How Liberal Churches Profit Outrageously By Driving Away Members

http://www.pcusa.org/media/uploads/oga/pdf/2013_comparative_summaries_.pdf ^ | Dangus

[hinckley buzzard]

In contrast, the Episcopal church is cannibalizing itself. The national headquarters in NYC has been shopped around for sale, and currently is being rented out, while the national church offices occupy one small section of one floor of the multi-floor office building.

The DC church has attached the principal of their sustaining "Soper Trust," the remains of a huge inheritance from a mega-wealthy benefactor, to keep the National Cathedral open.

They have spitefully squandered millions in legal expenses to seize real estate from parishes voting to leave the denomination. These buildings are old and costly to maintain, and have few if any parishioners left, so they mostly are sold off to secular enterprises.

But these stopgaps will not last forever--trust funds run dry when used for current operations--they will run out of captured real estate to sell, and the church itself is demographically doomed-- they are old and getting older.

There are more people attending NFL games on a Fall Sunday than all the Episcopal churches in the country put together.

[dangus]

The Episcopal Church will NEVER go bankrupt in America. It is fabulously wealthy. With a membership only 1/30th that of the Catholic Church, it owns more land than the Catholic church! With a budget of $146 million, it need not ever collect another penny, but could live on annuities until some great economic collapse of the planet.

[scrabblehack]

Maybe the presbyteries or the international organization are making money but the local churches are definitely losing money.

[ClaytonP]

My guess is that in about 20 years, if our Lord tarries, the PCUSA will find itself without members and without funds.

Not if they shrewdly invest and their money keeps growing..

Some years from now, if they keep shrinking, perhaps the few remaining could somehow alter the bylaws to disperse to themselves all the remaining money.

[Lee N. Field]

Interesting observation.

I remember hearing an interview with Parker Williamson of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. He viewed what he was doing, fighting a loosing fight in the PCUSA, as, at least partially, a matter of fiduciary responsibility.