Easter is the great Christian festival of hope and rebirth. But Britain’s churches have few reasons to be cheerful about their own future. The 2021 census results, published in November, found that for the first time less than half the population identifies as Christian. Thousands of churches have closed their doors in recent years, some repurposed into art galleries or museums.
In the midst of decline, however, a religious success story is changing the shape and enriching the texture of British Christianity. To a remarkable degree, black majority churches (BMCs) are a countercultural growth industry in a country which is perhaps less secular than it believes itself to be. Research suggests that the rise in non-white church attendance in recent decades may more or less match the drop-off in white churchgoers. Though predominantly Pentecostal, BMCs also exist within the Anglican communion and other historic church traditions, the Baptist Union and Methodism. In London and Britain’s other major cities, former bingo halls, warehouses and shops have been transformed into places of worship, channelling the evangelical intensity of African and Caribbean Christianity.
