Attendance is voluntary

Waugh's gets in many digs at Anglicans in Decline and Fall. Here is one. Paul Pennyfeather has landed in jail and gets his first visit from the prison chpalain.

Are you Church of England? [He is.] Services are voluntary—that is to say, you must either attend all or none.

If you are familiar with churches where attendance is voluntary that is the way it works. Attend regularly and you will get odd looks any time you miss a Sunday. Attend not at all and you will be greeted warmly every time you are met in the hopes that you will start coming but no one will ever make you feel guilty about it out of fear of putting you off. But attend sporadically—which, if "voluntary" means anything at all, you should be entitled to do—and you will be treated like Charles Manson out on bail every time you darken the door of your church.

Catholics never get this even though the rules are stricter in our case. Miss the service you regularly attend and everyone charitably assumes you went at some other time.

My theory about this is that churches like the Anglican are very much driven by a sense of being a community. A big part of your membership there is an obligation to be a part of that community and there is nothing voluntary about being part of a community. You are either all the way in or all the way out.

We tell our friends that their love for us is voluntary too but just try being a friend on those terms. We like to see our friends regularly and we greet long lost friends with enthusiasm but the semi-dependable friend who is there sometimes and sometimes not, him or her we don't quite like so much.