Anglican Cathedrals in a Secular Society: David Martin and the Sociology of English Religion

Abstract

One of the puzzles in our secular age is the resurgence in attendance at English Cathedrals. Whilst it is commonplace for sociologists and media - and sometimes church leaders - to draw attention to burgeoning membership in evangelical and charismatic churches, the Cathedrals of the Church of England represent a different kind of growth. A considerable number of attendees come to cathedral worship and significant commemorative events (e.g., Christmas, Remembrance) because the very particular ecclesial ecology of a cathedral does not normally require membership, intense fellowship or frequency in attendance. Cathedrals, therefore, are now more prominent exponents of 'low-threshold-high-reward' patterns of worship, and point to a form of ecclesial polity that was once much more common in English Anglicanism. Namely, the church serving its community as a support-based institution rather than as a member-based organisation. The sensibility of cathedral worship may now chime more deeply with those latent patterns of spirituality that remain textured and strong within the weave contemporary culture, embodying spiritual-spatial inclusion. To understand the resilience of cathedrals, and their relative growth in attendees, requires developed ecologies of English church-going that comprehend the value of the church continuing to hold its vocation as the social skin of a city, region and the nation, and a patterning of polity that continually renews the values underpinning civic society.