New Statistics Show US Episcopal Church Is Crumbling

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: The numbers don't lie. The Episcopal Church in the United States is crumbling. As many as a third of all U.S. Episcopal parishes will be closed within 5 years....

(Virtue Online) - A month long investigation by Virtueonline into the numerical state of The Episcopal Church reveals that more than one third of all 6825 Episcopal parishes in the U.S. have an average Sunday attendance (ASA) of 40 or less.

VOL believes that the figure of 2.3 million Episcopalians, regularly stated by TEC leaders and officials, does not reveal the true state of church attendance. More than two-thirds of this figure have either died, left the church, or attend twice a year, along with tens of thousands still on church rolls who have never been (and should be) removed. The only true standard to gauge the Episcopal Church’s health is Average Sunday Attendance (ASA).

The study undertaken by VOL staff reveals a church in sharp decline with 2219 churches having congregations of aging parishioners in their mid 60s with little or no chance of turnaround in the foreseeable future. There are virtually no young people coming forward to fill the gap. Those being trained in TEC’s liberal seminaries will have no message that is discernibly different from the prevailing culture.

What this foreshadows is that within the next 3 to 5 years more than 2,000 churches across the country will be forced to close, merge or be sold regardless of cash reserves or endowment because there will simply not be enough people in them to keep the doors open. Hundreds of clergy will be forced into early retirement; many will have to take secondary employment in an attempt to keep the doors open to a handful of aging congregants....

read full story here

There are lessons to be learned from this.  The U.S. Episcopal Church is a socially liberal organization, and probably the most liberal of all the Anglican bodies worldwide.  It's message is virtually indistinguishable from popular liberalism espoused at universities and by mainstream media elites.  In other words...

1. Liberalism and Christianity don't mix.


2. Liberalism guts Christianity and leaves it empty.


3. Those parishes that embrace Liberalism will consign themselves to empty pews and eventual parish closure.

The debate has long since been over.  The statistics speak for themselves.  U.S. Catholics would be wise to take heed.  For if Catholic parishes, priests and bishops adopt the same social Liberal stand as the Episcopal Church, than our fate will be the same.

Please pass this article on to all Catholics, especially those with a "liberal" point of view.