https://religioninpublic.blog/2021/07/06/the-death-of-the-episcopal-church-is-near/ Last November, I wrote a post for Religion in Public with the title, “The Data is Clear – Episcopalians are in Trouble.” In it, I used survey data to paint a portrait of a denomination that was on the brink of collapse. One of the most troubling things about the future of the Episcopal Church is that the average member is incredibly old. The median age of an Episcopalian in 2019 was sixty-nine years old. With life expectancy around 80, we can easily expect at least a third of the current membership of the denomination to be gone in the next fifteen or twenty years. That’s problematic when membership has already been plummeting for decades.
Zero weddings by 2025. Hopefully, they can get a few more gay marriages going to ensure they still have a few "marriages."
Moderation and tolerance have never been popular though. Most people like their religion to be at one extreme or another. Jesus it would seem was fanatically moderate. So much so that both extreme conservative and extreme radical religious types had it in for him to the degree that they wanted him dead. On the one hand as an example to others of what happens to moderate trouble makers and on the other as a Hero Martyr to those who wanted to stir up trouble against the powers that be that crucified him on account of him being thought too radical. If it's at all Christ like the Anglican church can only expect to suffer the same fate as its master did. The worst that can happen is for it to acheive Worldly Success, Eathly Wealth and Political Influence under the rule of the anti-Christ along with 'the harlot of the seven hills'. .
christians are not a ‘moderate’ comfortable white affluent 20th century socialite… never have been (until the 20th century that is)
All Christians are called upon to be radical in their determination to be moderate in extreem provocation. What do you think "Turning the other cheek" is all about. If you are determined to go to extremes with your religion, you may just as well become an Islamist. Moderation is a radical choice. .
In the article there's raw data, but it doesn't say the source. The raw data and estimates are distinct from the graph - as we would expect. Any estimate that puts weddings into the 'negatives' is clearly flawed, marriages will approach zero, not pass zero, you can't have a negative amount of marriages. The graph should be curving. The forecast and the historic data doesn't detail the margin of error, nor the methodology used to forecast.
What the Episcopal Church Will Look Like in 2050 There is increasing recognition that the Episcopal Church has suffered serious decline. But estimating future trends, especially more than a few years ahead, is a risky business. TEC’s decline is due to multiple factors such as demographic change, an aging pool of worshippers, secularization, and schism. These factors interact in complex and not entirely understood ways. So, any predictions should be treated with caution. https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2021/01/11/the-episcopal-church-in-2050/ WhatThe CofE's great leap forward will cull clergy and abandon parishioners Secularisation is indeed a catastrophe for the churches. But we won’t outlast this period of history by being more business-like or by adopting slicker models of evangelistic marketing. We won’t be saved by panicky spread-sheet evangelists, Indeed, we must be more of what we have been called to be – more thoughtful, more prayerful, less fearful, more obedient to God’s call. We are resurrection people after all. Institutional death should hold out no terror for the faithful. And it will only be this lack of fear that can make us attractive once again. https://unherd.com/2021/07/the-chur...2XH4FCQYbrj_kt81Ny2dcbdq8FASwomuBFhDYtL4JdQXE I think both these articles quite probably sad but true. I think I prefer the CofE article, or at least it discusses things I have seen happening directly in an efficient business-like corporate church.
Ok thanks. This is hardly enough data to base any solid projections on. The set for average Sunday attendance alone is only 3 data points (non-projected). It's almost impossible to derive anything but a straight line from so few stats. I'd like to see annual data going back (at least) the last hundred years.
If you read the article you see he links to his source for the data and that is from the Episcopal Churches numbers themselves
I'm not questioning the data. I just want more of it. It is by no means obvious which article referred to above contains the link to the Episcopal Church's own data on baptisms, weddings, church attendance, etc. Didn't see it. I'm assuming it's not there. If it is there, please post the link in a reply.
Here are some TEC statistics: An article from way back in 2011 predicting demographic apocalypse: https://virtueonline.org/episcopal-church-latest-statistics-show-continued-denominational-decline From 2017, the title says it all: https://virtueonline.org/funerals-outpace-all-other-episcopal-church-statistics-2017 And here's one from 2020, containing a plethora of updated statistics: https://virtueonline.org/incredibly-shrinking-episcopal-church
Also, just to clarify my position in case it's incorrectly inferred from the response, I don't doubt that baptisms and weddings (and any other metric that is correlated to participation) are dropping rapidly and alarmingly in TEC. I'm just skeptical of the specific accuracy of the numbers in the livingchurch.org article, and also on the crude and exaggerated forecast. It's likely rough historic numbers, and just totally made up forecast numbers. And, of course, the graph posted by Carolinian from the original article, despite citing the livingchurch article, didn't actually use the values found in the livingchurch article. But the point, that participation rates are crashing at an alarming rate and there is serious cause for concern, is almost certainly true.