Posted on 10/14/2015 11:17:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Episcopal Church continues to experience losses in both church attendance and membership, according to recently released numbers from the denomination's Office of the General Convention.
From 2013 to 2014, active baptized members in domestic dioceses went from 1.866 million to 1.817 million, representing a loss of nearly 50,000 members.
The statistics reveal that in 2014 that average Sunday attendance was a little over 600,000 in domestic dioceses, down from approximately 623,000 in 2013.
2014's numbers are even more telling when compared with 2009, when the theologically liberal Episcopal Church had about 200,000 more members and over 80,000 more Sunday worship attendees.
Jeff Walton, Anglican program director at the theologically conservative Institute on Religion & Democracy, noted in a blog entry last week other aspects of decline for the Church.
"Other measures of Episcopal Church vitality also saw decline: the denomination reported the shuttering of 69 parishes and missions, down from 6,622 in 2013 to 6,553 in 2014," wrote Walton.
image: http://images.christianpost.com/full/48635/episcopal-church-losing-members.jpg?w=262
Episcopal Church: Losing Members image: http://graphic.christianpost.com/images/homepage11/enlarge4.png
"Children's baptisms declined 4.8 percent from 25,822 to 24,594 and adult baptisms declined during the same time-frame from 3,675 to 3,530, a decline of nearly 4 percent."
The losses experienced between 2013 and 2014 are nearly double the roughly 27,000 fewer members between 2012 and 2013.
This is likely because of the actions of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, the majority of whose members and leadership opted to leave the national denomination.
As a result of the November 2012 vote, the diocese and the denomination have been in a legal battle over numerous church properties, valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The minority still loyal to the national denomination within the diocese have labeled themselves The Episcopal Church in South Carolina.
"Updated figures from TECSC show that the body has 6,387 active baptized members and an average Sunday attendance of 2,812 persons. This is down 77 percent from the 28,195 members and 12,005 attendance average previously reported," continued Walton.
"The Diocese of South Carolina has accepted an offer of oversight from the worldwide Anglican Communion's Global South and now functions independently from the U.S.-based Episcopal Church."
The release of the 2014 statistics comes weeks before the installation ceremony for the new Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, The Rt. Rev. Michael B. Curry.
Rev. Curry gained headlines in June when the Episcopal General Convention elected him the first African-American presiding bishop in the denomination's history.
In an interview with Episcopal News Service in late June, Curry explained that he believed that now was the time for the Church "to reclaim its share in the Jesus Movement."
"Part of a presiding bishop's role in this mission moment is to help the Church to go where the congregation is, to bear witness to the Good News of Jesus," said Curry.
I left it decades ago — about the same time God was no longer welcome unless He could conform to their concept of Him.
Good news, but they need to work harder if they want to keep up with the PCUSA in losses.
Some beautiful real estate on that list, I’m sure.
Does “active” membership mean that they show up on Christmas?
Didn't you mean to say "their concept of Her?"
I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that while more liberal denominations are losing members, that more conservative or Bible believing denominations are seeing growth.
Its all anecdotal; I don’t have any statistics. Perhaps others do.
Heavy duty in New England and nothing has moved in to take its place except the religion of liberalism.
So the LGBTQP Christians aren’t rushing in to fill the pews?
This is a half-written story.
Several years ago, there was a split along theological lines and a large number of parishes exited (I believe the entire diocese of Pittsburgh left).
So how have the Anglicans who left Episcopalianism fared? Enquiring, severely lapsed Episcopalian minds who were just tired of all the bull crap would like to know.
Yup, people are jumping ship to the bible-centered Anglican Church in North America.
Sad.
It was once a very strong denomination.
From people I’ve encountered they either did one of three things:
1) Their local parish split, and those that wanted to continue in apostasy stayed with TEC, while the remainder of the parish joined the ACNA. There have been quite a few legal battles over church land when majority voted TEC off church property.
2) A lot of former Episcopal who jumped ship in 2008 or even earlier when TEC allowed female ordination have found local ACNA parishes to join.
3) Some have jumped ship to the Catholic church.
Right now the ACNA is going through it’s own internal discussions over female ordination. Currently ACNA policy is to allow already ordained women to serve, however female bishops are off the table. However, the ACNA is still currently wrestling with the issue since many ACNA members specifically left TEC over female ordination while others were okay with it, but support for abortion and gay marriage were the final straws and resulted in the mass exodus we are seeing today.
Currently the ACNA is not in Communion with the Church of England, largely because of interference from TEC and the Church of Canada, however it is in full Communion with more conservative churches in Africa and Asia. However the Archbishop of Canterbury has called for a meeting of primates in January and has in fact invited Archbishop Foley of the ACNA to attend... TEC is annoyed, and GAFCON (Anglican churches in Africa) are debating whether to even attend as they view TEC and liberal Western Anglicans as heretics and are demanding TEC and others confess their sin and repent....
The chances of that happening are slim and none, so it is very likely the Anglican Communion will be fully severed in January with orthodox/conservatives siding with GAFCON and ACNA, and declaring they do not recognize the Communion of England any more. meanwhile TEC and the like will continue to bleed members and fade into oblivion.
No matter individual opinions here, religion by and large is massively losing adherents. It is a millennial thing combined with boomer cynicism.
I think Gen Y and Greatest Generation might be the only things holding it together at all.
Karl Marx: “The Church of England would give up 38 of its 39 articles [of faith] rather than one-thirty-ninth of its income.”
The American Episcopal Church today is just as godless as Marx. In fact, its clergy & lay leadership actively deny the articles of faith. They’re no longer a Christian denomination, just a Socialist political group.
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