My wife Sharon and I spent an extended Columbus Day weekend in the Northeast, largely in Newburyport, MA. My father was born there over 80 years ago and grew up during the depression. His family attended a Congregational church that now is a member of the United Church of Christ. We were blessed to visit family there, but we found that even in small town New England, Episcopal Church issues were having an impact.
Because when I picked up Saturday’s local paper, I couldn’t help notice a front-page article detailing the local Episcopal Church’s (one town over) struggle to survive after the majority of its congregants left for the Anglican Church of Kenya. Only 10 families remained to keep the original Episcopal Church afloat. In contrast, according to congregational statistics from the Episcopal Church, average worship attendance had been at over 300 in 2006.
That’s a huge drop. If we apply the U.S. 2006 average family size of 3.20 persons to the families that remain (and that seems to be close to the mark, given year 2000 census figures for both the town and the county), we’re looking at roughly 32 members left in the Episcopal congregation. That means that at most roughly 11 percent of the congregation did not break away to form the new All Saints Anglican Church in a nearby community and remained with the Episcopal Church.
I can’t imagine the pain that those who remain with the local congregation must feel to see their congregation shrink by roughly 90 percent.
“I can’t imagine the pain that those who remain with the local congregation must feel to see their congregation shrink by roughly 90 percent.”
Hmmm. Can we imagine the pain that caused the 90 percent to leave?
T
My wife and I come from that neck of the woods. Shje’s from Newburyport and I’m from Amesbury, where the West Newbury church is going. Does anyone know what Congo church became UCC? We couldn’t figure that one out. We thought we knew the Congo churches. But this is a clear example of why TEC’s appaent composure about “tiney minorities” is turning into balderdash. I know the West Newbury church and I cannot imagine how so few people are going to pay the bills there. I shouldn’t say, “Serves ’em right,” should I? LM
Don’t know what is happening in other parts of the country (for sure)but this is what is happening in MA. Only a small percentage of a congregation is remaining in TEC and the rest are moving on elsewhere BUT this enable TEC to say that there are no church closures and we are as stong as ever !!!
The part about long time freinds becoming strangers or even enemies, really hits home. There are times when I think back on Minneapolis. I recall leaving there and feeling I suddenly knew how the Army officers felt in 1861 when they parted ways. Yes, it is all about standing up for theological Truth, but there is still a sadness to it all.
Re #2: Two points–
I. About 90% of former Congregational Churches became members of the United Church of Christ when it was formed by a merger in 1957, after 8 years of litigation and uproar. I assume the church in or around Newburyport was one of these. There were, of course, some congregations that declined to merge and remained Congregationalist (as was their right under the congregationalist polity). At last count, there were roughly 5600 UCC congregations and 400 in the leading “continuing Congregationalist” group.
II. No, you shouldn’t say “Serves ’em right.” That would be a rather harsh thing to say to your fellow Christians who are just trying to live and worship in the parish, diocese, and denomination where many of them have grown up and which most of them have supported their entire lives (even after others started withholding their pledges). It would trivialize the pain they feel at being torn apart from people they have shared their Christian walk with for decades.
If you were to say “serves them right,” it would simply confirm their decision to stay with a denomination that they think (however mistakenly in your eyes) defines itself by what it is for, rather than by what it is against. It would tell them that whatever else you may dislike, you certainly dislike them, and are willing to be rather personal about it.
It would also tell other seekers that they shouldn’t join any church that has that sort of attitude if they are remotely interested in Christian fellowship and charity, even when there are honest differences of opinion. It would be a major blow against evangelism and for godlessness. Any denomination that had “serves ’em right” as a theme would, apart from human sinfulness, soon descend into complete irrelevance to the Gospel and disappear from the world it had turned its back on.
So, I’m glad you didn’t say it.
Dale, Why does your reasoning in point # II not apply to Truro, Falls Church et. al.? Without tring to patronize you, you seem fairly reasonable, and I agree with what you wrote. But I truly don’t see why it doesn’t apply to Katherine as well as Larry.
