Thanks..I'm goping to send David Virtue an e-mail..suggesting he add a counter to his website..like the National Debt thingee...
Episcopal Church Funding Down 12 Percent (in 2004)
2/11/2005
“A new report says giving by local dioceses to the national Episcopal Church dropped roughly $4 million last year - about a 12 percent decline in the first full year after the denomination confirmed its only openly gay bishop.
When final tallies are complete, church officials expect $27.5 million in donations from local dioceses for 2004, down from $31.2 million in 2003, according to a report given to a key church governing body Friday.
Through Nov. 30, the denomination had received $22.6 million from dioceses, the report said. Final figures were not available because December contributions have not been fully tabulated.
Denomination Treasurer Kurt Barnes told the Episcopal Executive Council, meeting at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin, that he does not expect a continuing decline.
Rather, he predicted a 3.7 percent increase - about $1 million - in diocese giving to the national church this year, and another 4 percent rise in 2006.
But Canon David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, a conservative group of Episcopalians, said he expects donations to keep going down in protest of “the liberal revisionists’ agenda, which includes a gay agenda.”
“That big of a downturn, whatever the dollar amount is, hardly argues for a church where everything is fine and wonderful,” Anderson said….”
Read it all. It is interesting to compare this news with what we were told back in February by Episcopal Church officials: “pledges to the national church are down only 7 percent” and also “The impact is what I would describe as insignificant.” It was not insignificant then, and it is still significant, in that it indicates the strong degree of distance, which in a number of cases represent profound alienation, between the grassroots people and the national leadership.
The other central point to make is that the key number to watch is NOT diocesan giving to the national church, which is what this report is discussing. Dioceses have all sorts of ways to make up parish giving shortfalls, drawing on other sources of funds, tapping reserves, etc. The key number to watch is parish giving to the diocese and the national church year over year. That is even more significant, and the national leadership is not only not taking it seriously, they are not so far as one can currently tell acting to do something substantial about it.