Levelling Up? Clergy in Place in England, 2011 to 2021

Stationing clergy in socially and economically marginalised communities would fit with a theology of presence and embody a preferential option for people living in poverty. This article investigates the distribution of Christian clergy according to area variations in household and neighbourhood deprivation. It uses census data for 2011 and 2021 at local authority district level in England. Findings indicate that clergy deployment is not aligned with people living in marginalised communities, including confirmation of a north–south disparity in access to clergy and an ‘inverse care law’, namely that the availability of clergy varies inversely with socio-economic deprivation.