A report presented to the Presbyterian General Assembly in Belfast has concluded that the church is no longer seen as the bedrock of Irish society "north or south of the Border".
In the report, "Engaging With Community", Dr Gary Millar, of the Presbyterian Church's Board of Social Witness, stated: "No longer is the church allowed the final word in matters of morality. No longer is the church's opinion sought on every matter of importance in our community. We are experiencing a seismic shift in Western culture - Christians from every tradition are having to come to terms with the fact that life will simply never be the same again."
In an analysis for the report, Sir Fred Catherwood, a former British Conservative MEP and vice-president of the European Parliament, recalled how, after the depression of the 1930s and the second World War, governments committed themselves to full employment and a national health service. So, for 50 years, "not only was the church no longer the first resort of the poor and needy . . . it was thought to be part of the problem and not part of the solution".
The "social gospel" of the last century had emptied the pews and materialism had taken over as the ruling creed. "If there was no God and no life after death, then it made sense to grab what you can . . . and if there was no right and wrong, then it did not matter if we left our wives and children for someone else. So an even bigger disaster followed: the family started to break up."
The extent of this "disaster in our society" could hardly be exaggerated, he said. It was also unprecedented. "Until now, every religion and every society throughout recorded history has made the family the cornerstone of the social system.
"A quarter of our families [in the UK] are now broken . . . and we are now getting to the position where grandparents, who used to step in to help, have already broken up. At the current rate of deterioration, half the families will soon be broken."
No Christian church could "ring-fence itself from this disaster", he said, adding that, in "our newly pagan society", people once more were knocking on the church doors for help.
Dr Esmond Birnie, a UUP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and a Presbyterian elder, noted in the report that the decline in voting and political activism, like that in church membership, had been occurring for some time. However, if a relatively small number of Christians were to become politically active, this could have "immense consequences".
