On several of the threads related to the Lambeth conference in the past 48 hours there has been discussion of a remark made by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori about the disproportionate numbers of American bishops attending the Lambeth conference. In this article she is quoted as follows:
ENS: What kind of presence will the Episcopal Church have at the Lambeth Conference?
KJS: The bishops of the Episcopal Church will represent about one-quarter of all bishops in attendance. One of our tasks is not to overwhelm the gathering just by our sheer numbers.
That has stirred up curiosity and discussion. One commenter did some quick calculations as to relative ratio of bishops / members. We decided to take that research a bit further and turn it into a spreadsheet. It’s very revealing.
TEC and Canada together comprise 3.6% of the membership of the 20 largest provinces of the Anglican Communion, and yet combined they have 27.5% of the total 682 bishops among these top 20 Provinces. We elves are working compiling a detailed statistical overview of all Anglican Communion provinces. Look for more data from us about Provinces, relative size, relative growth and their representation at Lambeth in coming days.
-elfgirl
Outstanding chart. Plus, the membership in Nigeria and the other central African provinces is much nearer to total active membership than the “Anglosphere” provinces, so those numbers are probably worse than they look.
Looks like we’ve forgotten Central and South America there. No matter. If we now look at average Sunday attendance, you will see a most radical distinction between the haves and have nots. England, USA and Canada, with barely 2 million in ASA, and 300+ bishops have a real nerve in dictating their pleasure to the rest of the Communion. Neo-colonialism at its best. A dying gasp from a dying church.
would bishops per square mile be useful also?
I wonder how this compares to the Roman Church.
Are you pulling both membership and bishop numbers from the WCC site? Because I notice that on, for instance, the Nigerian church it says:
…and that membership number is obviously ridiculous. My question would be whether the number of bishops is similarly far off.
Also, I can’t remember — who gets invited to Lambeth? Diocesan bishops, obviously; but what about suffragans, co-adjutors, retired…?
Ok, time to post lots of caveats and footnotes to this data.
1) This is a preliminary and quite “quick and dirty” analysis. We would be extremely grateful for feedback and correction on these numbers, as well as data for other Anglican provinces. Our e-mail address:
T19elves@yahoo.com
2) Most of the data above is drawn from a very helpful compilation of data on the [url=http://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/church-families/anglican-churches.html]World Council of Churches website[/url] Unfortunately very few of the Provincial pages at the official Anglican Communion website have any details on membership.
3. The WCC wesbite pages all show that they were last updated as of Jan 1, 2006, meaning that most of the above data is likely from the period 2004 – 2005. (We compared the membership figures with a [url=http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/communion/iss_communion_howbig.asp]compilation from the Church Society[/url], using data from the 2004 Church of England Yearbook (probably 2002 data). The WCC data in most cases seemed quite comparable and reasonable in relation to the 2004 CoE Yearbook data.)
[b]4. We would LOVE to be directed to the most recent official Anglican Communion data (or Church of Engand yearbook data) for all the Provinces[/b] If any reader can help us, please contact us.
5. For CoE and TEC above, bishops include diocesans, suffragans and assistants, since data was available for these, and all of these are invited to Lambeth. In other cases, bishops were as noted on the WCC pages, or if no data was provided either at the WCC site or the Anglican Communion website, we used the number of dioceses. Is there an official list anywhere of all the bishops eligible to attend Lambeth (broken down by Province)? We’d love to hear about it if so.
Ok with all those caveats and footnotes, have at it and tell us what you love and hate about our table, and how we can make it more useful.
–elfgirl
The numbers are striking.
As I recall in South Africa, under apartheid, blacks could vote, but only white votes counted?
(not that I’m saying the USA-English-Canadian Axis is deliberately disenfranchising the Global South. I’m sure Katherine Jefferts-Schori will take the lead in ensuring the voices from Africa are heard in proportionate numbers, as is befitting her commitment to Justice…)
Ross, yes the WCC data on Nigeria was totally offbase.
Elsewhere on the WCC site, I saw a figure of 1,950,000 Nigerian Anglicans. I think they’re missing a zero and it should be 19,500,000. 2002 figures were 17,500,000. (CoE Yearbook)
The Church of Nigeria has a very detailed table re: it’s numbers of dioceses: http://www.anglican-nig.org/main.php?k_j=18
And I also checked out the Anglican Communion Province page for Nigeria: http://www.aco.org/tour/province.cfm?ID=N
By some combination of these, and trying to figure out what was more recent (I think the Ch. of Nigeria webpage is more recent), I came up with a rough number of bishops.
But these data for Nigeria are ROUGH, definitely.
Francis,
I did NOT forget Latin America. Those Provinces do not figure in the Top20 Provinces (by membership size).
I will at some point over the weekend post a much more detailed spreadsheet for ALL 38 Provinces and the 6 Extra-Provincial churches, but I’d like to get cleaner data if possible, and wanted to avoid clutter.
These “top 20” provinces make up 83 million of the roughly 85 million Anglicans in the world by my count.
Why do you seem to have included assistant and suffragan bishops for some countries (e.g. US and Canada) and only diocesans for others? E.g. last report on Nigeria’s Lambeth non-attendance reported 140 bishops.
In addition, no account is taken of geography. In some areas Anglicans are extremely thinly spread over a very large area – like a glaring example you chose to leave off – Southern Cone. 20,000 members and 7 bishops? I’ll let you do the math. 🙂
#4 – You can do a rough check on # of bishops by doing a diocese count (possible at Anglican Communion page).
