Politicized Presbyterian Church (USA) Falls Further

Comment by Reynolds on April 22, 2022 at 9:14 pm

I wonder how much time they think about how they have contributed to the decline.

Comment by Loren J Golden on April 23, 2022 at 1:28 am

The leaders of the PC(USA) do not spend any time thinking about how they have contributed to the decline, nor would they be honest with themselves if they did.
 
PC(USA) seminary students are taught to put more faith in methods to criticize the Scriptures than they are in the Scriptures themselves.  Consequently, they neither believe nor preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ; they give no one a compelling reason to be a Christian, let alone a Presbyterian.
 
And so, the PC(USA) is on a death spiral.  The denomination (and its predecessors) has lost net membership every year since 1965, and the total net loss over that period comes to 3,064,991, or 71.97% of the combined UPCUSA and PCUS membership in that year.  At its current rate of decline (charted on an Excel spreadsheet, with membership statistics from every year, beginning in 1950), the PC(USA)’s projected membership will fall below one million in 2025, and it will hit zero sometime in the early-to-mid-2040s.

Comment by John Kenyon on April 23, 2022 at 6:43 am

Anecdotally, the PC(USA) ministers with whom I am acquainted consider the decline a purification of their denomination.

Comment by Reynolds on April 23, 2022 at 7:51 am

John,

I don’t want to make an assumption but what do they mean by purification. Are they really happy to have Christians going to new churches or do they think make Christians atheist is a good thing

Comment by Loren Golden on April 23, 2022 at 8:45 am

Such are of the mindset that Christ actually wants His followers to be social justice warriors who take their cues for what justice is, not from the enduring Word of God, but from the ever-changing, unbelieving world. And if you don’t agree with their idea of what justice is, then you aren’t a Christian, and their church (as if it were theirs and not the Biblical Christ’s) is better off without you.

Comment by Dan W on April 23, 2022 at 8:56 am

I agree with Loren, preaching the Gospel of Jesus would help turn around this decline.

I guess bones are purified after death – no more of that pesky life and growth to pollute them ; )

Comment by David on April 23, 2022 at 10:04 am

Many denominations are in decline.

“Southern Baptist Convention membership drops for 14th year in a row.,,The drop in church membership isn’t unique to the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. A recent Gallup poll shows that membership in houses of worship continues to decline in the U.S. Only 47% of Americans said they were members of a church, mosque or synagogue in 2020.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/religion/2021/05/28/southern-baptist-convention-membership-drops-14th-year-row/7419455002/

Comment by Joe D on April 23, 2022 at 12:09 pm

PC(USA) is declining into irrelevance and re-arranging the deck chairs while it happens. I withdrew membership from my own beloved church and became a “regular attender” simply because I could no longer stomach being counted a member of this wayward, confused, atrophied denominational failure. With luck, our church will begin what’s euphemistically called “gracious dismissal” proceedings to leave this denomination and join “ECO,” the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians.

I’d like to see Juicy Ecumenism provide more coverage of this new denomination, which prioritizes church planting, church growth, and real biblical education over the woke, kooky tangents PC(USA) wastes its time and resources to push. ECO is the future for Presbyterians. PC(USA) is a top-heavy, overburdening structure captured by the institutional Left.

Comment by John Kenyon on April 23, 2022 at 3:30 pm

Responding to Reynolds above., quoting, “I don’t want to make an assumption but what do they mean by purification. Are they really happy to have Christians going to new churches or do they think make Christians atheist is a good thing.” My understanding is that they are convinced that they are the avante quarde of Christianity in the global era. I resigned the PCUSA in good standing after graduating from Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in 1994, being cleared for ordination, and being trained at UTS in how to capture a church, a presbytery, a synod and then the denomination. My letter of resignation was a masterpiece in resisting low diction. The quantitative decline should come as no surprise. Better research should be done in the financial reserves of the woke churches, because my sense is they can survive on other people’s money well beyond 2050. Hope I am wrong.