I would guess that those ten families are probably less than the average size. A few are probably elderly members who have been at All Saints, W Newbury, all their lives and simply could not bring themselves to leave the historic buildings, even if they agreed with Bp Murdoch and the larger congregation on the issues. I have an idea that these ten families have no more than 20 people total. And probably only a few have the skills needed to do the work required to run a parish.
When I was attending Gordon-Conwell back in the late ’80’s, All Saints, West Newburyport was a breath of fresh air and a spiritual lifesaver. My wife and I attended another Episcopal church in the area for a year and nearly died spiritually. A friend told us about All Saints, we went and were revived. This was under a previous rector to Bp. Murdoch. In fact, we enjoyed All Saints so much, they ended up being my sponsoring parish for ordination a couple years later. (I was NOT ordained in Massachusetts!) The parish has a long history of orthodox preaching and clergy, so I am not surprised that 89% left. I am surprised that 11% stayed!
Church fights, church splits, etc., are never fun. #4 is right, even standing on that which is good and right, there is a sadness when ways are parted. I think often of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, during these times. He stood and delivered the Word to the people, they rejected it, and he wept because of their hard hearts and the destruction they brought uppon themselves.
One other tidbit about All Saints, sometime back in the early ’90’s (I think), they discovered that the magnificent painting hanging in the Narthex was a long lost work by one of the old masters. They had it appraised and were told it was worth something like $1.5 million. If memory serves me right (we were gone by the time this happened), they were able to sell the painting and use the proceeds for a variety of projects that needed doing. But, I could have that wrong as I was not there. Anyway, I remember reading something about it in the news and the parish newsletter. So, at one point, the parish may have had a lot of money!
P.S. I think they used it up renovating their buildings and finishing a couple building projects that had been waiting for funding for a long, long time. But, others may know more than me about it…..
Insofar as statements by the PB or anybody else impugn the motives and sincerity of people who are just trying to live a Christian life according to their reading of the Gospels, it certainly does apply. It is possible to differ, even differ profoundly, without getting personal about it. Sometimes the people you differ with are simply mistaken, not stupid or deluded or scoundrels. Once and awhile, they may even be right and you are mistaken. We are speaking about you, not me, of course 😉 .
Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuits are hardly noted reappraisers, but the [i]Spiritual Exercises[/i] begins “let it be presupposed that every good Christian is to be more ready to save his neighbor’s proposition than to condemn it. If he cannot save it, let him inquire how he means it; and if he means it badly, let him correct him with charity. If that is not enough, let him seek all the suitable means to bring him to mean it well, and save himself.” Ignatius expressly states that this is not only for the benefit of the person being advised, but also of the person giving the advice.
Therefore, it is not only harmful to others but even to ourselves for us to assume the bad faith of those we encounter. When we demonize our opponents we move our own souls one step closer to the demons. That is not to say we should not stand up for the truth and right as we see it, only that we should be charitable in all things even while doing so.
To say that the people at Truro, et al., have the right (and indeed the responsibility) to act in accordance with their best understanding of the Gospel in the light of reason and tradition is not necessarily to say they are entitled to take the parish property with them when they form new associations outside the Episcopal Church. To say that the PB and the Bishop of Virginia also have the responsibility to act in accordance with their best understanding of their duties as ministers of the Gospel is not to say they can be punitive towards those who wish to leave. The reason everyone is resorting to the law courts is that these two visions of the Gospel, both sincerely held, are in such conflict that the Church cannot settle the matter internally.
That is a matter for weeping, not gloating. I just wanted to suggest that saying “Serves ’em right” is not only uncharitable, but so unattractively uncharitable that it is likely to drive people away. I think that it is this attitude on both sides that is primarily responsible for the precipitous decline in TEC membership. Many of those who leave these conflict situations are not going to another church, but are dropping out entirely due to burnout.
Tikvah,
Yes, of course I am very much concerned about the pain of those leaving the Episcopal Church as well. (My wife and I are long-time members of Truro Church, so we know very well the heart-wrenching decisions involved.) But I’ve expressed that sentiment many times in other pieces, and in this case, I chose to focus on the small remnant of Episcopalians that remain. If you read my whole entry, you’ll see that my point is about the gravity of the departures and the way they impact parishes. This congregation provides just one illustration.
Larry,
It’s the First Parish Church of Newbury (not Newburyport, as I may have unintentionally implied, but the towns are right next to each other).