Also worth noting how membership gets inflated. CoE claims 26 million members, but even during peak season has less than 10% of that as actual communicants (1.8 million during a recent Easter-season count).
#6 – you asked how this compares to RCC. In the US, there are about 187,000 RC’s per bishop (includes all bishops, assisting, etc).
A question I asked on another thread:
Does anyone know why only 41 bishops voted on the WO issue at General Synod? That’s only 36% of the bishops. I know alot are retired.
Micky, John W.
Yes, Geography Matters. Obviously, more bishops per member may be needed in a vast province. I concede that totally. But it doesn’t explain the full discrepancy above.
I may well in a more comprehensive version of the spreadsheet look at bishop per square mile. And bishop per total population. And % of Anglican adherence in the population as a whole. And clergy / members and average parish size. A lot of that data is available. (The ACO website does have geographic size data on all the provinces).
As to what provinces are left out of that list, it is PURELY a matter of membership numbers. The 20 Provinces with the most members are included. The 18 smaller provinces (all < 500,000 members) are excluded. But I HAVE the data and will post it when I have finished cleaning up and better organizing the spreadsheet.
Brian, re: the CoE vote, there are 44 diocesans in the CoE. I’m guessing (and it’s purely a guess) that only diocesans were eligible to vote at synod. I welcome confirmation (or correction) of that.
#9 and #10, re: how I counted bishops. I used the data on the WCC pages when it was available. I assume that those pages were consistent in counting diocesans & suffragans & assistants. For the CoE, I searched for that information. [url=http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/news_item.2004-10-19.9719284153]Here’s the link I found (with 2001 bishops data)[/url]
As I stated above, this is a rough first take and I have already acknowledged the weaknesses and inconsistencies that need correcting. This is one of them. I’d like to be consistent in including diocesans, suffragans and assistants for all Provinces (but would happily include a column just for diocesans “for the record” and for the sake of clarity). The reason I’m including diocesans, suffragans and assistants, is that it is my understanding that all of these are invited to Lambeth.
From the official Lambeth 2008 webpage:
[blockquote]The Lambeth Conference is one of the global Anglican Communion’s Instruments of Communion. It takes place every ten years at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is the one occasion when all bishops can meet for worship, study and conversation. [b]Archbishops, diocesan, assistant and suffragan bishops are invited.[/b] [/blockquote]
Because I’m interested in representation at Lambeth, I’m after all bishops in each province eligible to attend Lambeth. Does that make sense?
Is anyone remotely surprised by these statistics? TEC will have more clergy than laity before long.
#10, T Wilson
First, thanks for inspiring me to do this number crunching today!
Secondly, yes, you raise a good point about CoE active “communicants” vs. members. If you knock the 25 million down to 2 million or so, you get a members / bishop ratio very similar to TEC’s and Canada’s (about 17,500 members per bishop).
Ok, one last comment before I have to sign off for a bit. For those commenting about Latin America, etc. and noticing that the exclusion of some of the small provinces makes a difference, here’s a bit more data.
I am not trying to say that TEC or Canada are the “worst” in the Communion in terms of disproportionate numbers of bishops. Several of the smallest Provinces have many fewer members per bishop.
Here are the five provinces with the highest number of members per bishop):
Uganda 279,310
England 219,298
Nigeria 193,069
Sudan 187,500
Kenya 172,414
Here are the five provinces with the fewest members per bishop:
Central America 3,120
Southern Cone 3,214
Mexico 5,080
Japan 5,182
Scotland 6,326
These five small provinces only total about 165,000 members, and have a combined 35 bishops.
Conor, #15: “TEC will have more clergy than laity before long.”
This is a feature, not a bug: “Join TEC, become a bishop.” Besides, it’s just the ultimate conclusion to the idea that baptism grants everyone access to everything.
This is a great service Elvenkind. I do not think you need members per square inch as some of the bretheren suggest. They protesteth too much. That’s because the Southern Cone bishops are roughly representing the same number of folks in ASA as are the US bishops, just with healthier theology and more class.
A small (rough) comparison between TEC and Nigeria. The trouble with TEC is that it covers such a large geographical area.
Nigeria
356,669 sq miles
19,500,000 Anglicans
101 diocesan bishops
56 Anglicans per sq mile
Each diocese averages 3,531 sq miles
193,069 Anglicans per diocesan bishop
TEC
3,717,813 sq miles
2,320,506 Anglicans
100 (US) diocesan bishops (not including Armed Foces & Navajoland)
0.62 Anglicans per sq mile
Each diocese averages 37,178 sq miles
23,205 Anglicans per diocesan bishop
These are rough and open to correction. But it means e.g.:
– The average geographical area a US bishop has to cover is already 10x what his Nigerian counterpart does.
– If TEC were to reduce their diocesan bishops to the level of ‘Anglicans per bishop’ as Nigeria they would have 12 diocesan bishops, each covering 309,817 sq miles.
Ross, re: your #4 and my #7 and the Nigerian Data,
Here’s the WCC page on Nigeria
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/regions/africa/nigeria.html
(All Christians in Nigeria, not just Anglicans).
It lists Nigerian Anglicans as 1,950,000
I think they’re missing a zero, because it is obviously listed as the second largest denomination in the country. (and if you work with the statistic cited that 46% of the total Nigerian population are Christians, 19 or 20 million Anglicans makes a lot more sense)
So, that’s where I got my 19,500,000 for Nigerian Anglicans. But I’d love a verified figure!
