Declining Spirits
The Self-Inflicted Wounds of the Anglican Church
by Ian Hunter
The collapse of the Anglican Church in Canada has been swifter than its detractors predicted, more abject than its adherents can credit. StatsCan reported recently that in the decade 1991–2001, the Anglican Church lost more than 150,000 members approaching 10 percent of its total membership. Worse, this is only formal membership; the drop in actual church attendance has been far steeper. And since 2001, the pace of decline has accelerated.
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Ian Hunter is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of biographies of Robert Burns, Hesketh Pearson, and Malcolm Muggeridge.
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