Imagine a world without Protestantism. According to a recent First Things article, not much imagining is required. The magisterial Protestant traditions, we are told, have almost entirely disappeared: The world I invite you to imagine, then, is one in which this middle way—neither Roman nor Anabaptist, both traditional and reformed—has vanished. Is such a world possible? It is. In fact, we are living in it right now. Ours is a world without Protestantism. The slight problem with this assessment is that it is nonsense. To be more specific, it is nonsense in large swathes of the globe. Admittedly we can find evidence to support it in a particular North Atlantic context. We might, for example, point to the profoundly depressing account offered by the outgoing bishop of the Yukon , a diocese in the Anglican Church of Canada which, in 2019, had an average Sunday attendance of 191 . Yes, you read that correctly: 191 for an entire diocese. That shameful figure is unfortunately understandable...
Old High - Burkean - clerk in holy orders