It’s always intriguing to see which churches have grown and which denominations have faded in the past year. According to the 2008 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches (a Bible of sorts for us religion writers), the fastest-growing religious body in 2007 was the Jehovah’s Witnesses at 2.25 percent.
Following them were the Mormons at 1.56 percent and the Roman Catholics at .87 percent. Compare this to last year’s states that had the Catholics out front at 1.94 percent, followed by the Assemblies of God at 1.86 and the Mormons at 1.63.
The denomination with the biggest decrease is the Episcopalians at 4.15 percent.
Note that if they combined the Greek Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of America, that would knock LCMS and TEC down a notch, at a little over 2.5 million.
If you really want to be afraid, Google the number of US muslims.
At best they would be #3 (some estimates as high as 12M) and at least, they likely crack the top 10. [blockquote]”According to an academic review of available survey-based data in 2001, informed by information provided by Muslim organizations and mosques, the highest reasonable total number of Muslims in the United States is 2.8 million”.[/blockquote]
I was not there when Katherine Jefferts Schori was chosen. To anyone who was, was there any discussion of how she managed to shrink the diocesan rolls by 10% in her tenure of bishop of Nevada when the state population led the Union in population growth?
She has now taken these same skills to the national level. To be honest, it is hard not be gleeful that the revisionistas have chosen her as their leader. (I need to go say 10 hail Mary’s for that uncharitable thought, maybe 20 because it is Lent.)
ALL IS WELL. These statistics mean nothing. Nothing! Nothing!
Sgt. PB Katharine Jefferts-Schori.
No church in America lost more people percentage wise.
Regarding TEC and statistics – remember that the statistical numbers can never leave. Individuals can leave, but the statistical numbers will always remain Episcopal. Therefore all rumors you may have heard about steep declines in TEC’s membership are all lies.
It’s not just about figures.
Surely.
Is it?
Deleted-ed.
Can we please go easy on the cynicism? This is a tragedy.
While it is not membership related, I offer this link about my home parish, St. James, Dallas as an antidote to bad press about the Episcopal Church. I (and about 50 others) spent yesterday afternoon filling bags of food in a program called “Kids Against Hunger.”
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
In case I don’t get the HTML right, here is the link
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/dallas/stories/021808dnmetkidsagainsthunger.19b8a2d.html
Pardon my “cynicism,” Kendall, but there’s nothing tragic about faithful Christians fleeing heresy unless you consider the perpetuation of the apostate institution more important than the spreading of the Gospel.
Jeffersonian,
The tragedy is that the Church I loved and still love; the Church where I met Jesus Christ; the Church wherein I received New Life; the Church that called me to ordained ministry and in which I live out my diaconate has left the path of Wisdom and settled for a lie rather than worshipping the Truth (John 14:6).
The tragedy is in the loss of truth and mission and knowledge of (rather than about) God.
I hope and pray that this severs as God’s 2×4 to wake up the leadership in the Episcopal Church so that they repent and return to the Lord (I seem to remember that being part of our Baptismal Covenant).
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
If I did the math correctly, by my reckoning 93,286 Episcopalians repented and returned to the Lord last year. Praise God!
While a convert to Episcopalianism, I too had fondness in my heart for that Church, Phil. But we both know that Church is dead and that the mere loss in membership will not divert the heretical from their path.
The topic, which we are incessantly reminded to stick to, is the loss in membership. And to that I say “Bravo!” insofar as it brings us one day closer to the unlamented demise of the apostate organization and the resurrection of a faithful Anglican Province in North America. We should cheer these numbers, not bewail them.
Dcn Snyder,
I was driving down Audelia yesterday and noticed your beautiful church, which I had actually seen. But the octagonal building (parish hall?) behind it is a beautiful addition. Much improved over the older 60s buildings.
WM (#15) – come in some Sunday and worship with us! The building behind us isn’t actually octagonal, just the part facing Audelia is. I invite you to stop by some Sunday and worship with us. Our services are at 8:00 (said) and at 10:00 (normal choir). We have Sunday School for all ages at 9:00.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Well, Jeffersonian (#14), you are entitled to your own emotional reaction. I don’t find these numbers much of a source of any strong emotion; they are simply based on submitted parochial report data with all the uncertainty that surrounds such unverifiable data.
