The decline of the Church of England

If you put 'The decline of the Church of England' into Google you will get several interesting results. Reasons include

• Women priests having caused divison
  
• Gay vicars
• Disregard for religion in our more secular society
• Errors made by the Church Commisioners within my lifetime when they lost a great deal of money
• Adherence to outdated doctrine and historic prejudices SEE HERE
  

Another website even says, "One day the last native-born Christian will die and that will be that".

It used to be said that the Forsyte Saga - which was televised by the BBC in the 1960s - rang the death knell for Parish Evensong.

I would also suggest that two World Wars will have had an effect, certainly WW2. People (of faith) have always struggled with disaster and the 'Why did God allow this or that to happen?' question.

For those - like me -  who are divorced and who married in church there is another question. I had my marriage blessed by God and yet it failed: what was the point? Thinking about the marriage vows now, particularly the 'for better or for worse' one, this is a really inappropriate vow to expect a young couple to make when, after many years of life experience, they will realise that the person they married is not the same person after many years. It was probably a good vow in the past when the nuclear family was important and there was no welfare state but, in the late 20th/21st centuries I think it was/is almost cruel to make couples say things in public which MAY turn out to be impossible to carry out and uphold.

Thus, many people see the church (and all organised religion) as a way of controlling people. Way back in history there was the threat of hell fire.

The church no longer has a grip on society. Has it got any kind of grip on itself?