As for Nigerian bishops, the Church of Nigeria website table
http://www.anglican-nig.org/main.php?k_j=18
lists 141 dioceses and 3914 parishes
The Anglican Communion website lists 99 Nigerian dioceses. (I had previously mistakenly counted 101 due to two two-line diocesan names). In an updated version of the spreadsheet, I’ll up the listing of Nigerian bishops to at least 141 to match the number of dioceses listed on the Nigerian website.
[b]Revised to adjust for 141 Nigerian diocesan bishops:[/b]
A small (rough) comparison between TEC and Nigeria. The trouble with TEC is that it covers such a large geographical area.
Nigeria
356,669 sq miles
19,500,000 Anglicans
141 diocesan bishops
56 Anglicans per sq mile
Each diocese averages 2,530 sq miles
138,298 Anglicans per diocesan bishop
US
3,717,813 sq miles
2,320,506 Anglicans
100 (US) diocesan bishops (not including Armed Foces & Navajoland)
0.62 Anglicans per sq mile
Each diocese averages 37,178 sq miles
23,205 Anglicans per diocesan bishop
These are rough and open to correction. But it means e.g.:
– The average geographical area a US bishop has to cover is already nearly 15x what his Nigerian counterpart does.
– If TEC were to reduce their diocesan bishops to the level of ‘Anglicans per bishop’ as Nigeria they would have 16 diocesan bishops, each covering 232,363 sq miles (92x their Nigerian counterpart)
#3– To give you one example, the Episcopal Diocese of Newark has about 30,000 members. The RC Archdiocese of Newark has 1.3 MILLION members.
Interesting statistics – but what is the point? No province has any right to tell another province how many bishops they can or cannot have. Who gets to define ‘disproportionate’ number of bishops in order to declare that “there is a problem?” Comparing geographical coverage, Nigeria and TEC might be in line with one another. Basing it on bishops per members, there is a disparity – but is it disproportionate? That’s a judgmental term, not simply descriptive.
Compare it to the US Senate: Rhode Island gets just as many senators as California.
With regard to Lambeth, what does it matter? Participation isn’t representational. As in 1998, it’s open to all active serving bishops (diocesan, suffragan, assistant). Before then, it was diocesan only. The focus is on gathering bishops together for bishop-ly things. ACC is the representational instrument of the communion.
By all means, it’s fun to look at the differences – but to what purpose? Lambeth has never had juridical authority. At best, their decisions and statements have simply reflected what a majority of the bishops of the communion think and whatever moral weight those who agree with them want to assign them.
Personally, I think that geography is the pressing issue – not membership rolls. If the job of a bishop is to teach, then they should be able to go anywhere in their diocese and back to the cathedral within a day. I do believe, of course, that there are too many bishops.
However, moral judgment implied by saying there should be some kind of numerical proportion of bishops/members needs to be better defended.
I want to remark that this should be a reason why we don’t want Lambeth – ever – making decisions. Local provinces decide when they want bishops – and bishops are expensive. There are good economic reasons not to have bishops. The reason why we ask the question seems to be with the expectation that Lambeth is about to make some kind of decision. It seems that the greater party (the Americans) – who has the votes – is unwilling to impress upon the world their view. It is the smaller group of bishops that want Lambeth to have some power.
This all demonstrates just how tricky statistics are. Certainly most TEC bishops have to cover territorial units which are far larger than Anglican dioceses in other parts of the world. The same applies to Canada.
Despite the huge population of the US (much less so in Canada ) TEC membership is very small and greatly compressed to the East Coast and to the West Coast and the “sun belt.”
TEC bishops have a much smaller group of parishioners to pastor than most Anglican bishops, but tend to have more resources and money. Modern communications factor into this discussion particularly in the “developed” world.
It remains true that TEC has a larger percentage of diocesan bishops per communicants than elsewhere.
In the English General Synod only diocesan bishops and a small number of suffragans elected by their peers to serve have seat, voice and vote.
The Elves are doing a HUGE amount of work here, and we are all most grateful. Also striking is the humility with which they are approaching this: humbling acknowledging imperfections, receiving criticism well, immediately trying to improve the numbers so that they are accurate and not falsified in support of some pro-conservative partisan direction or agenda. That’s a real accomplishment. Thanks.
Given how much work they are doing now, I hate to suggest more work, but here’s a thought if they have time. Create TWO tables, one for 2008 and one for 1998. The 1998 table would contain the same columns, with one added: the actual number of bishops who attended Lambeth 1998 from each national church. This is useful because at the moment all we have to go on is how many got invited for 2008, not how many who came. I think it would be interesting to see whether the same disproportionate rep happened in 1998 too. This is just a thought.
Thanks again.
Thanks Jon for the encouraging words. We would be thrilled to find 1998 statistics for all Anglican Provinces and a list of bishops per Province as invited to Lambeth 1998.
Any Librarians or church officials out there have any ideas where to find this? It seems hard enough to find even reasonably CURRENT Anglican membership data.
In really crunching into the numbers for the more comprehensive version of the spreadsheet to appear sometime later, for instance, I just discovered the numbers on the ACO website page for Australia (surely a Province with decent data collection, one would think) date to 1996. In fact the figure is the 1996 Census data for those citing affiliation as Anglicans. There is 2001 and 2006 census data online. (the WCC website appears to use 2001 census data). Here are the figures:
Aussie Anglicans (according to census data):
[url=http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/46d1bc47ac9d0c7bca256c470025ff87/bfdda1ca506d6cfaca2570de0014496e!OpenDocument]1996 & 2001 Census[/url]
[url=http://www.acl.org.au/national/browse.stw?article_id=15561]2006 census[/url]
1996 3,903,324 (this is the figure on the ACO website — 12 years old!!!!! Wow.)
