Local Episcopalians were briefed this week on where the long-simmering dispute involving the church’s stance on homosexuality stands, specifically the ordination of homosexuals.
The Rev. Lewis Payne of Quincy, a retired Anglican priest, presided over a general information meeting.
“It was nothing major, there was nothing new,” Payne said. “These kinds of meetings are always held a couple of weeks before the (state) convention in each of the deaneries, or regional units.”
This year’s convention is scheduled for Oct. 19-20 in Moline.
The dispute over homosexuality in the church, which has been going on for at least 30 years, has worsened in part because of a larger clash about biblical interpretations. Tensions heightened in 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay man, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire.
At that time, St. John’s Episcopal Church of Quincy was part of a growing number of churches, parishes and dioceses around the country taking the first steps toward breaking away from the mainline denomination and placing themselves under the authority of a foreign bishop, most of them in Africa.
More than 7,700 Episcopal congregations in the United States have left the church in recent years.
Is that statistic correct?
My research shows that there are 7,220 parishes in TEC. Their numbers can not be right.
According to the church statistics for 2004, there was a loss of 20 parishes. My guess is that that number may be as high as 60 by now, but that is still a long way off from 7,700.
Brian, My guess is in the hundreds. Maybe two or three hundred. Remember 11 parishes left Virginia alone
Bill
I think that 200+ is way too high. Assuming that 2007 has seen the largest number of defections (which my best guess is around 25), then the number really shouldn’t be over 100 since 2003.
Elves, do you have any statistics or ’round ups’ of the numbers?
Thanks
Brian
Also Bill, I think by the end of 2007 the number will be more like 200-300.
Great catch, Brian. Always good to watch the press and make sure their articles are correct. The following appears at the bottom of the article:
Contact Staff Writer Steve Eighinger
at seighinger@whig.com
or (217) 221-3377
I suggest you send him an email.
Actually one could argue (and the KJS crowd does) that the correct number is 0. Zero PARISHES have left TEC, they would argue. As long as there are 3 members who disagree with the parish decision to disaffiliate, then those three persons constitute the true TEC parish and the rest of the people are just INDIVIDUALS leaving.
I think this is sophistry and BS myself, but there is a case to be made for it. The correct sentence the journalist should have written would be something like:
“More than ____ Episcopal congregations in the United States have attempted to leave TEC in recent years.”
Where the blank is probably a very small number. 100 is a far closer number to reality than 7220. (Does anyone know the real number who have truly announced a complete seperation?) Of course, by way of response to the smallness of the number, I’d argue that the number would be far higher if parishes had a safe place to go without legal reprisal.
The ACN page for the International Conference (http://www.acn-us.org/icon/) lists ninety congregations, not including CANA and AMIA communities. Not all may be the result of formal congregational departure, but it provides some sort of context.
2006 may be the largest year so far with the Virginia Parishes having departed as a group in December. I expect 2007 to end higher though.
Over on Vol (San Antonio, Texas: Largest Orthodox Anglican Parish Joins Nigeria) it states that CANA has 50 congregations with 15 more in the pipeline and the Common Cause bishops represent 600 congregations. (not all of those have left TEC….it is just a matter of time, however)
I am convinced that there are not too many statistics in the Episcopal Church that are reliable. Congregational Membership numbers are usually inflated due to people be listed as members but haven’t walked through the church doors for years, or congregations that have left but there are still a remnant faithful to ECUSA who are then counted as congregations. I know of several congregations where the average age of the parishioners is well over 70 and the people are just hanging around long enough to be buried at the church.
In this article, Kendall posted the following numbers:
If you add those up, you get somewhere between 260 and 285 parishes in the “alphabet soup.” Now of course, as Kendall notes, some of those are plants rather than breakaway TEC congregations; but on the other hand there may well be TEC parishes that have left to somewhere else than the African missions.
So all in all I’d say that somewhere in the vicinity of 300 seems like a plausible number.
Some of the the continuing church plants were made possible by and are currently populated with ECUSA refugees. A single “parish” might not have defected as a legal unit but a stream of folks plenty enough to make one or more parishes in some areas sure did.
Inasmuch as TEC, through its apostasy, has left Christ’s Church to start a weird infertility cult, perhaps those 7000+ congregations still within TEC really have “…left the Church in recent years”.
Will somebody please tell them?
Who is responsible for the constant stream of lies that this is all about homosexuals?
[i] A comment from Elf Girl:
I don’t have data on actual departures. Total of ICON + AMiA + CANA is over 250, but some of those are church plants. [/i]
Elf Lady
Thanks John Stamper
I actually e-mailed the author around Noon including links to various info.
No response yet, but I’ll post if he does.
[i]15. Rolling Eyes wrote:
Who is responsible for the constant stream of lies that this is all about homosexuals?[/i]
Who else? The father of lies, and the homosexuals themselves.
At http://ecusadepartures.blogspot.com/ 48 churches were listed as of Sept. 6, 2006. Too bad the person who started that list didn’t continue it.
Here is the e-mail I received from the author:
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the note, and yes that was obviously a mistake. The sentence was supposed to have read “More of the 7,700 congregations” would likely be following suit in the coming years, etc., etc. Somewhere along the line of editing things got really screwed up.
Thanks again for the note.
— Steve