Mythbusting: conservative denominations grow, progressive ones shrink

The trope that evangelical church networks grow while progressive denominations shrink is, sadly, a half-truth. Perhaps a three=quater truth.

It is true that progressive denominations shrink. Political Scientist Ryan Burge does a good round-up of the religious experiment that is the United States of America and finds a precipitous decline in the traditional protestant “mainline”, the seven sisters of progressivism.

Between 1972 and 2020, using membership data:
• The Episcopal Church (the US Anglicans) declined 36 per cent
• Evangelical Lutheran Church of America declined 41 per cent
• The United Church of Christ declined 52 per cent
• The United Methodist Church declined 32 per cent – and has lost 25 per cent of churches in a schism since.
• The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) declined 58 per cent
• the American Baptist Church declined 23 per cent

Several of these churches face near wipeout within a few decades. Researcher David Goodhew predicts that The Episcopal Church (TEC) will be overtaken by its growing breakaway, the conservative Anglican Church of North America, in the 2040s. TEC’s own news service predicted its own demise in 2050.

Another breakaway, the Presbyterian Church of America – similar to the Australian Presbyterians – was one of three evangelical churches examined by Burge.

Between 1972 and 2020, using membership data:
• The Assemblies of God increased by 51 per cent.
• The Southern Baptist Convention decreased by 4 per cent
• The Presbyterian Church of America increased by 101 per cent

Missing from Burge’s figures, as he acknowledges, are non-denominational conservative churches, which are much harder to measure.

In the United States, we can see that the “evangelicals grow, progressives shrink nearly always works.

This week, figures from the Church of England revealed rapid decline over the last two decades.

Australia

In Australia, we have one big, largely progressive denomination in the Uniting Church in Australia. The Other Cheek has already done its best to assess that church’s numbers. We reported that the “Future Directions for the People of God” proposal to the 2021 Synod of the Uniting Church NSW/ACT gives the NSW/ACT church attendance figure of 21,000. (The Synod wants to increase it to 30,000)

NSW and ACT make up a third of the Australian population (33.1 per cent in December 2021). If the UCA is equally distributed across the country, the national figure might be 63,000. Some readers have suggested that the UCA might be doing better in some other states, so perhaps a few thousand more may attend.

If the NCLS estimate of a 10 percent attendance rate in Uniting Church census figures is accurate, that gives the UCA a 2021 attendance of 67326.

In 2013, UCA attendance was 97,200 (from a commissioned 2013 census carried out by the National Church Life Survey team.)

The proposition that progressive churches are in decline holds true for Australia.

What about conservative churches?

Pentecostals’ census stats reliably match their actual attendance, according to the NCLS 2016 survey. 

Census figures for “Pentecostal” are 107,000 in 1986, 219,600 in 2016 and 259,800 in 20-21.

But other conservative churches have not done so well.

The Presbyterian Church of Victoria stats shows about 9,700 communicants in 1986 to just above 5,000 in 2022, with most of the decline occurring last century – there were about 6,000 communicants recorded in 2000′

Sydney Anglican figures show an opposite pattern, a gentle decline followed by a steeper plunge. Adult attendance hovered in the 46000 to 48000 range from 2005 to 2018, followed by a Covid plunge down to 36000 in 2022.

The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches show an increase through Covid from 7690 to as churches continue to join the network.

As in the United States, not all conservative networks are growing, but many are.

So the trope can be rewritten: Progressive Churches are Shrinking. Overall, conservative church networks are growing, with some networks shrinking.