There’s a misprint! The headline’s wrong! It should be, ‘The evangelicals: who are they?’ Well, actually, perhaps it shouldn’t, as the number of evangelicals attending church on a Sunday in England is rapidly diminishing.
In 1990 there were 1.4 million evangelicals in church, but by 2030, data extrapolated from a 2005 census suggests, there will only be 1.2 million, a large exodus over just 40 years.
However, other considerations apart, the number left in 2030 is still large enough to ensure that evangelicals will still be around for quite a while – even if the same rate of decline continues (which of course it may not). Furthermore, while a loss of approximately 4,000 evangelicals every year is significant, it needs to be compared with those who are not evangelicals. In 2020, evangelicals will be almost half of all of those going to church, some 46% of the total. In 1990 they were just a third, 34%, of the total.
Altogether there were just over 4 million people in church every Sunday in 1990, some 8.5% of the population, but the overall numbers have dropped since and it is expected that in 2020 there will only be 2.8 million people attending church in total, some 4.9% of the population, and 2.4 million in 2030, 4.0% of the population.
The decline of nominalism
The general drop in the number of churchgoers averages 42,000 per year over the numbers taken between 1990 (actual) and 2030 (estimated), so the evangelical loss is only about 10% of the whole.
That simply means that non-evangelicals are declining faster than evangelicals which in turn means that the evangelicals become a slightly greater proportion of the total. By 2030 they are expected to be 51% of the total.
How are evangelicals defined? In the English Church Censuses of 1989, 1998 and 2005 the ministers of every church were asked to tick up to three of nine churchmanships to represent their church, of which one was ‘Evangelical’ (it was assumed that all attending each church were of the churchmanship indicated by the minister, something almost certainly not true, but which more detailed surveys have found to be generally true). Numbers were totalled for 1989 which allows a close estimate for the year 1990 and estimates have also been made for subsequent years beyond 2005. As the number of evangelicals was relatively large, the total was sub-divided depending on what other ticks were given, and three groups of Evangelicals emerged:
1. Broad Evangelicals (those ticking ‘Broad’ and ‘Evangelical’) who were 22% of all the evangelicals in 1990, but are expected to be only 4% by 2030
2. Charismatic Evangelicals (those ticking ‘Charismatic’ and ‘Evangelical’) who were 42% of total evangelicals in 1990, but who are likely to be just 34% by 2030
3. Mainstream Evangelicals (those ticking just the one choice of ‘Evangelical,’ the word ‘Mainstream’ being used to distinguish these from the other two types, but who are not necessarily linked to the organisations subsequently called Mainstream Anglicans or Mainstream Baptists). These were 36% of all evangelicals in 1990, but could be 62% by 2030.
Growth of conservatives
This shows that it is the Mainstream Evangelicals, which some call Conservative Evangelicals, who are growing. Over half, 52%, of the Charismatic Evangelicals are Pentecostal, who have seen explosive growth over the years 1990 to 2020, but whose growth is now less rapid.
Why are the Conservative Evangelicals growing? The primary growth is probably down to larger churches starting new congregations. However, many churches are also seeing increase in congregation size.
Who were the evangelicals? They had a powerful heritage in such 19th-century pioneers such as the Wesleys, boosted by 20th-century evangelists and teachers such as Billy Graham, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and John Stott. Their legacy is likely to live on even if other groupings cease to exist.
By 2030 evangelicals will probably be some 1.2 million individuals, or 2% of the English population. It is yet to be seen whether the 21st century will produce evangelical giants of its own to further re-invigorate present-day evangelicals.
