Expert Comment: Church-to-mosque conversions grab headlines, but is funding the real crisis?

Reverend Canon Professor William Whyte, Professor of Social and Architectural History in the Faculty of History, reacts to Reform UK's announcement that it would ‘end the incendiary practice of converting churches into mosques or any other places of worship’ - arguing that the real problem is how we can sustain places of worship in the twenty-first century.

Professor William Whyte

Micklegate Methodist Church in Pontefract is not perhaps everyone’s idea of an important architectural statement. Built in the mid-1960s, its bricky modernism evokes a ‘Pontins holiday camp vibe’ for at least one local resident, commenting on its closure in 2024.

But it was the home of a worshipping community that dated back to the early years of the nineteenth century. It is still the location for a poignant war memorial, commemorating those young men who ‘Made the Supreme Sacrifice’ in the Great War. It is hard not to feel a little sad that it is now scheduled to become a carpet warehouse.

It is one of many. In the last half century, tens of thousands of churches have closed all across the country. Some have been demolished. Others have been repurposed. They are now homes or shops or something else. Many are used for religious purposes, as new denominations succeed old. A tiny number – perhaps two dozen – have become mosques.

This week, Reform UK announced that it would ‘end the incendiary practice of converting churches into mosques or any other places of worship’. Given the vanishingly small number of buildings this could ever affect, that policy is scarcely worth noticing, except that it tells us something about the symbolic significance of church buildings even to those who are not churchgoers. It also draws attention to a genuine issue: the real problem of sustaining these places of worship in the twenty-first century.

What is a church? To some extent, the answer seems self-evident. A church is, as the official terminology puts it, ‘a place of worship’: a location for religious communities to meet. But churches are also much more than that.

What is a church? To some extent, the answer seems self-evident. A church is, as the official terminology puts it, ‘a place of worship’: a location for religious communities to meet. But churches are also much more than that. Many are important architecturally; indeed, more than 21,000 are listed, which means they are in the top tier of all heritage sites in the country. Some are tourist attractions. Some provide important secular services, hosting post-offices, childcare facilities, even pubs. Some are the only public buildings left in their communities.

Different denominations also have different understandings of the church. For some – especially Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and the Orthodox – they are specially set apart: consecrated spaces that are profoundly sacred in their own right. For others, they are simply meeting places: valuable to gather a worshipping community, but never more than that. These differences explain the willingness of some denominations to sell off their churches for almost any purpose, while the Church of England has strict rules about what how closed churches should used. It has, as a result, never allowed one to become a mosque.

The huge medieval churches of rural England were probably always too big. They celebrated their wealthy benefactors and bought them salvation rather than catering to real the needs of the community.

But all denominations have closed churches in the last half century – and some have closed thousands. This is not just because of declining attendance in general, although that is an important context for change. It is also, perhaps chiefly, because churches were built for multiple different reasons – and not just because there was demand for them.

The huge medieval churches of rural England were probably always too big. They celebrated their wealthy benefactors and bought them salvation rather than catering to real the needs of the community. The proliferation of chapels in Victorian towns, reflected denominational disputes, as schism after schism created new and ever smaller congregations. The Victorians also built in the hope of recruiting new worshippers, believing that a grand new building would itself induce conversion. They were often disappointed.

In the same week that Reform proposed to curtail the Churches’ freedom, the government announced that its scheme to support listed places of worship had run out of money and would be unable to offer any more grants for the year.

Contemporary Christians are thus faced with a mixed inheritance. They are responsible for about 60 per cent of all the listed buildings in the United Kingdom. They also have charge of a huge number of places, like Micklegate Methodist Church, which are not regarded as architecturally significant. They can sell the latter; but struggle to sustain the former – especially in those places where the population was never able to fill the building or pay for its upkeep.

In this context, what they need is financial support, not further restrictions on the disposal of buildings that many Christians themselves regard as signally unimportant. In the same week that Reform proposed to curtail the Churches’ freedom, the government announced that its scheme to support listed places of worship had run out of money and would be unable to offer any more grants for the year. This is the real scandal – and one that necessarily affects many thousands of churches.

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