Telegraph.co.uk: British Christianity isn't dying. It's sleeping. Evangelism can awaken it

Telegraph.co.uk: British Christianity isn't dying. It's sleeping. Evangelism can awaken it

Tim Stanley says that the Christian faith was at a low ebb in the late 18th century.

"Easter Day in St Paul's Cathedral in 1800: can you guess how many people took communion? Six. Six people took communion. In the late 18th century the Church of England was in a dire crisis. Churches stood empty, clerical numbers were dwindling, people complained that priests were out of touch with their congregations. Worse: scepticism was on the rise - even atheism - and Jacobinism, which was violently anti-clerical, was on the march in Europe. Every complaint made about contemporary Christianity was made in 1800. Including the sad decline of Christmas, although the problem back then was one of uninterest. Most public workers just got one day off work. Scrooge was the rule, not the exception....

"Most critical, however, was the rise of evangelism in the 19th century. The Anglicans turned things around by launching missions: they treated Britain as if it was near-pagan and needed to be brought back to the faith. They decided that the faith had to be seen to be relevant to people's needs - so it was the churches that campaigned for workers' protections, the outlawing of child prostitution and the creation of the welfare state. The early Labour Party was dominated by Methodists, many of them obsessed with the evils of alcohol. But the Victorians didn't just pursue social justice for its own sake - as many contemporary liberal Christians do - they saw it as a tool of religious mission. They sought to feed both the belly and the soul....

"Imagine, say, that the Anglican Church was like Tesco. If Tesco stopped advertising, people would stop shopping there. If Tesco constantly banged on about how its own products are old fashioned and in need of updating, people would stop shopping there. If Tesco said that it would be nice if you'd visit once in a while but entirely understood why you don't, people would stop shopping there. Christians have become their own worst enemy - killing their faith with silence.

"Advertise. Speak up. Tell people about your beliefs. At the centre of the faith is the truth that Jesus died and rose from death to herald a new era. The power of the Good News is so great that it cannot fail to win converts. Time to share it."