Anglican Church ‘alive and well’

Far from slowly dying, the Anglican Church in Barbados is healthy, says Bishop of Barbados Dr John Holder.
The Bishop told Starcom Network Inc. yesterday it was a matter of people choosing which Sunday to attend church.
“I think the Anglican Church in Barbados is healthy,” he said. “The strength is there on the ground, in the parishes. What we normally have in our church is sometimes persons choosing which Sunday, or which hour on a Sunday, they would attend. So you would never get all of them at the same time in the same place.”
Holder, who is also Archbishop of the West Indies, said this had been a regular practice by members of the Anglican faith “for a long time”.
He was responding to Anglican priest David Yarde’s comment that the church appeared to be slowly dying as it was losing members worldwide, with churches overseas being turned into department stores, pubs, theatres and schools.
Yarde said that while Barbados was not experiencing that level of change, people’s hearts were closing to the Anglican faith.
“Whether we believe it or not, many of our ‘faithful’ congregation members have already gone and others are in the departure lounge awaiting exit,” he said.
Yarde accused the Anglican Church of having too many social cliques, of not changing with the times, and having inflexible leaders who believed they were chief executive officers.