The faithful departed

‘Where have all the Methodists gone?’ This question, posed in the kind of fusty second-hand bookshops where those behind the counter actually read, or at least take an interest in, the wares they sell, led to a baffled silence. The toppling rows of volumes may have contained theses on John Wesley, or detailed accounts of the fierce schismatic battles that split Methodism again and again in the 19th century. But on the current state of the Methodist Church, they had nothing to say. Eventually a fellow browser offered an opinion. ‘To America?’

Here, when we talk of Methodism, it is nearly always in the past, of its role in the union movement or its influence on the Labour party. The President of the United States may be a Methodist, but of the Church’s current doings in this country, we hear next to nothing.

In such circumstances, is it too far-fetched to suggest that 300 years after his birth we are seeing the fading away of the movement Wesley founded? Are we witnessing the strange death of Methodist England? Quite possibly, is how I interpret the response from David Deeks, who was appointed General Secretary of the Methodist Church in September 2003, when I ask him how his flock is faring.

A generation ago, he says, there were a million members of his Church, and another million had some contact with Methodists through other means, such as using church premises or belonging to youth groups. ‘Now that’s a very different picture,’ says the Reverend Deeks. ‘Currently, we have 330,000 members in the formal sense, and that is represented by about 6,000 chapels up and down the country. Many of them are quite small, a small number quite large, many of them ageing, many of them slightly detached from the rapid changes of culture around them.