Comment by Greg M on April 23, 2022 at 6:20 pm

No matter the reason I am still am said to see the continued decline in most mainline denominations. I would rather see liberals attending a mainline church versus not going to church at all. I think society and communities suffer when churches close.

Comment by Loren J Golden on April 23, 2022 at 11:44 pm

David,
 
Yes, the SBC has been losing members for several years now, and the 3% membership loss the denomination suffered between 2019 and 2020 (the 2021 numbers have not yet been released) represented about 436,000 members—significantly higher than the 51,584 members the PC(USA) just lost.  Baptist leaders have much they have to reform in their denomination, before the membership loss will either taper down or, hopefully, reverse its current trend.
 
That being said, another membership loss this year will only represent the 15th straight year of the SBC’s decline, whereas it represents the 56th straight year of the PC(USA)’s decline, and the PC(USA)’s decline, despite being numerically smaller, represents a larger percentage loss.  Further, the SBC’s losses have been incurred because the denomination has been failing to live up to the Biblical message, while the Biblical message and the preaching of the Gospel have remained consistently strong (except when it comes to infant baptism, of course ;-).  The PC(USA), especially after losing so many members to the ECO, the EPC, and the PCA, does not consistently preach a Biblical message, let alone the Gospel—that has been compromised in the denomination for longer than the membership decline has lasted.  The SBC’s prospects of humbly repenting of its sins and reforming its practices, and thus of halting or turning around its current slide, are significantly higher than those of the PC(USA).
 
Joe,
 
This late into the game, most of the congregations that are able and willing to depart the PC(USA) for the ECO (or the EPC) have already done so.  The vast majority of those that are left lack the political or financial willpower to leverage a departure.  There will likely be an uptick in departures after the inevitable Kenyonesque¹ trial occurs that will prohibit the ordination of anyone who opposes the pro-LGBTQ law of the land, but by then most congregations will have made peace with the ordination of “LGBTQ persons”.
 
Regarding “more coverage” of the now ten-year-old ECO, don’t expect that anytime soon.  The IRD is a watchdog group that reports on threats to religious liberty and any newsworthy stories coming from the liberal oldline denominations—particularly annual membership reports, such as this one, and controversial happenings.  Churches that do what they’re supposed to be doing—preaching the Gospel at home and abroad, and faithfully ministering to their congregations and their communities—do not make the cut.
 
¹ For those who do not already know, Walter Wynn Kenyon was an honors graduate of the UPCUSA’s Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in the mid-1970s, who expressed his conscientious objection to the ordination of women.  One of the members of Pittsburgh Presbytery filed a complaint with the Synod Permanent Judicial Committee about its vote to ordain and install him (147 to 133), and the Synod PJC ruled the vote irregular and ordered the Presbytery to rescind it.  Kenyon appealed to the denomination PJC, which nearly a year later upheld the Synod PJC ruling, effectively barring candidates who objected to the denomination’s position on the ordination of women from being ordained themselves.
 
John,
 
The decline in the PC(USA) is not related to financial assets—the number of people leaving the denomination exceeds the number of people joining it, by an annual margin in excess of 50,000.  The percentage decline last year among those 55 years old and younger exceeds the percentage decline among those 56 years old and older—4.88% among those between 41 and 55, 6.02% among those between 26 and 40, and 6.42% among those 25 and under.  The percentage decline in baptisms between 2019 and 2021 are equally dismal (I omit the baptism numbers in 2021, because those were reduced on account of so many PC(USA) churches being closed due to the pandemic): Infant baptisms were down by 27.8%, confirmation baptisms by 38.2%, and adult baptisms by 30.8%.  There is no future for the PC(USA), if things continue to decline at the same rate as they have for the past 46 years (according to the chart I referred to above).
 
To be sure, the PC(USA) will seek organizational union with other liberal oldline denominations before the denomination implodes altogether, and I look for a proposal to that effect to be made sometime within the next decade.  Then the receiving denomination will be able to “survive on other people’s money well beyond 2050.”
 
