The Episcopal Church is selling or leasing its legendary headquarters building in New York city, from whose perch its Presiding Bishops long ruled and resided in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Manhattan skyline. One former presiding bishop reputedly decorated the penthouse all in white, which allegedly matched her chilly personality, provoking snarly critics to deride her as the “white witch.”
This sale could be seen as a metaphor for the collapse of liberal Protestantism, if any more metaphors are needed. More widely, it illustrates the collapse of institutional religion in America, liberal or not.
Mainline Protestant denominations have been pulling their headquarters and agencies from New York for decades. The United Church of Christ quit New York in 1990 for a new headquarters building in Cleveland, which it sold in 2022 for smaller rental space a mile away. The Presbyterian Church (USA) headquarters quit New York in 1988 for Louisville, Kentucky. United Methodism’s largest agency, the General Board of Global Ministries, quit New York in 2016 for Atlanta. The National Council of Churches quit New York in 2013 for Washington, DC.
The Episcopal church across sixty years has lost 56 percent of its members.
The Episcopal Church is selling or leasing its legendary headquarters building in New York city. This sale could be seen as a metaphor for the collapse of liberal Protestantism, if any more metaphors are needed. More widely, it illustrates the collapse of institutional religion… https://t.co/DO0XWOaaIg
— @markdtooley (@markdtooley) June 24, 2026
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