2001 3,881,200
2006 3,718,248
So, it seems we’ve bitten off a HUGE task here when even data from developed industrialized countries with a long history of censuses and good communications infrastructure is this hard to verify.
YUCK. We could really use some help. Any volunteers?
In particular, we’d love help counting bishops for each Province using the ACO Provincial webpages. E-mail us and we’ll send you details.
#24 — re: my use of the term disproportionate
I could be snarky and say take up your gripe with +KJS. It was she who first raised awareness of this issue by talking about the huge contingent of TEC and the risk that they would overwhelm the other bishops. It was her statement that put this in my head.
I’ve already admitted geography plays a role. And no one is saying Nigeria’s ratio is “ideal.” Nigeria clearly doesn’t think their ratio is ideal because they are creating dozens of new dioceses and consecrating the bishops to go with them every year. Nigeria’s bishop count has probably risen by 30 – 40% or more since the last Lambeth. (Anyone got figures? Send them to me).
But what I truly meant was disproportionate in terms of % of bishops to % of members. TEC has about 3% of the members of the Anglican Communon and something like 20% of its bishops.
And it’s not like the senate. If it were like the senate, every province would have an equal vote.
The Primates meeting is what is like the senate. One Province, One Primate.
But Lambeth is neither Senate nor House of Representatives. (Nor is ACC membership accurately proportional to membership). There IS no Anglican House of Representatives proportional to membership. That’s exactly the point. Instead we’ve got the equivalent of a tiny state like Rhode Island having California’s number of representatives.
How can that be justified?
Re: the Elven #14 on diocesan vs. suffragan/etc. bishops:
The only problem is that if for some provinces you count the number of diocesan + suffragan + assisting bishops, whereas for others you only count diocesan bishops because that’s the only number you have, then when you compute the members-per-bishop ratio you’re artificially inflating the number of bishops in provinces for which you know the number of suffragans-etc. Better to compare apples to apples until you know the number of oranges everyone has.
That being said, I don’t think there’s any doubt that the main implication being drawn here is correct, namely, that in terms of membership some provinces are disproportionately represented at Lambeth compared to others.
If decisions are taken at Lambeth by a straight vote of attending bishops, and if we believe that decisions at Lambeth should resemble representative democracy, then this is a serious problem. On the one hand, I’m not sure if I do believe that; but on the other hand I can’t think of anything that would be better. Like Churchill: “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.”
I think +++Rowan had some remarks a few letters ago about the American church having difficulty with the unique teaching charism of bishops. I can’t speak for the rest of the church, but I have to admit that I certainly do.
Does your figure for England include the British Isles?
Could you get the data for total ASA in England and/or British Isles, US, Canada?
Is a figure available for those three groups for total Financial figures such as Pledges or Operating Budgets?
From what I have heard attendance and money gives a better figure of the active membership.
#28 the Elves say:
I wish I could, because I like a good spate of number crunching as much as the next slightly-OCD person; but I’ve got a class coming up next week that I’m behind on the reading for. If you still want help by the week of the 21st, ping me then and I’ll probably have more time.
As one who has tried to research these numbers while working full time, I, too, want to applaud them for yeoman’s work. This stuff is really hard to track down.
The purpose in knowing this information is not necessarily to beat people over the head with, but to get a sense of direction and proportion and to understand things like the balance of power and influence.
In parish ministry we all weigh people’s opinions based upon their standing in the parish, level of commitment and involvement, and effectiveness of ministry.
Although we don’t want to punish someone from being from a small diocese or population, there are equities to balance. Thanks to the web elves who have a heck of a lot more to do than this, and do an awful lot of volunteer work on behalf of this website to make it one of the very best in blogdom.
145 Bishops…a regular Bishop-a-palooza.
#29 Elves –
First, let me say that your work is indeed excellent, and clearly a work in progress. It is always good to have facts on the ground and I personally appreciate your efforts to do that.
My grumble (which goes to trust issues in the opposite direction – happy TECer to some form of unhappy Anglican (I’m unwilling to use theological terms to define us, and I’m not sure of your provincial affiliation) is with the question of ‘how can this be justified’ or what some people might say as ‘the fix is in.’
I don’t think it’s an issue that needs to be justified. It just is. All of the structures of Anglicanism are accidents of history, and often wildly inflated beyond their initial intent. Given the autonomous, provincial nature of Anglicanism, there is no way to address the ratios. No province, nor the communion as a whole, can tell another province how many bishops they can have. Since Lambeth was never meant to be representational, but a gathering of every bishop (however Cantuar wished to define it for that Conference) then there is no reason to say to provinces “you can only send x number of bishops per y number of members.”
However, you’ve hit an excellent point. NONE of the instruments are representational in any democratic sense. A good question might be if Anglicanism wants to create an instrument that is truly representational – but that would probably mean priests and laity as well as bishops, and suddenly you have something that looks like GC, and then does anyone really want that? It does, though, rob the instruments of any truly respected decisive authority (which might be way they were never intended to be decisive, with the possible exception of the ACC, but then for programmatic purposes).
As I said in another thread, to an Anglican really is about becoming an Anglican. Just what kind of communion do we want and what structures do we need to give shape to that desire? This Lambeth is clearly just one stop among many more on that particular road.