Greg,
 
Reluctantly, I agree with you.  The negative side to people continuing to attend a liberal oldline church (continuing to call them “mainline” belies the reality that they have become) is that they are continually exposed to false teaching.  But the positive side is that they are at least still being exposed to what the Bible says, and what the Holy Spirit can do with that yields far more good than all the evil that Satan can wreak through the false teachers.
 
In the Spring of 1991, I came to the conviction that my faith was stagnant, and that I needed to grow.  I also came to the conviction that that growth was not going to happen at the large, liberal UMC Wichita congregation at which I was then a member.  Then on May 5 that year, I visited Eastminster Presbyterian Church (then affiliated with the PC(USA), now affiliated with the EPC) for the first time.  More than anything, I was struck by the way the Scriptures were faithfully handled from the pulpit, and I knew in my soul that this was the way they were to be handled—not the way they were being handled from the aforementioned liberal UMC pulpit.  And so I switched churches (and that was the last time I switched churches for a reason other than geographic relocation due to job change).  And as long as there are still people like I was then sitting in liberal oldline pews, there is still hope for them.

Comment by Loren J Golden on April 23, 2022 at 11:56 pm

As an aside, Jeff, have y’all at the IRD considered referencing older posts that are actually related to the subject of a post in the Related Reads sidebar, rather than the four latest posts that aren’t the subject post?  After all, “Final Resolution Reached in South Carolina Episcopal Case” is the closest of the four “Related Reads” posts currently listed to this post on numerical decline in the PC(USA) (although it’s not related by much), and the other three really aren’t related at all.

Comment by John Kenyon on April 24, 2022 at 3:56 pm

Perhaps the IRD could research and write articles on Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church from the perspective of religion and democracy in Ukraine.

Comment by David on April 24, 2022 at 5:51 pm

This article is typical of those that appear every few weeks on the subject of denomination X has a declining membership, therefore they must be doing something wrong. It is a form of “schadenfreude,” taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. American Protestantism has fractured many times in the past over doctrinal issues and there is no reason to think this will ever end. Of course, the issue of demographics with a declining White population is rarely discussed. Most Americans do not belong to a religious institution and those that do tend to be older than the general population.

“Those who rejoice at the misfortune of others will be punished.” Provbs. 17:5

Comment by Loren J Golden on April 24, 2022 at 6:11 pm

David,
 
If you are reading schadenfreude into my responses, above, you are greatly mistaken.
 
“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? … Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD.  Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin.  Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!  Why will you die, O house of Israel?  For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (Ezek. 18.23,30-32)
 
And again, “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.  They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.  To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever.  Amen.” (Rom. 9.3-6)
 
I do not wish ill on the PC(USA), but I wish to God they would repent of their false teaching, turn, and live.  And I pray to the Lord that this would happen.  Yet in the thirty-plus years since I became a Presbyterian, this has not happened.  I do not rejoice in their downfall, nor do I rejoice in the downfall of any segment of the Church of Jesus Christ.  Judgment on sin is coming, whether I want it or not.  But I cannot control what the PC(USA) does, nor can I grant them repentance, as if I were in the place of God.

Comment by Eternity Matters on April 25, 2022 at 9:15 am

Of course they are declining! When you “preach” the same things at MSNBC, why would anyone spend their time and money to come hear it? They are just running out the clock as the old members, who go out of habit, die off.

Comment by Jim Scarantino on April 25, 2022 at 10:33 am

It appears that PCUSA does not report worship attendance. The Episcopal Church just reported higher membership than PCUSA, but saw its worship attendance drop below 500,000. The PCUSA church I’ve attended when visiting family used to be packed on Sundays. It is a huge church building on a sprawling campus. Last time I went with family (and it will be the last time) the youth pastor, a Princeton Seminary grad, lectured men who were not homosexual like him. He lambasted their “straightist” ways. It was a very in-your-hetero-face finger-pointing tirade. The church was mostly empty as old people tried to sing up tempo worship songs with lyrics stripped of any real substance. So sad.

