US Edition FOR the first time in the history of the Church of England the number of baptised Anglicans is less than half of the country's population.
New research by the University of Sheffield has found that the number of infants born in England and baptised into the Church of England dropped to 21 per cent in 1999. Dr David Voas, a demographer at the university's department of sociology, claims that the minority status of Anglicans threatens the foundations of the Church's establishment.
The Church of Ireland and the Church of Wales were both disestablished on the grounds that they served only a minority of the population. Until now, the Church has enjoyed a nominal membership of more than half the population of England despite a decline in churchgoing.
Less than a million people regularly worship on Sundays, but among the over-50s in England some 70 per cent are baptised Anglicans.
The findings show that there was almost universal baptism before the Second World War with 75 per cent of babies christened in the Church of England in 1933. But since the war, with the exception of 1950, the number of baptisms has declined.
Dr Voas said the high number of baptisms in 1950 may have been prompted by the much publicised christening of Prince Charles.
Babies born to two Anglican parents remain the most likely to be baptised in the Church of England, the study says. Dr Voas estimates that 24 million of the 48 million people living in England this year were baptised Anglican - 49.8 per cent of the population.
He predicts that this figure will decline at a rate of a million every five years years as older people die and fewer of the young are baptised.
"Religion is being passed down like a recessive gene: it does not generally appear in the new generation unless both the parents match," said Dr Voas. "With this pattern of transmission, further erosion in church affiliation is almost inevitable."
A spokesman for the Church of England challenged the validity of the research.
"Baptism introduces people into the Christian family and not into any particular denomination and so it is difficult to calculate how many end up as Anglicans," he said. "Anyway we may be less than 50 per cent of the population but we are still the largest religious group in the country."
He dismissed the claim that a smaller church raised the case for disestablishment. "People of all faiths appreciate the fact that an established Church of England means faith has a place at the centre of the state."