I don’t think the key takeaway here is that TEC is operationally inefficient (I think a case can be made, but that’s a separate point). The key takeaway is any pretensions that the indaba-ized Lambeth to be more egalitarian, more reflective of the total communion, or more democratic, collapse under the weight of TEC’s disproportionate voice.
Lambeth may have no real power, but it gets attention and the outcome is not a matter of indifference. Clearly certain parties are taking steps to produce a more advantageous outcome – pointing out gulf between some vaguely wholesome “indaba” and the reality of disproportionate influence can help blunt that advantage.
#36, can 10 voices out of 40 (or 9 or 8, considering that TEC is also sending conservative bishops) really dominate an indaba discussion? In some ways, isn’t splitting TEC up over multiples of groups a dilution of their voice? Remember, there are also some moderate TEC bishops who would be really interested in listening and participating in respectful conversation (like +Wolf of RI). That dilutes a strident voice even more. I understand that absence of trust reduces hope for a helpful outcome from Lambeth, but I’m really intrigued by what might come from this. If bishops come away with nothing more than greater understanding of each other and a greater commitment to work towards a unified communion, that would be a good thing.
To add – if the 300 or so bishops who aren’t coming actually did show up, there would be more Indaba tables, and TEC’s voice would be further reduced to perhaps 4 or 5 (just guessing, haven’t worked the numbers).
Perhaps a better chart would be ASA – TEC had less than 800k, the CofE had just less than 1M last year compared to Nigeria’s nearly 20M – I’d say that was quite a difference that should matter!
Mickey, if geography were the determining factor in the size of dioceses then travel time should be part of that. But the, as the time in takes to travel decreases dioceses should enlarge. I do not see that happening historically. Dioceses start out larger in the than they are today, quite a few dividing when their population increases.
The real standout in these stats is Australia.
Dear Elves
What a wonderful job you have done!!!
Thanks heaps — really good and useful.
Two comments:
1. It would be really good to have ASA figures as well as membership.
2. On the issue of geography – distance is not the only thing to think about — is 100 miles on a freeway in USA the same as 100 miles on a dirt track in Africa? Is 1000 miles as important if you have telephones, cellphones, the internet as if you don’t? I am not as convinced as some that geography really explains the USA level of bishops.
I suspect it is historical and political — historical in that the number of bishops has not declined as the number of members declined, and political in that new jobs needed to keep being created for the “Boys” especially when there was the log-jam of all those bright young things from the 1960s all holding the existing positions at once.
this is exactly why the way the communion is run must
change
It’s not travel time, but parishes– at least that is what has prompted much of the dividing in the USA. For instance, the state of Maryland is divided into three dioceses (one of which also includes DC). The reason is quite simply that there are too many parishes for one bishop to visit within a reasonable time. Even then both Washington and Maryland have used suffragans and assistants for decades, and even then that is often not enough.
Nigeria has about 28 parishes per diocese; ECUSA has about 75. Of course, the mean parish size in the former is about 12 times that of the latter, and the discrepancy is probably higher for the median. One could theoretically consolidate a lot of suburban parishes, but in rural areas travel time is going to govern, and the parishes are simply going to be small.
Another datum: Sudan and maybe South India are the first entries on the list which are larger than the Diocese of Montana.
[blockquote]On the issue of geography – distance is not the only thing to think about — is 100 miles on a freeway in USA the same as 100 miles on a dirt track in Africa? Is 1000 miles as important if you have telephones, cellphones, the internet as if you don’t? I am not as convinced as some that geography really explains the USA level of bishops.
I suspect it is historical and political—historical in that the number of bishops has not declined as the number of members declined, and political in that new jobs needed to keep being created for the “Boys†especially when there was the log-jam of all those bright young things from the 1960s all holding the existing positions at once. [/blockquote]
Geography could have played a role historically – 100 years ago, 100 miles was a lot farther in terms of travel time than it is now, even in the USA. Nowadays, I can get to the cathedral of my diocese, about 105 miles away, in 2 hours. I sure couldn’t have done that in 1908 or even 1958. Our diocese has a suffragan, which is nice in that it means every parish, even the ones with only 20 or 30 active members, let alone ASA, get to see a man in a pointy hat every year. But is it absolutely necessary to have a suffragan? I would say not.
An addendum: I don’t mean to criticize the comparison, but to show some of the logic behind the differences. If one views the bishops as representatives, then yes, the USA is greatly overrepresented.
#43
this is exactly why the way the communion is run must change
But communions aren’t run. They are participated in. The very nature of a communion, especially ours, is that each member is autonomous but with responsibilities towards one another. That said, I agree with you that our instruments probably don’t match what the Communion needs in order to hold together. However, to change them to something that ‘runs’ the communion is to take away the very nature of being a communion rather than a single church (like Rome). Even the Patriarch or the various synods don’t ‘run’ Orthodoxy.
#45
An addendum: I don’t mean to criticize the comparison, but to show some of the logic behind the differences. If one views the bishops as representatives, then yes, the USA is greatly overrepresented.
Bishops are representatives of their diocese not their province. I think Ignatius would have taken the view ‘l’eglise c’est moi’ or at least “Wherever the Bishop appears, there let the multitude of the people be; just as where Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church.” (Smyrnaeans 8)
Theoretically, in an Ignatian high-episkope and high-communion view, Lambeth is the gathering of the whole church in the persons of their bishops.
