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| ELCA Bishop Elizabeth Eaton is on a 4-6 month leave of absence. She is a product of ELCA's vote to ordain everyone contrary to the Scriptures. ELCA is busy closing churches, merging seminaries, and ordaining domestic partners and bishops. |
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| ELCA has driven away about 50% of its members since the 1987 merger of the LCA, ALC, and Seminex-AELC. Its seminaries are closing or demi-semi-closing; let's call it trimming. "As of 2022, it has approximately 2.9 million baptized members in 8,640 congregations. (Wiki)" The merger began with about 5.3 million members. |
MORE TEC DIOCESES look to merge. The dioceses of Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan will merge later this year.
According to the Episcopal News Service the two dioceses, after more than four years of administrative sharing and ministry cooperation, are finalizing plans for a potential merger. Final approval would take place at the 81st General Convention in June when it meets in Louisville, Kentucky.
Across TEC as dioceses shrink with aging and dying parishioners, and with no new young people coming along to replace them, church coffers are drying up.
The Dioceses of Bethlehem and Central Pennsylvania are exploring merger.
Indianapolis and Northern Indiana are in talks to discuss merger of their dioceses.
Three dioceses of The Episcopal Church in Wisconsin are one step closer to merging into one regional body, which could be finalized at the denominational level next year.
The Episcopal dioceses of Milwaukee, Fond du Lac and Eau Claire each voted separately to approve a resolution to make a final vote to merge during the 2024 Easter season.
The bishops of the dioceses of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont while not talking merger, at least for now say they will serve as assisting bishops in each other's dioceses as part of an effort to increase collaboration in the region.
You would think the church's deep thinkers would start seeing the writing on the wall and ask some very hard questions about how much longer they can keep up the pretense that all is well and that rattling on about woke issues; racism, abortion, sodomy, gay rights, the war in Israel, guns, the border, and more is not making the church grow. In fact, it looks very much like it is emptying the church.
One can only imagine two octogenarians talking in church; Mildred turns to George, and asks; "who was that in the pulpit, dear?"
"It's one of these trannie creatures, my love."
"What's that?"
"Haven't got a clue, but the bishop who is very trendy, says this fellow appears on Tik Tok."
"What's Tik Tok?"
A VOL READER dropped me a line to say churches are closing in the Diocese of Northern California under the watchful eye of Bishop Megan M. Traquair.
Churches that closed are in Rio Vista, Antelope, Marin and Tahoe. Also, the conference ground at Lake Tahoe has been sold. The church in Orland was sold some time ago.
"In some areas, when the church is closed, the diocese returns the money to help people in the local community rather than taking the money."
At the national level, there is a discussion of charging the Episcopal Relief and Development for rent and personnel services. There was strong opposition to that idea once people became aware of it.
THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN TEC is also taking hits. Among key insights are the shortage of clergy and the aging profile of those currently serving, as well as the changing shape of employment prospects as numerous parish communities themselves undergo change.
The Church Divinity School of the Pacific has announced that in January 2026 it will withdraw from the Graduate Theological Union, a consortium of multi-faith institutions in Berkeley, California, that CDSP helped found in 1962.
The announcement from Stephen Fowl, the seminary's president, and dean since Aug. 1, 2023, said that after the school moves to a fully hybrid model for Master of Divinity students beginning in the summer of 2025, few opportunities will exist for the kind of collaboration GTU has afforded students in the past.
TRANSLATION. They don't have enough students. Seminary education costs are prohibitive, young ordinands are not to be found.
The Episcopal Divinity School will relocate its office to the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City following EDS' decision earlier this spring to discontinue the affiliation between EDS and Union Theological Seminary at the end of the current academic year. [GJ - Union sold its library to Columbia University to help its poor cash flow. EDS is known for $60 million endowment for about 60 students.]
GJ - Stan Hauerwas, one of my professors at Notre Dame, refused to speak at EDS because of the conflicts there. It is not strange that the radicals become even angrier once they get their way.
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| Bishop Meagan Rohrer was removed from her office and from the ELCA ministry, joining the radical Glide Memorial Methodist Church staff. |
