This quote sums it up. “The overall picture is dire – not one of decline as much as demise within the next generation unless trends change significantly,” said the Rev. Dwight Zscheile, an expert in denominational decline and renewal." https://www.episcopalnewsservice.or...p6DhilSrwazFaD4U_Ia0exsO9azL_6RR77pa_TQ-iZeBo Time for resurrection, restoration, and renewal within TEC! "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronincles 7:14
Yep only a return to orthodox teaching and belief can save them. If not long live the ACNA and fighting daily to keep it within orthodox teaching and belief
COVID-19 is acting as a winnowing fork among churches, accelerating trends that have been underway for decades now. Churches without a strong theological center, "woke" or not, are not going to survive. Many are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, and they are being spit out. Young people, who at least in the developed West lean heavily progressive, do not find much spiritual food in progressive churches like TEC. The church asks nothing of them save that they show up and send money occasionally; this is not the foundation of a strong and enduring relationship. Young people can take woke progressivism pure from the culture itself. They don't need a church to do it (perhaps we should say that the culture is their church). "Progressive" Christianity is so self-centered and idiosyncratic that a progressive "church" is almost an oxymoron. American Christians have taken Luther's "here I stand, I can do no other" individualism to an almost comical degree, but progressives have gone beyond even that to divest doctrinal authority from any entity other than themselves. Even the most LGBT+-affirming, antinomian, universalist church ultimately will chafe the progressive because every progressive has their own notion of what is "correct". Authority comes not out of the Bible, nor from the church leadership, but from their own (usually heterodox if not outright heretical) sensibility. For the more orthodox Christians the great Evangelical wave broke in the 1980's and has rolled back since, leaving a vast plain of wreckage behind. Modern "big E" Evangelical churches abandoned actual theology sometime in the 1960's; afterwards was all about being "seeker friendly". It was about presenting an emotional spectacle (the rise of Pentecostals during this period gives a clue as to the way the wind was blowing). But as with the progressive churches, over time the orthodox believers found themselves starved of actual theology. Their churches had basically transmogrified into self-help seminars with a Jesus-tinted patina. Going to a service in a mega-church felt more like going to a rock concert than a religious service (and with about as much actual Christian teaching). So along comes COVID-19 and the lockdowns, and many of these spiritually-empty churches are physically empty as well. The money stops coming in. Congregants find other ways to occupy their time on Sundays. Suddenly the rot is plain for all to see. Many of these churches will remain empty even when the pandemic passes. I believe that orthodox Anglican churches would be wise to appeal to the remnant. Many people are desperate for spiritual food and Christian fellowship after a long period of enforced isolation. Older people crave fellowship; younger people crave stability and meaning. It seems to me that Anglicans, with a bit of humility and outreach, could gather in many of these lost sheep.
Anglicans can also satisfy the cravings for good, time-tested hymns to sing and for regular communion, both of which have been abandoned by most churches. And one of the things evangelical churches have had going for them is the very thing Anglican churches should incorporate: evangelism. The Great Commission was given to all disciples, and we are His disciples.