Since Lambeth has always been about bishops rather than provinces (unlike the ACC) I suspect the question of provincial representation is putting a Western democratic thrust to something that was never meant to function in that way.
Sorry for the extended quote in #46 I claim authoriship of the last 2 paragraphs in response to #45’s authorship of the first paragraph.
Thanks Elves for you hard work
I found these links with membership numbers which may help you to verify your figures:
http://diocny.blogspot.com/2007/07/membership-of-anglican-communion.html
http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/communion/iss_communion_howbig.asp
http://www.allsaintsjakarta.org/angorgn.htm
Thank you for this work, Elves. I have wondered about this ever since reading the PB’s quote. It really seems wrong for the shrinking Episcopal Church to have such a huge voice in the communion while most of the parishioners are in Africa. And I am surprised no one has moved to balance this out a bit better. Has it ever even come up? Perhaps this year it should.
Interesting discussion all. A few more tidbits from me.
Re: Members vs. ASA and data quality:
While I agree that ASA is a much better measure of real commitment, it’s just not available for more than a VERY few provinces. As much as many of us may sometimes grumble about TEC’s lateness with statistics or other statistical issues (“Christmas effect,” not takiing certain parishes that have left off the rolls, etc.), TEC statistics are actually AWESOME in comparison with much of the Communion, and a model of transparency in many ways.
One can understand some of the less developed Provinces having poor statistics. But what is Canada’s excuse?!?! (NO statistics compiled since 2001. I kid you not.) Last reported membership (“Parish rolls”) in 2001 was about 641,000. Rates of decline had been 2% per year or more. So, let’s see, that would bring us to estimated figures for 2007 to about 568,000. But the figures don’t exist.
Australia has easily findable Census data online re: those who identify as Anglican. That is what seems to be reported as “members” on the ACO website. Except the data dates back to 1996 even though there is 2001 and 2006 Census data available. But if there is actual attendance data or parish membership data to be found, I couldn’t find it, at least not online. I’ve sent a query to fellow blogger and Aussie priest David Ould to find out if I’m missing something.
Then you throw in countries and Provinces in crisis and civil war, or with massive natural diasters (think Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi in recent past; much of West Africa (Liberia & Sierra Leone); Myanmar) How do you get accurate numbers there? What about Muslim-majority provinces like Pakistan or Bangladesh, or much of India… (where admission of Christian faith could get you attacked). How do you get those numbers?!
So, please understand, membership data is definitely going to be a guessing game at best.
What I’m working on now is trying to document date and source for whatever membership data I can find for each province. Even if the data is not comparable across provinces in terms of how or when it was collected or defined, hopefully we can at least patch together some general picture of relative size and membership trends over time by province.
Finally, one thing would be a HUGE HELP. From the Church Society website I cited above, I know that the CoE Yearbook for 2004 had Province Membership data. [b]Is there any reader who has a current version of the CoE yearbook[/b] who could look to see if more recent data is available? And if so could you type it out either here in the comments or by e-mail?
And if there are any volunteers who would be willing to count bishops for a few provinces (it’s very easy on the ACO website, I can send an e-mail to explain), that would save us a lot of time. Send us an e-mail or private message. Thanks.
What data will be included on the final spreadsheet:
As best as I am able, by Monday I hope to have compiled a pretty comprehensive statistical & factual overview of each of the 38 Anglican Provinces. This will be an Excel spreadsheet, and I expect it to contain the following.
1. Province Name
2. Link to it’s official ACO Province page
3. Membership data from period 2000-2002 as available (with source citation)
4. Most recent membership data hopefully from 2005 or later (with source citation)
5. Province Area (this will come straight off ACO website)
6. Province population (generally off WCC site or sometimes from the ACO page)
7. Number of Dioceses (this would also equal the number of diocesan bishops per Province)
8. Total Number of Bishops (generally counting all active bishops: Diocesans, Coadjutors, Suffragans, and Assisting Bishops) as listed by name on the ACO pages for each Province
9. Parishes (if available, often from WCC page)
10. Clergy (if available, often from WCC page)
11. Primate name
12. Primate start date
13. Links to the Province’s website if there is one, and other relevant links, especially those that document membership data.
I’ve actually got a lot of this compiled already. I’m just trying to fill in the blanks and make sure data is as consistent as possible.
I think Monday will be a realistic publishing date. Stay tuned.
=====
[b]Update:[/b] I will include ASA, if available. It’s likely to be blank for most provinces, but it will be good to have a column for it as a goal to work towards in terms of what ideal stats per province would include.
Here is a link to Australia attendance data from 2001:
http://www.anglican.org.au/docs/2004-047ACA%20Statistics%20Paper%20for%20distribution2.pdf
see page 21 – Weekly Attendance is only 177 000!
Observing, you rock! Awesome links — especially the Aussie Attendance Stats. EXCELLENT work!
You are hereby granted the Elfin Order of Merit! Thanks so much, and keep any links you find coming! 🙂
Here are some more links:
Attendance stats for 2006 COE:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/statistics/2006provisionalattendance.pdf
Southern Africa – says membership is 3-4m on their home page:
http://www.anglicanchurchsa.org/view.asp?pg=about
But census in 2001 says 1.7m Anglicans (South Africa only) (page 77)
http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/docs/reports/microsocial/part2d.pdf
and this suggests they are in decline:
http://www.anglican.co.za/Archives/2006-09-05.pdf
“Statistics revealed to Provincial Standing Committee in 2002 and to the Chapter of the Diocese in 2005, however, showing a steady decline in membership
of CPSA, have introduced a renewed sense of urgency for action.â€
So no clear stats for Southern Africa.
