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Canadian Anglicans Becoming Extinct (due to its liberal agenda)
AgapePress ^ | 02/07/06 | AFA Journal

Posted on 02/09/2006 9:20:29 AM PST by Heartofsong83

Canadian Anglicans Becoming Extinct

By AFA Journal February 7, 2006

(AgapePress) - A new, independent report on the state of the Anglican Church of Canada shows a staggering decline in membership over the last 40 years.

Between 1961 and 2001 the Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian branch of the worldwide Anglican community, lost 53 percent of its members, from 1.36 million to 642,000. However, the report also ominously stated that the decline is accelerating. While membership dropped 13 percent between 1981 and 1991, it fell 20 percent between 1991 and 2001.

According to The Church of England Newspaper, the report was prepared by Keith McKerracher, a retired marketing expert. It was presented to the House of Bishops.

McKerracher said in subsequent interviews: "My point to the bishops was, 'Hey listen, guys, we're declining much faster than any other church. We're losing 12,836 Anglicans a year. That's 2 percent a year. If you draw a line on the graph, there'll only be one person left in the [Canadian] Anglican church by 2061.'"

The Anglican Church of Canada, like its sister branch in the U.S., the Episcopal Church USA, has been steadily trending liberal over the last four decades. That is probably the reason for the Canadian church's decline, according to Ted Byfield.

Byfield is a long-time observer of Canadian culture. He published a weekly news magazine in Canada for 30 years and now serves as general editor of The Christians, a 12-volume history of Christianity.

In a column for WorldNetDaily, Byfield spoke of the Anglican Church of Canada's "consistent departure from traditional Christian teaching, which has been going on throughout the whole 40-year period of decline.

"It began with the acceptance of serial marriage, progressed to the ordination of women, then to the funding of terrorist groups in Africa, and finally to the acceptance of homosexual practice. The church's latest foray is its tacit approval of homosexual marriage, which has seen it virtually disowned by the Anglican churches of Africa and Asia."

McKerracher did not think the Anglican leadership in Canada would respond to the new report with any significant changes.

"The church is in real crisis. They can't carry on like it's business as usual. They talk things to death," he said. "And my impression is that the bishops are not going to go around telling priests to shape up."

Almost as if to confirm McKerracher's impression, Canadian Archbishop Andrew Hutchison told The Church of England Newspaper that although the report was a "wake-up call," he hoped a new emphasis on social justice and ecumenical cooperation would stem the decline.


TOPICS: Mainline Protestant; Moral Issues
KEYWORDS: anglican; canada; church; churchindecline; ecusa; episcopal; extinction; homosexualagenda; outoftouch; religiousleft
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That is accelerating even more since 2001 - despite the fact that overall church attendance in Canada has spiked upward since then.

There is a good reason why I recently left that church.

1 posted on 02/09/2006 9:20:32 AM PST by Heartofsong83
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To: Heartofsong83; fanfan; GMMAC; little jeremiah; NYer

RE: How the Anglican Church of Canada is rapidly losing members.

"Almost as if to confirm McKerracher's impression, Canadian Archbishop Andrew Hutchison told The Church of England Newspaper that although the report was a "wake-up call," he hoped a new emphasis on social justice and ecumenical cooperation would stem the decline."

I thought you all might be interested in this.


2 posted on 02/09/2006 9:25:36 AM PST by Alexander Rubin (Octavius - You make my heart glad building thus, as if Rome is to be eternal.)
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To: Heartofsong83
There is a good reason why I recently left that church.

ROBINSON: "Does this collar make me look fat?...BTW, did you say something?"

3 posted on 02/09/2006 9:25:37 AM PST by frogjerk (LIBERALISM: The perpetual insulting of common sense.)
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To: Heartofsong83

They are called worship services, Bishop, not social justice and ecumenical cooperation services. People go to church to worship God, not to participate in the latest liberation theology activities. What a maroon.


4 posted on 02/09/2006 9:25:45 AM PST by p. henry
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To: Heartofsong83

Is there an alternative conservative anglican-communion church springing up in Canada akin to how the American Anglican churches are springing up to replace the former Episcopal churches?


5 posted on 02/09/2006 9:26:07 AM PST by MeanWestTexan (Many at FR would respond to Christ "Darn right, I'll cast the first stone!")
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To: Heartofsong83
The same thing is going to happen to American Catholic Churches. However it will not be due to conservative-liberal underpinnings. It will be due to the fact that the church has done little to engage children and young adults. I look at my church on Sunday and it is filled with gray hair. Over the next twenty - third years they will die and there will be very few left in the pews. It is a shame and it may be two late to engage the age group.
6 posted on 02/09/2006 9:27:06 AM PST by Investment Biker
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To: p. henry

Where are they going? Back into the Catholic fold, from where they departed, maybe?


