CIRCLING THE DRAIN

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

The Rev. Dr. Russell J. Levenson, Jr., rector of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church of Houston, Texas, just realized something. The Episcopal Organization is buying the farm, cashing in its chips, departing this vale of tears, shuffling off this mortal coil and so on:

The naked truth about our church involves steady numerical decline. “Episcopal Congregations Overview: Findings from the 2010 Faith Communities Today Survey”, published by the Episcopal Church’s office of Congregational and Diocesan Ministries, offers these salient points:

• The median Episcopal parish had 66 persons at Sunday worship in 2009, down from 77 in 2003.
• Of congregations with a single worship service each weekend, 50 percent report that the service is less then one-third full.
• The median Episcopal congregation had 160 active members in 2009, down from 182 in 2003.

The summary of statistics in The Episcopal Church Annual of 2011 (see p. 15) paints a bleak picture of changes between 2008 and 2009:

• 69 fewer parishes;
• 50,949 fewer baptized members;
• 42,177 fewer communicants in good standing;
• 22,294 fewer people in average Sunday attendance;
• 1,887 fewer baptisms;
• 597 fewer confirmations.

Why is TEO in the crapper? Gene Robinson? Robbie certainly didn’t help. Lots of people left because of him and all those progressives who were going to flood Episcopal parishes because TEO had a gay bishop haven’t arrived yet.

Some will cite the 2003 General Convention, which approved the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop, as the turning point, and The Episcopal Church Annual again shows an important decline (see p. 21): we have lost more than 250,000 baptized members (from 2,284,233 to 2,006,343) and 325 parishes and missions (from 7,220 to 6,895). “Episcopal Congregations Overview” records that 89 percent of Episcopal congregations reported conflicts or disagreements in the last five years, and adds: “The ordination of gay priests or bishops was the most frequently mentioned source of conflict” (p. 3).

But face facts, says Levenson. TEO’s decline began long before anyone had even heard of Gene Robinson and lots of different reasons factored in.

But the essential elements of decline began in the mid-1970s. In 1970, TEC had an all-time high of 3,475,164 members. Within five years, it had lost nearly half a million, down to 3,039,136 (Episcopal Church Annual, p. 21). In the four decades since then, we bled out more than one-third of our members. Some will blame this drastic period of anemia on divisions over women’s ordination, prayer book revision and even fallout from the civil rights movements of the 1960s, but it is probably not that simple either. A massive loss between 1970 and 1975 occurred before the height of divisions over women’s ordination and prayer book revision.

And it’s kind of funny in a way, that a church that brags about its inclusiveness should be losing members as fast as the Episcopalians are.

The strategy of inclusion seems to say something like this: “All are welcome. There is room for everyone at the table. We are a Church of many voices, and we need to make even more room at the table and be even more diverse, and then (maybe then) more people will come our way. Well, if we have been making more room at the table, the exodus from our church suggests that people must be eating at a different restaurant.

So what should the Episcopalians do? Levenson has a few suggestions.

In the words of Archbishop William Temple: “Evangelism is to so present Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit that men might come to trust him as Savior and serve him as Lord in the fellowship of his Church.” The focus is Jesus Christ; the power to do the work comes from the Holy Spirit; and the goal is moving men and women toward a unique and salvific relationship with Jesus Christ, and leading them to belong to the community of faith which is his Church. Accordingly, the core work of the Church is evangelism.

No argument there. I’ve said many times that I’d go to the ends of the Earth to tell someone about Jesus but I wouldn’t cross the street to make someone Anglican. And while I’ve never spent any time in either church, I have to think that Roman Catholic or Orthodox priests don’t waste a great deal of time explaining to their congregations why the Catholics/Orthodox/Protestants are wrong.

They’re just preaching Christ and Him crucified. By the way, Doctor, if you really want to evangelize, lose words like “salvific.” Most people are turned off by theologisms. As far as I’m concerned, the best description of what evangelism means is found in a bit of Mark 5:19 in which Our Lord tells the man out of whom He cast out many demons, “Tell them what great things the Lord has done for you.”

Figure out how to do that, Doctor, and the sky’s the limit.

Conservative voices hold the minority on the stage of TEC’s policy and polity, but they must be allowed to practice their beliefs without threat from national or diocesan leadership. This works in many dioceses: liberal bishops permit alternative oversight for conservative parishes, and vice versa. Given that liberals represent the majority, however, they need to work harder to welcome conservative voices into discussions and decisions on all matters related to ecclesiastical life.

File that one under “locking the barn door after the horse has gotten out.” There aren’t enough conservative Episcopalians left to matter very much and those that remain are as concerned for the Episcopal institution as they are for the Gospel.

When Episcopalians have trouble agreeing to common definitions of original sin or Christology, we should not be surprised at divisions regarding sexuality. Many have expressed concern that theological depth is desperately lacking not only among many of our priests but among our bishops as well. Fortunately, several healthy seminaries seem to be pushing back toward the center.

Don’t want to harsh your buzz or anything, Doctor, but that toothpaste ain’t goin’ back into that tube. The Episcopal left is going to set Episcopal theology for generations to come. Your suggestions would have been useful five or six years ago. But once again, barn doors, horses and all that.