Episcopal Leaders Push Back on Rumors of Fatal Decline

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

March 11, 2026

When I first saw the headline, I thought it was satire. But Episcopal Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe really said it — to more than 850 Episcopal Church leaders gathered in Charlotte to discuss the future of the denomination and what it still has to offer.

Apparently, the presiding bishop is tired of hearing that his church is doomed, and he would like to change the narrative. But the numbers don’t lie.

The denomination has lost about half its baptized membership since the 1960s, declining to roughly 1.5 million adherents today. It still faces shrinking congregations and aging demographics. Top-level trends confirm that the Episcopal Church (TEC) remains in decline: the number of parishes and missions dropped from 6,754 in 2023 to 6,707 in 2024 — a 0.7 percent decline. The median in-person attendance over the past year stands at just 38, and the average age of an Episcopalian is now in the 60s. No younger generations appear poised to fill the pews. Despite passage of the gay marriage canon, gay and lesbian couples have not joined the church in significant numbers.

The racial demographics are equally striking. While the Episcopal Church has made anti-racism training a priority, it remains 95 percent white — compared to 59.3 percent white for the United States as a whole. Only 4 percent of Episcopalians are Black, versus 13.4 percent of the U.S. population. The denomination has consecrated approximately 50 Black bishops, a number disproportionate to its actual Black membership. Meanwhile, the average Episcopalian age of 60-plus stands in sharp contrast to the U.S. median age of 38.7, as Anglican Watch notes.

On attendance, 2024 saw a continued increase in Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) to 534,579 persons — including online attendance. That figure, however, merely represents where attendance would have been had COVID not occurred; it is roughly 2.2 percent below pre-pandemic numbers, consistent with historic rates of decline.

The church’s growing reliance on online attendance raises further concerns. There is little evidence that congregations have considered its financial implications. Churches have not found ways to monetize online attendance, which is problematic given that aging and costly church buildings require significant cash flow to remain operational. Promoting livestreaming may actually accelerate financial decline, Anglican Watch warns.

For the first time in its history, the Episcopal Church posted a churchwide budget deficit. Average pledge size dropped from $3,658 to $3,093 — a 16.3 percent decline. Denominational priorities cited in reports include energy efficiency and racial reconciliation. Yet reducing a carbon footprint across a vast portfolio of aging, obsolete buildings is a near-impossible task, and the continued absence of racial minorities in the pews suggests that racial reconciliation remains more a symbolic gesture than a lived reality.

As Anglican Watch bluntly notes: “Most of the conservatives in the church left long ago. The fact that those who remain are continuing to walk away suggests the church has serious problems.”

Conspicuously absent from Bishop Rowe’s proposed solutions is any call to return to apostolic doctrine and teaching. There was no mention of sin and salvation, and no mention of the Great Commission.

TEC’s stated mission, drawn from the Book of Common Prayer’s catechism, is “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” The denomination describes its path as “loving, liberating, and life-giving relationships with God, with each other, and with the earth.” Yet this language carries no theological grounding. Scripture is nowhere referenced. The phrase “loving, liberating, life-giving relationships” functions as an implicit endorsement of homosexual practice and a rejection of the binary understanding of human sexuality that Jesus affirmed (“male and female created He them”). The phrase “all people” gestures toward universalism. Heaven and hell go unmentioned. And if God is to “restore all people” regardless, one must ask: what role does the Episcopal Church play in that restoration?

“I believe that — as a final word and as a final story — is a lie from the pit of hell,” Rowe declared to the assembled leaders. When asked from the stage whether they were optimistic about the future, most answered with a resounding yes.

What, exactly, do they plan to do to reverse the trend? Activism around racism, reparations, diversity, inclusion, and equity has not filled pews. The passage of Resolution 012 — which authorized marriage rites for same-sex couples — has not brought an influx of gay and lesbian worshippers.

Moreover, the average Episcopalian has little idea how to evangelize a neighbor, largely because they have never been discipled themselves. You cannot pass along what you have not received.

While there is anecdotal evidence that some parishes are thriving, most are not. Absent a substantial endowment, full-time rectors are becoming increasingly rare.

Once a flagship denomination of the wealthy Protestant establishment, the Episcopal Church today more closely resembles a cathedral gargoyle — ornate, obsolete, and clinging to a façade.

TEC offers no salvific message. From the earliest days of Christianity, followers of Jesus have insisted on an objective standard of orthodoxy — meaning that not everyone who claims the name “Christian” is a genuine disciple. TEC surrendered that orthodoxy long ago.

Today, TEC functions largely as a progressive advocacy organization with liturgical trappings. Its trajectory is set, and no amount of institutional optimism will restore it to former prominence. Bishop Rowe will preside over its continued diminishment; the forces at work are beyond his power to reverse.

The Rev. Dwight Zscheile, an Episcopal priest and professor, has put it starkly: “The overall picture is dire — not one of decline as much as demise within the next generation unless trends change significantly.”

Researcher Brandon Showalter, an opinion writer and social commentator, estimates that the Episcopal Church will be functionally dead within 20 years — with “no one in worship by around 2050 in the entire denomination.”

In a recent episode of “The Holy Post” podcast, researcher Ryan Burge echoed that assessment, predicting the Episcopal Church will be dead within two decades. In a subsequent blog post, he allowed that it might not disappear entirely but will be “vastly diminished” and likely on “life support.” Burge further reports that only 14 percent of Episcopalians are parents of children under 18 — the lowest figure of any religious tradition surveyed.

The Episcopal Church has been hollowed out largely by secularization in regions where liberal religious traditions have long been concentrated: the Northeast, the West Coast, and the Rust Belt. Its progressive theological direction — particularly on marriage and sexual ethics — has compounded the decline. The 2003 consecration of openly gay bishop Gene Robinson was a watershed moment that prompted widespread departure by theologically conservative congregations, many of which formed new Anglican structures organized around doctrinal alignment rather than geography.

The Anglican Church in Canada appears to be on a similar trajectory. In a November 2019 presentation before the Anglican Church of Canada’s Council of General Synod, the Rev. Canon Neil Elliot warned that the denomination would effectively cease to exist by 2040.

END