There is an emerging debate about the growth of Anglicanism in sub-Saharan Africa. With this debate in mind, this paper uses four statistically representative surveys of sub-Saharan Africa to estimate the relative and absolute number who identify as Anglican in five countries: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. The results for Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania are broadly consistent with previous scholarly assessments. The findings on Nigeria and Uganda, the two largest provinces, are likely to be more controversial. The evidence from statistically representative surveys finds that the claims often made of the Church of Nigeria consisting of ‘over 18 million’ exceedingly unlikely; the best statistical estimate is that under 8 million Nigerians identify as Anglican. The evidence presented here shows that Uganda (rather than Nigeria) has the strongest claim to being the largest province in Africa in terms of those who identify as Anglican, and is larger than is usually assumed. Evidence from the Ugandan Census of Populations and Households, however, also suggests the proportion of Ugandans that identify as Anglican is in decline, even if absolute numbers have been growing, driven by population growth.

This article unearths the forgotten history of the first modern church planting scheme in the Church of England: an attempt to restructure parish ministry in Chester-le-Street, near Durham, in the 1970s and 1980s. This story of rapid growth followed by decline, and of an evangelical church’s strained relations with their liberal bishop, David Jenkins, has pertinence for contemporary Anglican antagonisms over ‘fresh expressions’ and other church planting programmes. A culture of mistrust is arguably apparent both then and now, between liberals and conservatives in ecclesiology, even as the same line divides those of the reverse tendency in broader, doctrinal theology: conservatives from liberals. Developments, decisions and, indeed, debacles in the story of Chester-le-Street parish point to the urgent need for liberals and conservatives in Anglican ecclesiology and theology to overcome their mistrust of each other by recognizing the other as valuable for the mutual strengthening and renewal of the Church.

In recent decades Anglicans have developed a largely unquestioned and unchallenged narrative of global growth and decline. This narrative tells a story of Anglicanism’s success being largely due to growth in developing, postcolonial nations which, according to the narrators, is ongoing and unstoppable. At the same time, first-world, mostly postmodern nations have seen a steep decline in church membership and attendance. Numeric growth and strength have been used to define ecclesial identity and to legitimate understandings of ‘Anglican orthodoxy’. This article offers an up-to-date reappraisal of Anglican Communion membership and, in that process, challenges many of the premises of such a narrative.

Leadership remains the biggest challenge facing the Church in Africa today. The Anglican Church in Kenya (ACK) was started in 1844, but was it was not until 1888 that the official training of church leaders was commenced with the opening of a Divinity School at Frere Town. Since its inception the ACK has experienced a tremendous growth in membership, growing at the rate of about 6.7 per cent per annum. In spite of this rapid growth, the ACK is in leadership crises due to lack of enough and well-equipped clergy to run it. The Anglican population of about 3,711,890 Christians is served by only about 1555 clergy, translating to clergy per Christians ratio of about 1 : 2400. This affects the Church's mission in that it is impossible for one clergy to effectively provide spiritual care to 2400 Christians. On top of this, the majority of the clergy currently serving in the ACK are not properly trained to match the rapidly changing Kenyan society. About 83 per cent of these clergy have diploma and below theological qualifications. If the ACK has to be successful in its mission in this century, it has to reconsider its training systems.

The Church of England remains deeply divided over the ordination of women. The present study charts the debate from the early 1990s and reanalyses centrally collected statistics to identify how the 42 mainland dioceses have responded so differently to the opportunity to ordain women to the priesthood. Then the rate of growth or decline in terms of membership statistics within the dioceses is assessed against their attitude toward the ordination of women. The data demonstrate that dioceses which have apparntly encouraged the ordination of women have overall experienced neither greater nor lesser decline in terms of membership statistics than dioceses which have apparently discouraged the ordination of women.