Buffy the Vampire Slayer slaying church attendance among women

The report claims more than 50,000 women a year have deserted their congregations over the past two decades because they feel the church is not relevant to their lives.

It says that instead young women are becoming attracted to the pagan religion Wicca, where females play a central role, which has grown in popularity after being featured positively in films, TV shows and books.

The study comes amid ongoing controversy over the role of women in all Christian denominations. Last month its governing body voted to allow women to become bishops for the first time, having admitted them to the priesthood in 1994, but traditionalist bishops have warned that hundreds of clergy and parishes will leave if the move goes ahead as planned.

The report’s author, Dr Kristin Aune, a sociologist at the University of Derby, said: “In short, women are abandoning the church.

“Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the church.

“Women’s ordination, as priests and now bishops, has dominated debate and headlines – but while looking at women in the pulpit we have taken our eyes off the pews, where a shift with more consequences for the church’s survival is underway.”

Her research, published in a new book called Women and Religion in the West, cites an English Church Census which found more than a million women worshippers have left churches since 1989.

Over the past decade, it claims, women have been leaving churches at twice the rate of men. (Women are truly more intelligent)

In addition, the census is said to show that teenage boys now outnumber girls in the pews for the first time.

Dr Aune says the church must adapt to the needs of modern women if it is to stop them leaving in their droves.

She believes many women have been put off going to church in recent years because of the influence of feminism, which challenged the traditional Christian view of women’s roles and raised their aspirations.

Her report claims they feel forced out of the church because of its “silence” about sexual desire and activity, and because of its hostility to single-parent families and unmarried couples which are now a reality for many women.

But it also says changes in women’s working lives, with many more now pursuing careers as well as raising children, mean they have less time to attend church.

Dr Aune believes churches must now introduce services and activities that fit in better with modern’s women’s schedules, such as Saturday morning breakfast clubs.

She said: “Gone are the days when the mother was at home during the day and had time to visit the church’s coffee mornings and mother and toddler groups.

“With the pressures women face, churches must adapt to make themselves more accessible.”

Christina Rees, chairman of the pro-women bishop campaign group Watch, said the report highlighted the damaging effect that traditionalist attitudes within the Church of England are having on women.

She added that the introduction of female bishops will lead to a renewed interest in the church among young people and women in particular, despite the opposition to the historic step from Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals who believe scripture and tradition teach that bishops must be male.

Ms Rees told The Daily Telegraph: “What this research reveals is that a lot of people are put off by traditional stances and attitudes. We still have a long way to go before women, particularly young women, feel as included in the church as men do.

“I’m absolutely convinced that when we have women as bishops that it will send out a very clear message that women are as valued as much as men.”

The Church of England declined to comment.

Priest flees ‘evil’ Portishead

A former Portishead priest says there is evil in the town akin to that which Sam and Frodo battled in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

The Reverend Clive Laws, who resigned from his job as assistant parish priest in April and left the town in July, is urging members of his former flock to pray in an attempt to oust “spiritual forces of wickedness”.

He sent the message to his ex-parishioners in the August edition of the Portishead parish magazine.

The magazine, produced by members of St Nicholas and St Peter’s churches, has a subscription of around 700 and is read by thousands of people across the town.

In his message he refers to the Tolkien classic, Return of the King – part of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy – where characters Sam and Frodo are on their way to Mount Doom to destroy the ring and break the power of Mordor, a place of evil next to the Mountain of Shadows.

He likens the story to activities in Portishead and urges members of the church to continue doing their good work to push away evil forces.

In his message he says: “There is an immense battle going on in Tolkien’s world and it is taking place at different levels.

“I believe that there is an immense battle going on here in Portishead, indeed all through the Gordano Valley.

“I believe that there are spiritual forces of wickedness that are fighting against the coming of Christ’s Kingdom in this place.

“They are intent on breaking and destroying all that is good and lovely and true.”

Rev Laws, a 58-year-old father of three, also urges his parishioners to pray for the ‘overthrowing of darkness.’

In his message he adds: “Keep on praying – please keep on praying.

“Pray for the overthrowing of darkness and for the breaking in of Christ’s just and gentle rule.”

When contacted by the Bristol Evening Post, Rev Laws said the wickedness prevailing in the town was one of the reasons he had chosen to leave Portishead.

Rev Laws cited examples of evilness including the case of Clevedon vicar Revd David Smith who was jailed for five years after being found guilty of sexually abusing young boys over a 30-year period.

