An Open Letter to the Episcopal Church

 

The Episcopal Church is dying.

This is a common opening sentence in many, if not most, articles about The Episcopal Church (TEC). The sad fact of the matter is that this sentence is not an exaggeration. It is the cold hard reality. However, while this sentence represents the reality of TEC - a reality that is as concrete as it is dire - it seems, at least from my limited point of view, that few folks in church leadership seem to care. As a matter of fact, it seems that willful ignorance is the attitude held regarding this reality.

This reality - the reality that TEC will cease to exist as a viable denomination by 2050 (some estimates now post-COVID put that year at 2040) - is not even a point of discussion at diocesan or national church levels; if it is, it is done on the sly, silent whispers in back rooms as if this topic is a lurid secret that needs to remain hidden. There is no sense of urgency or even acknowledgement that our church is no longer the body it once was, but an anemic husk of its former self that has long-since been moved to the palliative care wing of religious history.

That may sound harsh, but that is the truth. Now, I get it; I understand that nobody likes it when data points to failure rather than success - when the numbers say you're weak and fragile rather than strong and vibrant. Nobody likes that. But before I was a priest I was an analyst for both the Defense and State Departments. One of my duties was to take raw data, aggregate it, and present it in a way that was clear and actionable. My job wasn't to tell people what they wanted to hear but what they needed to hear. Data doesn't care about your feelings, fears, or hopes. It just is...Period.

What I'm not going to do here is list off the statistics; there are plenty of articles and reports that have done that already. You can read a sample of them below. I want to reflect on an issue that all of us in the church are aware of, but may not want to accept or confront.

• Alarm Bells as Church Decline Accelerates

• Episcopal Church in Dramatic Decline

• The Death of the Episcopal Church is Near

• The Episcopal Church will be Dead in 20 Years

• The Episcopal Church is Dying. Should We Be Upset About This?

• Episcopal Church Faced Declining Attendance Before the Pandemic

• Church Predicts Its Own Demise

• TEC 2020 Parochial Report Data

Now, I’m not the smartest priest in TEC. I am far from the most influential. What I am is a person who converted to TEC because I found a spiritual home here after years of exploring other denominations and faith traditions; I then felt a call to the priesthood, upended my entire family’s existence to attend seminary, and am now a rector at a small parish in the largest diocese in the United States. I love our faith and tradition - I preach it, teach it, and try, with many failures, to live it. But I am concerned about the future of our faith. I am concerned that my children will not have an Episcopal Church to go to. My 16 year old daughter said to me once, “Why would anybody want to be in another church?” referring to TEC. In a world of pluralism that was surprisingly exclusivist coming from my very open-minded daughter. But, sadly, if things don’t change, she, and my other children, may have to go to another church…Or, they might leave the faith for good.

Now, I don’t have any illusions that what I write here will have any effect on TEC, but I wanted to put fingers to keys because I want our church to succeed; I want the Gospel to spread; but looking at the current trajectory of TEC I, sadly, see only collapse - not with a bang but with a whimper.

Some churches and dioceses, I’m sure, may not see a problem. They might say to themselves: we're healthy, we have money (money has actually never been an issue for the affluent TEC), our numbers haven't declined too significantly, we have children in formation; but, just remember, the numbers don't lie. I’m not making my observations based on emotions or sentiment; I’m basing them on facts as collected by TEC itself. 

I’m not going to pretend to have solutions. No one person can be presumptuous enough to claim to have solutions to a problem of this magnitude. I only offer suggestions, based on the reality that is before us. 

So what can we do?

1. The book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that for everything there is a season (3.1-8) so one option is to close every church in TEC. According to the trends and data, by keeping our doors open we are just postponing the inevitable, polishing the brass on the Titanic if you will. As I noted earlier, by 2050 TEC will need to restructure itself in a way that will make the denomination unrecognizable by today's standards. By mid-century, if trends continue,  and there is no indication that they won't (in fact they will more than likely accelerate) there will be fewer than 40,000 Episcopalians in church nationally on Sunday. Let that number sink in. To put that into perspective, there are 250,000 Jedi in the world.1 Yes, Jedi. People who practice Jediism, a religion based on Star Wars. Many of those, I imagine, are in the United States. So, again, if trends continue, by 2050, there could possibly be more Jedi in the United States than Episcopalians. To make this a bit more concrete, I invite my priest colleagues to look out at your congregation this Sunday and note the average age of your parishioners (nationally it is 69) and ask yourself, "What will this parish look like in 20-30 years? Will this congregation be viable and financially sustainable?" So, maybe we’re being called to sell all we own and give the money to the poor (Mark 10.21). Of course, we would need to keep in mind the impact on our communities because with the closing of churches comes the closing of food pantries and other vital ministries that help the most vulnerable in our communities. This is obviously not a great option, but it is an option within the realms of possibility.

2. Begin discussions with the ELCA and the United Methodists (as united as they are now) about merging. Yes, that would be complicated and messy, but it would be a lifeline to those denominations that are also in swift decline - see links above. We would need to set our egos aside and understand that without cooperation we will all fall sooner rather than later. By consolidating resources we would have a better shot at survival and potentially revival. I am not talking about some weak-tea modified LARCUM-esque agreement where leaders of the church sign a large sheet of paper, hang it on the wall, and forget about it; I am talking about a full structural, theological, and material merger. Again, that would not be easy but it might be necessary.

