The Episcopal Church is in a death spiral.
Why is the Episcopal Church near collapse?Prominent bishops are pulling out. Convention-goers were told headquarters had spent $18 million suing local congregations. Members are leaving at a record rate. This is no longer George Washington’s church – once the largest denomination in the colonies.
The headlines coming out of the Episcopal Church’s annual U.S. convention are stunning — endorsement of cross-dressing clergy, blessing same-sex marriage, the sale of their headquarters since they can’t afford to maintain it.The American branch of the Church of England, founded when the Vatican balked at permitting King Henry VIII to continue annulling marriages to any wife who failed to bear him sons, is in trouble.
Somehow slipping out of the headlines is a harsh reality that the denomination has been deserted in droves by an angry or ambivalent membership. Six prominent bishops are ready to take their large dioceses out of the American church and align with conservative Anglican groups in Africa and South America.
U.S. Catholics out-number the Episcopal Church 33-to-1. There are more Jews than Episcopalians. Twice as many Mormons as Episcopalians. Even the little African Methodist Episcopal denomination — founded in in 1787 — has passed the Episcopalians.
Hard to imagine why…Perhaps the Gay Gene divorcing his Episco-pal sends the wrong message?
May 5, 2014 at 1:29 pm
"the Gay Gene divorcing his Espico -pal" perfect
May 5, 2014 at 7:28 pm
Guess henry VIII could've seen this one coming.
Guess elizabeth did!
Making a monarch head of church and state, turns out, not to be such a good idea.
May 5, 2014 at 11:11 pm
They should merge with the Unitarians .. they could dance their way into hell together.
May 6, 2014 at 1:36 am
Don't say that. This is an incredible opportunity to bring people into the Church.
The pretended reformers' sects have all but collapsed. It's easier to convert liturgical protestants than it is "evangelicals," since their beliefs are so far from even the original pretended reformers.
I have come to the conclusion that most evangelicals, of the Southern Baptist and non-denominational variety, are closer to the early Gnostics than they are to their pretended reformers' beliefs.