Domestic membership in the Episcopal Church dropped by 3 percent in 2008, continuing a decline in which the denomination has lost almost 200,000 American members since 2004, according to Episcopal researchers.
The Episcopal Church now counts slightly more than 2 million members in about 7,000 U.S. parishes. Church leaders say they are pleased, however, that the denomination is growing in its non-domestic dioceses, particularly in Haiti and Latin America, where the church counted about 168,000 members in 470 parishes last year.
Still, the church is “swimming against some difficult cultural tides,” Matilda Kistler, who heads a state-of-the-church committee in the denomination’s House of Deputies, said in a statement.
“Still, the church is “swimming against some difficult cultural tides,” Matilda Kistler, who heads a state-of-the-church committee in the denomination’s House of Deputies, said in a statement.” Really?
What the ECUSA/TEc is swimming against is God’s revelation, two millenia of Christian doctrine, and the Orthodox and Roman Churches, as well as the Evangelicals and Pentecostals. Isaiah 29 comes to mind.
RE: “Still, the church is “swimming against some difficult cultural tides . . . ”
Heh — this is all about a church attempting to claim that increasing secularization is what is causing their membership to plummet — when TEC has spent their time over the past two decades bellowing about how relevant they are becoming to the secular world, so that they can bring in the masses of people who all long for liberal churches.
Note that the tune has changed — they’ve accepted decline, rather than predicting growth, and so now there has to be a good reason for it. Hence . . . “we’re all in this together now — the secular tides are against us.”
Rich irony.
200,000 members lost since 2004. Did something happen in 2003 to cuase this?
I’m praying this trend will accelerate.
I’ll leave it to other commenters to detail the doctrinal and other related failings that are contributors to this decline, what I find interesting is Matida Kistler remark “”We also believe that the church-going segment of the public is aging significantly, though the committee will be seeking more definitive data to ascertain if that is so.” Memo to Matilda – if you’d like more definitive data on whether the TEC membership is aging, walk in to virtually any TEC church on any Sunday.
What is curious to me is that commentators on both the Reasserter and Reappraiser side of the question don’t ask why this phenomenon seems to afflict both conservative Anglo-Catholic and more liberal parishes a like. I have my own opinions about why this is so but I’ll say from my own perspective when my wife and I (both in our fifties) went from attending Episcopal churches in our area to taking temporary safe-haven in a contemporary Baptist church we went from being one of the younger couples to one of the older couples at church each Sunday.
Pax et Bonum!
Steve
I think that TEC is being whip sawed by a changing culture and its appalling efforts to embrace the change. One cannot be all things to all people.
In fairness though to TEC – all of the older major denominations Anglican (England), Puritan (Congregation) (England), Presbyterian (Scotland), Catholic (Ireland, Southern and Easten Europe), Lutheran (German and Scandavania) and early spinoffs Methodist (Enland) were transplant religions from different countries in Europe – as the cultural identity subsides among the different European Ethnicitites so should the denominations. Catholics still have a higher birthrate and of course larger numbers of newer immigrants. Marriage between the various ethnicities has also led to the breakdown. Catholics are also very rigid in where the Children are raised leading to fewer defections at marriage.
The only way to really combat the trend would be to have an aggressive evangelical campaing among the unchurched and other denominations.
Now as a retired priest, I spent most of my active ministry watching ECUSA throw out one belief after another over the years and an annual drop in ECUSA membership year by year. Yet I continued to uphold everything I swore to at my ordination and every parish and mission I ever served grew in both membership and stewardship while I was Vicar or Rector. Now I believe it is too late for TEC to realize what makes Churches grow – a fidelity to Scripture, Tradition and Reason. So I pray for TEC’s swift demise and AC-NA to prosper mightily.
I can’t speak for all young families but I can say that – for this lifelong episcopalian under 30 with a professional degree and 2 young children – we will not raise our family in such a morally confused denomination. unfortunately there’s no acna presence in town so for now we’re missouri synod lutherans. we appreciate the hospitality of the lutherans, and I’m proud to be among the 200,000 since 2004, but I freely admit I miss my former church.
Over the past decade I’ve made more than twenty visits to one of TEC’s “overseas” dioceses in Central America. I note that the membership given in the current article for such non-domestic dioceses leads to an average baptized membership in each of the 470 parishes mentioned of more than 350.
I’ve never witnessed the evidence of such strong membership in Honduras, although it may well be the case in places I’ve never been(!?). I have seen membership figures in print claiming as many as 80,000 Episcopalians in Honduras (Half the total in the article). Has anyone else seen these large numbers in the flesh? If anyone can point to a cluster of say ten or fifteen parishes where the countable average membership approaches what is claimed in this article, I’d be glad to know it.
Frankly what TEC needs to do is to start emulating the Obama Administration’s stimulus-jobs created/saved statisticians. Then everything will look much better.
I’ll say it again:
Inclusion = Contraction
Yes, it is a real phenomenon.
If the 3% rate of decline is linear, then there will be less than 1.5 million members by the time of the next Lambeth Conference (if there is one).
I would suspect that actual catholics are leaving or have left for the Roman and Orthodox Churches, although some have gone to ACNA; that might be a factor in the decline of really Anglo-Catholic parishes.
If TEC is merely secular humanism with incense and vestments, one might as well join the Democratic Party and sleep in on Sunday morning.
All is well.