by Anon

Damon is an apprentice devil tasked with learning to undermine and weaken the Church of England and wider Anglicanism. Lucius is a senior devil mentoring apprentices overseeing the work on all denominations. Lucius refers to the Church of England as the ‘English Patient’. Lucius is particularly keen to encourage the Church of England’s peculiar ecclesionomics, bloated ecclesiocracy and unaccountable episcocrats. Lucius draws on C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, published in 1942. These letters are published by Lucius for the benefit of new apprentices. – Lucius.

One Swallow Does Not Make a Summer

Dear Lucius

I am getting very concerned about statistics. Or rather, what Anglicans seem to be reading into them.  There was some recent research appearing to show a resurgence – even a resurrection, it alarms me to say – in younger people coming to church. Apparently the trend is most notable amongst young men. 

I know I shouldn’t panic, because if the figures are to be believed (which is debatable), the upturn in numbers is only slight, and anyway confined to Pentecostalism, Catholicism and some fashionable Ultra-Reformed churches. These churches are not my responsibility. But I do worry that the talk of growth is stimulating Anglican morale, which concerns me.

Could you give me some sort of guidance on how to tackle this?  I’d like to nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand, and I think I need some strategic advice on what tactics to deploy if we are to undermine any apparent recovery.

Your Servant, Damon

Dear Damon,

You need not worry. One swallow does not make a summer, and these new numbers are, as you say, barely relevant to the primary focus of your work, which is the Church of England – the one we call the ‘English Patient’. If anything, the best thing to do now is to encourage English Anglicans in their belief that things are getting better.  The mirage will soon vaporise, leading to an even deeper decline in trust and confidence.

Sometimes it is helpful to see figures and statistics in a broader context.  I think you are aware that, recently, over 700 clergy wrote a letter to complain about their appalling pensions.  The English Patient’s finances are in a dreadful state. Most dioceses run massive annual deficits. Many cathedrals cannot break even. However, the episcopacy taxes the parishes even more, despite fewer people paying the quota.  It leads to an ever-deepening crisis of resentment and mistrust, which your predecessor did so much to cultivate. A few extra young people, if indeed there are any, won’t turn that tide.

You may recall that overall, the bloated ecclesiocracy and unaccountable episcocrats are just not trusted by the faithful.  Your English Patient is actually very poorly, but thankfully for us, in total denial about how unwell, what the sickness is, and how to restore their health.

Happily, they are clueless. More modish marketing and communications, evangelism, youth initiatives, vocation drives and stewardship schemes are all being pushed hard.  This is good news for us, because it deepens the alienation and despair, and also means the English Patient loses trust and confidence in all the remedies the leadership keeps on promoting.

It is also important to remember the scale of your problem.  We only need one apprentice to work with your patient, English Anglicanism, because it is so very small. But it continues to believe it is a Very Important And Big Long-term Enterprise (VIABLE). Helpfully for us, your English Patient imagines itself to be eternal, so the gaps between fantasy and reality keep causing your patient to have even more doubts.

You might like to look at the Roman Catholic Cycle of Prayer and compare it to the Anglican Cycle of Prayer for comfort and context. We have a very large team working on Roman Catholicism.

The Catholics have 3200 dioceses and 650 archdioceses, 225,000 parishes, over 400,000 priests, 50,000 permanent deacons, 650,000 monks and nuns, and nearly 3,000,000 catechists for their 1.3 billion followers. But it manages to get by with only 5,340 bishops. Believers who use the Roman Catholic Cycle of Prayer will pray for nine dioceses, daily.

The Anglicans have around 55 million followers (they’ll claim 80 million to big up their size, but that includes 25 million in England, where attendance is down to just over 0.5 million, and two-thirds of the laity are retired people). Your English Patient has too many dioceses and bishops for too few believers.

Global Anglicanism has 855 dioceses, which means believers pray for around two of them each day when using the Anglican Cycle of Prayer. Yes, Anglicans are small potatoes.  Globally, Roman Catholics outnumber Anglicans by over 25:1. In percentages, Anglicans constitute about 3.5% of what Roman Catholicism represents. Anglicanism is 96.5% smaller.

However, your VIABLE Anglican Communion has amassed almost 900 bishops, despite its small size. There is one bishop for every 0.25 million Roman Catholics. Yet there is one Anglican bishop for every 60,000 from your denomination. Not for nothing is your English Patient known as ‘Episcopalian’ outside England.  It seems that when it comes to bishops, they just cannot get enough of them.

These numbers should comfort you.   The global population of Roman Catholicism is rising. Global Anglicanism is declining. This is largely due to birth rates, but your denomination continues to invest in recruitment drives hoping to attract newcomers to the Anglican family.

It is helpful to our cause that your English Patient believes it is in recovery, and can reverse decline.  And they won’t take any lessons from other declining denominations, because they think they are a special case. Your English Patient lives in two parallel conflicting universes. One knows it is declining. The other has to believe it isn’t, and the recession is only some blip.

Even more helpfully, your English Patient thinks it is on some par with Roman Catholicism. This fantasy should be strongly encouraged, because eventually reality will dawn, leading to deeper collapses in morale, trust and confidence.

But best of all, Anglicans fight amongst themselves about why, who or what is responsible for their decline. They will fight even more about who, what, how and when is the best way to recover.

As we’ve discussed before, Damon, your best bet here is to encourage the church leaders who claim to have all the answers.  We are blessed that your English Patient has many such people within its leadership, with the ecclesiocracy and episcocrats constantly trying to apply the Midas Touch to their truly dire ecclesionomics.

Above all, it is vital that we do all we can to support the English Patient in their belief that they have the best-equipped persons to make their own diagnoses and prognoses, promoting and manufacturing their remedies and therapies.

The English Patient thinks it does not need a doctor, and if it is unwell, it will eventually shake off the aches, fevers and other symptoms and soon be on the mend.

You must do all you can to encourage the English Patient in their belief that they are exceptional and unique, and don’t need any outside interference or help from real experts.  That way, tens of millions of pounds can be spent on safeguarding, for example, or on other initiatives that are bound to be a waste of time, effort and money, since your English Patient always thinks it knows best. Just let them carry on.

One swallow does not make a summer, and all this talk of growth and resurgence is like a single spring day in the midst of a long, hard winter that shows no sign of ending.

As the population of England grows, vocations continue to decrease – because clergy have few rights, too much responsibility, little support, and pitiful stipends and pensions to look forward to. Volunteers for roles in parishes are also declining.

The ecclesiocracy and episcocrats have created a church where the bosses are secure, unaccountable, unregulated, and generally well-paid. But the clergy and volunteers are over-regulated, accountable for virtually everything, and have never felt more undervalued and vulnerable.

Even if a few more young people were hanging out with your English Patient, all the interminable fudging on sexuality and gender means they won’t stay long and throw their weight behind the institution. Swallows come and go.

So, Damon, there’s no need to worry. The best thing to do with the English Patient is to keep an eye out for any significant changes. But otherwise leave the leaders to their own devices and desires. They will inflict more damage on their church than we could ever engineer.  Keep affirming their egos that they are VIABLE and the best-placed people to resolve crises of their own making. They believe and act as though they are a law unto themselves. The longer this continues, the faster they will decline.

Your Mentor, Lucius.