A TWENTY-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of one of the most important events in the history of the Episcopal Church, the church's affirmation of its first openly gay bishop. On August 5, 2003, the House of Bishops, meeting in the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, voted 62 in favor, 43 against, and 2 abstain, to approve of the Rev. Gene Robinson as the next bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. For better or for worse, this was a major turning point in the life of the Episcopal Church. It finally resolved the issue of the interface between the church and homosexuality, a problem at issue since at least 1976. The decision was an unqualified embrace of open and partnered homosexuals as equal and empowered participants in the life of the church. Although it was not the first Christian denomination to do this, TEC's stand in 2003 was powerful far beyond its limited domain. It also caused a crisis within many Episcopal dioceses, at least the most socially conservative ones, particularly ones given to strong evangelical or anglo-catholic identity. What has changed in the twenty years since?

On homosexuality, the Episcopal Church has gone all in on equality and inclusion of gays in the church. Five more openly gay bishops have been consecrated in the Episcopal Church. General Conventions went on to elaborate on gay rights by devising a liturgy for the blessing of same-sex unions and then by adopting same-sex marriage in the church. No diocese is now allowed to ban same-sex weddings. Episcopal churches around the country now participate in and promote pro-homosexual demonstrations, as pride marches. By now, the Episcopal Church is well known in American society as a "gay-friendly" denomination. This has attracted a number of high-profile homosexuals from more conservative churches to TEC. It has also caused some conservative Episcopalians to head for the exits.

A conservative backlash arose within the Episcopal Church as a direct result of the church's policies for homosexuals. Having failed utterly to stop the progressive reforms for gays, some conservatives individually bolted TEC. Of the 109 or so dioceses of the Church, a dozen were in a coalition to oppose the pro-gay movement. Of this dozen, five went on to vote to leave TEC (2006-2012). South Carolina was the fifth and last to do this. In 2012, the leadership of the diocese of SC led the majority of the clergy and laity out of the Episcopal Church, the diocese, and the Anglican Communion. They went on to form a new church and to join a new non-Anglican Communion denomination, one that, in the wake of Robinson, had been established on social conservatism, e.g., homophobia and misogyny.

How did the defections affect the membership figures of the Episcopal Church? All along, the reactionaries have asserted that the "liberal" policies of the Episcopal Church were causing falling membership. Is this true? Is the decline in membership of TEC directly attributable to its pro-homosexual policies?

Membership in the Episcopal Church reached its height in 1967, at a bit more than 3.6m. The last statistics, in 2021, show 1,678,157 members, a fall of more than 50% since 1967. In other words, Episcopal Church membership is half as large now as it was a half-century ago. The struggle over gays in the church began in earnest in 1990, well more than two decades after TEC began its membership slide. Thus, we can rule out the issue of homosexuality as the prime cause of the membership decline.

However, the post-Robinson individual and group defections certainly had some impact on TEC membership. In 2003, TEC listed 2,433,340 baptized members. In the last figures, of 2021, the church cited 1,678,157, a fall of 31%. Thus, is less than two decades, TEC lost nearly a third of its members. What caused this decline is a good question.

The vast majority of individual dioceses lost members, some more than the 31% of the whole church and some less. In the five dioceses in which the majority left TEC, the declines were, of course, drastic, none more than South Carolina which fell from 29,988 members in 2003 to 7,254 in 2021. This was a loss of 76%. 

In some conservative dioceses where the leadership and majority remained with the Episcopal Church there were also major declines. The state of Florida has the fastest population growth in the U.S. Yet, its dioceses are seeing the reverse. The Diocese of Central Florida fell from 37,088 members in 2003 to 23,664 in 2021, a drop of 36%. One has only to look on YouTube at a Mass from St. Luke's Cathedral in Orlando to see the empty pews, ones that were often full when I attended there in the 1960's. The Diocese of Florida declined from 32,674 in 2003 to 23,075 in 2021, a drop of 29%. Check a YouTube service at St. Peter's Anglican (ACNA) Cathedral in Tallahassee to see where the crowds are. (St. John's, of Tallahassee, had a major split in 2004.)

St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral, Tallahassee.

There is no doubt that many dioceses of the Episcopal Church have seen significant membership losses to the reactionary "Anglican" denominations. However, on the whole the figures do not indicate mass movement from TEC to ACNA. According to Wikipedia, ACNA has a 2022 membership of 124,999 (down from 134,593 in 2017). From 2003 to 2021, the membership drop in TEC was 755,183. This means that the vast majority of people who left TEC did not go to ACNA. It was only a small fraction. They left the TEC membership rolls for other reasons such as death, movement to other denominations, or simply dropping out of organized religion. We do not know because there are no detailed statistical studies of membership movements. What we do know for a fact is that most people who dropped off the TEC rolls did not move to ACNA churches.

In conclusion, the decline in the membership of the Episcopal Church has been going on a long time, over a half-century. This may be attributed to a number of reasons but we have no studies that quantify the possible factors. They could be items such as low birth rate, low retention, low evangelism, and changing social and cultural habits. Since 2003, conservative defections from TEC have been highly visible in some local places but relatively insignificant in the overall decline of church membership. The decline in TEC numbers since the Robinson matter of 2003 is not primarily in migration from TEC to an "Anglican" separatist church. The vast majority of people who left TEC after 2003 did not join splinter "Anglican" churches.