30. Religion in Britain Today - the Faiths other than Christianity. Anglicanism

In 1536, the Church in England split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority. Later the influence of the Reformation resulted in the Church of England adopting its distinctive reformed Catholic position known as Anglicanism

Roman Catholicism

Main article: Catholic Church in England and Wales

The English Church was heavily influenced by Rome from the arrival of St Augustine of Canterbury who arrived in AD 588, until the final break with Roman control at the accession of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558.

The early years of the UK were difficult for English adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, although the persecution was not violent as they had experienced in the recent past, for instance under thePopery Act 1698, that affected adherents in England and Wales. The civil rights of adherents to Roman Catholicism were severely curtailed, and there was no longer, as once in Stuart times, any Catholic presence at court, in public life, in the military or professions. Many of the Catholic nobles and gentry who had preserved on their lands among their tenants small pockets of Catholicism had followed James II into exile, and others at last conformed to Anglicanism, meaning that only very few such Catholic communities survived.

In the late 18th and early 19th century most restrictions on Catholic participation in public life were relaxed under acts such as the Papists Act 1778, Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 and Catholic Relief Act 1829. This process of Catholic Emancipation met violent opposition in the Gordon Riots of 1780 in London. In the 1840s and 1850s, especially during the Great Irish Famine, while the bulk of the large outflow of emigration from Ireland was headed to the United States, thousands of poor Irish people also moved to England, establishing communities in cities and towns up and down the country such as London and Liverpool, thus giving Catholicism a huge numerical boost. In 1850, the Catholic Church in England and Wales re-established a hierarchy.

Recently, the rights of Catholics were restored even further with the allowing of the spouses of Royals to be Catholic.^[2] Daniel O'Connell was the first Catholic member of Parliament^[3]. Since then, there have been several Catholic Members of Parliament.

[Edit]Methodism

A strong tradition of Methodism developed from the 18th century onwards. The Methodist revival was started in England by a group of men including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles as a movement within the Church of England, but developed as a separate denomination after John Wesley's death.

[Edit]Pentecostal

Pentecostal churches are continuing to grow and, in terms of church attendance, are now third after the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.^[4] There are three main denomination of Pentecostal churches;

• Assemblies of God in Great Britain are part of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship.

• Apostolic Church.

• Elim Pentecostal Church.

The is also a growing number of independent, charismatic churches that encourage Pentecostal practices at part of their worship, such as Kingsgate Community Church in Peterborough which started with 9 people in 1988 and now has a congregation in excess of 1,500.