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UK forward slash phys24. This offer is UK-only and subject to availability. Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast.

I'm Damien Thompson.

In the Christmas issue of The Spectator, the historian and novelist A.N. Wilson has written an elegant, if unseasonal essay on the

extinction of mass Christianity in Britain. Do not seek false comfort from packed London congregations

at the Brompton Oratory, or its charismatic Anglican neighbour, Holy Trinity Brompton, he says.

The real story is a regular church going in England, Scotland and Wales, in wretched decline

for decades, entered its terminal phase during the pandemic.

Cathedrals have been swallowed by the heritage industry, which is basically how we like it.

Attending Evensong is hardly more significant

than tuning in to Radio 3. Yet, A.N. Wilson himself loyally attends Anglo-Catholic services,

having rediscovered his faith a few years ago. And as you're about to hear, even today, nothing fascinates him more than the highways and byways of English

churchmanship. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. You say in this devastating, very

clear-eyed article, that you used to think that congregations were still holding up,

and this suggested that religion was not as dead as the statisticians would have as believe.

But now you have your doubts.

Listening to call Eden Song on Radio 3 is a nice thing to do, but it's not the same thing as being religiously observant.

Going to a cathedral service is surely for many of us only a step away from radio three.

You acknowledge that there's tremendous vigour in the worship of the Brompton Oratory

and next to it, Holy Trinity Brompton.

But these are a tiny percentage of the population.

And these churches which are so-called successful,

...