Comment by Steve on April 25, 2022 at 12:23 pm

“It’s appropriate to appreciate justice; we can legitimately approve of well-deserved consequences for evil. That is a very different than experiencing glee over another person’s pain and suffering.”
https://www.bibleref.com/Proverbs/17/Proverbs-17-5.html
Besides which, its a real stretch to say that the clergy has “pain and suffering”. Far as I know, they’re feeling no pain; they continue to extract salaries and pensions despite decades of failure. I just feel sorry for congregants who gave of their time and treasure for so many years.

Comment by David S. on April 26, 2022 at 10:50 am

Like Joe, I resigned my membership last year for much similar reasons, after a decade of membership at our current church. The impetus for me was a combination of reasons, but the overriding factor had to deal with how a complaint regarding a false teacher (I am tired of “playing nice” to avoid calling these people scripturally what they are) decided to advocate the heretical teaching on Matthew 15. which has been more recently popularized amongst a certain crowd by the false bishop in the UMC’s Western Jurisdiction, that appeared in an official denomination publication was responded to. (I will note that the teaching is at least 30+ years old as Marcus Borg of Jesus Seminar fame made a veiled reference to it in one of his books from the early 1990s.) The Middle Tennessee Presbytery, his boss the Director of Disaster Relief, the current President and Executive Director of PMA, and the current Stated Clerk basically saw no issue, despite the fact that the teaching has significant ramifications on the nature, deity, and work of Christ. The Ms. Diane Moffet and Mr. J. Herbert Nelson, II specifically cited in email correspondence to me after I refused to let the issue pass that it was covered by “diversity of thought”, and Ms. Laurie Kraus stated in an email to me that the person in question had a heart of Jesus to which I thought members of JDS, JW, the Armstrongism branch of WWCOG, and the branch of Seventh Day Adventism that hew very closely to the more problematic originalist teachings of Ellen G. White all claim a heart for Jesus, too, but are not Christian either. And that is before we start on the Word of Faith and Prosperity Gospel movement. The presbytery decided to simply respond with a bureaucratic word salad of citations of the Book of Order, even after two reviews (initial and secondary). For me, this was the biggest problem.

Then add to that the consistent spouting of the talking points of the Democratic National Committee without reservation, even while these people hypocritically criticized theologically traditional and politically conservative Christians for supporting Trump. In fact, it seemed even when the prior President did something right or in a positive direction for which everyone should find some sort of support, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Jimmie Hawkins of the Office of Public Witness, and the alphabet soup of church committees would also find some reason to criticize the actions, such as the Abraham Accords, which was the first substantive movement towards Israel and her neighbors living peaceably side-by-side, for not involving the Palestinian Authority, despite the fact that President Abbas refuses to negotiate with Israel and not criticizing the Palestinian leadership for such intransigence.

Sadly, in the less than twelve months since the effective date of that removal from membership, Mr. Nelson and his band of false teachers, continue to reveal that my decision to resign membership in protest was appropriate. Support for abortion has moved from the old Clintonian doctrine of safe, legal and rare to full throttled support for unlimited abortion on demand; criticism of Biden for escalating the Russian-Ukrainian War when basically the “normal escalating language” one expects was not used; unreserved support for the medicalization of children suffering from gender dysphoria; no concern about denial of objections for conscious reasons regarding matters of law; criticism of the political tone but only directed towards the right and at best only milquetoast criticism of the left; whole-hearted embrace of the racism and other -isms that result when theology and various theories are viewed through a critical theory lens; calling the 2010 (ordination) and 2014 (marriage) amendments to the Book of Order as a move of the Holy Spirit; and the list goes on. Presently, Tim Keller is doing a 4 or five part series for a quarterly journal. Part One discusses the Decline of the Mainline and he pretty much summed it up, when essentially stating that the Mainlines sealed their fate, when they decided to be what I call PACs affiliated with a certain political party, rather than focusing on the essential requirements of the church, the faithful preaching and teaching of Christ and him crucified.

