"Perhaps the transformation of the disciples of Jesus is the greatest evidence of all for the resurrection." ― John R.W. Stott

Sicknesses, losses, crosses, anxieties and disappointments seem absolutely needful to keep us humble, watchful and spiritual-minded. They are as needful as the pruning knife to the vine and the refiner's furnace to the gold. --- J. C. Ryle

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
www.virtueonline.org
October 4, 2024

A NEW STUDY OUT on church attendance reveals that the unchurched don't attend mainly because of indifference and not because of busyness or antagonism.

Is this why 40 million Americans have walked away from churches and other religious institutions in America in the last 25 years?

For some, the decision is rooted in deep pain. But for the majority, their reasons for leaving are a lot more mundane than you'd expect. Most people have left for really pedestrian reasons. Like, I moved; attendance was inconvenient; or, say, "family change," Michael Graham, co-author of "The Great Dechurching" says.

That's something like 12 percent of the population, and it represents the largest concentrated change in church attendance in American history.

So, what does that say about the importance of faith in America? A lot actually.

As many as 100,000 church-owned buildings are expected to be sold or repurposed by 2030, according to an analysis in a new book, "Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition." Though Sunday attendance has recovered in part from COVID-19 restrictions, a decades-long decline has continued to take its toll, and the squeeze on churches has only gotten tighter in the post-pandemic economy, according to fall 2023 data from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

As a result, congregations face hard choices about what to do with large sacred structures that are underutilized, costly to keep up and suffering from deferred maintenance, reports the Religion News Service.

"Everything keeps getting more expensive, but we have fewer people in the congregation to pay for it," said Jainine Gambaro, a member of Franklin Reformed Church in Nutley, New Jersey. "We keep going by the grace of God, but it's an issue."

Gambaro was one of some 100 church leaders and congregants who gathered online and in person Sept. 20-21 to hear from a lineup of real estate experts about how to reimagine a new future for church buildings.

The Future of Church Property conference, organized by Princeton Theological Seminary, focused on turning community needs into grants, partnerships with developers and new business-driven income streams.

New leaders in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are using the language of business to deal with the crisis both denominations face.

The operative words are "structural realignment," "enacting organizational change in The Episcopal Church to support the church's priorities."

Presiding Bishop elect Sean Rowe embraced the church's call for a "structural realignment," and he indicated that he intends to move fast.

"The realignment will be underway soon," Rowe said, adding that he expects potentially substantial changes to churchwide operations in the first quarter of 2025.

This is code for managed decline.

Rowe is partly responding to a line in the 2025-27 budget plan, approved in June by the 81st General Convention, that called on the new presiding bishop to develop a plan to save $3.5 million on staff over three years, or about 5% of the church's total personnel costs. The budget gives no recommendation for the shape or scope of that realignment, though Rowe outlined a preliminary process for considering such changes. It will include conversations and meetings this fall with the more than 140 churchwide employees who carry out the mission and ministry of The Episcopal Church at the denominational level.

A "structural realignment" won't change the church's top priorities, identified by General Convention as including racial healing, evangelism and creation care, though "the way we put those priorities into practice is bound to change significantly," he said.

Racism is not a problem in the Episcopal Church. Less than 2 percent are Black and there have been no reports of racism having broken out in the Church. The vast majority of parishes have never seen a black person and never will. Their parishes will be dead and sold off long before a person of color passes through the red doors.

Evangelism, Episcopal style goes like this; "Through the spiritual practice of evangelism, we seek, name and celebrate Jesus' loving presence in the stories of all people -- then invite everyone to more." That is not biblical evangelism which proclaims the Good News of God's redemptive grace through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Calling people out of darkness into light; proclaiming salvation to sinners...this is evangelism. That is not a message Episcopalians proclaim which is that God loves absolutely everybody and you don't need to change. Come as you are, stay as you are.

Creation Care. Building birdhouses as part of the church's creation care ministry in places like Mannheim, PA won't stop the hemorrhaging of people leaving TEC.

Rowe begins his nine-year term as presiding bishop on Nov. 1.

An Anglican Church of Canada primate's commission tasked with rethinking church structures is encouraging Anglicans to provide feedback on its seven intentionally provocative statements or "hypotheses" through an online survey.

The commission, Reimagining the Church--Proclaiming the Gospel in the 21st Century, established by former primate Archbishop Linda Nicholls, first presented the hypotheses in spring to the House of Bishops and Council of General Synod, then distributed them publicly in early June, says commission chair Archdeacon Monique Stone.

The hypotheses include dismantling colonialism in the Council of the North and church governance structures; eliminating either General Synod or the ecclesiastical provinces; returning to a model where the primate is also a diocesan bishop; reducing travel and meeting costs; looking at new ways of running the national office; and ending editorially independent journalism--specifically, the Anglican Journal--funded by General Synod.

