A Church of Ireland bishop has said that to call oneself "Protestant" in Ireland today was "to make a political not a faith statement."
At the Connor diocesan synod in Belfast the bishop, Right Rev Alan Harper, said: "We no longer live in a Christian society. Modern society, even in Co Antrim, is now at best post-Christian."
He continued: "It might almost be said that we find ourselves in a situation analogous to that faced by many missionary dioceses overseas, except that we have not acknowledged the sea of unfaith, indifferentism, and ignorance of the scriptures, worship and the Christian religion that surrounds us."
Many families were "un-churched, a proportion of them several generations distant from any real engagement with the things of Christ. To call oneself 'Protestant' nowadays is to make a political not a faith statement. It is time for us to waken from our slumber," he said.
Meanwhile, though it had been forecast that Northern Ireland's population is to increase by 6 per cent by 2015, there were now "fewer ordained stipendiary clergy in post than ever before in the modern history of the Church Of Ireland," he said.
And of clergy in training for ordination "roughly one half are training for ordination to the auxiliary (part-time) ministry," he said, while many coming forward for such training were late vocations, indicating "that the length of service offered by clergy in the ordained ministry is significantly reduced."
"People hate change, but sometimes the choice is between change and a lingering death.
"Evolutionary, that is, incremental change in response to emerging circumstance, is more appropriate in church life than revolutionary change."