World religions. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 65 стр.

church should listen and learn from them. It is a controversy likely to persist      seventeenth centuries. In keeping with its democratic nature, it admits women
well into the twenty-first century.                                                  as well as men to the ministry.
     The Church of England was traditionally identified with the ruling estab-            Among all these Protestant churches, but particularly among the larger
lishment and with authority, but it has been distancing itself over the past 25      English ones, there has been a recent important development called the “house
years or so, and may eventually disengage from the state. “Disestablishment”, as     church” movement. This began in the 1970s and has a membership of roughly
this is known, becomes a topic for discussion each time the Church and state         90,000, although attendance is far higher. This movement is a network of
clash over some issue. Since 1979 the Church has been ready to criticise aspects     autonomous “churches” of usually not more than 100 members in each. These
of official social policy (see below).                                               churches meet, usually in groups of 15 or 20, in members’ homes for worship
     Nevertheless, the Church of England remains overwhelmingly conven-              and prayer meetings. Most of those joining such groups are in the 20–40 year-
tional and middle class in its social composition, having been mainly middle         old age range and belong to the professional middle classes – solicitors, doctors
and upper class in character since the Industrial Revolution. Most working-class     and so forth – who have felt frustrated with the more ponderous style of the lar-
people in England and Wales who are religious belong to the nonconformist or         ger churches They try to recapture what they imagine was the vitality of the
“Free” Churches, while others have joined the Catholic Church in the past 140        early church, but it is doubtful how long these house churches will last. If they
years.                                                                               are anything like some of the revivalist sects of the nineteenth century, they in
     Because of its position, the Anglican Church has inherited a great legacy of    their turn will lose their vitality, and discontented members may return to the
ancient cathedrals and parish churches. It is caught between the value of these      churches which their predecessors left, or drift away from the Christian church
magnificent buildings as places of worship, and the enormous cost of their up-       altogether.
keep. The state provides about 10 per cent of the cost of maintaining the fabric          The Protestant churches of Britain undoubtedly owe part of the revival tak-
of historic churches.                                                                ing place in some evangelical churches to the vitality of the West Indian
                                                                                     churches. West Indian immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s were not welcomed
                          The other Christian churches                               into Anglican churches, and many decided to form their own churches Their
      The Free or nonconformist churches are distinguished by having no bish-        music and informal joyfulness of worship spread quickly in evangelical circles.
ops, or “episcopacy”, and they all admit both women and men to their ministry.       As Philip Mohabir, a West Indian, describes:
The main ones today are: the Methodist Union (400,000 full adult members);                Congregations that would have been cold, dull and boring, would now sing
the Baptists (150,000); the-United Reformed Church (110,000) and the Salva-          to guitar music, clap their hands, and even play tambourines. Those were
tion Army (50,000). These all tend towards strong evangelicalism. In the case        things that only West Indian churches did… Now people would raise their
of the Methodists and Baptists, there are also smaller splinter groups. In addi-     hands in the air and clap and even dance. English, white, evangelical Chris-
tion there are a considerable number of smaller sects. Most of these churches        tians dancing and clapping their hands, praising God. That in itself is a miracle
are, like the Anglicans, in numerical decline.                                       we West Indian Christians never thought would happen.
      In Scotland the Church, or Kirk, vehemently rejected the idea of bishops,           The Roman Catholic Church only returned to Britain in 1850. During the
following a more Calvinist Protestant tradition. Its churches are plain. There is    preceding 300 years the few Catholic families which refused to accept the new
no altar, only a table, and the emphasis is on the pulpit, where the Gospel is       Church were popularly viewed as less than wholeheartedly English. The Eng-
preached. The Kirk is more democratic than the Anglican Church. Although             lish Protestant prejudice that to be Catholic is to be not quite wholly English
each Kirk is assigned a minister, it also elects its own “elders”. The minister      only really disappeared in the 1960s.
and one of these elders represent the Kirk at the regional presbytery. Each of the        The Roman Catholic Church grew rapidly after 1850, particularly among
46 presbyteries of Scotland elects two commissioners to represent it at the prin-    the industrial working class. By the mid 1980s it had about 5,7 million mem-
cipal governing body of the Church, the General Assembly. Each year the              bers, of whom 1,4 million were regular attenders. By the mid 1990s this had
commissioners meet in the General Assembly, and elect a Moderator to chair           fallen to 1,1 million attenders, a decline of over 17 per cent. Alongside growing
the General Assembly for that year. Unlike the Church of England, the Church         secularism in society, many have left the Catholic Church because of its au-
of Scotland is subject neither to the Crown nor to Parliament, and takes pride in    thoritarian conservatism, particularly in the field of sexual mores. It is estimated
its independence from state authority, for which it fought in the sixteenth and      that attendance will barely exceed 600,000 by the year 2005. The Catholic

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