On Religion: The Collapse Of The Anglican Church In Canada
(ANALYSIS) In the year of our Lord 1967, the Anglican Church of Canada had 1,218,666 members and 272,400 worshippers on a typical Sunday.
In a recent report, the church found 294,382 members on parish rolls and 58,871 people attending Sunday worship services.
“The religious institution many of us have long known and loved does not look now as it did even 20 years ago, and it will not look the same 20 years from now,” noted the report, “Creating Pathways for the Transformational Change of the General Synod.”
Waves of declining statistics will "evoke grief, fear and longing. ... This report does not seek to reverse current trends, but to respond to them to empower a much smaller church to thrive as it proclaims the gospel today and in the future.”
Obviously, the “church is changing,” noted the Rev. Neil Elliot of the province of British Columbia in the report. “But that change is not the same as the end of the church. That change may be uncomfortable, but being uncomfortable is not the same as the end of the church." Elliot's X profile says he is the "official stats nurd for the Anglican Church of Canada.”
The “Creating Pathways” text noted that, while pew-level statistics have plunged 75%, the denomination, as of 2023, has 1,474 parishes, compared to 1,849 in 1967. Meanwhile, the number of bishops has increased from 36 to 39.
While promising to offer “prophetic imagination” and a "refusal to ignore difficult conversations,” the report focuses on cuts and consolidations to increase efficiency, such as through remote work, AI advances and better communication networks. The bottom line: The church's "30 dioceses, four provinces and two national bodies ... have been sustained with a drastically decreased base of support." The General Synod staff has, in recent decades, been cut from 94 to 39.
“This is a very institutional document that is probably more rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Jeff Walton, the veteran Anglican analyst at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. “There are more important things at stake here than saving or phasing out pieces of institutional structures.”
It has been decades since Anglicanism was the “dominant form” of Christianity in Canada, Walton noted in a telephone interview. At this point, Anglican leaders "are no longer in denial about their numbers. .... They are no longer on the verge of a collapse. They are experiencing a collapse.”
As a stunning 2019 report to the denomination noted: “Projections from our data indicate that there will be no members, attenders or givers in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040.”
Walton said the most important theme woven into the “Creating Pathways” text is an emphasis on pursuing specific goals in ministry and public activism while failing to discuss possible explanations -- either cultural or doctrinal -- for why the denomination has continued to shed thousands of members.
The “Creating Pathways” text stressed that Anglican leaders embrace "our current context and the hope-filled mission to walk on the road with Jesus alongside us as the Gospel is proclaimed." As guiding principles, the hierarchy pledged to: “Champion the dignity of every human being,” to "dismantle racism and colonialism,” to "embrace mutual interdependence with the Indigenous church" and to "steward and renew God's creation" to "protect and sustain the earth.”
Thus, the “guiding principles of diversity, equity and inclusion — bias, transparency, accountability, empathy, accessibility and intersectionality — should be considered in all future transformations, adaptations and processes of the General Synod.”
Meanwhile, noted Walton, Canadian culture has grown increasingly secular while its population has become much more diverse, both in terms of religion and ethnicity. Facing similar challenges, leaders of the shrinking mainline churches in the United States are paying close attention to trends in Canada.
“In large parts of America, you have lots of people who appear not to be interested in Anglicanism or mainline churches in general,” he said. “In Canada, most people are not interested in Christianity at all. ... If the goal of the church is to do good deeds and inspire people, that may not be enough. More and more people are simply saying, ‘Political activism? That’s great. Why do I need to go to church to do that?’”
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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.