EPISCOPAL CHURCH DECLINE QUICKENS IN WAKE OF GC2006

Commentary

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
9/20/2006

Nobody is buying any more what the Episcopal Church is selling. The Episcopal Church is imploding; it is running out of ecclesiastical gas. Like a reverse Ponzi scheme, those who got in first are losing more than Johnny-come-latelys. In fact there are very few coming into The Episcopal Church. Nobody is buying V. Gene Robinson's homosexual call to arms, even though every sermon he preaches starts and ends with himself. The Episcopal Church is not being flooded with homosexuals looking for a "sacred space" for their very unsacred behavior.

As large orthodox cardinal parishes like Christ Church, Plano along with a host of large parishes in Florida and California leave with their money and parishioners, increasingly what are left are medium-sized parishes, small missions and parishes run by retired clergy. Across the country churches are slowly but surely emptying. The more so in liberal ones, death catches up with them with aging priests and aging parishes waiting for the grim reaper. It's only a matter of time.

The truth is; there is only so many retired clergy and money to shuffle around before they can't fill the holes any more. Sooner or later the parishes get so small they close. The vast majority of the Episcopal Church's 7,500 parishes have less than 80 members, aged well into their 60's. They are not spiritually reproducing themselves because they have no transformative gospel to proclaim because nine out of the 11 Episcopal seminaries don't teach them what it is, and within a decade most of them will be dead and the properties sold. The new fangled doctrine of inclusivity is not selling. Second career priests will not ultimately staunch the flow either, nor will aging lesbian feminists, one of the fastest growing groups to enter the church. Seminaries like Trinity School for Ministry will increasingly cater to a non-episcopal but wider Anglican community both inside and outside the U.S.

The American Anglican Council tabulates that more than 72,000 Episcopalians (and these are faithful tithers) have left The Episcopal Church since GC2006 and there is no doubt this will only escalate over time.

In a number of dioceses we are seeing rigor mortis already setting in.

In the Diocese of Pennsylvania an estimated 100 out of 150 parishes are barely staying open, while Bishop Charles Bennison told one parish search committee looking for a new priest to consider hiring a gay or lesbian. Some 10 churches have already closed and 30 more are considered at risk, living proof that sodomy and bad liberal theology equals not only physical death but spiritual death as well. Bennison has emptied the trust funds, laid off nearly all his staff, and cries that he needs an additional $100,000 to pay the bills, when more than two thirds of the parishes can't even make their assessment!

The Diocese of Newark, which is about to elect a new bishop, who could be a gay man, is also courting suicide. The Record - the largest newspaper in northern New Jersey - published an extensive article about the decline of the Episcopal Church in the diocese of Newark and noted that under Bishops Jack Spong and John Cronenberg nearly 24,000 congregants - or 46 % of its membership since 1972 or so has been lost. It has also closed 23 congregations and "many congregations are struggling", a significant number have been incurring operating deficits. And some are in fear for their very existence. Furthermore not a single church has opened in 16 years, the report said. Within five years the diocese will be on life support looking to unite with another diocese just to stay alive.

This is the diocese of Dr. Louie Crew who now spends most of his retirement years running around liberal parishes propping them up with his doctrine of inclusion, and persuading fence sitting parishes that not to include practicing sodomites is just so unchristian.

And then there is the Diocese of Central New York where some 60 of 95 parishes won't or can't pay their assessment. The subtext is that they are barely staying afloat and don't have the money to pay the bishop, who is busy spending tens of thousands of dollars in lawsuits to take back properties he can't sell when he finally obtains them. Never mind that these orthodox parishes are going forward with news of God's inbreaking Kingdom. Fuhgetaboutit. "I want my property, ye shall not have it." Of course you can have it bishop and don't forget to mow the lawn and keep the cemetery clean, because the remnant, if there is one, won't be able to buy communion wafers in three months. The diocese is in financial free fall, embroiled in legal woes and fleeing parishes as well as non-paying parishes. Things are so bad there they had to make staff cuts after the disclosure that $43,000 was spent for a forensic audit of one single orthodox parish and its priest, whom the bishop hates, because, among other things, he is orthodox. The Rev. David Bollinger has turned around and sued the bishop for $1.20 million.

