They have also raised fears that the proposals represent an attempt "to move legislative authority" away from the General Synod, the Church's parliament, and to the Archbishops' Council, the policy body at the heart of Church management.

Some even fear that the proposals are a "clandestine means" of removing legal constraints and "ceding untrammeled authority to the bishops and to the Archbishops' Council," according to the critique.

The Church of England will be extinct by 2100 in terms of attendance and 2082 in terms of membership, claims John Hayward, writing on the blog of the Church Growth Modelling project.

The Anglican Church, once a key institution in the English-speaking world, has been in decline for over half a century, he says, and although some churches are growing, particularly on the evangelical wing, the overall trend is downwards.

Decaying masonry and rusting metal work have put 887 places of worship on the critical list as service attendance numbers continue to plummet.

A Save Our Spires appeal has just been launched to protect the 40 most threatened steeples while other of the Church of England's 16,000 buildings face closure because of the perilous state of repair.

The crisis is impacting religious services and community resources from scout meetings to zumba classes.

Officials call it urgency; critics say it is panic. The Church of England, the thinking goes, is about to shrink rapidly, even vanish in some areas, unless urgent action is taken. This action, laid out in a flurry of high-level reports, amounts to the biggest institutional shake-up since the 1990s. Red tape is to be cut, processes streamlined, resources optimised. Targets have been set. The Church is ill -- and business management is going to cure it.