I was raised in a progressive-minded congregation of the Episcopalian Church. I wasn’t confirmed and I don’t attend services, but I’m not hostile either. And I particularly don’t like how the Church been punished for being progressive-minded.
While the Episcopal Church has established a continued pattern of steady decline since the early 2000s, the unbroken trend is relatively recent: the church lost only 18,000 members in the 1990s, a plateau that dropped off about the time Gene Robinson of New Hampshire was consecrated the church’s first openly partnered gay bishop. Overall, the church has declined from a high of 3.6 million members in the mid-1960s to 1.8 million today, even as the U.S. population has more than doubled. The church has lost more than a quarter of its attendance since 2003.
Of course, a lot of this is South Carolina, again.
The numbers are significantly worse than 2013, when the church reported a 1.4 percent decline in membership and 2.6 percent decline in average Sunday attendance. One contributing factor is figures from the Episcopal Church in South Carolina (TECSC), the local Episcopal Church jurisdiction formed after the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina departed the denomination in the autumn of 2012. 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. The Diocese of South Carolina is one of five dioceses to depart the denomination since Jefferts Schori’s election, along with hundreds of individual congregations. 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.
What’s the problem with Jefferts Schori?
She’s a woman, and she’s progressive-minded:
Jefferts Schori’s tenure has been highly controversial and marked by nearly unprecedented schism, with four dioceses having broken off to become part of the Anglican Church in North America. At her direction the national church has initiated lawsuits against departing dioceses and parishes, with some $22 million spent thus far. She also established a policy that church properties were not to be sold to departing congregations.
Jefferts Schori is a supporter of same-sex relationships and of the blessing of same-sex unions and civil marriages. Like her predecessor, she is a supporter of abortion rights, stating that “We say it is a moral tragedy but that it should not be the government’s role to deny its availability.” She also supported the HHS mandate on birth control.
The result is a massive loss of butts in the seats.
LBJ also knew something about doing the right thing whatever the costs. Sometimes you have to nearly destroy an organization to save it.
Biblically, taking your licks for doing the right thing is often a sign you’re doing the right thing.
Rich megachurches take note.
We Unitarian Universalists have lost a few disgruntled political conservatives and “All Lives Matter” racists (as previous generations lost some homophobes). Addition by subtraction, because the anti-life reactionism that has appropriated the respectable name of “conservatism” in this country is not by any stretch of the imagination compatible with our Seven Principles.
I’m shocked that any of those were left in UU denominations.
The main problem with declining attendance at center and center-left denominations is that more and more people who are center and center-left really don’t see the value in spending time on these ancient rites based on pre-enlightenment superstitions, no matter how it’s dressed up to be modern. The whole church concept had a lot of social value at a time before radio when you didn’t get to actually see most of the people in the town you lived in except on Sunday. Throw in the usual human self-doubts and need for a super-parent to watch over them and churches were an obvious answer.
Today right-wing churches provide a different value for members – what we could call reinforcing to their tribal instincts. But on the left and center there is no value. That’s why outside of the US, where there are still intense media messages that are pro-church (think of the American media connotations of the term “person of faith” – they practically fell over themselves to award Joe Lieberman this title last decade), the other first world nations have reduced church attendance to well below 20% of the populations – and if you actually go to one of those churches you’ll find that the vast majority of the attendees are over 50 (as they are for left-center churches in the US).
Now, regarding the Espicopalian loss of dioceses I’m not familiar with the particular issue, but again, the active membership skews very old in these churches. The issues in question also skew heavily in terms of public opinion depending on age. On the left the racists and homophobes are dying off. Alas, on the right they appear to be self-perpetuating.
UU numbers have held steady (albeit from a small base)in contrast to the steep decline in mainline Protestantism, and my own congregation is growing pretty rapidly and has lots of young people. I do in fact think it’s because we long ago discarded those ancient superstitions, or at least any expectation or desire that they or any others be believed if you want to be a member. (I am very open about being an atheist.) I think we can grow nationwide as we start to be a little less reticent about making our presence known.
I’m not surprised that UU has held it’s own. I’ve been to a couple service that my wife asked me to attend and it’s basically church without the god guilt. For people who’ve graduated from religion, per se, but like the church experience UU is the answer, so I suspect it UU churches will continue to add members leaving other religions. I also noted the UU church attendance was more balanced age-wise: still skewed toward older folks but not extremely so. By contrast, I’ve attended a few services for various reasons of other churches (such as watching my daughter doing a paid harp gig) and its like visiting a retiree home.
Yeah, the old age home vibe (I can say that, I’m 60!) has been the case in every liberal Protestant church I’ve been in for the past quite a few years (usually as part of a group providing music for a service). Since, though I could never in a million years identify as a Christian, I have friendly feelings toward liberal Christians (who do a lot of great social justice work), this makes me kind of sad.
My UU church is very small, and we are growing slowly, very slowly. We are between ministers, and this is a problem. We have a good interim right now.
UUs have held their own and are experiencing some growth.
Not selling church properties to departing congregations is how the United Methodist Church kept its presence in the South during desegregation. Now progressive congregations in the South are among the “reconciliation” ministries even in the Carolinas that are pushing a resolution in the next Methodist quadrennial to change the United Methodist position on same-sex marriage.
The “literal Biblical” is what ties together the defense of slavery (defense of segregation is confused form of this at bottom), assertion of women’s traditional roles (wife and concubine apparently), and opposition to same-sex marriage (but not apparently to the shellfish industry of the coasts). The US “Anglicans” have be capturing congregations in the South ever since the revision of the Book of Common Prayer. And the authorities have continued to assert that ownership of property should not be transferred to breakaway congregations; they have to build their own buildings and parsonages.
I was also raised Episcopalian, although not progressive (I’m from the South). My parents’ church (I stopped attending as a teen) schismed when they ordained the first gay bishop, with the conservatives departing to create a different Anglican church associated with a different Anglican denomination (don’t know which, but it might well be Global South). They had to take a black preacher because they couldn’t get a white one, which I find very ironic as the schismers are pretty racist for the most part, and more racist than homophobic in my experience.
The rump church is now pretty progressive, and I’d like to support it. My mother still goes, and I have a friend here in CA who’s pretty active in the Episcopal church as well. But I just can’t swallow the mythological nonsense of any church at this point.
I was raised to believe that the covers on the Bible were made of real leather. ie: Literalist. I was a Southern Baptist lay minister from age 16 to 19. I became an atheist when the racist forces of Mississippi society in 1970 forced me to re-read the Bible and try to correlate “good, misguided Christians”, racism and an Omnipotent God who loves all.
Losing rumps out of seats? Yeah, some will go to another church to practice their hatred. But some will just decide that the cognitive dissonance of loving hatred just doesn’t make sense.
The primary cause of schism? Fear of loss of power.
The primary cause of Atheism? The Bible.
Interesting data from South Carolina, Booman. You know the Episcopalian Church is the post War For Independence Church of England under a new name, and direction; no more British Royalty as its claim to legitimacy. In the post colonial Southern coastal economies, Episcopalian membership meant landed (plantation) or cotton/tobacco trade brokers privilege. The Evangelical Methodist/Baptist/Presbyterian denominations were the reserve of the working class Scotts-Irish, sometimes referred to as “crackers” (the sound of the whip that the Scotts-Irish overseer employed.) And in fairness, the Methodist revival in the North gifted us with the Abolitionists.
I honestly don’t know what explains the numbers drop off. Could it be the latter half of the 20th century’s neo-evangelical revival of the Pat Robert’s mold? Episcopalianism might be considered too staid by foaming at the mouthers.