Thousands of British Churches Face Closure

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LONDON, ENGLAND, February 11, 2007: There are more than 47,000 churches in Britain today, and 42 million people. More than 70 per cent of the population consider themselves to be Christian. It sounds a lot, but behind the figures lies a story of decline in the country’s established religion. According to experts, thousands of churches face closure, demolition or conversion in the next decade, leading to the demise of some branches of Christianity in Europe. Just one tenth of the nation’s Christians attend church and churches are now closing faster than mosques are opening. Practicing Muslims will, in a few decades, outnumber practicing Christians, if current trends continue. A generation ago the churches in Britain seemed unassailable. The first mosques in Britain opened at the end of the 19th century but by 1961 there were just seven mosques, three Sikh temples and one Hindu temple in England and Wales, compared with nearly 55,000 Christian Churches. Ceri Peach of Oxford University said in The Geographical Review, “The new cultural landscape of English cities has arrived. The homogenized, Christian landscape of state religion is in retreat.”