During a pre-service press conference, Bob Duncan, the former Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh and now archbishop-designate for the new church, told news media that he expects the Episcopal Church (TEC) to continue its decline and that in time, the new province will come to replace it.
He said, “The Lord is displacing the Episcopal Church.”
This year, TEC leaders have seen the decades-long downward spiral continue in both attendance and finances. By some estimates, attendance and membership are declining by 1,000 people per week. Many dioceses are cutting budgets and staff, and drawing down endowment funds to maintain operations. The denomination has about two million members. It is spending millions of dollars on court actions to prevent individual churches and dioceses from pulling out.
The writer got it wrong. TEC leaders have not seen any decline in attendance and finances. They see exciting growth from inclusion of people of different religious beliefs.
PB:
Average Sunday Attendance in TEC has dropped from about 857,000 in 2000 to 720,000 in 2007. Most people would consider that “a decline.” The diocese of Massachuttes has had to lay-off their communications officer and another staff member due to drop in finances. Other diocese are experiencing the same result. Several diocese have had to close their conference centers due to financial constraints. 4 whole dioceses have severed their constitutional relationship with the General Convention by changing their constituions and removing their accesion clause which is their right to do (regardless of interpretations by David Booth Beers). So if TEC leaders see “exciting growth from inclusion of people of different religious beliefs” they better start evangelizing, ‘casue the track record so far is not good.
#2 I agree with you and see things the same way. Most folks think it is a decline but TEC leaders apparently do not from what they are saying.
I have read all the entries relating to this development and none of them spell out how the polity of the new province. How will dioceses, clusters and networks relate? Who will their bishops be and how chosen? Will the REC give up its separate existence and join in a single territorial entity? I ask, I emphasise, not out of hostility, but out of curiosity.
oops. Should have read
how the polity of the new province will work.
I have the same questions as Terry Tee. To me it would make since to create geographic Anglican Districts like the one in Virginia with the expectations that they then become Dioceses – I guess parishes within the boundaries could remain part of their old structure ie REC or AMiA or join as full members of the new Dioceses of the Anglican Church – one could also see dual memberships at least for some period of time.
A meeting called by five members of the FCA Primates Council with the ABC took place today, only one day after the formation of the Anglican Province of North America. This is the most interesting news of the day in the Anglican world.
I doubt the giants came bowing and scraping with hat in hand…or played indaba or reindeer games.
Wait till tomorrow when they meet with the ABC,
A Province in Formation is the appropriate description of what occurred. At the first Provincial Synod in six months at St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford TX, the dioceses networks and clusters will ratify the Proposed Constitution and Canons of the ACNA.
See my report here: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/18354/#309731
Bob+
. . . still ridin’ for the brand.
Ruth G is reporting this on her blog: “The five primates of Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Southern Cone met with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the cathedral. They prayed, started talking at 10am, prayed, had lunch, prayed, carried on talking, prayed again and finished mid-afternoon.â€
W Africa and Tanzania were apparently not present after all.
Multiple studies indicate that membership and Sunday attendance are declining within all Christian denominations—does that mean “the Lord is displacing” them too?
ember, it’s a biblical reference. Check out Revelation and candlesticks. The first three chapters ought to do you.
[i][Please avoid getting snide with other commenters, thanks. The elves][/i]
[i]deleted for sarcasm, and not really on topic.[/i]
I watched the pre-service press conference in Wheaton on Anglican TV, and I LOVED the final comment by Mrs. Cynthia Brust, communications director for AMiA. I can’t quote it exactly, but in answer to a reporter’s question about whether the signing of the constitution and canons for the new “Province in formation” marked a definite split within the AC, she gave a marvelous and stirring reply to this effect: “Today doesn’t mark the fracturing of the Communion. Today represents the beginning of the HEALING of the Communion.”
That’s very profound. And I think it’s also true.
David Handy+
David, if Ms. Brust’s attitude is the common one, then I can afford real hope that the new province will prosper. Her declaration marks, not the institutionalizing of a negative, but the generation of an new life. All the difference in the world. This is the best news I have had about the new province, and I am so pleased. Larry
Elves, that wasn’t snide. It was informative. Need to brush up on the difference, please. Most TECans don’t know where The Revelation of Saint John is in the Bible, so snide could have made reference to that.
dwstroud, the commenter you replied to wasn’t questioning the Biblical reference for the remark about TEC being “displaced.” He or she was merely pointing out that there is similar decline in other mainline Protestant denominations, and wondering how that fit in with +Duncan’s comment. One can question the validity of +Duncan’s statement (I’m not saying I do, mind you) without being Biblically illiterate. Your comment came across as snide and arrogant. And your follow-up wasn’t much better. –elfgirl
Hopper,
That day wont come until the very offputing remarks such as those of Mr. Naughton cease, the lititgation stops, and the 2nd Province achieves recognition as part of the AC. By then of course TEC will likely no longer be very relevant to anyone.
Ember, the decline is occuring in most but not all denominations. It is, however, most pronounced in the “mainline” denominations. All of these formerly prominent bodies (sometimes called “oldline” or “sideline”) are afflicted with the same liberal neo-gnosticism that tries to make Christianity more palatable by watering it down (to a form of “Jesus was one of the great teachers who shows us how we should live”) and so making Christianity insipid.
Those who preach the historic, cross-centered, Bible-founded faith enunciated in the Reformation, and who do so with sensitivity to the concerns and perspectives of the unchurched and de-churched of our nation, find good responses to their proclamation. Tim Keller, a Presbyterian (PCA) founded a congregation in Manhattan in 1989; it now draws 5,000 a Sunday, and has given birth to four or five daughter congregations in the NYC area. Historic Christianity is living faith for people who want to know the living God.
For those who find the reference too inexact:
Revelation chapters 1 to 3, inclusive. Note especially chapter 2, verses 5 and 6.
RE: “Of course, those who resort to slurs of others in definition of self will find it difficult to gain acceptance and respect.”
So true. Accurate criticism will gain immense acceptance and respect from people of integrity. Slurs not at all.
What that has to do with anything on this thread, I don’t know, but how refreshing to agree with Hopper.
No. 23 – Hopper might have been referring to the remarks gloating about evidence of the diminishment of TEC.
No. 20 – So is the new province one that will be “rooted in the Reformatioon” only? I thought so.