A new study in Britain shows that, contrary to expectations, church membership in the UK is growing. Despite the rampant secularism advocated by the likes of Richard Dawkins and fostered in much of academia and the media, the general trend is toward most church attendance.

Closely examined in the Church of England newspaper, the study from Cranmer Hall in Durham suggests that there is concurrent decline in Christian churches--even closure of various parish churches--while elsewhere and perhaps less noticed new church plants are taking place, people moving to boom towns are joining congregations and black immigrants from the Global South are finding worship homes. Prosperous London is especially notable for growth, including in the Church of England.

Overall, it would seem that new independent churches are outperforming mainline denominations. In a small way, the trend seems to echo the general trend in the world, where Global South churches and churches of newer denominations are gaining adherents, while the establised European churches, Catholic and Protestant, are declining.

In the US church attendance (as of 2010) is growing slightly, probably along the same lines. In all these cases, it has to be said, there is evidence that some people tend to exaggerate their church attendance.