Sincerely,
Ralph Webb
The worst thing about this is that it isn’t a zero-sum game. A torn parish like that is going to lose a lot of people who just want to get away from the fighting.
Dale–on your reply #10–I don’t read your response in #5 as being anyway near what your are saying in #10. In #5 you seem to be talking about Christian love and compassion, but in #10 you are talking about property rights. Palistine and Isreal in in conflict over who owns the land. They have been at it for 4000 +/- years and it will never be resolved until Armagedon. I see no where in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that church leaders have the responsibility fight over inanimate objects. But, as you pointed out in #5 there are levels of Christian, even basic human, compassion which everyone is ignoring. If it were my call I’d give Mr. Beers every building he covets. I don’t care about buildings. To me they are an impediment to the Gospel. But there is also compassion for those who have grown up in and supported those institutions for generations. And I sadly agree with your final conclusion–that there are many who are just dropping out. Jesus can’t consider that to be commendable.
This is another example of what a large parish can do with about 400 baptized members and plate and pledge income (2006) of about $350,000. They can leave the property and start over by buying another facility. Not so for small parishes who will have to stay with TEC and die the death “of a thousand cuts”.
There is much anecdotal evidence published about the TEC future. But the facts speak rather clearly. From 1996 through 2002, 37 of 99 dioceses were growing while 62 were declining in membership. From 2002 through 2006, 10 were growing and 89 were declining in membership. And losses in 2007 will be rather large, including All Saints in West Newbury. Kyrie eleison. Statmann
Re #13: My #10 was really a response to your #6 on why doesn’t #5 apply to the PB, et al. The short answer is, it certainly does. I don’t need to call down a plague on both houses because they have each called one down on themselves… and each other, and all the innocent bystanders.
The reference to property rights was only because that seems to be at the core of the continuing dispute between Truro and DioVA. I just wanted to point out that each side thinks they are acting reasonably from their own perspective, while the other side thinks they are mistaken. There are ways to point out other people’s mistakes that do not involve personally attacking them or gloating at their misfortune. It is the tone of this dispute, not its existence, that is farthest from the ideal of brethren dwelling in unity.
Dale Rye, from # 5 “it would simply confirm their decision to stay with a denomination that they think (however mistakenly in your eyes) defines itself by what it is for” One of the problems, obvious from the meeting in NO, is that TEC won’t clearly state what it is for!
Yes, I knew that it was the WEst Newbury Church that was changing, and, as you know, is moving to Amesbury to a former Roman Catholic church, Sacre Coeur. Three hundred yards down the road is a TEC church. I was asking about the Congo church in Newburyport.
( Incidentally, Dad Howe, I was the head of the English Department at Triton Regional High school when you became a priest. Did you know anyone who went to Triton? I had several English teachers who had gone to Gordon.)
As to “serves ’em right.” Dale’s sentiments are rightly placed, I daresay, but hard to tolerate because he does not know this church or the West Newbury community, and I do. That this fine old church – and it is old – should have been left in the hands of the TEC agenda such that all its old parishioners have had to move, what do you think their sentiments, their private ones, will be if the church cannot pay its bills? Will they say, “Dear me, how very sad”? Or will they say, ‘There, you bastards, you got what you had coming to you.” I know the answer to that question and sympathize with it entirely. These are real people in a real mess, and they have real feelings, not pieties. I also know that, as someone said, those who remain have been in this church for generations and cannot bear to move, simply cannot bear it, and for them, their old congregation will shed tears. But there are also the agenda driven, and for them, well, I know what the moved congregation will say of them, and it won’t be pieties.
It is hard to explain to those who have not lived in this area, what the locale itself means. Salem, not far from Newburyport, is the oldest part of New England, older than Plymouth. There were settlers in Portsmouth, just few miles about Newburyport and Amesbury. My ‘teeth grandfather Currier built boats in Amesbury in 1632 and he signed the papers when Amesbury was first incorporated/ He was killed by the Indians.
