A day conference is taking place this Friday based on a new academic study into growth and decline in the Anglican Communion over recent decades. The conference, at the University of Roehampton in southern England, follows the recent publication of a new book, “Growth and Decline in the Anglican Communion – 1980 to the Present.” The publication was prepared by an international team of researchers based across five continents; the study provides a global overview of Anglicanism alongside twelve detailed case studies of Anglican churches in Australia, Congo, England, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, South America, South India, South Korea, and the US. It was edited by the Revd Dr David Goodhew, director of ministerial practice at Cranmer Hall, part of St John's College at Durham University.

Publishers Routledge say: “This book is a critical resource for students and scholars seeking an understanding of the past, present and future of the Anglican Church. More broadly, the study offers insight into debates surrounding secularisation in the contemporary world.”

Speakers at the conference include Professor David Voas, professor of social science at University College London (UCL); Dr Emma Wild-Wood, lecturer in world Christianities at the Cambridge University Faculty of Divinity; the Rt Revd Dr Graham Kings, mission theologian in the Anglican Communion; and study editor the Revd Dr David Goodhew.

“The essays in this book invite readers to further discourse on growth and decline within the respective provinces of Anglicanism in particular, and within Christianity in general,” Professor Jesse Mugambi, from the University of Nairobi in Kenya, said. “The book is worth reading as a whole, and informative in its wide range of contributions.”

Grace Davie, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Exeter, described the book as “a veritable goldmine”, adding: “it contains a huge amount of mostly numerical information on the Anglican Communion in all its fullness. “Quite rightly it eschews easy generalisations, probing instead the complex and evolving mosaic that constitutes modern Anglicanism. Almost every reader will be surprised about something” she said.”

Tickets for the day conference on 24 February 2017 cost £80 GBP, with a 50 per cent reduction for students.