But this kind of self-reported church demographic data is at least useful for observing trends over multi-year periods. And there the trends are very clear, and of course they are very ominous for TEC and all the other so-called “mainline” denominations, which have been in steady, relentless decline for over 40 years now. This is especially true when you factor in population growth. When we peaked in membership in the mid 1960s (1966 I believe was our zenith), we had 3.6 million members, but more importantly that represented something like 2% of the national population (I’ve forgotten the details, I’d be happy to be corrected). Today, not only have we slipped down to a supposed (and probably still quite inflated) “2.15 million.” Our percentage of the national population has shrunk even more dramatically, so that we are well below 1% of the population now (with around 300 million residents of the US today). And all indications are that our decline is going to accelerate significantly in the coming years, as more and more congregations depart TEC (or their departure is finally admitted by the local diocese, which no longer pretends those churches remain in the institutional fold). And that doesn’t even take departing dioceses into account, or the massive hemorraging of individuals at the parish level that continues on all sides.
All this amounts to clear evidence of a church under judgemnt all right. And that’s why I essentially agree with Kendall. This is a serious matter, and a cause for lamentations and repentance.
But at the same time, the New Reformation is indeed underway. And there is plenty of objective evidence that the New Anglicanism is flourishing in America.
FWIT, as a former Pentecostal and a proud participant in three outstanding Assembly of God congregations in the past, I draw attention to the continuing growth of the AoG denomination. When you factor in the fact that the Assemblies doesn’t count children as members, it should be a real wake-up call for some people that this “upstart” group has already effectively displaced not only TEC and the PCUSA, but it has even outgrown the ELCA, and should rightly be counted as one of the major denominations in America. That is, TEC and the Presbyterians are strictly has beens, formerly great and mighty institutions that are now just shadows of their former selves. Of course, on the other hand, TEC and the PCUSA continue to be disproportionately represented at the highest levels of wealth and power in this country. That is, we in TEC make up something like 10% of the Senate, and over 10% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 Corporations and so on. And to many in TEC, that’s all that really matters. That’s the way it’s been since Colonial times. Let the Baptists and the Methodists have the riff raff and the accursed rabble. As long as we have the aristocracy, “all is well.”
David Handy+
The tragedy is that some are so yoked to this sinking ship of heresy that they have lost hope and feel that it is their fate to go down with the ship. The dioceses of South Carolina and Dallas are prime examples. I personally grow tired of being part of an organization that drives more people from Christ than leads to Him. Fond recollections of the church that I grew up in have been supplanted by lawsuits, open communion, denial of scripture, oppression of the orthodox, etc.
Unfortunately, Chazaq, some have escaped into the welcoming arms of our Saviour but others have fallen into apostasy.
[blockquote]For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.[/blockquote]
To all of it I say, “So what?”
The real test will be how many of our brightest and best grow spines between now and GC ’09 and bring the fight to the street. ‘Nuff perplexing, prognosticating, and pomposity. The best organizational skills should be at work right now to make GC ’09 a wasteland for Schori and her acolytes. It will take plenty of homework and legwork. Time away from the keyboard will be required.
It is sadly predictable. One wonders what the bottom is on the current trajectory. Of course results don’t matter when assessing these types of things, only the intention of inclusion. The answer to people leaving because of post-modern theology and uber-liberalism? More of it! On a personal note I started as a Presbyterian and became an Episcopalian. I hope this tend doesn’t follow me to the AMiA.
The figures may be worse (or better) than the story suggests. There’s a considerable lag between what is true on the ground and when it gets reported. Many of the figures in the 2008 yearbook are based on reports of 2006 figures from the field received at denom headquarters in 2007.
An aside: some of the figures are a complete joke. Member churches in a number of denominations keep no records at all. It’s a matter of guestimating (or writing fiction). Several of the predominantly black denominations, for example, are in that category. The same “estimates” — pulled out of the air — are reported year after year. Insiders in one of those denominations testified in court proceedings back in the 1990s that actual membership couldn’t be more than half of what was traditionally being reported (5 million), and probably was much less. But no one knew, and there was no way to know.
The figures also can be misleading in other ways. Some denominations and faith groups include in their figures all members worldwide. Some include children, others don’t.
For all of its problems, TEC ranks as one of the best denominations in tracking and reporting membership and attendance figures.
w.w.
As orthodox leave and power becomes more concentrated in the hands of the “liberals” Will TEC increase the rate of “leftward libral” movement and downward spiral? People have talked about congragations needing about 75 members to be self sustained. How many congragations are now reaching that point? In short is TEC going to become a “blue state” church gone from the heart land and only metropolitan? I do love the traditional Episcopal church and I am grieved!
I agree the Episcopal decline is sad and I hope will turn around soon.
But if you conclude from these figures that they prove that TEC is heretical and dying and has lost the blessing of God, you must also conclude I suppose that Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons (and the Muslims?) are orthodox and being blessed by God.
Why, of all thing s, would the Jehovah’s Witnesses increase? What possible reason? Larry
You forget that Episcopalians are much to intelligent to have babies, at least according to the PB, and that’s the reason for the decline. Those Jehovah’s Witnesses must be reproducing like rabbits to outpace the Mormons & RC’s in growth.
