CHARLOTTE, N.C. (RNS) — The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is tired of hearing that his church is doomed.
The denomination has lost about half of its baptized membership since the 1960s, declining to about 1.5 million adherents today, and still faces shrinking congregations and aging demographics. But the church is not ready to give up.
“I believe that — as a final word and as a final story — is a lie from the pit of hell,” a feisty Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe told church leaders in the opening session of Episcopal Parish Network’s annual conference on Wednesday (March 4) in a Sheraton Hotel in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. “That is not the teaching of Jesus.”
That mix of defiance and hope struck home with the more than 850 clergy and other denominational leaders who came together for the largest regular gathering of Episcopal church leaders outside of the denomination’s General Convention. When asked from the stage if they were optimistic about the future, most in the audience answered with a resounding yes.
“Though it’s going to take a lot of work!” the Rev. Henrietta “Rhetta” Wiley called out from the audience.
Wiley, a former college professor who has been rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Towson, Maryland, since 2019, said her church experien …