Here’s another link, Observing, for CoE attendance stats:
http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/church/stats/iss_church_stats_attendance.asp
Anglican Mainstream has a post with “usable statistics” (it’s the original source for one of Observing’s links above).
It looks like much of the data that we’ve been seeing on Province membership dates to a 1997 survey by Jim Rosenthal, et al. If it were possible to get updated data for every province, the 1997 survey gives us a decent way of measuring change over the past 10 years.
Here’s the link
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/usable-statistics/
#37 – Not sure 25% can dominate (probably the revisionist bloc can), but given the structure, all they really need to do is control air-time and significantly influence who gets send to represent them. You are right, the key variable is trust, and for very good reasons it is in short supply. Wolf does indeed seem to be simultaneously a woman of integrity (and that’s not a pun, I mean it) and thoroughly progressive, but she’s only one bishop – and she’s got very little clout with the more senior progs (e.g., see how KJS treated her at last bishop’s meeting).
Your statements in 46 are interesting, but I suspect that’s thin ice even for a high churchman (getting thinner, too)… in the Roman Catholic Church, that model holds true (all bishops report to Rome) but in AC the lines of power and authority are through the province. One way to fix many of the current problems would be to implement a full Ignatian model and cut out the national church “middle-men.” Causes a problem with Her Majesty, but probably gets closer to the ancient church.
Also, I suggest Ignatius would have demanded more of bishops than the AC seems capable of doing in some celebrated cases (and certainly much wider in practice). Quoting from the same letter you quote, a little earlier: “Let no one be deceived! Even the heavenly powers and the angels in their splendor and the principalities, both visible and invisible, must either believe in the Blood of Christ or else face damnation…”. True, he is hard on dissenters and divisions, but he is just as hard on bad doctrine (specifically the Docetists and any who denied the Real Presence). It is also worth remembering who were floating around as bishops at his time: he was a student of St. John the Apostle, he succeeded St. Peter, knew St. Clement, St. Polycarp – serious men, most of whom were martyred. Your post also begs the question of which bishop should one be in union with.. I’m not sure he would recognize many AC bishops, on various grounds: bad doctrine, failure to defend the faith, even gender. From his letter to the Trallians: “Let all respect the deacons as representing Jesus Christ, the bishop as a type of the Father…”. No gender obscurity there. Continuing, “partake of Christian food exclusively; abstain from plants of alien growth, that is, heresy. Heretics weave Jesus Christ into their web – to win our confidence, just like persons who administer a deadly drug mixed with honeyed wine, which the unsuspecting gladly take – and with baneful relish they swallow death!”
More re: CoE data.
An interesting and perhaps timely study trying to assess change in CoE membership and attendance by diocese based on diocesan prevalence of acceptance of Women’s ordination.
http://ast.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/4/2/201.pdf
See what you make of it. But we probably shouldn’t let this particular link / study side-track this thread. I’m just trying to share some interesting links re: Provincial attendance as I find them
Elf-girl, I think it is a little disingenuous of you to be both a judge and jury. I suggest, as Kendall Harmon does, that you post controversial or assertive comments under your own name.
An angle no one has mentioned is that in the last 40 years TEC bishops and clergy have increased (the latter by 80%), despite a membership decrease of 40%
C. Wingate (#43) mentioned the number of parishes per diocese. I have started to determine the number of parishes per diocese. If anyone wants to carry on the count, I think it would be interesting. (Perhaps the elves already have that data.) One can look at the links at the bottom of the Wikipedia articles on the diocese and move fairly quickly, sometimes going outside of wikipedia to the dioceses’ website which is usually linked, e.g., see the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Diocese_of_Vermont ]diocese of Vermont[/url].) It would be helpful to determine the number of bishops per parish in each diocese.
Parishes per diocese…
Province I
Connecticut 177 • Maine 66 year-round and 20 summer chapels. • Massachusetts 194 • New Hampshire 49 year round plus 7 summer chapels • Rhode Island 65 • Vermont 51 • Western Massachusetts 67
Province II
Albany • Central New York • Convocation of American Churches in Europe • Haiti • Long Island • New Jersey • New York • Newark • Rochester • The Virgin Islands • Western New York
Province III
Bethlehem · Central Pennsylvania · Delaware · Easton · Maryland · Northwestern Pennsylvania · Pennsylvania · Pittsburgh · Southern Virginia · Southwestern Virginia · Virginia · Washington · West Virginia
Province IV
Alabama • Atlanta • Central Florida • Central Gulf Coast • East Carolina • East Tennessee • Florida • Georgia • Kentucky • Lexington • Louisiana • Mississippi • North Carolina • South Carolina • Southeast Florida • Southwest Florida • Tennessee • Upper South Carolina • West Tennessee • Western North Carolina
Province V
Chicago • Eastern Michigan • Eau Claire • Fond du Lac • Indianapolis • Michigan • Milwaukee • Missouri • Northern Indiana • Northern Michigan • Ohio • Quincy • Southern Ohio • Springfield • Western Michigan
Province VI
Colorado • Iowa • Minnesota • Montana • Nebraska • North Dakota • South Dakota • Wyoming
Province VII
Arkansas • Dallas • Fort Worth • Kansas • Northwest Texas • Oklahoma • Rio Grande • Texas • West Missouri • West Texas • Western Kansas • Western Louisiana
Province VIII
Alaska • Arizona • California • Eastern Oregon • El Camino Real • Hawaii • Idaho • Los Angeles • Navajoland Area Mission • Nevada • Northern California • Olympia • Oregon • San Diego • San Joaquin • Spokane • Taiwan • Utah
Province IX
Colombia • Dominican Republic • Central Ecuador • Litoral Ecuador • Honduras • Puerto Rico • Venezuela
My Archdeacon covers an area of 675,045 square miles. And that’s nothing compared to the Eastern Archdeaconary (Diocese in Europe) which covers a land area considerably greater than that of the United states.
