Episcopalians looking to evangelize

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

https://episcopalchurch.org/embracing-evangelism?fbclid=IwAR2PnYC1DJTRWtnlVQJrMNi2hrYh7hJfgBZvVieg4AAWhf3fGVPNm4Ikkt4

This is really good news.  Mainline churches have all but given up on evangelizing and spreading the Good News to people, and the steep decline in membership is proof of that.  It looks like the Episcopal Church is finally starting to realize that and work to soften the decline and hopefully bring people back to the pews.

I signed up for their online workshop tonight.  Should be interesting.

[afleitch]

In Scotland there's some soft outreach to LGBT people, particularly Catholics as a generally affirming church which has got some traction in recent years. And it's been a long established church, but very much an outsider for some time.

[Bismarck]

I’d be all for a return of mainline Protestantism. I don’t attend currently but grew up in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ. Always sad to see the Methodist and restorationist and other pews full of only seniors. Although I suppose I’m part of the problem.

[Kingpoleon]

I’d be all for a return of mainline Protestantism. I don’t attend currently but grew up in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ. Always sad to see the Methodist and restorationist and other pews full of only seniors. Although I suppose I’m part of the problem.

No kidding. The sick man of Christianity - mainline Protestantism - played a vital role in our society for a long time. We were the main ones who stood up to slavery, to the mafia, to segregation, and half a dozen other vile practices. I like the Catholics and the evangelical Protestants, but American Christianity is a three legged stool that won’t work right if one leg is so much smaller than the others.

[Santander]

The problem with Episcopagans (not all, but TEC as a whole) is that they've flexed their views so much over the years to accommodate the secular world that they have little to offer anymore but cake and lemonade.

[7,052,770]

The problem with Episcopagans (not all, but TEC as a whole) is that they've flexed their views so much over the years to accommodate the secular world that they have little to offer anymore but cake and lemonade.

I mean, that's all we want.

[John Dule]

People are not turning away from religion because missionaries have stopped ringing their doorbells. They are free to try this. It won't help.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

People are not turning away from religion because missionaries have stopped ringing their doorbells. They are free to try this. It won't help.

It might help a little in TEC's case (and as a former Episcopalian with a lot of residual affection for the moderate-to-liberal currents of Anglicanism I hope it does--although, like Bismarck, I realize I'm part of the problem here). It's hard to overstate how much of a death spiral the liberal mainline denominations are currently in; it's not the "managed decline" that's going on with American religiosity as a whole.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Evangelism is important, and all Christians would do well to remember the Great Commission. I hope to get involved in evangelism efforts as well, though I am certainly not the most comfortable person when it comes to talking to people.

[SevenEleven]

People are not turning away from religion because missionaries have stopped ringing their doorbells. They are free to try this. It won't help.

How many Mormon conversions per suited bicycle trip per 1000 people?

[TJ in Oregon]

     Evangelism is important, and all Christians would do well to remember the Great Commission. I hope to get involved in evangelism efforts as well, though I am certainly not the most comfortable person when it comes to talking to people.

I doubt most people are ever comfortable doing it. A lot of evangelism is just being willing to trust the Holy Spirit, putting yourself out there, trying to have respectful honest conversations, and dealing with the discomfort.

[Del Tachi]

The problem with Episcopagans (not all, but TEC as a whole) is that they've flexed their views so much over the years to accommodate the secular world that they have little to offer anymore but cake and lemonade.

I was coming here to say this.  What people earnestly desire is a refuge from the ways of the world, not a country club. 

[Del Tachi]

I’d be all for a return of mainline Protestantism. I don’t attend currently but grew up in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ. Always sad to see the Methodist and restorationist and other pews full of only seniors. Although I suppose I’m part of the problem.

I grew up in the Restorationist tradition (Disciples of Christ and Churches of Christ) and while the Churches of Christ appear to have remained steady in my area, there isn't even a Christian Church in Jackson anymore

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Doesn't the Anglican church already evangelise quite heavily in Africa?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Doesn't the Anglican church already evangelise quite heavily in Africa?

The vast majority of American Episcopalians are not simpatico with the kinds of evangelization being done (mostly by other Anglican churches) in Africa. There are some excellent reasons for this and some awful ones. It's also just not relevant to Anglicanism's fortunes in the United States, which constitutes the vast majority of TEC's jurisdiction, if there are a lot of Anglicans on an entirely different continent.

[afleitch]

I had a look at the General Social Survey results (from 1972) for religious preference.

