Pulling no punches or praising the parish?

Paul Avis responds to the critiques of his recent column on the state of the Church of England.

I was delighted by the huge response to my article in the Church Times on 2 January 2026, ‘Ailing and Failing: The Church of England has lost its way’, but I was also given some food for thought. There has been a chorus of heart-felt support for my analysis, both publicly and privately, but also some dissent.

While a couple of posts attributed the decline of the Church to its abandonment of the King James Bible and some claimed that ethics was irrelevant because we only need to ‘preach the gospel’, others found the piece too pessimistic.  In the correspondence columns of that paper a bishop accused me of propagating ‘tiresome negativity’, describing me as a ‘doom-monger’. Others latched on to the fact that I was focusing on the national church and leaving out of account (as they saw it) the excellent work going on in (some) parishes. One suggested that I must be very unhappy in ‘my’ parish; I can assure them that is the opposite of the fact! But it does make me realize that I need to ask myself how anyone gained that impression. People were projecting their local experience (often good) on to the national level (rather different).

It’s true that in the article (and the book it introduces) I focus mainly on the national profile and public identity of the Church in the context of mission. But I also passionately affirm the grass-roots, the parishes, and their hard-working clergy and lay people, also in the context of mission. I devote a substantial chapter of the book to ‘The Integrity of Place and Parish’. I lift up the local as the source of all that makes the Church viable. I claim that we live in an upside-down church, thanks to excessive centralisation, so that the tail wags the dog.

I simply do not buy the claim of some that all is well and the Church is flourishing. That may be their local experience, but it is not how it the Church widely perceived. The Church as an institution has lost much trust and respect – and without those, no good can be achieved. In the book, I offer a diagnosis of our troubles: excessive central direction and a managerial mentality, disparagement and undermining of parochial ministry, distancing from the grassroots in strategy, and misdirected funding, pragmatism in place of theological principle.

However, I then go on to propose constructive ways forward, including the prioritization of the ethical (‘the good’), affirmation of parish ministry, tackling the theological and ethical issues around sacramental communion between clergy and their bishops, and constructing a rationale for ‘Establishment with Integrity’.

In bringing to bear some key ethical-theological concepts such as institutional authenticity, accountability, subsidiarity and solidarity, I aim to be engaging, challenging and always theological in calling the Church to recover the path of integrity, transparency and mutuality in its internal and external relations – which is a challenge that seems relevant to other Churches  too. I hope that readers may be helped to see a positive way forward for the Church and that the book, with its agenda of ethical reform and pastoral renewal, will do good.

Paul Avis is a priest in the Church of England, Honorary Professor in the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, and the Editor-in-Chief of Ecclesiology. He is the author of many books on Anglicanism, ecumenical theology, mission and ministry and fundamental theology.

His book Shaping A Church of Ethical Integrity: Groundwork for a Church Rebuilt is out this month and available to order here, with 20% off all orders before the end of February.