Jehovah’s Witneses have an aggressive outreach to hispanics, and I suspect that fuels their growth. Also, they are a smaller group, so their stats are more sensitive to individual situations.
Actually, I’ve been wondering how significant these growth rates are. Is 2.25% really that much more than 1.57%? Sure it’s (more-or-less) 50% more, but…
[blockquote]Well, Jeffersonian (#14), you are entitled to your own emotional reaction. I don’t find these numbers much of a source of any strong emotion; they are simply based on submitted parochial report data with all the uncertainty that surrounds such unverifiable data. [/blockquote]
True, but if there’s any bias at work here it will be in the direction of minimizing the decline of TEC. We should consider the 4.15% a best-case (in the view of TEC) scenario. The decline is most likely greater than reported, something I consider to be good.
Thank you for the permission for my emotions. Do others expressing sadness also have your leave to emote?
I agree with w.w. above (#21) — it’s the old GIGO principle: Garbage In, Garbage Out. If incorrect figures are supplied, incorrect statistics will follow, incorrect graphs will mislead — it’s all nearly nonsense.
In spite of the notion that TEC has a rather good reporting system, there’s also little or no accountability. The figures for our parish, for example, show (with the 2007 report completed last week) a marked decline in members — even with 14 new members! Why? Because the records were outdated and I did a clean-up. (I warned the Bishop not to be too shocked!) I suspect if all denominations and their member churches decided to do the same thing one year, we’d see a marked decline in the number of Christians who are counted as members of churches.
But at least then we could all start from agreed-upon parameters.
FWIW.
True, Padre Wayne, but there’s no reason to think every denomination here suffers from the same GIGO problem. In other words, it all comes out in the wash, and the numbers probably end up being pretty comparable.
Yes, PadreWayne, GIGO. But even the GIGO is down, down, down, consistently. So it seems rather Pyhrric to think that all down-ing is merely due to the general malaise of social christianity and justify holding the top spot in decline. There are other reasons to consider, especially in the face of the shared witness of the Anglican Communion.
#27, Jeffersonian,
All right, I didn’t express myself very well in #17 above. I trust you weren’t actually offended. Of course, emotions are morally neutral and everyone is free to express them on this venue. But our feelings are usually dictated by our thoughts, i.e., our interpretation of what we perceive.
I’ll venture a brief reply here to the bewilderment apparent in the question of #24, Larry Morse, about what possible reason there could be for the rapid growth of the Jehovah’s Witnesses this past year. Two key points should suffice as an initial reply.
First, as Words Matter (#26) has already indicated, it is surely significant that the Jehovah’s Witnesses maintain an aggressive evangelistic outreach. This is just common sense stuff. Groups that major on bringing in new people will naturally do a better job of it than groups that treat evangelism or even church growth as a secondary or tertiary concern. This doesn’t, of course, explain why they did so well at it in 2006 versus other years. To know that kind of thing, you need more data than the Yearbook provides. But the general principle applies pretty widely: groups that major in evangelism, like the Southern Baptists or even the Mormons, will do better than “oldline” or ex-mainline denominations that are embarrassed by the whole idea.
Secondly, there is a key principle that was demonstrated very convincingly by Methodist expert Dean Kelley back in the early 1970s, in his classic study of mainstream decline called “Why Conservative Churches Are Growing.” His thesis: strict and demanding churches are religiously strong; lax and lenient churches are inherently weak, since they fail to take religious commitment as seriously as strict ones do. That is, denominations choose what kind of members they want by the culture they create and the expectations they place on members. Over time, high expectation churches attract the most committed members and export less committed members elsewhere.
This helps explain why the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses consistently do well in terms of church growth, despite their doctrinal deficiencies. They are both high demand churches. On the other hand, all the ex-mainline churches are suffering the inevitable result of being low demand, low commitment churches. To a large degree, you reap what you sow, and you get what you expect.
That is why I keep harping on the necessity for Anglicanism to morph into a high demand, high commitment, high performance brand of Christianity. But that is a huge change for a former state church tradition like ours, for western Anglicanism has been minimalist in its demands, like all state churches are. A great part of the New Reformation is moving firmly from the goal of fostering mere membership to pursuing radical discipleship.
David Handy+
Passionate Advocate of High Commitment, Post-Christendom Anglicanism
And of course I agree with Father Handy:
[blockquote]That is why I keep harping on the necessity for Anglicanism to morph into a high demand, high commitment, high performance brand of Christianity. [/blockquote]
One of the good things that Mormons do is require their 18 year old young men take a year out and serve. This is obviously a critical age in spiritual development and the age when the retention rate for Episcopalian youth is is about 1 x 10^(-10) (i.e., really small). Some few come back when they have kids but only a few.
