The former chaplain to the late Queen Elizabeth believes the Anglican church is swiftly dying in the UK.
Gavin Ashenden told Catholic TV network EWTN — that the Church of England will become “hollowed out with nothing at its centre.”
He added that because of its A$12 billion in investments and its buildings — it will continue to show up at big events like coronations and royal funerals.
But Mr. Ashenden pointed out the life of parish churches is close to extinct — with the average age of churchgoers over 70 — and no great renewal evident among its youth.
“Demographically, it’s simply going to evaporate.”
EVIDENCE OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND STRUGGLING IN UK
The Church of England has been haemorrhaging members and trust among those in the UK, according to a YouGov poll released earlier this year.
The same poll also showed that 50% of Britons favour the disestablishment of the Church of England, while only 23% prefer to maintain its status.
The office of Archbishop of Canterbury has remained vacant since January, when Justin Welby stepped down after an inquiry reported that he failed to promptly alert police about serial abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps.
In 2023, conservative Anglican leaders in the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches repudiated Archbishop Welby’s leadership in a scathing letter after the Church of England voted to offer blessings for same-sex couples that year.
WHY GAVIN ASHENDEN CONVERTED FROM AN ANGLICAN TO A CATHOLIC
The Christian Post reports that Gavin Ashenden lamented what he described as the “apostasy” within the Church of England which has impacted greatly on his own faith journey.
He left Anglicanism in 2019 to join the Roman Catholic Church after serving as the Queen’s chaplain from 2008 to 2017.
He resigned from the role after protesting that St. Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow, marked the feast of the Epiphany by reciting verses from the Qur’an that denied the divinity of Christ.
ROYAL HOUSEHOLD FEARED CHAPLAIN’S VIEWS WOULD BE SEEN AS QUEEN’S VIEWS
Mr. Ashenden said that as he increasingly expressed his concerns with the Church of England publicly, he received a call from the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, who serves as the most senior officer of the Royal Household of the UK.
“The general public are under the impression that when you speak, you speak on behalf of the Queen, and the difficulty I have is that you might be,” he quoted the Lord Chamberlain as saying.
“And the other problem is the general public have the impression that the Queen is influenced by your views, and the reason that’s a problem is she might be.”
Mr. Ashenden realised that the conversation was effectively an ultimatum: either to stop criticising the Church of England or to resign.
“I’D BECOME INCREASINGLY CATHOLIC — ETHICALLY, PHILIOSOPHICALLY, SPIRITUALLY.”
He said at the time that he spoke out because he felt a duty to defend Christianity, according to The Telegraph.
“One of the things [that] happened over the previous 10 years was I’d become increasingly Catholic — ethically, philosophically, spiritually.”
“And my Anglican friends had gone in a totally different [direction], so there was this gap widening between us all the time.”
Mr. Ashenden explained how it cost him personally to follow his conscience by converting to Catholicism, noting it “was easy and difficult at the same time.”
It shut him out of the palatial parties and society he once enjoyed.
GAVIN ASHENDEN’S ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS
Gavin Ashenden has also been outspoken and candid about his own faith journey telling Fox News in 2022 it has been laden with personal suffering and touched by the supernatural.
He revealed he once had a “very strange, mystical encounter” during midnight prayers at a monastery in the 1990s that allowed him to briefly share in the agony of Jesus.
In an episode he said “has never happened before, nor since,” he was crying out to God regarding his own suffering when he saw a vision of Jesus on the cross.
After being offered an experiential window into the physical and mental anguish of crucifixion for less than 10 seconds, he begged God to remove him from the supernatural experience, which he said “recalibrated” his perspective on his own trials.
“DISCOVERING GOD GIVES A VALUE TO YOUR LIFE THAT YOU NEVER LOSE”
“Once you’ve discovered God really does love you, and He loves you to the point where He’s willing to get hurt more than you could ever imagine being hurt yourself, it gives a value to your life that you never lose,” he reflected.
“I could never look at Jesus on the cross again without thinking of what He went through in order to find me, to forgive me, to give me hope, to give me a purpose and to inspire me to stand alongside other people who are also in the dark and got stuck.”
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