Reality Inspect: Are Gay-Friendly Churches in Decrease?

Reality Inspect: Are Gay-Friendly Churches in Decrease?

US Information and also World Report's Dan Gilgoff considers Episcopalians' relocate to ordain gays and lesbians due to the subscription woes affecting mainline religions:

One huge question these changes raise is whether they'll influence the dramatic decline of subscription in mainline churches. The united state churches experiencing development now-- those in the evangelical, nondenominational, as well as Mormon traditions-- condemn homosexuality.

That's true just if you aggregate mainliners vs. Evangelicals and others. Within the mainline, there's not almost so much of a straight (erm) line correlation.

The huge losers among mainline denominations are United Methodists, that dropped almost 20% of their members in between 1990 as well as 2008, according to the American Religious Identification Study (ARIS). The Methodists do not bless gays as well as lesbians. Presbyterians and Lutherans each lost regarding 5-6% of their participants. Episcopalians went down 20% as well, but on a much lower range than Methodists: in 1990, there had to do with 3 million Episcopalians in the United States. In 2008, there were around 2.4 million. Not small change, to make sure, yet absolutely nothing like the incredible 3 million Methodists who vanished in the same duration.

And Also as Gilgoff himself points out, Catholics-- barely the most gay-friendly of customs-- have actually been hit hard, a fad that has actually been masked by Catholic immigrants from Latin America as well as elsewhere.

On the other hand, my very own United Church of Christ actually expanded in between 1990 and also 2008. True, we're still small according to ARIS, but it's a pattern however. Also growing: \"New Religious Movements and also Various Other Religious beliefs,\" a category that consists of Unitarian Universalists to name a few gay-friendly teams, and also those asserting no religion, which we understand from various other research to be the most thoughtful to gays and lesbians. NRMs and also the \"Nones,\" as they're called, greater than increase their populace, outpacing every various other market of the spiritual economic climate.

A much better method to place it, after that, might be: some churches open to homosexuality are shrinking. Others are not. And also the people who truly are expanding are the ones who do not despise teh gay whatsoever.

Daniel Schultz is a priest in the United Church of Christ. Contact him at: bear-magazine.com

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