If one really wants an understanding as to how God has given this leadership over to a lying spirit and over to sin, and revealed them to be in the vein of Romans 1:22, I would consider Mr. Nelson’s comments over the prior year’s statistics that brushed the continued slide aside. What is more telling is that as of this morning, the only place on social media where this article is linked is Presbyterian Outlook’s Facebook page. Normally, every “News” post on the main PC(USA) website is also posted on the main Facebook and Twitter feed, but this article is conspicuously absent from both.

And in reference to David’s comment about reviling in other’s misfortunes, I am in fact angry over what has happened to the Mainlines and find it an occasion for mourning. Call these leaders what they are – false prophets, preachers and teachers; hirelings and wolves masquerading as shepherds and sheep; or servants of the enemy masquerading as angels of light, but also pray that they may be experience genuine repentance and conversion, and preferably not at five strokes to midnight like the repentant thief on the cross.

Comment by Loren J Golden on June 12, 2022 at 6:05 pm

For a fair comparison, let us compare the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s membership statistics with those of the smaller Presbyterian Church in America.  To be accurate, the PC(USA)’s reported net membership loss of 51,584 (from 1,245,354 to 1,193,770, or 4.14%) is of Active Members only.  Most notably, this number does not include Baptized Members, which is to say, children of active members who have been baptized but not yet made a public profession of faith.  It is not clear whether or not the category of Active Members includes Teaching Elders, so we will assume for the purpose of this comparison that it does not.
 
The PCA statistics report the numbers of Teaching Elders, Communicant Members (corresponding to the PC(USA) Active Members), Non-Communicant Members (corresponding to the PC(USA) Baptized Members), and Total Membership (which includes all three categories).  For the purpose of this comparison, we will consider only the statistics of the Communicant Membership, which dropped from 299,891 in 2020 to 297,239 in 2021, a drop of 2652, or 0.88%.  The PCA lost membership in both the two previous years as well, falling from 300,424 in 2018 to 300,113 in 2019, for a drop of 311, or 0.10%, and a drop of 222, or 0.07%, in 2020.  (Between 2017 and 2018, the PCA enjoyed a significant membership gain, which we will exclude from this comparison.)  Thus, between the years 2018 and 2021, the PCA suffered a net loss of 3185, or 1.06%.
 
In the same period, the PC(USA) Active Membership fell from 1,352,678 in 2018 to 1,193,770 in 2021, for a net loss of 158,908, or 11.75%.  In this same period, the PC(USA) was forced to consolidate presbyteries, the number of which declined from 170 to 166, and the number of churches fell from 9161 to 8813, for a net drop of 348 (the number of churches dissolved or dismissed to other denominations less the number of churches organized), or 3.80%.  By contrast, the number of presbyteries remained constant in the PCA during this time (88), while the number of churches increased from 1572 to 1593, for a net gain of 21, or 1.34%.
 
At the most basic level, the PCA holds Biblical fidelity as one of its highest values, whereas the PC(USA) in like manner holds accommodating the world’s ideas and prejudices as one of its highest values.  This is to say, in the PC(USA), the world sets the church’s agenda, whereas in the PCA, the Bible does.  This, in turn, leads to some rather stark contrasts between the two denominations:

