Anglican Church Of Canada Is On Death Watch

By 2024 it had dropped by another 29,007 or 30.3%. The overall drop from 1999 to the present year revealed a whopping 107,481 or 62% drop.

MEMBERSHIP figures also took a hit. In 1999 the denomination claimed 686,362 members. By 2024 that figure had dropped to 294,931 a drop of 391,143 or 57 %!

CONGREGATION numbers also took a hit. The Canadian Church in 1999 had 2,836 congregations. By 2024 that figure had declined to 1,498 a drop of 1,338 or 47%.

ATTENDANCE PERCENTAGES in 1999 was 25.1%. By 2024 was down 9.8% or 16.2%. from 1999 — 2024 the overall decline was 15.3%.

For context, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) (which partly overlaps geographically with the ACoC) is now officially bigger than the ACoC with an APSA (Average Principal Service Attendance) in 2022 (post-COVID) of 75,583.

The ACNA claims 977 active congregations with a membership in 2022 of 124,999, with a percentage attendance of 60.4%.

Little has changed since July 2023 when I wrote on the ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA’S DEATH WISH.

The 43rd General Synod authorized a set of gender-themed liturgies, including a blessing on gender transition, for use in the Anglican Church of Canada–in dioceses where they have been authorized by the bishop. In 2021, the Council of General Synod voted to authorize the liturgies for study, trial use and evaluation. Now it is a done deal. None of this has made churches grow. Capitulating to the culture on sexuality issues is not a recipe for church growth.

Evangelical Canadian blogger David of Samizdat noted that this action illustrates the delusion that has bedeviled the ACoC for decades. Doing more of what has brought it to the verge of extinction will, for some incomprehensible reason, reverse the decline.

It won’t, of course, it is merely another nail in the coffin of the ailing church.

It should also be noted that the five transformational aspirations — “transformational commitments to guide planning, priority-setting, resource allocation and collaboration with provinces and dioceses in the 2023-25 biennium,” has failed to turn the denomination around.

Canadian blogger David noted at that time that there was no plan to lead the unsaved to salvation through Jesus Christ. “I’m quite sure that is missing because the majority of ACoC clergy no longer recognize the categories ‘saved’ and ‘unsaved’.”

“The other notable thing about these aspirations is that there is nothing whatsoever transformational about them. They are the same unimaginative anodyne cliches that have been at work in the church for decades and have brought it to where it is today,” he said.

Of course, transformation in the ACoC bears very little relationship to what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12.1 about the transformational renewing of our minds. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship.” Transformational as the Canadian church understands it, is bowing down to the LGBTQ lobby, marrying queers in one or multiple categories. Finally, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel by demanding that trans people be allowed to marry and ascend pulpits in the name of the Holy Trinity who is no longer invoked to forgive sin, but to bless it.

JEW HATRED

Recently, VOL exposed the innate hatred of Jews by Canadian Anglican leaders in their anti-Israel pronouncements. In April, bishops from the ACoC and ELCIC met with Members of Parliament to persuade them to “hold Israeli authorities accountable for human rights abuses under international law.”

It is profoundly hypocritical that while these bishops denounced Israel, they are amazingly quiet about the hundreds of rockets Hamas fires into Israel from Gaza, which, without the Iron Dome would destroy dozens of towns near its borders.

What about holding Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority accountable for their behavior? No mention is ever made of militant Arab slaughter and mayhem against Israel.

Furthermore, no mention is made of the fact that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East whose courts afford fair trials to those out to destroy it.

Far worse human rights abuses occur in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, North Korea — and so on. We never hear a squeak from our bishops about them, noted David.

Are the bishops antisemitic? Damn right they are.

DECLINE IN ATTENDANCE

The population of Canada in 2017 was 36.55 million. Recently, it was announced that Canada’s population had hit 40 million. Most of that increase happened through immigration, with few or none entering the ACoC. Some 31.7% of all Canadians still claim Christianity as their religion; apparently, these people are not flooding ACoC churches.

The Anglican Church of Canada is declining faster than any other Province other than the American Episcopal Church, which has an even greater rate of decline.

A previous report published in 2006, predicted the last Anglican would leave the church in 2061. That date is now 2040. By that year (if not sooner), the ACoC will cease to exist as a viable Christian denomination.

END

ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA IS ON DEATH WATCH
The Anglican Church in North America is now bigger than the ACoC

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
March 21, 2024

The Anglican Church of Canada is on death watch.

The latest figures released by the national church reveal a church with an overall average Sunday attendance in 2024 of 64,774 down from 172,255 in 1999.

In 2017, the last time there was a public census, the Anglican Church of Canada had an average Sunday attendance of 97,421 — a one third drop. The church which took a serious hit through COVID has not recovered, and now seems unlikely it will.