A story appearing in the Anglican Journal in August revealed new numbers for the ACoC, and they show that Canada is the first major province of the Anglican Communion to have collapsed.

Data for average Sunday attendance: had dropped from 162,000 in 2001 to 65,000 in 2022. It continues to drop year over year.

These are truly remarkable numbers. A church already in steep decline saw that decline speed up during COVID. Attendance in 2022 was 40 percent of attendance in 2001. And between 2019 and 2022, the ACoC lost a quarter of its Sunday attendance.

This is all about managed decline.

The only difference between TEC and the ACoC is that TEC has money, lots of money and the ACoC while not bankrupt, has faced financial challenges in the past which have depleted its resources.

In 2000, the ACoC faced bankruptcy due to lawsuits from former students of residential schools who alleged sexual abuse. The church cut costs by laying off employees and slashing its budget by 11%.

In 2017, the Anglican Church of Canada had 357,123 members, which was 1% of the Canadian population.

The Episcopal Church has assets held in trust worth over $400 million; Clergy retirement funds of $11 billion; endowments worth $4.5 billion and 14 acres of real estate in lower Manhattan next to Trinity Church, which is estimated to be worth $6 billion.

With its average weekly attendance plummeting, The Episcopal Church will die the richest denomination in church history.

***

The evangelical Diocese of Sydney has eased it chastity rule, rejecting an attempt to prescribe the marital status and sexual ethic of workers in its committees, schools, and aid agencies.

The surprising veto was made at the synod's long September sessions, in a discussion over a new governance policy for the diocese. The mammoth policy sets out the management expected of an Anglican parish or organization and the people who serve in Australia's largest and most conservative Anglican diocese. You can read more here: https://virtueonline.org/sydney-eases-chastity-rule

***

In a surprising move The Anglican Church of Southern Africa's recent Provincial Synod had on the agenda a motion to approve a set of prayers for the 'blessing' of same sex couples. The motion was defeated!

There have been repeated attempts by a fringe group of gay rights activists, encouraged and supported by several diocesan bishops -- mainly from the dioceses which make up the greater urban region of Cape Town and environs -- to broker in the approval of homosexual relationships by the church. This attempt has over the past several years been resisted both in the House of Bishops and the Province.

Dioceses such as the Diocese of Port Elizabeth, a firmly evangelical diocese have been firm in their rejection of any moves to sanction prayers of blessings or any change of doctrine which would allow gay marriage (legal in South Africa since 2006). Bishop Eddie Daniels initiated a process this year to get the mind of the diocese on the matter and the verdict was unanimous in support of classical biblical teaching on the matter. In contrast, some Bishops in the Cape Town region have actively campaigned to have gay blessings approved.

Dave Doveton, Anglican Mainstream editor has written an excellent analysis about this that you can read here: https://virtueonline.org/southern-africa-rejection-gay-blessings

The Southern African province has been in the back pocket of TEC for decades and for their devotion have been given hundreds of thousands of dollars to push the Western church's pansexual agenda. This is a major smackdown of Archbishop Thabo Makgoba who has been pressing for gay marriage rites to please his American paymasters. The Southern African province is the only province on the sub-continent of Africa to want this; no other province has and most of the African provinces, as a result belong to GSFA and or GAFCON; both of which movements reject both homosexuality and homosexual marriage.

***

The Archbishop of Canterbury can't seem to stay out of trouble. He seems to wallow in it.

The CofE has become an ungodly church and its archbishop is silent in the face of evil. This, in reference to the war being waged against Israel on four fronts -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and Iran. The Church of England is built on venomous and ignorant bigotry, says British Journalist, Melania Phillips. The CofE has once again defamed its Jews, screamed Phillips a British public commentator.

In all my career spanning nearly 50 years of writing about the Anglican Communion, going back to my first interview with then Archbishop Donald Coggan in 1974, I have not seen an archbishop and his church so eviscerated, bludgeoned, historically disemboweled, and publicly vilified as Justin Welby and the Church of England.

It is without parallel. It never happened when Lord Robert Runcie or Lord George Carey were archbishops, nor Rowan Williams, however theologically defective you might have deemed him to be. But Justin Welby takes the cake. He has been whacked around by Global South leaders to the point that many of them no longer recognize him as their leader. The press has had a field day over reparations, safeguarding, an LLF report that has virtually started World War III among evangelicals and much more. And now a statement on the Middle East that defies all human reasoning has erupted that makes you wonder if the archbishop has ever studied the Old Testament and the history of Israel in any serious manner.

Hezbollah attacked northern Israel with long range missiles, one of which hit Nazareth. Since Christians believe that Nazareth is where Jesus spent his childhood it is an important, even sacred town for them. One might therefore expect that the Church of England's clergy would voice horrified condemnation of Hezbollah, wrote Phillips.

