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There seems to be no end to the increase of its litany of errors and misjudgements.
We have seen Lambeth Palace carelessly award an interfaith prize on the anniversary of 9/11 to a Muslim cleric who praised Osama bin Laden, and the Archbishop of Canterbury herself (who just a few months ago promised to challenge misogyny) photographed talking apparently unconcerned to the cleric’s wife, who was arrayed in the oppressive niqab face covering.
Her first months in office also saw her uncritically repeating destructive lines about Palestinian victimhood and allowing herself to be photographed with alleged supporters of the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine, and in front of a portrait of Gamal Nasser, a senior PLO leader who was reputedly one of the organisers of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes.
Things are not much better on the bishops’ bench more widely. The Bishop of Lincoln has just resigned following allegations of sexual assault.
The Bishop of Liverpool did likewise in the same circumstances last year, and the Bishop of Salisbury has “stepped back from ministry” following an investigation into financial misconduct and safeguarding concerns.
Around a quarter of diocesan bishoprics are now vacant or overseen by acting bishops, as the creaking Church machinery takes months or even years to find possible candidates for enthronement. Given that the Church is at the same time cutting back on the funds given to training new clergy, this task is hardly going to get easier.
Indeed, the number of new ordinations has plummeted, and the number of priests in stipendiary ministry (6,682 in May 2026, compared with 14,603 in 1960) is at a historic low.
Parishes are under greater pressure than ever before to share clergy and to amalgamate, so that vicars now have to tend ever larger flocks. Lay people are being asked to take on the work usually done by ordained clergy, as the vicars evolve into being distant managers, or “oversight ministers”.
This distortion of their mission, with attendant pressures of overwork, increased bureaucracy and underpayment, is having a terrible effect on their morale.
Recent survey evidence shows that nearly a third are reporting signs of possible mild to clinical depression, forty percent feel isolated, and only 3.9 percent see current church leadership as a “source of hope”.
Indeed, whilst parishes struggle at the local level, the diocesan and central bureaucracies grow.
There is now around one bureaucrat for every 3.5 front-line stipendiary priests (the average for charities is one bureaucrat for every eight front-line staff).
These bureaucracies, which administer the historic funds that were laid down to support the cure of souls, parish ministry and cathedrals, are now diverting ever more of this income to their own perpetuation and other political purposes.
Recent analysis by Save the Parish shows that in 2024, only 13 percent of the income of the Church Commissioners (£85 million out of £653 million) reached the parishes, despite this being the primary purpose of the Commissioners’ existence.
Ever more money is finding its way to matters – for example eco-initiatives, racial justice work based on divisive ideas of critical theory, and perhaps even £100 million for slavery reparations through the historically, legally and morally unjustified Project Spire — that are removed from the church’s first function, the cure of souls.
For example, a friend was recently puzzled to receive a slick email from a dedicated eco-official in the diocesan offices which suggested the faithful go on a “litter-picking pilgrimage”.
Why, my friend wondered, was their diocese paying for a bureaucrat to send this sort of stuff out on a regular basis, whilst putting pressure on their parish to amalgamate and accept cuts to clergy numbers?
As each of these errors and follies are visited on us, usually by the Church hierarchy, it is perhaps no surprise that the remaining faithful of the Church of England are visited by temptations to abandon it. “Come to Rome” say kindly-meaning souls on social media. “I can’t take any more of this” mutter ever more of the long-suffering adherents themselves, pledging to take their donations, not to mention their persons elsewhere. “Let’s disestablish the whole thing” resolve even those who were once well-disposed.
Things are not beyond redemption, and there is much you can do to recover the Church out of these many waters
To those who are tempted in the face of these manifold afflictions to walk away, to give up, to shake off the heavy burdens of toil which many of you may have put in to aid the Church in its mission, or even to those of you who have simply voiced support for the institution when it was in better shape, I say hold on.
Do not abandon the Church, and those who rely on it, in these times of trouble. Things are not beyond redemption, and there is much you can do to recover the Church out of these many waters.