Many residents have been in this place since the beginning; the descendents of the Fullers are everywhere, for example. The Morses came in 1642 and we were late comers. This suffuses all social life and spiritual life, in both good ways and bad, but it is hard to put your finger on. ONe touches things, one stands in certain places, and the past – your past – reaches up into your bones and informs your memory. My grandmother, a Currier, knew geneology reaching back into the 18th century; and she knew it as a matter of course. But a Coffin would know it too, and there were dozens of Coffins.
And when I was small, I met an old old man in Joppa (a portion of newburyport) who remembered when the great square riggers sailed into Newburyport Harbor and brought sugar to the rum distilleries. (Caldwells used to be one heckova rum. Whoooeee) And there are still portions of Seabrook which speak a dialect of their own. (Seabrook is not far from Newburyport. My those ‘Brookers were a tough lot!)
To have an upstart social agenda that makes a mockery of your church and that is so offensive it drives you out, you who have been there for a century or three, well…talk to someone else about Christian charity. I believe in it, to be sure, – you are right enough – but you had better stand in those shoes for a while before you pontificate.
( I wish you could hae seen High Street before Dutch Elm disease came.The street is long, still with very old colonials and “newer” Federalist houses with the widows walks high on the roof so the wives could look down over the harbor to see what ships had returned and what never returned.
The street was lined with elms, every one hundred feet or so, both sides of the street. So old they were, that they met overhead, so the street became a mile long tunnel of green and dappled shade, such that even the hottest day would find a cool breeze blowing down this avenue. About 80 yers ago, the Japanese ambassador to the US came to Newburyport and said that it was the most beautiful street he had every seen. And so it was. To walk on the brick sidewalks was to hear crinolines, see parasols, and hears the horse drawn carriages, for this where the ship owners lived and did their business from all over the world. )
Dear me, I didn’t meant to go so long. Sorry, elves.
This is where my heart is, in another time, another world. Larry
Larry,
You misunderstood me. First Parish Church of Newbury is the Congregational church that has become part of the United Church of Christ.
Sincerely,
Ralph Webb
#14 You are absolutely correct. Large congregations (and their clergy) can afford to leave TEC. Note the high-income demographics and numbers of Truro, TFC, Plano, the Colo Spgs group, St. James, Newport, etc., etc. Each is enormous, each is wealthy, and each has a good number of very rich members who can and do donate tens of thousands per year to their church. They are anomalies.
It is the millions of lay and clergy who live and serve in the small congregations who are stuck and continue to suffer. My heart goes out to them, especially those in revisionist dioceses (which these days is most places!). Truly, they have no where to turn. That is why another ACC Province is so desperately needed to shelter orthodox Anglicans in North America. Keep praying that the Primates will hear their cry and respond clearly and soon!
#14 and #19 – you are soooo wrong. Smaller and less wealthy churches have split and moved on, leaving everything behind and still were sued by the diocese. With God’s help we have accomplished a lot in under a year including buying a new (old) Church – yes it did/does need a lot of work but what a wonderful fellowship we have. When you put your trust in the Lord and follow Him it is awesome the way He provides. Can anyone afford to stay in TEC at the cost of his/her spiritual life ? I know I could not.
Re #17: [i]…talk to someone else about Christian charity. I believe in it, to be sure, – you are right enough – but you had better stand in those shoes for a while before you pontificate.”[/i]
I think I do understand. The parish I grew up in, was baptized in, confirmed in, and belonged to until I started law school used to be a traditional Low Church congregation at the heart of its community since 1870 (before the town where it is located had even been organized). At one point in the 1960s, it was one of the largest parishes in the national church.
Beginning in about the 1980s, the clerical and lay leadership became increasingly Charismatic Evangelical, the music began moving to praise band numbers, the Prayer Book rubrics were treated as suggestions, and the sermons eventually became one-note variations on a particular version of the Penal Substitutionary Theory of the Atonement. I once heard a sermon at a Christmas Eve family service (attended by many visitors, guests, newcomers, and other inquirers) that dealt for roughly 5 minutes with the Incarnation, 2 minutes with the Resurrection, and at least 25 minutes with the Crucifixion. Hymns at most of the services were modern Gospel choruses restricted to the same theme, regardless of the church season or readings.
