Posted on 02/09/2006 9:20:29 AM PST by Heartofsong83
Canadian Anglicans Becoming Extinct
By AFA Journal February 7, 2006
(AgapePress) - A new, independent report on the state of the Anglican Church of Canada shows a staggering decline in membership over the last 40 years.
Between 1961 and 2001 the Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian branch of the worldwide Anglican community, lost 53 percent of its members, from 1.36 million to 642,000. However, the report also ominously stated that the decline is accelerating. While membership dropped 13 percent between 1981 and 1991, it fell 20 percent between 1991 and 2001.
According to The Church of England Newspaper, the report was prepared by Keith McKerracher, a retired marketing expert. It was presented to the House of Bishops.
McKerracher said in subsequent interviews: "My point to the bishops was, 'Hey listen, guys, we're declining much faster than any other church. We're losing 12,836 Anglicans a year. That's 2 percent a year. If you draw a line on the graph, there'll only be one person left in the [Canadian] Anglican church by 2061.'"
The Anglican Church of Canada, like its sister branch in the U.S., the Episcopal Church USA, has been steadily trending liberal over the last four decades. That is probably the reason for the Canadian church's decline, according to Ted Byfield.
Byfield is a long-time observer of Canadian culture. He published a weekly news magazine in Canada for 30 years and now serves as general editor of The Christians, a 12-volume history of Christianity.
In a column for WorldNetDaily, Byfield spoke of the Anglican Church of Canada's "consistent departure from traditional Christian teaching, which has been going on throughout the whole 40-year period of decline.
"It began with the acceptance of serial marriage, progressed to the ordination of women, then to the funding of terrorist groups in Africa, and finally to the acceptance of homosexual practice. The church's latest foray is its tacit approval of homosexual marriage, which has seen it virtually disowned by the Anglican churches of Africa and Asia."
McKerracher did not think the Anglican leadership in Canada would respond to the new report with any significant changes.
"The church is in real crisis. They can't carry on like it's business as usual. They talk things to death," he said. "And my impression is that the bishops are not going to go around telling priests to shape up."
Almost as if to confirm McKerracher's impression, Canadian Archbishop Andrew Hutchison told The Church of England Newspaper that although the report was a "wake-up call," he hoped a new emphasis on social justice and ecumenical cooperation would stem the decline.
Heh, Amen to that :)
Hmm.... Are there any in Southern California?
Depends on where you are. My church is full of people of all ages and growing.
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Our kids' choir is jumping and the youth group has outgrown two different meeting rooms.
Maybe you need to look into outreach for your parish?
After all . . . they haven't been too accurate or reliable about much else, have they?
If you're really interested, I can refer you to an excellent book that was written for Anglicans considering a trans-Tiber migration.
Now I'm gonna have to go wash my eyes out with Lysol.
Sounds like you don't have any Spanish language masses. There are plenty of young folks in the big Catholic churches around here. And there is the brand new Catholic high school in town - although those are primarily Anglos.
That and the fact that the Church has done little to make itself appealing to MEN of any age.
So many Episcopalians believe - in a quite uncritical manner - the old anti-Catholic, Know-Nothing rants about the Vatican, the Magisterium, and the Pope. The fact that the Catholic Church dares to have infallible teachings is seen by so many otherwise reasonable Episcopalians as reason enough to reject it outright with no further investigation into the matter. All I can say in response to that is that ECUSA now has a "magisterium" of it's own. It’s called the General Convention, and you better do as this “magisterium” tells you to or the penalties will be quite high. Just ask any orthodox priest who has been inhibited by one of these revisionist bishops.
And this “magisterium” is issuing infallible teachings on such matters as Holy Matrimony in ways that no Pope or curial official would ever even begin to consider. Why? Because the Pope does not have the authority to alter Holy Matrimony. Holy Matrimony was “...established by God in creation…Our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people." (1979 BCP - THE CELEBRATION AND BLESSING OF A MARRIAGE)
And what are the purposes of Holy Matrimony? Again, the Book of Common Prayer states it well..."The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children, and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord."
If all this sounds familiar it is b/c this has been, and still is, the teaching with regard to marriage for 99% of the world Christians - Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and any and all variants thereof. Only the enlightened “magisterium” of ECUSA feels they have some sort of divine right to change it. This assumes an “authority” that no Pope has ever assumed for himself. Ever.
That is accelerating even more since 2001 - despite the fact that overall church attendance in Canada has spiked upward since then.
There is a good reason why I recently left that church.
Why did you specifically choose to leave the Anglican Church? Leaving a church is a huge life decision, just wondering how you came about it?
>The same thing is going to happen to American Catholic >Churches. However it will not be due to conservative-liberal >underpinnings. It will be due to the fact that the church has >done little to engage children and young adults. I look at my >church on Sunday and it is filled with gray hair.
I agree. I'm still a Catholic (for now) and I am in this group. In my case it is as if the church acknowledges that they have a problem connecting with youth but they refuse to modernize (not theologically, just presentation). They are stuck in the 1950's collectivist (dare I say socialist) model of Catholicism where the priest talks down to the people and assumes they can preach and lead without question from an uneducated parish. Maybe in the past when most people didn't even finish high school they could get away without having to deal with rigourous introspection from the people but that isn't the case nowadays.
Society now is more individualistic, is is much less collectivist and socialist. The Catholic Church has the exact same problems that the Democrats have.
As a former ECUSA person who crossed the tiber in 1997,I can testify that I don't belong to now nor have I ever been a member of a cult of Mary.
The most interesting thing about the catholic church with respect to the baptists is that Mary does appear, from time to time to catholics - not to protestants.
Exhibit A
Ever wonder where your hard-earned pennies go after the collection plate is whisked away? Despite severe cash flow problems in the Anglican Church, there's no shortage of money for truck rentals for the Anglican float in the Annual Gay Pride day.
Exhibit B
To pay for heating and upkeep, some historic Anglican parishes are now forced to clear the pews out on weekends, and rent their churches out to Kundalini spirit channelling sessions.
They just cannot get it, can they?
There is a tendency to treat infallible statements as legislation when they are proclamations. Furthermore, in a modern legislature, laws are made-up devises. In the old days, they were generally codification of custom or restatement of old law. Before there were legislatures, it was the function of the king to proclain what had been recognized as law "since time immemorable." That is what the pope does.
"Channeling spirit" meetings in a church building - Satan must love it.
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