Word: englands
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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SALESMAN. The Maysles Brothers spent six weeks filming a group of New England Bible salesmen at work to produce this arresting and occasionally appalling cinema verite record of one desperate part of American society...
...Entering a pew, he would take off his shoes and stockings, then empty his pockets on the pew beside him and listen most attentively to the sermon. If anything the preacher said appealed to him, he would let out a shrill whistle that was heard all over the church. "England," writes Santayana, "is still the paradise of eccentricity, heresy, anomalies and humours...
...typical story. Throughout the English countryside, the small country parishes that were once the bulwark of the Anglican faith are empty and neglected, even though a few indomitable souls like Enderby try to keep them alive. Their exteriors crumbling like the yellowing pages of an old Psalter, England's 10,000 or so picturesque country churches are sad reminders of a vanishing way of life. Except for occasional tourists, few people ever visit them; each year their congregations grow ever smaller. "There hasn't been a wedding here in twelve years," laments one venerable priest who stubbornly refuses...
...dirge reflects not only the declining impact of religion generally but some hard demographic facts. Largely because of farm mechanization, England's rural population has dwindled by 75% in the past half-century; in some isolated pockets of Sussex and East Anglia, it has fallen to 2% of the pre-World War I level. But while the people have gone, their churches remain. Near the village of Tetford, for example, there are seven miniature churches, most of them nearly 200 years old, that were built by the old town gentry in a kind of keeping-up-with-Squire-Jones...
Although the crisis in England's country churches has long been in the making, Anglican leaders are becoming increasingly concerned about it. Lacking the money or the manpower to maintain them, the bishops of some rural dioceses have been pronouncing certain parishes "redundant"-that is, they withdraw recognition of the church, order its old doors locked, and if no other use can be found, declare the building ready for demolition. "The church is for people; it is not a society for the preservation of ancient monuments," said a recent diocesan report in Lincolnshire, where 57 rural parishes have already...