Before anything, consider how precious is the institution of the Church, this “goodly heritage”, as the psalmist says. It is the institution which, for hundreds of years, has brought to the English people the message of Christian faith. It offered them the scriptures and liturgy in their own language in versions of such scholarship and majesty – the King James Bible, the Book of Common Prayer – that it ended up moulding the forms and substance not only of our literature – its poetry, drama, novels – but even the character of the language itself.
Under the influence of its message, and social presence, so much of what we take for granted has been forged or deeply influenced: not just our language and literature, but our traditions of music, of education, our calendar, our architecture, our landscape, our political culture with its tendencies towards tolerance, independent-mindedness and the capacity for loyal opposition, our ethics, our social cohesion, and our deep-rooted tendency towards charity.
Of much of this, the Church of England is still the steward. The Church still oversees around 15,000 places of worship. Many of these are not just historical artefacts (around half of the country’s grade-one listed buildings are churches) but also active places of prayer and charity, supporting food banks, night shelters, social work for the disadvantaged, marginalised and lonely.
According to HM Treasury’s own methodology, the annual value of the social contribution of the churches is around £55 billion per year — and this despite the many pressures that are put on them and their volunteers: the loss of VAT rebates on restoring listed places of worship, the increasing bureaucratic burdens from the church and also burdensome legislation such as Martyn’s Law.
The Church, in these terms, is still a tremendous force for good — and if it were flourishing, imagine how much more it could be a benefit in these ways. One should not abandon all this for the tiresome folly of its leadership.
If any of this is worth something, if you think that a healthy Church of England is a part of a healthy society at large, then it behoves you not to walk away, but to stay and support it. Everyone who reads this is in a position to made a profound difference to the future of the Church. There are many things within your power.
First, go to church. Attend a service. Pray. Donate. Do not hold back out of irritation at the wrong-headed profligacy of Project Spire or the bureaucrats in offices. Make friends with the congregation, and offer to help. Anything from sweeping the floor, dealing with the paperwork, serving tea, supporting your overworked vicar, getting involved in any of the charitable endeavours that the church might offer.
Be there not just to serve your fellows, but for the church itself, so that no prowling archdeacon or Church Commissioner can say that the church is under-supported and call for its closure.
Once you are actively supporting your church, you have the locus to help it stand in the way of these threats. If the diocese comes calling to amalgamate your parishes, to confiscate the vicarage and even sell off your church, say no. Question why the precious funds are going the way of net zero bureaucrats and Project Spire, rather than more clergy.
Challenge needless regulations. Tell the senior leaders that they need to look after the welfare of their clergy and volunteers properly, and also to make sure that the income from endowments gets to the parishes where it is needed, rather than foundering in the sands of administration or politicised initiatives.
At this very moment, if you have a vote in the current election for the General Synod, or know anyone who has a vote by virtue of serving on local deanery synods (the vote ends on 13 October), urge them to vote for candidates who clearly support the Save the Parish Manifesto, which seeks such protection for clergy, volunteers, and the proper use of historic endowments (declaration of interest — I am standing in the Exeter diocese).
A strong return of Save the Parish candidates will make a great difference to how the church stewards its people and its patrimony.
The preservation and reinvigoration of the Church is worth your time and energy
The preservation and reinvigoration of the Church is worth your time and energy. If it is allowed to decay into a further morass of maladministration and incompetence, there will come a time — and it may not be long — where parliament decides to cut it loose by disestablishment.
And when it does so, there will be nothing to hold it back from seizing the historic endowments which are helping to keep its work, its infrastructure and its charity afloat, and using it for whatever other purposes the government desires.
Some may think this is a liberation, but if it happens, and the church buildings are sold off by their thousands for want of funds, the clergy turned away from their vicarages in droves, and the light of the Christian message that has shone for centuries on our public life and discourse is extinguished in an instant, then it may be too late to realise that this is the broad way that leads to destruction.
Follow instead the strait gate of effort to keep the Church established and in place — get to yours on Sunday, and offer to make the tea for starters.