I would propose that in our new, reformed Anglican church that we implement a youth servant year that would be open to young men and women, and they could serve in various ways, for example with our Global South brethren. It would be optional but encouraged.
I do have to say “Wow!” Now that we have all pointed out that TEC has lost numbers because of its theology/etc., I am assuming all orthodox will be joining the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons. Obviously God is honoring their work (not to mention the growth in Islam) and not honoring the work of TEC. Sorry to see all of you JH and Mormons go, but enjoy your new faith and the holy underwear.
#27: while you are entitled to your opinion, I find your glee most un-Christian and disgusting. The decline of the TEC has come at much cost: not only have many lost their original church home, but some, because of the blatant un-Christian behavior exhibited by both sides of this disagreement, have lost their faith altogether.
Kendall: thank you for your comment. I appreciate, as always, your candor and well-thought out responses.
[b]From the Great Litany:[/b] From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice; and from all want of charity,
[i]Good Lord, deliver us.[/i]
No need to bolt for the Mormons or JWs, #33 BfT19, when CANA and AMiA offer faithful, orthodox Anglicanism. There aren’t many parishes disaffiliating with TEC to convert their buildings into Kingdom Halls, as you may have noticed, though the JWs and Mormons seem to be thriving due to a theology that is significantly deeper than the typical Benneton billboard slogan…not something TEC will be accused of anytime soon.
#34, I’m sorry you find my schadenfreude distressing, but Kendall’s “TEC Membership Declining” threads are always big comment magnets for a reason and it isn’t the robust statistical analysis found therein. Whichever sin(s) you may find I am committing with my posts, hypocrisy surely is not among them. I find the exodous from TEC very heartening and am delighted that so many souls are departing that morass of false teaching and will say so when given the opportunity. If you’d prefer that they stay, just say the word. If not, ask yourself what drew you to this thread and whether, just a little, you smiled reading about TEC’s decline.
#31, I do appreciate your observations. As soon as I read them, I said, “Of course, I should have thought of that myself” only I didn’t. There is much to think about in your distinction between high and low expectation churches,the sort of thing that should have a controlling effect on people like myself, who are the parish Outreach Directors. LM
#36, Larry Morse,
You’re welcome, and thanks for your kind words. But don’t be too hard on yourself. You have PLENTY of company. It amazes me how few church leaders give thought to these matters, despite the fact that we’ve been in steady decline for FORTY LONG YEARS. You’d think we’d get tired of wandering in the wilderness.
I’m glad to know that you’re the parish Outreach Director, Larry. What a marvelous position to have. Best wishes.
David Handy+
David, I have often said that the motto “Come express a vague intellectual questioning of the truth of Christ and the Gospel with out reaching any conclusions so can say you didn’t park your brain at the front door and of course you will have to make no commitments to truth” is not going to attract searching people. I applaude your out reach and high expectations!
Thanks, Dave B. I appreciate your kind words of encouragement. Of course, it’s easy to call for high commitment. It’s another thing to succeed in moving an actual congregation, much less a whole diocese or denomination, very far in the right direction.
The sad fact is that, just as water naturally runs downhill, churches will equally naturally tend to move LOWER down the commitment scale unless something is done to reverse that universal human trend. But it CAN be done. We can get water to flow on the 2nd and 3rd floors of buildings after all, despite the pull of gravity. There just has to be sufficient pressure in the water lines to push the water to the top of the building. But building a high commitment church culture involves building a pumping system into the whole life of the parish (or diocese etc.), so that high levels of commitment to Christ and to Christian maturity and ministry are amptly rewarded. It can be done, but it’s certainly not easy. That’s why it’s so rare.
David Handy+
NRA is telling us t hat there is entropy in human affairs too, and we all know that, we all see it one way or another. Indeed, we are watching in TEC even now, for the failure of standards is where we first see the disorganization of entropy. It is not too far fetched to envision the energy and warmth of this church dissipating itself as its disorganization increases – the vital heat flowing away into the cold emptiness of non-being.
But how do we alter this fate for ourselves? We do not, not really, for we have been told, and have good cause to believe, that is some distant time, all our energies will reach their end and the world will die. But we believe that there is another world where warmth and light are conserved forever. How do we communicate this to a generation that believes this world is all in all? Somehow, we must once again demonstrate that our lives in this world, science notwithstanding, are unutterably brief, that we are indeed the sparrow who flies in one door out of the dark and storm, passes through the warm room, and then flies out the opposite door into the darkness. Somehow, Americans must come again to know this simple truth, so that the hope Christianity offers will compel all reasonable people to choose courage over despair. See the entry above about the increase of suicides. What does this tell us? Larry