The Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) suffered its worst annual membership decline in decades last year.The denomination lost 57,572 members in 2007 and has 2,209,546 active and confirmed members, a drop of 2.5 percent compared to 2006.
It's the denomination's largest membership loss in terms of numbers since 1981 and the steepest percentage loss since 1974, when it fell 2.7 percent.
The decline continues a trend of more than four decades of losses since membership peaked at 4.25 million in the mid-1960s.
Observers said the losses have long been attributed to such factors as liberal theology, controversies over homosexuality and theology, social factors such as a low birth rate, an aging white population, and the declining popularity of organizations of any sort.
But the losses are accelerating in part because of the departure of some congregations to a more conservative Presbyterian denomination.
The statistics were released yesterday at the start of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s legislative General Assembly, which runs through Saturday.
"Any decline in membership is a disappointment, to be sure, because those numbers represent members we know and love who are no longer part of our congregations," said the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, who is wrapping up a 12-year term as stated clerk of the denomination, one of its highest offices.
The General Assembly is meeting for the first time since 2006, when it took votes that prompted dozens of congregations to leave the denomination.
Those included a vote to receive, but not endorse, a paper promoting the use of unconventional language about the Trinity, and a vote appearing to give regional governing bodies more flexibility in enforcing the denomination's ban on ordaining noncelibate gays and lesbians.
A church court this year ruled that the ban must still be enforced strictly, but that was after congregations consisting of at least 50,000 members began exiting, Kirkpatrick said.
He said the membership report shows "the vast majority of Presbyterians are committed to staying" together.
But it's unlikely that the denomination has fully tallied the impact of the loss of its congregations.
The denomination officially counts 18 congregations as having moved to other denominations in 2006 and 2007, but news accounts indicate at least twice that number have taken formal steps toward leaving.
Like many predominantly white Protestant denominations -- such as the nation's largest Lutheran, Episcopal and Methodist bodies -- the Presbyterians have been losing members since the mid-1960s, the high-water mark of organized religion in America.
American membership in the United Methodist Church has declined 23 percent to 8.3 million since 1970, and the Episcopal Church's membership of 2.3 million is one-third of its levels in the mid-1960s.
Recently released statistics in the Southern Baptist Convention have focused attention on declining numbers in that denomination -- whose previous growth had long supported the idea that conservative denominations were more successful than liberal ones. Its losses remain small compared to those of more moderate and liberal Protestant groups.
Religious groups that are expanding, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Assemblies of God and Jehovah's Witnesses, have attributed much of their growth to immigration and outreach to minority groups.
The Presbyterian statistics for last year were preceded by two consecutive years of 2 percent losses, which were themselves the highest losses since its northern and southern branches merged and the denomination moved to Louisville in the 1980s.
The losses have been accompanied by staff cuts at the Presbyterian headquarters on Witherspoon Street downtown. The denomination has decided to lease out some of the space vacated by departing staff.
The Presbyterian report showed financial contributions were up 1 percent to $2.2 billion. The amount sent to denominational causes decreased, however, with congregations spending more locally -- a multiyear trend that led to the cuts at headquarters.
The median age for Presbyterians is 58, according to the most recently available data from 2005 -- considerably older than the national median of 35, even considering that the youngest Presbyterians are in their early teens, when they can be confirmed.
Kirkpatrick said the membership losses show the urgency of Presbyterians reviving their evangelistic efforts.
The Rev. Betty Meadows, general presbyter for the Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, said members are recognizing their need to share their faith and do more ministry themselves, and the denomination's bureaucracy has recognized its need to strengthen congregations as the foundation for a healthy church.
"I really do believe that the membership loss has caused us to ask different questions … that we wouldn't have asked if we weren't losing members," she said.
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