Australia has a church “census” which measures attendance by getting everyone in church to fill out a form one Sunday every five years. It involves most denominations from Pentecostal to Catholic. The figures are compiled by an independent non-denominational organisation.
Here are the denominational attendance figures for 2001:
http://www.ncls.org.au/default.aspx?sitemapid=2232
Anglicans had a weekly attendance of 177700. there is no missing zero for that figure.
In the United Kingdom The Christian Research English Church Census gives an Anglican Sunday attendance of 867,400 for 2005.
http://www.vexen.co.uk/UK/religion.html#Sunday%20Attendance
Another interesting set of stats: church attendance rates for each nation.Nigeria is 89%
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_chu_att-religion-church-attendance
Thanks all for the stats above
It is clear that:
– The membership stats have different definitions across provinces, so are not comparable. England (25x) and Australia (22x) stand out as places where the membership numbers are nowhere close to actual attendance, so seem hugely inflated and probably wrong. TEC membership numbers are also higher than attendance, but only 3x.
– We don’t have reliable attendance stats for most of the communion.
So looking purely at bishops per member may not be a fair comparison. I saw somewhere some stats on number of parishes per province, maybe that would be a more accurate comparison. If I get time I will try and find those and add them to this thread.
It was also interesting to learn that the North India and South India province numbers are actually numbers for a combined Anglican/Presbyterian/Baptist/etc/etc church, which was something I was not aware of.
Here are some figures for New Zealand:
http://www.liturgy.co.nz/newsviews/census.html
2006 census says 555 000 Anglicans. But the commentary suggests actual attendance may be as low as 35000 for a normal week, and up to 100 000 at Christmas.
Slightly off topis, but this report is very interesting
http://www.challengeweekly.co.nz/images/state.pdf
documenting the state of the New Zealand church – it looks like the Methodists were the first to fall prey to the homosexual lobby there, the evangelicals left. If you believe history repeats itself read this report to understand the future of TEC.
Some more backup on New Zealand attendance:
http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/SITE_Default/Publications/SALL/SALL001.asp
The Anglicans, our most traditional mainline Protestant Church, are seeing the same trend – with attendances creeping up towards 50,000.
and:
http://www.stg.churches.net.nz/patrick.html
For example in the intercensal period 2001 to 2006 Anglicans declined by 5% and Presbyterians by almost 8%. In terms of church attendance, the simplest measure of any meaningful commitment, major Churches have declined by the loss of hundreds of thousands of adherents. Some Churches or denominations have been growing. For example in the intercensal period 2001 to 2006 Baptists grew by 11%, faster than the population growth rate. It has been reported that there are more people in Baptist churches on a Sunday than any other denomination in New Zealand apart from Roman Catholics, about 50,000.
So those two sites seem to backup an average weekly attendance figure of under 50,000 (so again, membership numbers look inflated – around 11x attendance)
Canadian attendance:
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/cns_writers/story.html?id=748c5ed7-8f3d-41ce-9363-fb95272a5d8c
During the debate on same-sex unions in Winnipeg, one bishop stated that only about 130,000 Canadians now come to Anglican churches each week.
So that would mean membership is 5x attendance in Canada using the membership stats above. (Note that 2001 census reports for Canada report 2m Anglicans, using those figures which other provinces seem to use would mean membership is 15x attendance)
http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/analytic/companion/rel/tables/canada/cdatop.cfm
John Wilkins #3 wondered how these data compare with those for the Roman Church. [url=http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/country/sc1.html]Catholic-Hierarchy.org has pretty comprehensive data,[/url] subject to the usual caveats about how many of those counted are actually practising.
According to this site, the top ten countries by Catholic population have between them a total of roughly 650 million members of the Catholic Church, spread over 1219 dioceses (some of which of course have several auxiliary bishops). The 193 dioceses in [url=http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/country/scus1.html]the United States[/url] have a median size of about 160,000. Only two spread-out Alaskan dioceses and a few Eastern-rite eparchies have close to the same number of people per bishop found in TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada.
People think Rome is hierarchical, and it is (for good reason, I’ll say, but that’s another story); the top-heaviness in parts of the Anglican Communion, though, borders on the ridiculous.
Here are some stats on the number of parishes per province for the top ten. Which makes the membership figures for the top African Anglican countries look grossly overstated?
England: parishes 12,789 ; churches 16111; full time clergy 7818
source : http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/statistics/churchstats2005/statisticspg1.htm
Nigeria: 3914
source http://www.anglican-nig.org/main.php?k_j=18
Uganda 1789 parishes
source: http://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/regions/africa/uganda/church-of-uganda.html
Kenya 1244 parishes
source http://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/regions/africa/kenya/anglican-church-of-kenya.html
Sudan – can’t find data
Australia = 1408 parishes
source: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/tour/province.cfm?ID=A2
South India: 14000 congregations
source :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_South_India
USA : 7095
Source: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/newsline_28079_ENG_HTM.htm