The PCA requires its officers to affirm the inerrancy of Scripture (Book of Church Order §21-5.1, §24-6.1), whereas the PC(USA), to put it mildly, does not (Book of Order §W-4.0404.b), with few teaching elders (if any) holding to the inerrancy of Scripture, and most eschewing the doctrine.
The PCA requires its officers to “sincerely receive and adopt the (Westminster) Confession of Faith and Catechisms…as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures,” (Book of Church Order §21-5.2, §24-6.2), whereas the PC(USA) only requires its officers to “sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church (which include the Westminster Standards but also other confessions and statements of faith that contradict them on certain points) as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do,” without anywhere enumerating what these “essential tenets” are, and to “be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God” (Book of Order §W-4.0404.c).  In point of fact, the confessions and catechisms in the Book of Confessions, especially the Westminster Standards and the confessions and catechisms of the Reformation era have little to no meaning among most PC(USA) teaching elders.
The PCA does not ordain women, in keeping with Paul’s injunctions against the practice in I Corinthians 14 and I Timothy 2-3, whereas the PC(USA) does, in spite of two sections in its Book of Confessions (§3.22, §5.191) that speak of the practice as forbidden by God, and will not ordain men who disagree with the practice.
The PCA neither ordains individuals who practice LGBTQ+ perversions nor consecrates same-gender “marriages”, in keeping with the Scriptural injunctions against these practices (Gen. 19.4-9, Lev. 18.22, 20.13, Dt. 22.5, 23.1,17-18, Judg. 19.22-25, I Kg. 14.24, 15.12, 22.46, II Kg. 23.7, Rom. 1.24-28, I Cor. 6.9-11, I Tim. 1.8-11, Jude 7), whereas the PC(USA) does both.
The PCA emphasizes that men and women are lost in sin, standing condemned before the throne of God on account of their sin, apart from Jesus Christ, and therefore the Church has a responsibility to preach to unbelievers the Gospel of salvation by the grace of God alone, through faith alone in the person and finished work upon the Cross of Christ alone, whereas the PC(USA), to put it quite bluntly, does not.  To most PC(USA) pastors, Christ is not “the way and the truth and the life” (Jn. 14.6), and there are many paths to God apart from Him, sin is not nearly as bad as the Bible makes it out to be, the bodily resurrection is regarded as an optional belief, not to be imposed on the whole church, and the doctrine of the penal substitutionary atonement, central to the Gospel of Christ, wherein the Father, because of His love for this world lost in sin (Jn. 3.16), sent His Son to die on the Cross, bearing His wrath for all the sins of all those called in His name, in order to satisfy His holy justice, is offensive to, and disparaged by, many PC(USA) teaching elders.

 
The PC(USA) has bent over backward to accommodate the world’s ideas and prejudices, with many PC(USA) teaching elders claiming that this is necessary to retain their younger members.  However, the number of Active Members in the PC(USA) 25 years old and younger has fallen from 132,132 in 2018 to 111,172 in 2021, for a drop of 20,960, or 15.86%, surpassing the percentage decline of the denomination’s membership as a whole.  (Unlike the PC(USA), the PCA statistics do not track age groups, but the PCA’s ministry to college-age adults, Reformed University Fellowship, is quite active in evangelizing and discipling many young men and women in American colleges and universities.)  If accommodating the world’s ideas and prejudices is really the PC(USA)’s strategy for retaining its young people, it really does not seem to be working out for the denomination, and the PC(USA)’s leaders might want to seriously reconsider this approach.  After all, young men and women, like men, women, and children of all ages, need to know Jesus Christ, as He is revealed in the pages of Holy Scripture, as Lord and Savior.  And strategies to accommodate the church’s beliefs and practices to the ideas and prejudices of the world distract from, and are actually counterproductive to, the goal of not only retaining the church’s young people, but reaching young people outside of the church and introducing them to the only Savior of their souls.  Until the PC(USA) realizes this and turns away from the self-destructive path that it has been following for over a century, it will continue to hemorrhage members and diminish into oblivion.

Comment by Mark Mankowski on November 5, 2023 at 7:20 am

As a Catholic, I used to enjoy watching the decline of mainline Protestantism, until I realized I was being duped by Satan, and now I am seeing the same thing happening to my Church. The cause is one and the same, we are fighting principalities and powers, manifested as our hierarchies conforming to the spirit of the world as the Bible says world instead of to the word of God. My Church has undergone periods of corruption(above and beyond normal human failing) and has almost always reformed from the bottom up. It looks to me like the same is happening to you, as I see all your mainline Protestant churches undergoing the same phenomena, hemorrhaging membership while small cabals of nonbelieving elitists rot your churches from the top down. But I see increasing numbers rejecting this evil, and rebuilding from the bottom with scant resources and Gestapo like suppression from the top. May God bless your work, if for no other reason than less than half our nation professes Christianity now, and I for one fear the howling mob of pagans whom we see now and then burning cities, destroying our public schools, and bringing us back to the Rome of Tiberius and Nero with the attendant persecution.