7 posted on 02/09/2006 9:27:31 AM PST by tbird5
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To: Investment Biker

My catholic church is packed with young people and babies. The catholic schools here in Kentucky are packed.


8 posted on 02/09/2006 9:29:26 AM PST by tbird5
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To: tbird5

Increasingly that is the same in Canada, in many communities at least. Not sure about the largest cities.


9 posted on 02/09/2006 9:30:30 AM PST by Heartofsong83
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To: tbird5

That's where I went...


10 posted on 02/09/2006 9:30:43 AM PST by Heartofsong83
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To: Heartofsong83
"There is a good reason why I recently left that church."

This is also the reason the wife and I left the ELCA last year for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Both organizations are headed by liberal/socialists who's agenda is socially oriented, instead of a committment to the religious health of their members.

11 posted on 02/09/2006 9:31:35 AM PST by bcsco ("He who is wedded to the spirit of the age is soon a widower" - Anonymous)
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To: tbird5

I am going to assume you are in northern Kentucky and have a tradition of schools that are associated with the church. This is a good draw for the church though many in Cincinnati would like to see the church get out of the school business. The local parish with a school does well in demographics. The adjoining parishes without a school are all filled with gray and few children in attendance.


12 posted on 02/09/2006 9:34:52 AM PST by Investment Biker
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To: Investment Biker
The same thing is going to happen to American Catholic Churches. However it will not be due to conservative-liberal underpinnings. It will be due to the fact that the church has done little to engage children and young adults. I look at my church on Sunday and it is filled with gray hair.

Funny, my Catholic church is full of families with lots of little kids.

13 posted on 02/09/2006 9:42:10 AM PST by Campion ("I am so tired of you, liberal church in America" -- Mother Angelica, 1993)
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To: sionnsar

Thought you and your Anglican ping list might be interested in this, buddy. ;)

Check out the last line.


14 posted on 02/09/2006 9:44:44 AM PST by Alexander Rubin (Octavius - You make my heart glad building thus, as if Rome is to be eternal.)
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To: Heartofsong83
Meanwhile, Anglican & Episcopalian converts to the RC camp are proceeding apace. The new Anglican rite parishes in the US (Our Lady of Atonement in San Antonio was the founding parish, courtesy of JP II) are busting at the seams, not just with converts from all the C of E offshoots & other ex-protestants of various provenance, but with cradle Catholics fed up with the namby-pamby,don't-want-to-offend-anyone moral relativist priests in their own parishes, who also treasure the ang. rite's beautifully reverential services, not to mention their proudly pro-Vatican, vocally pro-life, and refreshingly old-school theological outlook.They are so retro, they are positively cutting-edge to all of us post Vatican II babies. And devout pre-V2 folks really feel at home there as well. Our Lady of A in S.A. haven't even finished putting on the final touches to the most recent addition to their church but judging from the service I attended a couple of weeks ago, it looks like they're going to have to call back the contractors to tack on another extension. It's amazing!
15 posted on 02/09/2006 9:44:58 AM PST by leilani
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To: Heartofsong83

Will the last person in the Anglican/
Episcopalian Church turn off the lights. Or maybe blow out only the candles.


16 posted on 02/09/2006 9:49:38 AM PST by N. Theknow (Kennedys - Can't drive, can't fly, can't ski, can't skipper a boat - But they know what's best.)
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To: Alexander Rubin; GMMAC; Pikamax; Former Proud Canadian; Great Dane; Alberta's Child; ...

Canada Ping!

Please FReepmail me to get on or off this Canada ping list.


17 posted on 02/09/2006 9:55:29 AM PST by fanfan
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To: MeanWestTexan

"Is there an alternative conservative anglican-communion church springing up in Canada akin to how the American Anglican churches are springing up to replace the former Episcopal churches?"

Yes see the link.

http://www.acahome.org/tac/


18 posted on 02/09/2006 11:35:57 AM PST by jecIIny (You faithful, let us pray for the Catechumens! Lord Have Mercy)
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To: leilani

The Anglican/Roman shift goes both ways. I am an Anglican, but I really can't see myself joining the Roman church. I am not willing to accept that the Pope is infallible, and I am not interested in the "Cult" of Mary.


19 posted on 02/09/2006 11:42:08 AM PST by kellynch (I am excessively diverted. ~~Jane Austen)
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To: kellynch
Absolutely, do whatever your heart requires you to do. Roman Catholicism is definitely not for everyone, & most especially not for those who're too intellectually lazy to investigate the accuracy of trite misconceptions about papal "infallibility" and shopworn myths regarding "cults" of Mary and the like. ;)
20 posted on 02/09/2006 12:08:14 PM PST by leilani
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