3. TEC accepts the fact that we are to be a small denomination. That in the not-so-distant future we will have little in the ways of funds and human and material resources. By 2050 we can assume that the number of Episcopal parishes in the United States will be greatly diminished. Even if we were to average the numbers by 2050 there would be only 800 Episcopalians going to church per state every Sunday! But we all know that some states will have more Episcopalians going to church while others will have few to, perhaps, none. I know this is a big slice of humble pie for a denomination that has enjoyed wealth and privilege, but it’s a pie we're going to have to eat - without coffee or ice cream! The long and short of it is, TEC is going to have to evaluate resources and close and sell church property sooner rather than later. TEC cannot pretend to be a large denomination when we are, in the not so distant future, going to be a denomination with an average Sunday attendance of 40,000 people nationwide. This might be good for us. Perhaps, after we spend some time being a smaller denomination, we can work to grow from that remnant.

4. Maybe do things a little differently. Now, if there are two words that make Episcopalians uncomfortable whether that be lay or ordained they are innovation and change. Those words are usually met with suspicion and, well, rightfully so. Innovation and change can lead to liturgical and theological weirdness. And I am not advocating the adoption of things like Buddhapalianism or Episcopaganism…That’s silly. No, I’m an advocate of that old time religion of the 4th-14th century. Our faith has some of the most spiritually profound mystics of any religious tradition. The contemplative branch of our faith goes back to Jesus (Matthew 6.6). People want to live lives that are more contemplative. They want to learn meditation…And it’s tragic that they feel like they need to go to Eastern traditions or Mindfulness programs to learn these practices. With organizations like Contemplative Outreach and the World Community for Christian Meditation, we have opportunities and organizations that support contemplative initiatives that are deeply rooted in the Christian Tradition. So maybe we begin by leaning into that side of our faith and incorporating it more into not only our liturgies but also our catechetical programs; show folks that we have contemplative strands in our tradition. This is not to say that every congregation needs to become a contemplative community, but it wouldn’t hurt us to explore that method of liturgical and catechetical expression. Christianity is pretty darn good at adapting to the circumstances around it. One example that comes to mind is the Xian Monks - a group of Christian missionaries who made their way to central China in the 7th century and evangelized the faith after learning the culture, language, and people and adapting the Christian faith to that culture, language, and people. If they were able to do it…We can too.

5. This is going to be the most difficult for Episcopalians, because this word is the word that scares EVERY Episcopalian - start an “evangelical” movement that spans from the national church to the smallest parish. We need to preach the Gospel boldly, proclaim Christ confidently, and be excited about our faith. We need to evangelize in the name Christ. We Episcopalians need to devote time and effort to studying our Christian tradition and being proud of the Episcopal Church’s place in that tradition. Yes, our denomination has its issues (as every human institution does) and it does need to atone for many things; but nobody wants to be part of something that is constantly ashamed of itself and in a perpetual state of apology for the sins of its fathers. Again, this is not to say that we stop acknowledging the sins of our past BUT to have a future we need to start thinking about the future otherwise there won't be a church to engage in social, racial, economic, environmental or any other justice we feel called to pursue. What we will be left with, unless we change course, are hundreds of resolutions, both from General Conventions and Diocesan Conventions with little money and few people to do them. The work will remain undone because our churches will be empty.

This is by no means, of course, an exhaustive list, but the numbers don't lie and we need to act like they are as serious as they are. Ignoring them is not going to make them go away. Pretending that they aren't as bad as they are, does not change their reality. Hoarding our resources where some churches, regions, dioceses, and seminaries  appear strong and healthy while others slowly fade away is not a way to maintain, let alone grow, a national church whose mission is to evangelize. Doing things the same way and expecting different results is not the answer; it is, as Einstein said, the definition of stupidity. 

Ironically, the nation is not getting spiritually weaker; it is actually more spiritual than ever. The question is: How do we use our tradition to tap into that? We need to ask ourselves, why are people flocking out of our church but exploring other spiritual and New Age traditions and practices? What have we done to make them walk out our red doors and not come back?

Personally, I don't believe that we need to look any farther than the richness of our tradition for solutions. Our tradition has the outward beauty of our liturgy with the inward spiritual profundity of the mystics. Our spiritual expressions can be loud and full of words or slow and immersed in silence. Our members engage in social justice while praying prayers that are thousands of years old. We are a rich tradition, spanning both East and West, and we have what the world needs. But if we don't take our decline seriously and work together from the top down to address it then we are a dead denomination walking.

Ultimately, the goal of this brief smatter of writing is to get a conversation going. To begin the work of facing the problem head on so we can begin the process of addressing it. Because if we don't start addressing it now (and I mean now), we will cross a point of no return. There will be a time when the decline will be so significant and rapid that the church won’t be able to stop it, we will just need to accept it. We will need to accept the fact that TEC will be relegated to the religious ash heap of history, a once influential denomination that faded away like a forgotten memory. 

The question before us, though, is a simple one: what are we going to do about it?

Update - See the 2021 Parochial Report data here.

1 Burton, Tara Isabella. Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World. (New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2020), 70.