I was caught off guard by Peter Smith's article in this morning's Louisville Courier-Journal.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) lost nearly 3 percent of members in 2009 and passed a grim milestone in the process -- becoming less than half the church it once was at its peak membership in 1965
Wow! How should we interpret these numbers?
BTW: Smith is a great religion reporter. I met him briefly in January when he gave a talk at the Winter Meeting of the Louisville Institute.
4 comments:
I'd be curious to know how the number of members from all presbyterian churches compares with earlier combined figures. I'm sure there is still a decline, especially in per capita numbers, but perhaps not so drastic. I also suspect there's under reporting since fewer people who attend churches bother to join.
I took a look at the membership statistics for the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), the second largest Presbyterian body in the US and their numbers seem to have steadily risen during the same period though they seem to have plateaued in last two years. (Here's 2004-2008.)
I'd have to dig back through some Barna data, but two trends seem to have dominated church membership statistics over the past thirty years: 1) a general shift from denominational to non-denominational churches or looser affiliations. 2) a shift from theologically liberal to theologically conservative denominations.
Charismatic/pentecostal groups have done well in the US, though their success in America is dwarfed by their spread in the developing world. Pew has a nice overview:
http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations
Paul M: I think your analysis here is accurate.
Paul M. is absolutely correct. I am a part of the PCA denomination, and I have seen this occurring in various cities, with my own eyes, over the last 6 years.
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