This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

It's Not Looking Pretty for ECUSA

Since the beginning of the year, I have resolutely refrained from posting anything on my one-time church home, the Episcopal Church. I'd gotten into a bit too much criticism without having any real investment in the arguments. That, to me, didn't seem either fair or helpful.

I am, however, going to make some observations and offer my thoughts on the recent information from ECUSA about membership. (Not that ECUSA cares about my thoughts, you understand.)

According to a one page summary [via MCJ] from the Episcopal Church, the people are leaving.

In 2002, ECUSA had lost just over eight thousand active baptized members from the previous year. Last year that number jumped to nearly 36,000, or four-and-a-half times. The five year active change in membership shows a decline of two percent, and six percent over ten years (an increase of three hundred percent). The percentage of individual churches growing or declining over the past five years has held relatively stable in the mid-thirties.

Average Sunday attendance tells pretty much the same story. In 2002, there was a loss of almost twelve thousand people. In 2003 that loss nearly doubled to just more than 23,600. In 2002, the five and ten year changes in average Sunday attendance held at an increase of one percent. Last year, that percentage dropped to a two percent loss over five years, and a percent loss over ten years.

In 2002, the percentage of churches reporting an increase in average Sunday attendance were 39%, while those reporting losses were just under half at 49%. But in 2003, the percentage of churches increasing fell to 34%, while the percentage experiencing losses increased to 54%.

The monetary picture at first glance looked slightly better. The average pledge grew slightly over the five year period, and the average pledge itself increased from the previous year by almost $70. Total plate and pledge income grew by more than $30 million dollars.

What do these things tell us? Well, it makes sense that the average pledge would increase, even without an overall increase of giving, if the average membership and attendance declined to the extent they did in the past year. But given that not only the average but the overall take has increased speaks well of the remaining members that they have increased their pledges and giving. Financially, then, things look decent, even if one cannot yet relax one's vigilance.

But the decline of membership is clearly a problem. It's no secret that ECUSA has been on a trajectory of decline in membership over the last few decades. So, in general, these trends fit an already well-established pattern.

What is remarkable, however, is the increase in the loss over just one year: about a 450% increase. Given the trends, ECUSA would have lost members again, anyway. But the loss spiked last year.

It seems reasonable to suppose that the dissension and chaos within ECUSA over issues of authority and discipline (manifested microcosmically in the issues of same-sex unions and non-celibate homosexual clergy) which came to a head in GenCon03 was one important catalyst, if things such as this are impossible to boil down to a single causative factor.

ECUSA couldn't care less what I have to say, but if they want to reverse these trends, and if they do not want to see a similar sharp decline in coming years, they'd better handle their authority and discipline issues. Unfortunately, it seems they do not yet have the capacity to do so. Many Episcopalians will surely point the finger at their own who have formed a network of parishes and dioceses opposed to the actions of GenCon03, and at overseas bishops who have crossed diocesan lines to minister to parishes requesting alternative oversight. But fingers might well also be pointed at the Presiding Bishop who himself refused to be held to the last Lambeth Conference's guidelines regarding human sexuality and same-sex unions, and made public statements about consecrating Gene Robinson as bishop that were later in strong contradistinction to his public actions, as well as to other bishops and primates who similarly flouted other primatial agreed statements to pursue what they had already determined to do.

Part of the issue, however, is that ECUSA cannot agree on what constitutes proper Christian dogma (especially on sexuality matters), which is the foundation of church discipline. Church discipline itself cannot be enforced, especially as bishops selectively enforce canons or misconstrue their interpretation. Witness the fiasco under Charles Bennison in Pennsylvania. Or note the failure of any charges to be brought on various bishops for their individual sundry alleged violations. Spong has point-by-point denied every one of the tenets of the Nicene Creed, yet retains his ecclesiastical status and his pension. Pagan liturgies can be posted (and implicitly endorsed) on the ECUSA website with apparently no repurcussions against those posting them and endorsing them.

The much-vaunted Anglican via media cannot work. It's one thing to allow some quibbles over the Eucharist to save an island nation from more bloody civil war. But no nation needs saving from religious bloodbaths here, and when diametrically opposed yet fundamental beliefs (such as what it means to be human) confront each other there can be no compromise. The via media is not an ecclesiology, it's a political bandaid. And that bandaid has been ripped off.

In short, ECUSA is a house riven. There are at least two distinct bodies vying for control of the denomination and ownership of what it means to be Anglican in America. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, then surely ECUSA will fall. The only question is when.

Posted by Clifton at December 9, 2004 03:15 PM | TrackBack