Church of England statistics and reveals a marked North-South divide. Christmas congregations in Durham, Sheffield, Liverpool and Birmingham are not significantly bigger than normal. This contrasts with southern towns and rural areas where attendances can treble. The most godly place is Hereford, where more than 10 per cent of the population will be at an Anglican church this Christmas.

[Prodemsouth]

1. I got all giddy reading that. Maybe having a state sponsored chruch was

not such a bad idea after all- look at the results. Love to see those numbers in the US with all religions-make that world wide just imagine what the world would be like.

[democraticrevolution]

2. Well

It would seem that Europian churches are on the decline. While as an American I beleive in the seperaton of church and state. I am a christian and christians should go to church. Religon has no place in government but it has a place. A church should not be sponsored or funded by the state but it should be funded by christians that go to the church.

[Just Me]

3. So, Murdock is willing to sell his Mum for a profit but pushes,...

,...Christianity.

Hmmmm.....

A person can only go,...

Hmmmm,....

There is no ultimate power in disempowering others since such actions destroy both others and oneself.

If these sad human beings would imagine that their lives mean something the moment they give up their own self-importance and give into,...a space for adoration beyond themselves,...

Well,...

I hope people find that space,...

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Huh?

Murdoch isn't involved in this. If you're referring to the paper (The Independent) it isn't his; and the story doesn't 'push' Christianity anyway. It just reports that not many people go to C of E services (a paranoid Christian would actually take that as 'attacking' his religion).

Did you actually mean this as a reply to another thread?