There has been an uptick in young people (18-34) under the category moderate/liberal Protestant up from 12% to 20% from 2014-2018 the highest for that age group since the mid 90's.

Fundamentalist/orthodox went down from 27% to 19% with Catholicism down from 23% to 21% though we can assume the future amongst the large young Catholic latino cohort is in some doubt (from 2000, non-latino Catholic identity has dropped only 3% but amongst Latinos down 23%)

No religion is up from 30% to 34%.

So I do think there's a great untapped demographic (young people, latinos, blacks (who have seen a collapse in affiliation to fundamentalist churches in the past decade) ). But like anything that involves shaking up the status quo or vested interests to favour the young, it's an opportunity they will probably miss.

[Tartarus Sauce]

The ongoing collapse of Mainline denominations is one of the more underappreciated factors fueling polarization along religious/secular lines in America. Christianity is increasingly being viewed as an all or nothing affair, making it harder for softer approaches to gain traction. It's also reflective of the more general decline of civil institutions, considering how many were built and reared off Mainline traditions, and how many of them now rot on the vine as we become increasingly isolated and disengaged in the modern, tech-fueled world.

Adding to their woes, Evangelicals have been eager to erect institutions wholly separate from their Mainline brethren, and happily pick off members and fold them into their own congregations. Thus, Mainliners have been squeezed from both sides, competing for membership with Evangelicals (and losing that competition) while shedding others into the ranks of the unaffiliated. Meanwhile, secular forces have begun displacing the role the Mainline elite used to play within American society, including within many institutions they formerly nurtured.

This trend has exacerbated the social and political divisions between the devotees of Christianity and the unaffiliated, as many American Christians inculcate themselves in institutions and mindsets separate from and opposed to the secular world, while the increasing number of those never reared within the culture of Christianity find its paradigms foreign and inhospitable. Without a flourishing stable of Mainliners to bridge the gap between the two, mutual antipathies will only deepen, and American society will continue to segregate along rigid social lines with few cross-cutting cleavages.

[afleitch]

Fundamentalist/orthodox went down from 27% to 19% with Catholicism down from 23% to 21% though we can assume the future amongst the large young Catholic latino cohort is in some doubt (from 2000, non-latino Catholic identity has dropped only 3% but amongst Latinos down 23%)

This is concerning to me less because I think the Catholic Church is somehow "owed" the allegiance of the Latino community or something and more because, as a young non-Latino American Catholic, I'm growing to distrust my own kind.

Doing some digging, Pew found in 2014 (which is the latest I can find) that from 2010-2013, affiliation amongst 18-29 year olds fell 15 points with a corresponding 13 point rise in non-affiliation. As the total share has now fallen below 50% that might be even steeper.

A fall like this is really something, even if you compare it to more advanced but gentler declines in Europe. Though it is worth noting that while GenForward found 14% of millenials identified as LGBTQ amongst Latinos it was statistically significantly higher ar 22%.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Fundamentalist/orthodox went down from 27% to 19% with Catholicism down from 23% to 21% though we can assume the future amongst the large young Catholic latino cohort is in some doubt (from 2000, non-latino Catholic identity has dropped only 3% but amongst Latinos down 23%)

This is concerning to me less because I think the Catholic Church is somehow "owed" the allegiance of the Latino community or something and more because, as a young non-Latino American Catholic, I'm growing to distrust my own kind.

Doing some digging, Pew found in 2014 (which is the latest I can find) that from 2010-2013, affiliation amongst 18-29 year olds fell 15 points with a corresponding 13 point rise in non-affiliation. As the total share has now fallen below 50% that might be even steeper.

A fall like this is really something, even if you compare it to more advanced but gentler declines in Europe. Though it is worth noting that while GenForward found 14% of millenials identified as LGBTQ amongst Latinos it was statistically significantly higher ar 22%.

That does make sense as a contributing factor if most of them are becoming unaffiliated rather than the various subspecies of Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism that are peeling off Catholics south of the border. I wouldn't be surprised if there was also an "establishment"/"anti-establishment", or even "rooted"/"anomic", split between older and younger Latinos, which seems to be the case with perceptions of the Church (and of Pope Francis as an individual) in traditionally-Catholic parts of Continental Europe. (Antonio and I recently had an extended off-forum conversation about this wrt Italy.) That would likely be less of a problem with younger whites because, well, white Americans have more social capital than Latinos, even among Millennials.