Look at the decimated Diocese of Florida - 16 parishes - most of them large, have left the diocese a spiritual wasteland, and Bishop John Howard thinks this is just fine. He recently boasted that when they have all gone he will start over and rebuild from the bottom up! "New life, mission, and ministry will begin in these churches... spending resources and improving our best efforts to rebuild those parishes and missions in our own Diocese which are now striving to re-enter the mainstream of our Episcopal tradition," cried Howard. And what sort of "good news" will that be that his remaining liberal and revisionist clergy are going to proclaim to foolish Floridians.

Or what of the Diocese of Northwest Texas under Bishop C. Wallis Ohl which is in a financial crunch because a number of cardinal parishes have left the diocese, chief among them St. Nicholas', Midland, causing a major financial crisis in the diocese. Some say that this will be the first ECUSA diocese that declares bankruptcy or is forced to align itself with another diocese.

And the Diocese of Kansas, which is staying alive largely on a deal cut by Bishop Dean Wolfe who got a $1 million over 10 years from the evangelical Christ Church in Overland Park, the largest parish in the diocese, so they could keep their property, but of course he had the "privilege" of inhibiting and deposing the priests, but not before he took their money. Apparently someone taught him how to read a balance sheet. But one day even that money too, will run out.

In the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia they passed the hat around recently to reduce their deficit. The Rt. Rev. F. Neff Powell tossed in $5,000 of his own money to get the ball rolling to reduce the diocese's deficit of $114,000. After putting out an appeal for more money the diocese raised an additional $47,000, but the question remains, how many times can you cry wolf? The diocese got a major shock when the largest single donor, St. John's, Roanoke, significantly reduced its voluntary diocesan pledge. "St. John's is not alone," said Bishop Powell. What will happen next year?

In the Diocese of Los Angeles, Bishop J. Jon Bruno said recently that the present method of funding the diocese would have to cease. He cannot fund ministry from the assets of the diocese rather than congregational contributions. The diocese's corporation sole fund, which has been used to underwrite the diocese's ministries, including those for congregational development, will end. Contributions from the fund decreased by $500,000. Bruno wants parishes to increase their financial support and says that parishes not giving 12 to 15 percent need to increase their donations. What Bruno didn't say is that he is using millions of dollars to fund litigation against three parishes that have fled the diocese and ECUSA. He is losing money like crazy and is having to pay their legal fees as well!

The Diocese of Washington's operating budget is held up only by the endowment of one woman, the Soper Trust, to the tune of millions of dollars. For the diocese to stay afloat it will raid the Soper Trust this coming year for $1.26 million, but the projected diocesan budget for 2006 still appears headed for a deficit -- the very model of financial stress. Parish giving cannot sustain diocesan needs.

Many revisionist dioceses that are staying afloat do so because of Dead Men's Money. The national church dips into its mortuary pot (Trust Funds) regularly to stay alive as well.

Even when the bishop wins back the properties the victory is largely hollow. Bishop Bennison is learning the hard way. He threw out the rector of St. James the Less in Philadelphia and Fr. David Ousley took the whole congregation with him. Bennison now has to pay to keep the place up. He cannot easily sell it off because of its historic importance and cemetery. The doors are closed forever.

Now all these dioceses have two things in common. The first is that they are dying because they have no gospel to proclaim, and secondly these bishops have a pathological hatred of orthodox Christianity and those who would promulgate it. 'Give me sodomy and Vicky or give me death', is their rallying cry. And in the end it will be the death of the diocese.

So the question must be asked, how long will all this continue before someone cries 'stop, in the name of God, stop.'

END