In 1534, King Henry VIII of England broke with the Roman Catholic Church in order to establish the Church of England. Since that momentous event, serious and concerted effort over the centuries has gone into maintaining and cultivating the existence of the Anglican Church. Yet, despite such endeavors, BBC News recently reported that since 1983 Anglican Church membership has dropped by 40 percent.[1]

This dramatic decline has brought into question the practices and realities of the state-established church both in England and abroad. In the exploration of this matter, many sociologists and theologians have offered theories regarding England’s dwindling church numbers. In The Churching of America: 1776-1990, Roger Finke and Rodney Stark state, “There is ample evidence that in societies with putative monopoly faiths, religious indifference, not piety, is rife.”[2] Anglican Church numbers appear to give this idea credence.

Interestingly, though, thousands of miles away in western America, a vastly different religious environment exists in the state of Oregon. After its inclusion into the Union in 1849, Oregon never established a state church and has had a diverse religious offering for its citizens from which to choose. Despite this situation, according to Stark’s own research,[3] Oregon has the highest number of acknowledged atheists and non-Christians in the United States and is one of the least churched states in America. This appears to question the legitimacy of Finke and Stark’s own assertions. Sociologists like Steve Bruce[4] and studies like “Faith Communities Today”[5] by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research further offer an alternative evaluation of the religious scene today and in the past.

With this in mind, the aim of this study will be threefold. First, it will examine the religious environment surrounding the Church of England and its efforts to maintain its dominance and relevance in England throughout the nineteenth century to the present. Second, it will examine the mixed religious environment in Oregon and its evolution from its inclusion into the Union to its present-day liberalism. Last, it will examine and analyze the sociological effects of church autonomy looking to the historical patterns of the Anglican Church and other pivotal denominations both in England and in Oregon.

The advantage of this study will be in the plethora of material to utilize for research. Besides drawing from the valuable resources of modern Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, and Quaker Church historians, primary recorded documents of English law, and various personal journals will be examined. There will also be an opportunity to incorporate sociological resources in this venture.

Although (eventually) it will be necessary to travel to Birmingham (UK) to engage in crucial and quintessential research that can only be done in England, much preliminary work can be accomplished in the Portland, Oregon area. Within thirty minutes of each other lie four different libraries to exploit in researching this topic—George Fox University (both in Newberg and at the Portland Center), Western Baptist Seminary, and Mt. Angel Catholic Seminary. Further resources for study may also be found at the numerous private and public universities and colleges nearby. This makes this location ideal for initial research and study.

The sociology of religion is far more than just numbers and statistics. Quaker theologian John Punshon has stated, “Christianity is not isolated from the cultures that surround it; it often reflects the tensions and conflicts of those cultures.”[6] The state of religion today in Oregon and England appear to mirror this truth. Hopefully, research on this topic will provide a clearer understanding of how and why church influence in society has waxed and waned over the years.

[1] BBC News, UK is 'losing' its religion <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1043986.stm>

[2] Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, Churching of America (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 19.

[3] <http://www.socstark.com>

[4] Steve Bruce, Religion, Modernity, and Postmodernity (Oxford,: Blackwell, 1998).

[5] <http://fact.hartsem.edu/>

[6] John Punshon, Reasons for Hope (Indiana: Friends United, 2001), 25-26.