“We are a very vibrant, dedicated church that is extremely active in carrying out Christ’s mission, and we feel that the Episcopal Church is going in a very different direction than we are,” he said.
[The Rev. Bill] Cobb said more than 200 congregations have left the Episcopal church since 2003 because they believe the church has moved away from tradition and Scripture and because a new prayer book was adopted.
Also highly controversial was the 2003 ordination in New Hampshire of the first openly gay bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson.
Cobb said the vast majority of Anglican bishops agreed that Anglican churches should not ordain those who are in same-gender unions.
“This is the official teaching for the 77-million-member Anglican Communion, and the Episcopal Church has rejected this position. I believe that the Bible teaches that Christians should should either be married or abstain from sex, and that leaders should be an example to the church,” he said.
On the weekend before the House of Bishop starts this happens. Yet one more reminder of the seriousness of the situation and the continued significant problem which TEC has on its hands.
Another part of the “tiny minority.” About 1100 members, with ASA over 600 (at least that was the 2005 numbers, the latest we have for some reason). Given the significant decline they experienced in membership from 2004 to 2005 (over 1400 to around 1100), one can see why they might not been keen to stay with the Episcopal Church.
Where did the number 200 congregations come from? Is there a reliable source for the number of departed congregations (as opposed to new starts)? Just curious.
What is a Pro Cathedral?
VA Anglican, your comment got this elf thinking…, I wondered if Louie Crew still had his list of the 300 largest ECUSA parishes (ASA) on his website and whether he’d updated it. Yes, it’s still there. No, it’s not been updated since 2002. And even the 2002 version is not all that accurate. It doesn’t have Falls Church or Christ Church Overland Park in the top 100, which should both be there based on their ASA at the time…
In any case, we did a quick scan. 10 of the 100 biggest parishes in terms of ASA have already left ECUSA
Christ Church. Plano, TX. Avg. attendance: 1,507.
Truro . Fairfax, VA. Avg. attendance: 1,471.
Grace Church. Colorado Springs, CO. Avg. attendance: 855.
Church of the Apostles. Fairfax, VA. Avg. attendance: 737.
St. John’s Church. Tallahassee, FL. Avg. attendance: 716.
All Saints. Pawleys Island, SC. Avg. attendance: 677.
Grace. Orange Park, FL. Avg. attendance: 642 .
St. James’ Church. Newport Beach, CA. Avg. attendance: 626.
not on Louie’s list
Falls Church, Falls Church Virginia ASA about 1500
Christ Church Overland Park, KS ASA about 1000
A very quick scan of the list suggests AT LEAST another 7-10 of 100 largest ASA parishes are strongly reasserting (e.g. St. Stephen’s Sewickly, PA, Cathedral Church of the Advent in B’ham, AL; Good Shepherd, Paoli, PA etc. etc.) and would either leave or have huge percentages of their members leave if/when the split becomes official.
So perhaps 20% of the largest congregations are gone or at risk. Hmmmm.
The link to Louie Crew’s website with his compilation of 2002 data on the largest ECUSA congregations is here: http://rci.rutgers.edu/%7Elcrew/biggest.html
Brief followup… My mother called a little while ago. She left the meeting at St. Clement’s before the final count was announced, but it looked to be about 500 for leaving the Episcopal Church and 50-60 for staying. Hardly surprising, in that the parish leadership has been presenting only one side of the story for years and painting anyone who opposed the move as a hard-core reappraiser.
Elves, thanks for the follow-up. This sort of information should make its way to the press as counterpoint to the 815 line that only a tiny minority are going. I’ve noticed that even when they say that, it’s usually followed by “of parishes,” ignoring the steady drip, drip, drip of departures by individuals, by children who when growing up are simply going elsewhere (if they’re going to church at all), and those who are dying and aren’t replaced by new members. The demographic disaster that even they admitted was based on then-current trends. And that is seeming to be a wildly optimistic baseline from which to extrapolate.
Perhaps the 2006 data will confirm that All Is Well. But we haven’t seen that yet, have we?
When is the data from the previous year usually out?
The vote was 460 to 41. The news article is here:
http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_6912221
Hat-tip: commenter Terry on Standfirm.
#8 – My question, also. In this technologically savvy age why isn’t data for 2006 available yet? Anybody know what the deadline was for churches to submit their 2006 data?
Physician,
A Pro Cathedral is different than an Am Cathedral (or Amateur Cathedral). An Am Cathedral is one that is built to be a regular Cathedral but has yet to figure out how to be one, such as the one up north that was just sold.
A distinctive of a Pro Cathdral is a usually well-stocked gift store, a lingering place for members, and provides a retail outlet for Cathedral event equipment. It is also known as a Pro Shoppe.
Interestingly, another distinctive of the Pro Cathedral is that “the Pro” is rarely in residence.
Seriously, though, Pro-Cathedral is short for Proto-Cathedral, which brings to mind such words as prototype, protoevangelium, protoplast. The word proto used as a prefix means “the first of its kind”, or perhaps “the first of its kind.” In reference to a cathedral, it is most often a title of honor noting that a parish church was at one time used as the bishop’s HQ, but no longer. When dioceses merge, the lesser diocese’s cathedral is sometimes given the honor of retaining the title “cathedral” even if it is not now the official “seat” or “cathedra” of the bishop, and to so designate has the prefix “pro” or “proto” added. In a few cases it seems to me dioceses without any formal cathedral have designated a parish church where they share offices with the bishop as a pro-cathedral, but it would more properly be a cathdral pro tem.
When you note that a diocese has a “pro-cathedral” it usually means there is some interesting reading ahead about the diocese’s history.
Somewhere around the time that St. Clement’s was formally given the title of Pro-Cathedral (1978), the Missionary District of New Mexico and Southwest Texas became the Diocese of the Rio Grande. Earlier in the history of the missionary district, both St. Clement’s and St. John’s, Albuquerque, were residences and working bases for Bp Kendrick. St. John’s had been designated a Pro-Cathedral in 1921, and then voted in as “Cathedral” in 1927. It is probably from this history that – with the move from “missionary district” to “diocese” – St. Clements was so honored (or more likely affirming what they already considered themselves to be), with the primary cathedral designation being retained by St. John’s.
RGEaton
Dear Rob,
Thanks so much for explaining this!
Integrity claims a membership of 1931 with 54 chapters! Compare that to the parish numbers that have left TEC over the years. Just Fals Church and Truro’s together have an ASA of over !000 more than Integrity’s entire membership. It is amazing that they have such a HUGE voice when the faithful who have left are considered as a “tiny minority”. Figures never lie but liars sure can figure!