"You think? I haven't been able to find a single such utterance. From the Archbishop of Canterbury: nothing. From the bishops of Gloucester, Chelmsford, Norwich and Southwark: nothing. Instead, they have expressed horrified condemnation of ... how did you guess? And as ever from the Church of England hierarchy, this condemnation is based on venomous and ignorant bigotry," said Phillips. You can read more here: https://virtueonline.org/ungodly-church-and-silent-archbishop-face-evil

***

A Church of England evangelical preacher, Mike Pilavachi, abused his power as a 'spiritual celebrity', an independent report has found.

In examining the misconduct of Pilavachi, the report is critical not just of leaders of the Soul Survivor movement in Watford, Hertfordshire, that he founded, for failing to act, but of the Church of England centrally.

It says many victims had been left struggling to come to terms with what had happened to them.

But some of those survivors say the report by barrister Fiona Scolding KC, commissioned by trustees of Soul Survivor, leaves unanswered questions, particularly on the full nature and extent of the failings of the Church of England.
Pilavachi was widely regarded as one of the country's most influential charismatic preachers. You can read more here: https://virtueonline.org/preacher-abused-his-power-spiritual-celebrity

***

A Virginia Anglican who was wrongly fired over pronouns was vindicated in a settlement in a religious liberty and free speech claim in Virginia.

In 2018, teacher Peter Vlaming was fired from his job for declining, as a matter of personal policy, to use pronouns for a student who identifies as transgender. Vlaming has successfully resolved his case in a settlement announced Monday.

In exchange for ending his lawsuit against the West Point, Virginia school board, Vlaming will receive $575,000 in damages and legal fees and a change of school district policies according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) the Christian legal organization representing Vlaming after he was wrongly fired for declining to use inaccurate pronouns. His termination will be removed from his record.

You can read more here: https://virtueonline.org/virginia-anglican-wrongly-fired-over-pronouns-vindicated-settlement

***

(RNS) --Leaders of the General Theological Seminary in New York City hope they have a plan in place to save the troubled school and its historic buildings.

The seminary announced that it had signed an agreement with Vanderbilt University to lease the Close, the seminary's historic campus in Manhattan. Under the terms of the lease, Vanderbilt will pay for needed improvements to the campus while allowing GTS to retain offices and space for its hybrid in-person and online master of divinity program. This will allow some 44 students to finish their degrees.

"GTS is now set to serve the Church for another century in New York," said Ian S. Markham, GTS' president.

An earlier plan to partner with a music school with ties to a conservative Catholic donor fell through when it was learned that the Catholic donor was averse to the openly pansexual agenda of TEC and a group of Episcopal bishops pulled the plug on the deal.

Last fall, the school admitted it had a cash flow crisis. "In fiscal year 2023, GTS' operating expenses were $7.8 million, against an annual income of $4.3 million," the school said in announcing an earlier plan to address the school's financial woes by leasing the campus.

But the bigger question is what sort of jobs will be available for the ordinands once they graduate. Full time church positions are shrinking, and most parishes cannot afford a fulltime priest unless the parish is heavily endowed. It is wishful thinking to believe the church and the seminary will be around "for another century in New York."

***

The ongoing saga in the Free Church of England (FCE) between Bishop John Fenwick and the Rev. Brett Murphy has heated up and VOL columnist Judith Sture too a long hard look at the situation. She blames both sides. It is not pleasant reading. You can read her take here:
https://virtueonline.org/murphy-fenwick-and-fce-gloves-come

***

In Nigeria, a State Governor praised Anglican Bishop Ben Kwashi as a 'role model and mentor' at a recent celebration of the bishop's birthday. This is well deserved. I have known this godly bishop for decades and he has been a real inspiration to Anglicans in both the Global South and the West.

In a congratulatory message, Governor Mutfwang described Bishop Kwashi as a remarkable role model and mentor to countless individuals within and beyond Nigeria who revere God. He noted that the Bishop's life has been one of profound inspiration and transformation, marked by his deep commitment to service to God and humanity.

You can read more here: https://virtueonline.org/nigeria-state-governor-praises-bishop-ben-kwashi-role-model-and-mentor

***

VIRTUEONLINE. We will shortly be rolling out VOL's new website. The designers say it promises to be a game changer. Our lists will be coordinated and flow faster and more evenly. But we need your support. The move is costly and I don't have the funds necessary to make the change. There are no salaries, but there are bills to pay, travel to be done, correspondents and a webmaster to pay.
If you can help, please send a tax-deductible donation to the address below:

VIRTUEONLINE
P.O. Box 111
Shohola, PA 18458

A PayPal donation link can be found here: http://www.virtueonline.org/support.html

If you know someone who would like to receive these bi-weekly news reports, they can subscribe here: https://virtueonline.org/ It is free, nothing is behind a paywall. Thank you for your support.

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY EXPANDING MINISTRY AND OUTREACH

I have started a SUBSTACK with scribblings on the Middle East over the war in Israel. You can see them here: https://substack.com/@davidvirtue2

Warmly in Christ,

David