“Better communicated” is a masterpiece of understatement. Not telling your elders that you’re performing a same-sex marriage? And saying that the Presbyterians, Lutherans and Episcopal Church have seen “small but significant” losses? The Episcopalians have been in statistical free-fall even before the 2003 ordination of their first gay bishop. During a 50-year time span, they’ve lost half of their members (from 3.6 million in 1966 to 1.8 million today), as a chunk of the denomination ”“ including whole dioceses ”“ have walked away to form a new Anglican branch. After the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to allow gay clergy in 2009, the denomination had to immediately cut 7.7 million in staff salaries because of budget cuts due to departing members. Presbyterians only voted to bless gay unions last June, so it’s a bit soon to tell who’s leaving and who’s staying, but some of their most historic churches are saying good-bye.
There is very little actual reporting in this piece representing those who oppose Mitchell’s actions. There’s three sources who agree with Mitchell, plus a list of churches and authors who also agree with him. We get a reaction from one departing elder, which is better than a similar story in The Tennessean that had no opposing voices, but how about something from the Southern Baptist Convention, which is based in Nashville? Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has spoken out a lot about this issue and is pretty media-accessible.
Very good reporting from Julia Duin. She has the courage to stand against the lemming-like mass that rush to approve same sex blessings. And she reports the actual effect, which so many liberal journos would have left out:
[blockquote] “Half of his 12-member board has left, along with half the average offering and about a third of the weekly attendance — once at 800 to 1,000 people.” [/blockquote]
Who, knowing the effect this issue has had among churches generally, would expect anything else?
It won’t end here of course – he can expect to see his church continue to shrink.