When warnings of the virtual end of the Church of England come from leading theologian, who is also a senior churchman, they are bound to cause a stir. Nick Morrison reports.

FALLING attendances and a declining influence on our lives - few would doubt that the fortunes of the Church of England are on the wane. But few would also go so far as to say that not only is this decay irreversible and terminal, but that it is the fault of the church itself.

Canon Edward Norman is unapologetic about this view. Indeed, he does not see it as necessarily a depressing thing that the church is likely to virtually disappear in the West. But that doesn't mean he doesn't care.

"The decline is inexorable and there is nothing that indicates it is going to revive in the West," he says. "I imagine some rumps will survive of the Church of England, but as an historian I would conclude that it has gone too far to be rescued and I can't see anything that would suggest a correction.

"I see no harm in this - the church is not stuck to its heartlands, and I'm not at all lacking in hope, I'm just furious. It is a futile waste. You don't get depressed, you get cross, and you can't believe that church leaders are allowing their own message to be undervalued."

The reason for the church's imminent demise, according to Canon Norman, is that it has moved away from the Christian teachings on sin and forgiveness, and instead concentrated on ways of making our lives more comfortable. As a church leader, chancellor of York Minster as well as a distinguished theologian, with his latest book, Secularisation, his 18th on the problems of the relation between church and society, he does not exempt himself from responsibility, but the blame is very firmly laid at the doors of the church itself.

One of the principal causes of a decline in church influence, he says, is that the church has abandoned any attempt at providing a lead on moral questions and instead encourages people to make up their own minds. But whereas the church has 2,000 years of teaching behind it to back up its views, for the general public the main influences are television and the newspapers.

'THE church is encouraging people to think for themselves when they are not qualified to do so, and it is failing to educate its own clergy in the nature of its message. There is also a failure of church schools to teach Christianity. The only reason church schools are popular is not because they doing Christian teaching, but because parents believe they offer moral teaching.

"People are entitled to think for themselves, but the church is not a democracy, the church is there to represent Christ to the world.

"Wisdom is constant - people are no wiser than they were 2,000 years ago. There has been an explosion of knowledge, but large parts of that knowledge are deeply technical. Would you expect the woman on the street to construct an electron microscope for themselves? Then why should they know about the Holy Trinity?"

He says that while the church's moral teachings can change over time, the spiritual teachings should remain constant.

"Homosexuality is quite clearly something the church needs to look at again. It is becoming pretty clear that homosexuality is not an objective disorder, and if you look at ancient societies it appears that what was condemned was not same-sex partnerships, it was excessive behaviour.

"There is a whole area where the teaching remains the same but it is reinterpreted differently in different ages. The teaching in this case would be against certain sorts of fornicating behaviour.

"But in terms of doctrine, the teachings are everlastingly true, over the nature of sin and forgiveness. Human beings are sinful and in need of redemption. But the church glosses over this and instead identifies welfare as the essence of Christianity."

He says the humanism adopted by the church, where anything is justified if it advances human welfare, has replaced the higher, spiritual, ends of life, which religion should advocate. One reason for this is that the church has tried to make its message popular, but this is a mistake, Canon Norman says.

"Jesus actually expects quite a small number of people to respond. He suggests the way is very narrow and very few follow it. We need to recognise that authentic Christianity goes against the grain - it is not popular, and we shouldn't try to spread it as if it is an advertising product, and that is what the present bunch running the Church of England do.

"The whole concept that religion has to appeal to people is false. It is there because it is a duty owed to God. We say to people 'Why don't you go to church?' and they say 'It doesn't do anything for me'. It makes you want to scream. It is not what it is there for, it is not a branch of therapy, it is not there for emotional needs."

And the humanist approach means the church has abandoned any attempt to teach about the doctrines of Christianity.

"When did you last hear a sermon which upheld Christian teaching on human sexuality, or sex outside marriage? They don't do it, because it is too controversial. Most sermons are about being nice to people, and that is fine but it is the lowest common denominator. If people don't like the hard message of Christianity then hard luck, we're not going to change the message.

"The horror of controversy has reached the point where they are afraid to say anything about the message that relates to our inherent corruption and offers the gift of salvation. Jesus didn't come into the world talking about glowing sunsets and therapy, he came into the world talking about sin, and that is what we should be doing."

The future of Christianity now lies in the developing world, he says, where it is expanding, mainly through the Roman Catholic Church, at a rapid rate. And one of the reasons is that there religion has not become about welfare, and instead is about sin.

"The church will continue to identify itself with modern humanism, with God on top as a good idea, and it will just disappear. It is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs but I think it is irreversible. I would rather it die off naturally than perpetuated a wrong view of religion, because then you can start again. Most leaders of the Church of England don't see it this way. They talk about the turn of the tide but it is futile, it is all just nonsense.

"If you ask people what life is about they would say the pursuit of happiness, but 200 years ago that would have been regarded as atheism. The answer they would have given is salvation."

*Secularisation is published by Continuum, £12.99