The biggest threat to the Church isn’t secularism. It’s ourselves

It’s not the external forces of secularism, individualism or consumerism that are the biggest threat to the Church today. If we want to understand Church decline, we need to look at ourselves, says Deborah Sloan

Do a quick web search on the reasons for declining church attendance and you are likely to come across the three ‘isms’ - secularism, individualism and consumerism.

Between them, they have caused churchgoers to abandon the pews, diminished the Church’s role in the public square, forced the closure of thousands of buildings and erased faith-based education. While they have been a threat for decades, it seems Covid may have accelerated their power. In a time of huge global uncertainty, many regular worshippers turned their backs on the Church, deciding to either exercise or place their faith elsewhere.