He also said drugs and violence, like many towns across the UK, were problems being faced in Portishead.

Rev Law said “We’ve left Portishead earlier than we would have done and the wickedness is one of the factors which made me leave the town.

“We’d been in the town for 12 years and felt that our work here had come to an end.

“This was a message of farewell to the church family and not aimed at anyone individual.

“I want people to be aware that in this world there is a battle and not to lose heart whatever the struggles are and that good will overcome evil.

“This is a message of concern and love for the people that we loved in Portishead to urge them to stand up for what is good, lovely and true.

“Evil only prevails if good people do nothing. (or move away?)

“I want to encourage God’s people in Portishead to stand for and do what is good and lovely and true and to push back evil.”

Rev Laws, who worked at both St Nicholas and St Peter’s Church in Portishead, is now working for the Diocese of Chelmsford as priest in charge of Matching and the Lavers in Chelmsford, Essex.
A spokesman for the Diocese of Bath and Wells, said: “There is always a struggle between good and evil and the Christian church shines as a bright beacon in this world which is often dark.

“Portishead is no different from any other town in this regard. There are a lot of good people in Portishead working to service the community and their neighbours.

“Portishead is a fine town with many fine people and is served faithfully by an active and attractive church.”

Archbishop blames liberals for church rift

Consecration of gay clergy must stop to end Anglican crisis, says Williams

The Archbishop of Canterbury blamed liberal North American churches yesterday for causing turmoil in the Anglican communion by blessing same-sex unions and consecrating gay clergy as he attempted to chart a way out of the crisis that has been engulfing the church.

On the final day of the Lambeth conference, a 10-yearly gathering of the world’s Anglican bishops, Rowan Williams said practices in certain US and Canadian dioceses were threatening the unity of the Anglican communion.

“If North American churches do not accept the need for a moratoria [on same sex blessings and the consecration of gay clergy] we are no further forward. We continue to be in grave peril,” he said.

He was speaking as 670 bishops prepared to leave the University of Kent campus after 18 days of reflection, prayers, conversations and efforts to hold a divided communion together.

Making his third and final presidential address Williams said the “pieces are on the board” to resolve the wrangling over homosexuality. He put forward the idea of a “covenanted future” involving a “global church of interdependent communities”. But even as he was speaking disaffected primates from developing countries expressed regrets about the conference. A statement signed by more than a quarter of the world’s Anglican archbishops said theological voices outside the west had been missing from some key sessions. “We are concerned with the continuing patronising attitude of the west towards the rest of the churches,” they said.

Williams also faced disenchantment at home, with some English bishops questioning the nature of the conference. Michael Scott-Joynt, the bishop of Winchester and the fifth most senior churchman in England, said: “The Lambeth Conference is required to do something rather than live down to the worst expectations of the bishops who stayed away.”

The bishop of Exeter, Michael Langrish, also said there was an “inexorable logic” that there should be one core communion with the more liberal churches at the margins. Conflicting views over homosexuality have pushed liberals and conservatives apart, with 230 boycotting Lambeth and realigning themselves with a breakaway movement, the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon).

Throughout the conference there have been pleas for churches in the US and Canada to refrain from progressive agendas.

One statement earlier in the conference, from the Episcopal Church of Sudan, said the actions of the American and Canadian churches had “seriously harmed the Church” in Africa and elsewhere, opening it up to ridicule.

The African primate Daniel Deng was the first church leader to issue a position statement on homosexuality. He was followed by the presiding bishop of Egypt and Jerusalem, Mouneer Anis, and several primates from south Asia, all voicing their pain at the fractures caused by the issue.

Williams announced that he would convene a meeting with all the Anglican primates, to take place early next year, and that the objectives and composition of the pastoral forum would be unveiled within three months. In addition, he said, the Gafcon bishops absent from Lambeth would be involved in policy shaping.

Jon Bruno, bishop of Los Angles, was clear that calls to stop blessing same-sex relationships would be received with “fear and trepidation” in his diocese. “I can only say that inclusion is a reality,” he said. “For people who think that this is going to lead us to disenfranchise any gay or lesbian person, they are sadly mistaken.”

Susan Russell, president of the US campaign group Integrity, was angry with Williams’ remarks, which she called an “11th-hour sucker punch”. She said: “It sends the wrong message – that gays and lesbians are still strangers at the gate. It’s not going to change anything on the ground.”