Churches with small congregations could be sold off and converted into free and affordable housing with services held on Zoom, a reforming reverend has suggested.
Up to 12,000 places of worship across England are said to be little more than ‘museums gathering dust’ with less than 30 people attending.
Most are prohibitively expensive to maintain and will at some point fall into disrepair or into the hands of property developers anyway, according to The Reverend David Keighley.
The sale of all ‘virtually empty’ church buildings across England would raise tens of millions of pounds for good causes and provide homes to the UK’s poorest and most vulnerable people, it is claimed.
The Church of England was accused of openly flouting the Christian message by holding on to its ‘property goldmine’ for no good reason and ignoring the needy when it has the capacity to help.
The proposals were drawn up by the Reverend, a leading advocate of Church reform, and submitted to Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, this week.
Reverend Keighley, 72, insisted Selling off the churches would not lead to the end of service
Reverend Lucy Winkett, rector of St James’s Piccadilly, delivers a service via a webcam
Rev Keighley, 72, who retired in 2017 after 40 years of service, said: ‘Selling off these churches is not killing the Church. It is simply responding to the needs of the 21 st century Christian community and using funds in a more practical, and fundamentally Christian, way.
‘The vast majority of churches in England have been little more than museums for some time, and the cost of their upkeep cannot be justified when considering the minimal level of use. The wastefulness of the Church in this respect could almost be considered sinful.
‘According to my own research, around 75 per cent of English churches had a congregation of 30 or fewer regular parishioners before the Covid crisis. This will only continue to decline after the pandemic has abated.
‘The only rational, and Christian, thing for the Church to do given the ongoing decline in church attendance is to sell off churches that are, literally, a waste of space.’
The Rev Keighley is the author of ‘Poems, Piety, and Psyche: Progressive Poems for Rebellious Christians’, which challenges outdated Christian teachings and calls for urgent Church reform.
He added: ‘Many former churches have been converted into affordable or social housing, so there is clearly a precedent here that would help alleviate the suffering of the homeless and vulnerable across England.
Rev Keighley thinks abandoned churches should be changed into flats to help homeless
‘The money netted by the Church in selling off the buildings, meanwhile, would be nothing short of a blessing to struggling communities, especially during these particularly challenging times.’
According to the Church of England’s Statistics for Mission 2019 report, the number of worshippers who regularly attend church has fallen by as much as 20 per cent since 2009, now standing at 1.11million.
In multi-church benefices, it is common for one vicar to be spread among as many as five parishes, rotating services among the churches with as few as 100 parishioners in total.
The continuing decline in the number of churchgoers has only been accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis, which has led to the Church of England closing some churches during lockdown.
Instead, many worshipers have quickly adapted to online services conducted via Zoom or other video platforms, which Rev Keighley believes will become a permanent fixture once the pandemic is over.
The ongoing decline in worshippers has, meanwhile, led to serious financial difficulties for the Church, with many of the 42 dioceses being close to bankruptcy.
Rev Keighley, whose last parish was within the Diocese of Winchester, says the average parish church costs £60,000 per year to run, and the average service costs over £200 per congregation member.
The cost of maintaining near-empty buildings as well as the associated costs of heating and lighting is unsustainable, he argues.
Under his plans, it makes more financial and ‘charitable’ sense to close and sell off all churches that have a regular attendance of 30 or fewer worshippers, converting the buildings into residential apartments.
In multi-church benefices, all but one of the churches would be sold off and the congregation instead ‘funnelled’ into the remaining church.
This, he says, could help plug the UK’s chronic shortage of affordable and social housing, which has only worsened during the pandemic. There are now over one million households on the social housing waiting list, according to housing charity Shelter.
While an analysis by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has found that the Government will not meet its target of building 300,000 new homes a year until 2032 – eight years later than planned.
The money raised from the sale of churches would be reinvested in struggling communities, as well as helping to support impoverished clergy.
He added: ‘In today’s pandemic world, fundamental Christian values such as compassion, care, and looking each other are needed more than ever.
‘Most churches are serving no real purpose in today’s society. They should be sold off to local authorities to provide urgent new housing for the homeless, vulnerable, and first-time buyers.
‘The money raised from the sales, meanwhile, should be used by the Church to fund charitable causes in our most stricken communities such as food banks, homeless and domestic abuse shelters, children’s mental health care, and youth clubs or community groups.
‘Now that online services have been embraced, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. There will always be a place for physical services, but within multi-church benefices these should be funnelled into the one remaining place of worship.’