Lonely Britain.

Britain is becoming an increasing lonely nation. The BBC recently commissioned a report* from Sheffield University on which they ran a series of articles and interviews, you may well have heard it recently. I think most people agree that as a nation we have become much more individualistic and clearly the social fabric of our country has changed over the last 30 years.

The story was of interest to me because it basically spans my lifetime from the 70s and I can certainly feel that things have changed in terms of community spirit and the social fabric of the nation. I often hear people talk about the lack of community spirit or the apathy that is eating away at our relationships with each other. The report was very detailed and referenced census and other figures covering all sorts of areas such as immigration, increased wealth and accompanying increased mobility. It looked at the decline in the local employer where employees would spend much of their time together locally, where they would support and comfort each other. You only have to look at areas in the North of England and South Wales where coal mine closures brought about the sudden end to employment without anything to take its place. The research interestingly also looked at the effect of student numbers and the increase churn that such temporary changes in populations can have in cities such as Edinburgh.

In attempting to ascertain ‘loneliness’ the report studied amongst other things the number of population who were single, living alone, in rented accommodation and on new arrivals. In one of the interviews conducted by the BBC a member of the public suggested perhaps that people in rented accommodation might not have the same pride in where they live. I am sure this is true to a point but it might not be totally current in terms of the credit crunch and people choosing to go into rented due to house prices and economic reasons.

In terms of other areas which contribute to this feeling of loneliness and the changing face of the U.K the report referred to the decline in marriage and the increase in divorce rates, clearly these are major issues and go on to affect the demographics that the census figures focus on, such as more single parent families, more people living alone, more people in rented accommodation perhaps. These effects are reasonably obvious and can be counted and measured, but it is often the effects which cannot be recorded so easily which have the biggest influence over our nation and it’s future such as the feelings and behaviour of children from broken families and their relationships with their parents and each other. The decline in marriage and divorce rates is a subject which I covered in a recent blog entry on the ‘illicit affairs’ website, my point was should we be encouraging this type of behaviour?

However the main purpose of this blog entry was because yet again the report fails to address the area of declining church attendance and the absence of Christian morals and principles in this country and the effects I believe it is having. Don’t get me wrong there are many local churches that are thriving and movements that are growing rapidly but equally there is a general trend which shows that as a nation we are less interested in attending and listening to what the church has to say. A link here to some trend figures: http://www.whychurch.org.uk/trends.php and from Timesonline* “According to Religious Trends, a comprehensive statistical analysis of religious practice in Britain, published by Christian Research, even Hindus will come close to outnumbering churchgoers within a generation. The forecast to 2050 shows churchgoing in Britain declining to 899,000 while the active Hindu population, now at nearly 400,000, will have more than doubled to 855,000. By 2050 there will be 2,660,000 active Muslims in Britain - nearly three times the number of Sunday churchgoers.”

As a Church we need to be doing something about this don’t we. It is however not easy with deep rooted misconceptions on what local church life is like and comments from the established Church of England that sometimes just make you cringe, an established church which may yet find itself split it two over disagreements. It is not an ideal position to work from and it is easy to see why people make judgments from the outside and get confused messages from so many areas from the church is this country.

Despite all this I for one am very pleased to see where local church life is thriving and away from the established Cof E where great progress is being made in getting the Christian message across in a more relevant way. In a local environment based on sharing and caring, that which can cater for the single person or the new arrival, where you can support and comfort one another, where a strong sense of community can be found. But most of all, the nation needs to hear the Gospel – it needs to know the answers to our broken society are found in a personal relationship with God and in the change that faith can have in the life of an individual. A relationship with the God of all creation that can replace any feelings of loneliness you might feel, a love of a God so amazing that we can only begin to understand. The love of a God that wants to be involved in the incidental and trivial things of our life aswell as the big things, to be involved in every decision we make each day, to guide us and impart wisdom to us, a God who wants the very best for us.

It is up to the local church yes to get this message out, but also as individuals for us to work together and in our daily lives to live as an example so others might see a difference and want to know why. This is the greatest challenge for me and I suggest for most of us.


* http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/research/changinguk/Changing_UK_report_sheffield_webv1.pdf
* http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3890080.ece