Exposing the Church of England plan to recruit Pagans using a Pagan church

The Wild Hunt

OK if you have been reading the press over the last few days you may have come to believe the Church of England has a new policy to recruit Pagans by training pioneer ministers expressly to do this by starting a Pagan church - and that i am one of the key people doing this. Well that's what this article in the Telegraph ... certainly implies and it has drawn a lot of comment both from Christians and Pagans. But there is a big problem with this article - it is highly misleading and there is no such Church of England policy. I thought it was about time to expose the spin and let the real story come out.

Firstly it is not a piece of research based on interviews done by the Telegraph it is actually a rehash of a radio piece done by BBC religion correspondent Robert Piggott for the Today Programme - you can listen to it here for the next 5 days ... the piece comes about 1:25 into the recording - it went out just after 7.25 on the 21st June. The background to this piece was that Robert had seen research by people like Linda Woodhead on the rise of spirituality outside of religion as a counterpoint to declining church numbers. in particular she had recently written an article for the Church Times suggesting that the Anglican church should concentrate on the 50% of Anglicans who are non-churchgoing believers (this is the link but the full article can only be read by subscribers .... Robert wanted to explore this and particularly to find if there where ways the Anglican church was connecting with spiritual seekers. I was along with three others interviewed for this radio programme. it went out on the 21st June to link it to the Sumner Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge. Read more

Also read
Church of England creating 'pagan church' to recruit members
Church of England Envisions 'Christianity-Centered Pagan Church'

A word of thanks to Hudson Barton who drew my attention to this article.