Church membership

[wellinghall]

In 1990, the Church of England had:
- an electoral roll membership of 1.4 million
- about 1.1m regularly attending Sunday services.

In 1992, the church had:
- 106 bishops
- 10,748 full-time stipendiary clergy (of which 707 were women)
- over 16,000 churches and places of worship.

In addition, the UK also had:
- 5.8m members of the Roman Catholic Church (now adjusted to exclude Ireland)
- 3.2m members of other churches.

In 2006, the church had:
- an electoral roll membership of 1.3m
- about 1.3m regularly attending Sunday services.

At the end of 2007, the church had:
- 106 bishops
- 9,543 full-time stipendiary clergy (of which 1,543 were women)
- over 16,000 churches etc.

In addition, the UK also had:
- 1.6m mass attendees in the Roman Catholic Church (NB different definition than the much larger figure given above)
- 3.3m members of other churches.

ETA: figures for other churches are given with care, as I suspect there may have been some changes of definition or measurement over the years:

Church in Wales: 106,000 in the 1994 almanack, and 69,000 in the 2009 almanack
Episcopal Church in Scotland: 57,000 in 1994, 41,000 in 2009
Church of Ireland: 280,000 in 1994, 300,000 in 2009
Church of Scotland: 753,000 in 1994, 489,000 in 2009
African and afro-carribean churches: 69,000 in 1994; number given as "about 341" in 2009, which has to be an error!
Baptist Church: 212,000 in 1994, 170,000 in 2009
Methodist Church: 408,000 in 1994, 340,000 in 2009
Orthodox Church: not given in 1994, 292,000 in 2009
Pentecostal churches: 115,000 in 1994, 301,000 in 2009
Presbyterian Church in Ireland: 330,000 in 1994, 226,000 in 2009
United Reformed Church: 115,000 in 1994, 145,000 in 2009
Other churches: 300,000 in 1994, 733,000 in 2009

All figures obtained from Whitaker's Almanack for 1994 and 2009.

The icon, by the way, is the church that adaese and I got married in :-)

Comments

[segh.livejournal.com]

Goodness me.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Is that a reaction to the largeness numbers, the smallness of the numbers, or my bothering to put them together? ;-)

I have added some figures for other churches.

[segh.livejournal.com]

It's a kind of general all-purpose reaction!
I'm surprised the C of E ones rose given that I know lots of people who left, but I suppose that, as I'm not there, I don't know the ones who joined. (Does that make sense?)
I wonder if our figure includes the illegal immigrants?

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

So CofE attendance increased by 18% between 1990 and 2006?

I wonder by how much the population increased.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The population of the UK increased from 56.5 million in 1991 to 60.8 million in 2007, an increase of 8%.

ETA: I have added some figures for other churches. I don't have figures for the population of England alone for those years.

[tree_and_leaf]

Hey, those figures are much better than I would have expected! The roll may have gone down, but the regular attenders is more significant in some ways, and that's up. We still have too many buildings, though.

Nevertheless: *is cautiously optimistic*

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I have added some figures for other churches.

ETA: I think the figure I find most interesting is that for male clergy: down from 10,000 in 1992 to 8,000 in 2007. I wonder what has caused this - is it mostly retirements? And is this going to continue?

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

It strikes me as significant how low these numbers actually are compared to the whole population, and yet how much influence lobbying groups and leaders connected to these churches have. And how people whose religion is "none" are often (wrongly) made to feel theirs is a minority view when clearly it probably isn't.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

*nods*

[estiel.livejournal.com]

1.6m mass attendees in the Roman Catholic Church (NB different definition than the much larger figure given above)

Yes, 5.8m "members" was a striking figure. Doubtless it is the same there as here: many people identify themselves as "Catholic" who aren't. They seem to think it's some sort of ethnic identity rather than a faith.

Possible explanation for the decline in male clergy numbers in the CofE: When women were ordained, thousands of clergy left the CofE and became Catholic priests through a papal dispensation that allowed them to be married (not without some resentment from celibate priests, but only mildly, and to an insignificant degree)