Anglicans Suspend Episcopal Church

[joyfool]

@Ulf_the_Unwashed

Just as a data point:

My church, in a diocese that has generally been liberal in its approach to gays and lesbians, recently called its second openly gay rector. We have been doing same sex marriage ceremonies for several years–ever since marriage equality was established in this state–and there are a fair number of gay and lesbian couples in the congregation. (We lost one family over this issue when the first openly gay rector was chosen.)

There used to be six “mainline Protestant” churches in our small city’s downtown district. Four of them have closed, merged with other congregations in the suburbs, or downsized dramatically; none of them were particularly gay-friendly. The only two that are left are our Episcopal congregation and a Congregational church with a similar outlook on issues of sexual orientation. Both of them are growing.

As I said, just a data point…

Yes, this is exactly what I was talking about. We do see bigger churches in the area thrive from time to time, but mostly (and this is going back to my almost forty years in and around the church), but they almost never maintain that kind of staying power beyond the emotional needs of their members. Those folks don’t seem to want steady or mundane, instead it’s all about feelings and highs and ‘what are you doing for me’ type Christianity 101. And with that kind of roller coaster, well sure, you eventually gotta get off.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

…I’m just arguing against simplistically smug triumphalist narratives which have proclaimed the imminent death of orthodox Christianity since the mid-18th Century. As I said, just ask the good citizens of Moscow if Russia to-day is more or less secular than it was in 1965.

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

I acknowledge that church attendance has gone through cycles-for example the masses of 18th Century England were often quite irreligious due to the indifference of the Church of England before the evangelical revival of the early 19th Century established piety of the Victorian era. However, that goes against your theory that somehow this time it will be different and that it will lead to the final extinction of religion. More likely, I suspect deconversion will stabilize a few decades down the line with the mainline denominations utterly annihilated as a factor and evangelical denominations probably down a little bit but still fairly robust thanks to higher birth-rates compared to the general population, immigration, and some conversion.

I’ve found as I’ve gotten older, wiser and more awesome that casual predictions are more often a statement of a person’s fears or perhaps a convenient way of framing themselves as beleaguered. We believe things that cast our stances in the best light. A good way to check this inclination is to gather facts and statistics, while trying not to cherry pick. If they contradict my preconceptions, that’s great. It offsets some of my ignorance. I do that more as I get older. (Coincidentally actually: more aging has been correlated with a deeper internet.)

More seriously, it’s interesting that the 19th c. triumphalist narrative hasn’t quite set in. Implicit in your story though is rising secularism, rising fundamentalism and falling mainlinism outside of Islam. Do I understand it correctly? I’m guessing “Annihilated” is too strong if you count the Unitarians for example. Quite a few people are squishes after all, and religious institutions have some pretty solid social advantages.

It might be interesting to look at religious trends in Brazil. That country is large, multi-ethnic and rich enough to have a secular-friendly (and evangelical friendly) middle class. But it also has a number of competing religious influences.

[MrDibble]

I just want to note that when people say “African Churches” they should not include the Church of the Province of South Africa, which falls somewhere in the middle on gay rights, depending on which archbishop is being quoted at the time…