CHURCH STOCK: DOWN I view with some alarm the obvious decline of my own particular church. I assume you do of yours, as well. Even if you are of that group - always present - who deem it beneath your stature of being a human being, created or here by happenstance to acknowledge any such power exists, I think you, too, will agree evidence is strong to show that Mankind gets along better when he has some such organizational concept as the center of his willful actions.
The group I mention is not to I'm talking about "part time" devotees- no, of necessity, "Christian" ,either, who don't feel that some "holy" connective is needed, save in times of undue stress or disaster when someone, or something, is needed on which or who blamed may be placed.
The figures for 2005 are about all in by now and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) has had another record-setting membership loss. This is the greatest such loss since the Northern and Southern "one-piece" treaty of 1983.
The loss for 2005 was reported in as 48,474. That left a total of 2,313,662 at the end of the year. Many published accounts of the shrinkage rounded it off nicely at "about 50,000."
"Not too bad!" you may have thought or said."Over two million of 'em remaining. Two million-plus! That's a lot of Presbyterians!"
True, but that has been taking place since 1967. 2005 's report was "record-setting" in that it was higher than the others.
1967 the total membership was 4.2 million. That means the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) now accounts for only 78% of the nation's population - the lowest since 1870.
Why? That's what worries both those within the body of he church as well as those outside the church. We do not have sufficient space, time, or enough creditable information - especially as related to those with a national background and profound social adjustments of recent decades.
There are some brighter spots to be seen if one looks carefully among figures and related dates. Catholics have about held firm on their numbers showing 23% of the population in l965 - and 22.7% in 2003; Southern Baptists increased from 5.3% to 5.7% in that same time period. Some Pentecostal churches have grown fast enough to confuse census takers. What's more so called de-churched Presbyterians are showing up in a wave of new "non" or "inter" denominational churches in New York, Houston, or Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Another pleasant surprise out of this confusion: how can it possibly be that the abbreviated Presbyterian Church has - in 2005 - given the Church well over three million dollars "for the first time?''
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 11-1-06 [c455wds]
