Years ago, while I was still an Episcopalian, I tried to get a circle of clergy and journalists to collaborate on what I thought would be a classic work of religion-marketplace humor.
The basic idea: The creation of the definitive collection of jokes about Episcopalians and their unique approach to Christian life and culture. As one priest put it, the Episcopal Church is “NPR at prayer.”
The book never happened, but I learned lots of jokes that I didn’t know in all of the basic categories, from “how many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb” quips to jokes featuring “Episcopalians at the gates of heaven and/or hell.” But here was my favorite joke, as I heard it in 1993 (but with a few updates):
The year is 2030 … and two Anglo-Catholic priests in the back of National Cathedral are watching the Episcopal presiding bishop and her incense-bearing wife, an archdeacon, process down the aisle behind a statue of the Buddha, while the faithful sing a hymn to Mother Earth.
"You know," one traditionalist whispers, "ONE more thing and I'm out the door."
The whole point was that it’s hard for religious communions to die. In the end, there are always reasons for true insiders to hang on and hope the pendulum swings back their way.
But I remember that someone else had a joke — I don’t remember how it went — that centered on the idea that, after a few more decades of declining statistics, Anglican churches would be empty, except for elderly clergy at the altars whose salaries would be paid with endowment funds.
That joke cuts to the heart of the news story discussed in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).
As background, here is the top of the Religion News Service story I critiqued in an post with this headline: “Canada's Anglicans are vanishing and RNS can't find any conservatives to debate the reasons why.”
(RNS) — A “wake-up call.”
That’s what Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, called a new report showing there may be no members left in the mainline Canadian denomination in 20 years.
The report, which was commissioned by the church, was delivered to the Council of General Synod meeting November 7-9 in Mississauga, Ontario.
“Projections from our data indicate that there will be no members, attenders or givers in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040,” said the Rev. Neil Elliot, an Anglican priest in Trail, British Columbia, who authored the report.
As you can see in the GetReligion post headline, I was surprised that RNS ran a lengthy story about this stunning development north of the border — without (a) including input from Anglican conservatives in Canada who believe their church leadership has committed doctrinal suicide or (b) Anglicans to the doctrinal left of the church establishment who are convinced that their church has not been brave enough to attract modern believers.
When I located a condensed versions of the Elliot report (entire report here and raw data here) there was another angle to this story that I was stunned was not discussed in the RNS news report.
Can you spot the story in the following bullet list that would deserve a large-font headline here in the United States?
— The average Sunday attendance has dropped to 97,421.
— A previous report published in 2006 predicted the last Anglican would leave the church in 2061. That number is now 2040.
— The rate of decline is increasing.
— New programs adopted by the church have done nothing to reverse the decline.
— The Anglican Church of Canada is declining faster than any other Province other than TEC, which has an even greater rate of decline.
— The slowest decline is in the number of priests.
The only other province in the global Anglican Communion that is declining faster than Canada is the “TEC”? Did I read that right?
What, readers may ask, is the “TEC”? Last time I checked, those letters stood for The Episcopal Church here in the United States of America.
So let’s broaden this story a bit. Are other oldline Protestant bodies facing similar expiration dates?
A must-read report at The Anglican Digest included the following, starting with more information from the stunningly candid Father Elliot:
In a response to a question on how other Canadian churches were faring, Elliot said data collected by the United Church of Canada also showed 2040 as a “zero-member date.” The Presbyterian Church in Canada, while declining, seems to be losing members somewhat more slowly, he said. For the U.S.-based Episcopal Church, he added, the projected zero-member date was around 2050.
Archdeacon Michael Thompson, general secretary of General Synod, told [Council of General Synod] that senior staff of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada had given him a similar impression about membership decline in that church.
“Though I can’t quote the numbers, the lines look quite similar,” he said.
Friends and neighbors, this should be a big, big story north of the border and the implications are stunning for mainstream religion here in the United States, as well.
On a personal note, this blunt report out of Canada reminded me of something that happened to me long ago — summer of 1983 — when my wife and I were visiting Western Canada. The Religion Newswriters Association was meeting in Vancouver (my first encounter with the legendary Richard Ostling, then of Time) at the same time as the World Council of Churches.
Exhausted by years of Southern Baptist warfare, my wife and I were starting a pilgrimage toward the ancient church. After the RNA meetings, we ventured over to Victoria and, on Sunday, went to that ultra-British city’s Christ Church Anglican Cathedral.
I didn’t have a reporter’s notebook on me, but — during the sermon by a young priest — I managed to scribble some notes on the church bulletin for a later essay. The key was that this sermon contained a strong warning to Canadian Anglicans, who were already seeing signs of decline:
The church, he said, has fallen for the most subtle of temptations: accepting the good instead of the best. He would not reject any of the church's recent causes, he said. Equality for women, civil rights, arms control — they are all valid. … (But) if the church did not return to preaching "the best" it would have no people with which to do "the good," he said.
Standing in the high pulpit, he asked some questions. Do you feel cut off? Do you feel that you cannot be forgiven by God because you cannot forgive yourself? Would you know Jesus?
He pointed down at the Communion rail. Come forward and experience the mysterious presence of Christ in the Eucharist. … Confess your sins. Repent and be converted for the first time — or be forgiven again, and again, and again. Accept the grace of God.
That sounded rather evangelical. The priest was saying that a church has to spread its faith — or die.
Decades later, that’s an issue — the roots of oldline Protestant decline — that deserves serious news coverage. Trust me, the debates will only be getting louder.