Why should be important to Govt. that citizens attend church?

[MrScorpio]

After reading this, I wondered why.

Church attendance 'to fall by 90%'

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor

In one of the most holy weeks in the Christian calendar, a report says that in just over a generation the number of people attending Church of England Sunday services will fall to less than a tenth of what they are now.

Christian Research, the statistical arm of the Bible Society, claimed that by 2050 Sunday attendance will fall below 88,000, compared with just under a million now.

The controversial forecast, based on a "snapshot" census of church attendances, has been seized upon by secular groups as proof that the established church is in decline. But the Church of England has rejected the figures, saying they were incomplete and ignored new ways of worshipping outside the church network.

According to Dr Peter Brierley, former executive director of Christian Research, by 2030 just under 419,000 people will attend an Anglican Sunday service. By 2040 the number will be down to 217,200, falling to 153,800 five years later. By 2050, if the trend prediction is correct, only 87,800 will be attending.

The figures stand in contrast to the picture of faith described by the prime minister earlier this month. In a preface to a new report, Faith in the Nation, Gordon Brown said: "Faith in Britain today is very much alive and well. At the last census, more than three-quarters of the population said they belonged to a faith ... people's religious identities go right to the heart of their sense of themselves and their place in society and the world."

Clip

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/21/anglicanism-religion

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Because over there the Church of England is...

the official state church and the Queen (taxpayers, really) pick up a large part of its bills.

(Don't you wish WE had a state church we could support with our taxes?)

[SeattleGirl]

2. I find this part most interesting:

"Faith in Britain today is very much alive and well. At the last census, more than three-quarters of the population said they belonged to a faith ... people's religious identities go right to the heart of their sense of themselves and their place in society and the world."

"they belonged to a faith..."

They may well have meant belonging to a particular church, but when I read that, I thought of it in more esoteric terms, as opposed to religious ones. That is, perhaps a lot of people believe in something greater than themselves, be it a religious POV, or whatever, but that it does not necessarily mean belonging to a particular church or proscribed religion.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Because some people still associate religion with morality

And in the case of the UK we don't yet have official separation of church and state.

I think that at least here the attitude is close to its last gasp. Though most people here may 'belong to a faith', this is often cultural rahter than religious. There are plenty of jokes about 'C of E' (Church of England) being often really 'C and E' (Christmas and Easter, as only times for church-going). The number of religious people you'll get in a survey here depends very much on the exact question you ask: IIRC, only 50% claim to believe in God, and less than a third attend a religious service with any regularity.

We have had openly atheist MPs for over 100 years. We have not yet had an openly atheist Prime Minister, but at least three recent Leaders of the Opposition were not Christian (two atheist/agnostic; one Reform Jew); and this wasn't a big issue, or why they didn't become PMs (I only found it out when checking their biographies on Wikipedia).

So the old guard are still tut-tutting about it, but one day we will have church/state separation. And I hope that you get to *implement* the church/state separation that you already have.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

4. Why? Napoleon Bonaparte answered that question

a few hundred years ago when he said,
"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."

[TWiley]

5. To justify wars, to justify bigotry, for the propaganda conduit.

Contempory religion does not provide much of a social good. It is more of a PAC than a spiritual organization any more.

[surrealAmerican]

6. because that church is actually part of the government.

It exists to keep citizens in line with governmental priorities. That's why you have a state religion. In the U.S., it would not be relevant.