MEMBERSHIP TRENDS IN THE TWO DIOCESES
The Episcopal Church recently released its membership statistics for the year 2022. In the last decade, the baptized membership of the national church declined from 2,009,081 in 2013 to 1,584,785 in 2022. This is a fall of 424,279, or 21%. Find TEC's latest statistics HERE .
What about South Carolina? Let us look at membership in the two dioceses that emerged from the schism of 2012 as related in the official parochial reports.
THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
Baptized membership in the churches of the Episcopal diocese:
2013 - 5,781
2014 - 6,387
2015 - 6,706
2016 - 7,053
2017 - 7,309
2018 - 7,587
2019 - 7,763
2020 - 7,467
2021 - 7,254
2022 - 7,476
The figures show that in the decade after the schism, the Episcopal diocese gained membership of 1,695, or +29%. Unfortunately, the figures do not tell us how many of these people were new arrivals from off, refugees from schismatic parishes, or new local people.
To be sure, the South Carolina low country has boomed in population growth, particularly the Charleston, Myrtle Beach, and Hilton Head areas. The population of Charleston County grew from 361,815 in 2013 to 425,644 in 2023, a rise of 63,829, or +17%.
Thus, the growth of the Episcopal diocese is favorable to the overall population growth of lower SC.
THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
Baptized Membership.
2013 - 23,181
2022 - 18,130
A decline of 5,051, or -22% in the decade after the schism.
Communicants.
2013 - 17,798
2022 - 11,673
A decline of 6,125, or -34%.
Average Sunday Attendance.
2013 - 9,292
2022 - 8,353
A decline of 939, or -10%.
The ADSC has seen a severe fall in "communicants," or active members, less so in overall membership and ASA. Still, the ADSC suffered relentless decline in every metric in the decade after the schism of 2012.
CONCLUSION.
The Episcopal diocese of SC has enjoyed a 29% rise in membership since the schism of 2012. Thus bucks the trend in the Episcopal Church of the serious decline in membership nationwide. Meanwhile, the new Anglican diocese has suffered significant decline in membership, made even more problematical in view of the booming population of coastal South Carolina.
Unfortunately, the statistics do not reveal the reasons for the steady decline of the ADSC. Surely it would benefit the diocese to make a study of its membership problem which percentage-wise is actually much worse than that of the Episcopal Church. At the rate the ADSC is falling, it will soon face an existential crisis. Where that would lead, no one knows. There is always the possibility the future remnant of the ADSC could melt into ACNA's Diocese of the Carolinas, based in Mt. Pleasant, a Charleston suburb.
Finally, the relentless decline of the ADSC membership makes one wonder about the connection of the schism and God's will. The ADSC leadership has always claimed that what they were doing was favored by God. Every time the ADSC won anything in court (but, not when they lost), their spokespeople proclaimed it as God's will. If the schism and the new diocese were God's will, would not there be some positive manifestation of that by now? Would not God's favor be tangible in some way? One certainly does not see such in the empirical data of the new diocese and given the clear trends, one should not expect to see such in the future.