Parish leadership was essentially limited to those willing to commit themselves to membership in the network of small groups of the “born again.” Attendance fell—but that could be blamed on the revisionists in the national church—and there were almost enough new (often young) members to replace those who were no longer comfortable. Many older members of the church were too invested to leave, so they retreated to an 8:00 service where they could continue to worship as traditional Episcopalians.
Most of them even stayed when the parish voted itself out of one of the most conservative dioceses in the Episcopal Church (headed by one of the only bishops ever to resign because of his opposition to tendencies in the national church) and went elsewhere. Where is not yet clear, since the terms of separation from the diocese prevent the parish from affiliating with another bishop. It has become an independent community bible church, so I am technically not in communion with my mother. The entire business was such an indictment of individualistic, pietistic Protestantism that many in the diocese have been driven to Rome.
So, yes, I understand your pain. This situation is not a one-way street affecting only reasserters resisting liberal tyranny.
There are no winners here……..only losers, and we are all the worse for it.
Dear #20 Bless your heart. I never meant to imply that small parishes could not leave TEC. But the odds are not good. It is just that I have noticed that dioceses with a high percentage of “small” (plate & pledge of less than $100,000) parishes have far fewer splits or parishes leaving. For example, Northern Michigan has only 4 percent of its parishes that are “large” and it has experienced no such losses. (But it has shown the signs of that slow and steady decline associated with “small” parishes.) Then take Virginia, which has 68 percent of “large” parishes, and note the enormous problem that it has with splits and parishes leaving. This factor goes a long way in explaining how TEC can describe the present situation as minor (a small percent of parishes leaving) when in fact the losses in membership are really rather large. So, for “small” parishes I wish you following seas and soft winds.
#21: If you are part of a small congregation that accomplished a split, and were able to afford your own full-time priest and a place to worship, God bless you! However, you probably were able to do it because of a wealthy ‘angel’ or two, and/or because your priest had $$$ from family, or was about to retire from 30 or 40 years of full-time service with the Church Pension Fund. My point still stands: most priests (who are very underpaid), clergy families and small congregations (outside wealthy enclaves) are faced with financial ruin if they leave. It’s just a fact of life. Good for you that you and your congregation were able to cope. My observation is that most of those who wish to leave are not fiscally sound, and they are being left behind by the wealthier conservative congregations. These tiny groups desperately cry out to the Primates for alternative oversight through another Province!
Since you mention a lawsuit, it sounds like you are asserting the right to hang on to your property, right? That means you were not faced with finding another place to worship, and its attendant financial and psychological difficulties.
#18. Sorry. I DID misunderstand. I thought y ou were in Newburyport. Larry
#17- Larry, I knew of Triton when we were there. I don’t recall meeting anyone who attended there, though. We were transplants from the Old Dominion and not in the age group that would have kids in high school at that time. I remember the street you mention. Even without the elms, it was quite impressive, especially with all the captain’s houses. We used to admire one in particular that had a tower at one corner that went two stories above the main roof line so as to get a good view of the harbor. I remember asking my architect brother what it would cost to build in 1988 dollars. He said at least a million, probably more.
Thanks for sharing your memories.
Cennydd,
I understand your sentiment. In one sense there are no losers. However in a far more important sense, there is freedom and joy at being liberated from a deceitful and collapsing church. The caution there is to maintain stability in freedom by placing itself under a strong and supportive authority such as the province of the Southern Cone thus maintaining their identity as Anglicans.
I live in Southern New Hampshire where the nearest Anglican church is many miles away and know the pain of being Anglican and being unable to worship in an Anglican church. It beggars description that KJS would so punish a parish by extracting a promise that the price of a church’s freedom is to remove themselves from from any Anglican jurisdiction. That is simply punitive and deserving of no respect whatsoever. #20 How can a congregation leave everything behind and still be sued by the diocese?
Just to clarify one point in #21–it was the conduct of both the parish and the national church that indicted individualistic, emotive Protestantism and drove some back to the Holy See. The notion that every individual is free to read the Gospels, heed the Spirit, and impose his beliefs on everybody around him is equally alien to historic Christianity whether it is expressed by reappraisers or reasserters. To the extent that they both prefer their own way to waiting on community discernment, Bishops Robinson and Akinola are brothers under the skin.