20 2GM Wednesday May 25 2022 | the times
News
Anglican, Catholic and Methodist
churches face potential “extinction” in
Britain within the next forty years
because their brand of Christianity is
just not contagious enough, according
to a mathematician who has calculated
their R number.
Using a technique devised to calcu-
late the rate at which diseases such as
Covid-19 are spreading, a statistician has
analysed data from 13 church denomi-
nations to assess the rate at which their
membership is growing or declining.
A reproduction or R number of more
than one indicates that a denomination
is gathering more adherents, while an R
number of less than one “indicates
extinction” is on the horizon.
The Church of England and Catholic
churches across the UK have R num-
bers of just over 0.9 and could their con-
gregations could fall to zero by 2062,
according to an analysis by Dr John
Hayward, a visiting mathematics fellow
at the University of South Wales and
founder of the Church Growth Model-
ling site, who created his estimates by
extrapolating attendance data from
between 2000 and 2020 under a range
of scenarios.
The Methodist church has an R
number of about 0.85 and could face
extinction by the mid 2040s, while the
Church in Wales has an R number of
just over 0.7 and could disappear by
2038, his forecast suggests. Baptist
churches have an R number of just
under 1 and may survive until 2085.
By contrast, evangelical and Pente-
costal churches operating independ-
ently from the “historic” institutions
are growing and do not face extinction.
Hayward is a Christian who was bap-
tised in the Scottish Episcopal Church
and has worshipped in the Church in
Wales, both Anglican churches.
He said he first asked in the 1990s
whether “well-established models for
the spread of disease could... be adapt-
ed to the growth of a church, especiallyReligious ‘contagion’ rate
reveals dying churches
in times of revival”. He said it was apt as
“existing church members [can] add
new members through personal
contact”.
Hayward added: “Stemming losses is
not enough... they should put all aside
to encourage members to make new
disciples who can replicate themselves.”
The Archbishop of York, the Most
Rev Stephen Cottrell, said it was “help-
ful and challenging to see predictions
like this” but said that “the church of Je-
sus Christ is not an organisation that
lives or dies by graphs going up and
down”. He said churches would con-
tinue to “share Christ’s hope and peace
in the world... whether we have a hand-
ful of members or several billion”.
This month Cottrell announced
£3.6 billion of funding designed to drive
growth over the next nine years.
Hayward’s analysis provides hope,
adding that the Church of England and
Catholic church could see “some slow-
ing down of decline by 2030”, which
could delay Church of England extinc-
tion “to near the end of the century”
and see the Catholic church “avoid
extinction altogether”.
John Stevens, national director of the
Fellowship of Independent Evangelical
Churches, which has 65,000 worship-
pers across 630 churches and is growing
by about 1 per cent each year, said he
believed churches that “faithfully
preach the biblical message” were grow-
ing because they fulfil a “spiritual need”.Kaya Burgess
Religious Affairs Correspondent
Losing faith
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.
Welsh Independents
Welsh Presbyterian
Church of Scotland
Scottish Episcopal
Church of WalesMethodist
Roman CatholicUnited ReformedChurch of England
Baptist FIECElim PentecostalNew FrontiersReproduction potential for UK
churches, 2000-Source: John Hayward/
Church Growth ModellingIndicates extinction
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Taking the stage to an avalanche of
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As well as having all the right
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