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Church Going, with Giles Fraser

Rev Giles Fraser looks at the stats and visits his parishes from the past to work out the state of Christianity in England.

Giles Fraser is a vicar in the Church of England concerned about the current state of church attendance. His parish is doing well but like most priests, he's nervous about the numbers and notes the overall decline in worship since the Sixties. He considers the poem 'Church Going' by Philip Larkin as his starting point. It imagines what will happen to these buildings, and to Christian faith, when we stop going to church entirely. Is Giles now a missionary in a world that is indifferent to what he has to say? With this thought, he sets off to work out where we are, talking to people on the ground and experts in the field.

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