Posted on 05/01/2019 6:01:16 PM PDT by lightman
Presbyterian Church (USA) officials are reporting that the oldline Protestant denomination shed another 62,375 members the same year that their governing General Assembly declared “Zionism is based on racism” and denounced religious freedom protections.
At its current rate of shrinkage the PC(USA) will not exist in about 20 years.
Statistics made available this week by the PC(USA) Office of the General Assembly (OGA) show the denomination continues to decline, dropping to 1,352,678 active members in 2018. A net 37 percent of members have died, transferred out, or simply vanished in the past decade.
The drop of nearly 5 percent is consistent with an accelerating exodus of members since the denomination redefined marriage as between any two persons in 2014.
The denomination in 2011 revoked a clause requiring ordained PC(USA) clergy to practice fidelity in marriage or chastity in the single life. The PC(USA) has captured headlines with an increasingly antagonistic anti-Israel stance in recent years, including advocacy for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In domestic policy, the PC(USA) governing body denounced religious freedom protections claiming that religious freedom was used “to justify exclusion and discrimination.”
A press release from the OGA attempts to put a positive spin on the numbers, noting that 34 churches were dismissed to other denominations in 2018, compared to 45 the year before. Separately, a summary of statistics reports that 108 churches dissolved in 2018, up from 104 in 2017, a trend that has continued to increase in recent years. Zero churches have been received from other denominations since 2010.
“We are encouraged by the slowing trend downward,” the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PC(USA) is quoted as saying in an article on the denomination’s web site. “The church of the 21st century is changing and we still believe God is preparing us for great things in the future.”
The denomination, whose predecessor bodies once counted a combined 4.25 million members, appears to be struggling to adapt to those changes, with declines in the number of ministers and baptisms. Reaching youth has been an especially difficult challenge: 56 percent of members are now over the age of 55, and baptisms are dropping precipitously.
The Louisville, Kentucky-headquartered PC(USA) was formed in 1983 as a merger of The Presbyterian Church in the United States and the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Its predecessor bodies started declining in the mid-1960s, but the decline accelerated significantly in the 2000s.
Other U.S.-based Presbyterian denominations have fared better: in 2012, ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians, was formed by congregations departing the PC(USA), while the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) split from the PC(USA)’s Northern predecessor body in 1981 and has continued to attract congregations from the PC(USA). Separately, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) split from the PC(USA)’s Southern predecessor body in 1973 and has posted 7 percent growth over the past five years.
Maybe used to be Christian but it is now simply a country club cult. instead of mercedes-benz’s they drive Subaru Outbacks possibly some leftover Volvos but definitely some Fiat Clubman wagons.
The Left is still smashing the patriarchy, the establishment, the institutions.
They come to bury the West
Welcome to the world of mainstream, progressive “religion.”
Reform Jews and Novus Ordo Catholics are in the same leaky boat.
I would never be a Presbyterian. Just do a search of John Knox.
I left the PC(USA) in the mid 90’s when they decided they were going to stand with the pro abortion crowd instead of being pro life.
Since then, they won’t allow pastors from DTS or any other true Seminary to serve in any of their churches. It appears that they are satisfied with just managing the decline.
"In 1998, the General Assembly added to its policy by calling on all Presbyterians to: intentionally work toward removing handguns and assault weapons from our homes and our communities; and seek ways to develop community strategies and create sanctuaries of safety for our children, so that all of our children may come to identify and value themselves and others as the precious children of the family of God that they are, and that they may come to learn peace for their lives and peace for this generation.(4) In 2000, the General Assembly reaffirmed the church’s commitment to gun control and called for strengthening gun ownership legislation.(5) In 2008, the General Assembly approved pastoral recommendations urging that: all persons buying guns at gun shows undergo a background check to close the gun show loophole in 35 states; ban the sale and possession of large ammunition magazines and assault weapons that have no redeemable social purpose, and cannot legitimately be termed “sporting guns”
“Presbyterian Church (USA) officials are reporting that the oldline Protestant denomination shed another 62,375 members ...”
probably consists of deaths from old age and from AIDS, with nothing to replace them but “gay adoptions” (a/k/a “sexual assault victims obtained). I was raised in a Presbyterian church (PCA). I have attended a PCUSA church that is far more conservative than the norm. It was still a bunch of really old women, and the message was Hippie Jesus and accept the faggots. No thanks. Just fade away like the luke-warm water that you are, PCUSA. You chose the wrong path a long time ago. Let’s hope your members will find a better path.
Judgement is a great thing.
Please stop. All men have clay feet.
The Democratic Party at prayer.
He did a real disservice to Queen Mary of Scots.
I also admire Martin Luther but would never be a Lutheran.
I was a member until they started that Homo crap and women preachers.Nary a word from them about murdering little babies either. TO HELL WITH THEM! The Bible teaches for women to keep their heads covered and their mouths shut. Want to bet? That Commercial “ church “ is toast.
everyone is afraid of liberals. that is why society crumbles
1.,2.,3., Yep
The one remaining PCUSA congregation in My Little City closed its doors a few months ago. When we moved here in the early nineties, there were two, both with decent attendance.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
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