{"id":20125,"date":"2013-08-19T17:03:06","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T21:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=20125"},"modified":"2013-08-19T21:20:37","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T01:20:37","slug":"katharine-jefferts-schori-rationalises-tecs-declining-membership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/katharine-jefferts-schori-rationalises-tecs-declining-membership\/","title":{"rendered":"Katharine Jefferts Schori rationalises TEC\u2019s declining membership"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/episcopal-leader-membership-losses-are-spirits-way-of-pruning-for-greater-fruitfulness-102573\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The head of The Episcopal Church has stated that the declining numbers of her denomination could be the work of the Holy Spirit to create &#8220;greater fruitfulness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>TEC Presiding Bishop the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori made this statement last Thursday in remarks delivered at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America&#8217;s (ELCA) Churchwide Assembly in Pittsburgh.  &#8220;Some have judged our smaller numbers as faithlessness but it may actually be the Spirit&#8217;s way of pruning for greater fruitfulness,&#8221; said Jefferts Schori.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we see ourselves standing at the foot of the cross, any such judgment will be far less important than our response.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Between 2010 and 2011, ELCA membership went from about 4.2 million to just over 4 million, representing a loss of more than 212,000 members.  During the same time period, The Episcopal Church had a decrease of over 28,000 members, causing the number of members in its domestic dioceses to dip below the 2 million mark.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Jefferts Schori is clearly confused about which part God is throwing out in all this pruning.<\/p>\n<p>Pruning entails targeted removal of <i>&#8220;diseased, damaged, dead, non-productive, structurally unsound, or otherwise unwanted tissue\u201d, <\/i>a fitting description of what&#8217;s left of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">TEC<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anglican.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">ACoC<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elca.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">ECLA<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elcic.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">ELCIC<\/a>. These liberal denominations are all in rapid decline; they appear to be hell-bent on holding their current course until they finally vanish in a puff of sulphur scented incense.<\/p>\n<p>Those who have fled these institutions are committed Christians now attending growing, healthy, orthodox churches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From here: The head of The Episcopal Church has stated that the declining numbers of her denomination could be the work of the Holy Spirit to create &#8220;greater fruitfulness.&#8221; TEC Presiding Bishop the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori made this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/katharine-jefferts-schori-rationalises-tecs-declining-membership\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[302],"tags":[972,2262],"class_list":["post-20125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tec","tag-katharine-jefferts-schori","tag-tec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}