Membership loss three times higher in ‘Amendment A’ presbyteries By John H. Adams The Presbyterian Layman Thursday, September 3, 1998 To a remarkable degree, the vote on Amendment A provided a portrait of two dramatically different constituencies. The vote by 173 presbyteries earlier this year rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have undermined standards of sexual behavior for church officers. Overall, presbyteries voting against Amendment A, which would have eliminated the constitutional requirement that ordained officers live in fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness, are comprised of congregations with substantially better performance in membership retention/growth and giving than those who supported the amendment. Amendment A was defeated by a vote of 59 in favor to 114 opposed. The Presbyterian Layman derived the following statistics from the denomination’s demographic studies titled “Comparative Statistics” for the years 1990-96: • The overall attrition rate among presbyteries favoring Amendment A was nearly triple the attrition rate of the presbyteries that voted against Amendment A. (11.1 percent to 3.9 percent) • Per-member contributions (1996) among Amendment A presbyteries were almost 10 percent lower than among the presbyteries that voted against Amendment A. ($634.35 versus $576.98) • While the PCUSA has reported steep membership declines – more than 1 million members since 1966 and more than 500,000 since the reunion of the former United Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbyterian Church U.S. in 1983 – some synods (regions) have been growing. And that growth has occurred only in synods that delivered a solid vote against Amendment A. Growth in South Atlantic For instance, all 16 presbyteries in the Synod of the South Atlantic (Florida, Georgia and South Carolina) voted against Amendment A. From 1990 to 1996, the synod grew by 1.6 percent to 297,083 members. Likewise, all seven presbyteries in the Synod of Alaska-Northwest voted against Amendment A. Membership in the synod’s congregations increased 2.2 percent to 63,198 from 1990 to 1996. Competition from PCA, EPC The increased membership in the South Atlantic came despite some competitive realities, including the growth of the Presbyterian Church in America, often at the expense of the PCUSA. The PCA, which began in 1973, now counts a membership of nearly 280,000 in 1,163 churches. More than two-thirds of its members are in the Southeast. The PCA has announced a goal of 2,000 congregations by the year 2,000. Another growing competitor in the South Atlantic is the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), which was urged by the 1988 General Assembly of the PCUSA to “cease and desist immediately” from efforts to attract members of PCUSA churches. The Presbyterian Church USA reported a total of 11,328 congregations and 2,631,466 members as of Dec. 31, 1996. That represents a net loss of 173 congregations and 225,247 members since 1990. Disparities in membership retention and contributions were fairly consistent even within synods. For instance, in the Synod of the Northeast, where 19 of the 21 presbyteries voted for Amendment A, those same 19 presbyteries had a membership loss of 13.92 percent from 1990 to 1996. Although the two presbyteries that voted against Amendment A also lost members, their attrition rate was 6.27 percent – less than half the loss rate of the Amendment A presbyteries. Decline in Louisville Presbytery Another sharp contrast occurred in the Synod of the Living Waters, where 10 presbyteries voted against Amendment A and only two voted in favor of the constitutional change. From 1990 to 1996, the attrition rate for the 10 presbyteries was 4.54 percent compared to 14.31 percent for the two pro-Amendment A presbyteries. In the Synod of the Living Waters, Louisville Presbytery had the highest attrition rate, 17.3 percent. Louisville Presbytery also had one of the lowest per-member giving figures: $497.77. That’s $136.58 per member, or 21.5 percent, below the national average for Presbyterians. Louisville Presbytery registered one of the strongest votes in favor of Amendment A: 108 to 50. Louisville is the headquarters for the Presbyterian Church (USA) and home to Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Other snapshots The demographic analysis of the Amendment A vote provides some other snapshots: • Southern presbyteries were overwhelmingly opposed to Amendment A. Forty-nine presbyteries in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Virginia voted against Amendment A. Only three presbyteries from those states voted in favor of Amendment A. • The Northeast, a region of massive membership decline, was as adamantly in favor of Amendment A as the South was in opposition. Along with the District of Columbia, Maryland and Delaware, the New England states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island voted 22-2 in favor of Amendment A. • The Synod of the Trinity, which is principally the state of Pennsylvania plus West Virginia and eastern Ohio, provided one of the few exceptions to the rule. Fifteen of the synod’s 16 presbyteries voted against Amendment A. Yet the synod experienced a slightly higher rate of membership decline from 1990 to 1996 than the national aggregate of Amendment A presbyteries: 12.47 percent to 11.9 percent. Overall picture confirmed But the overall picture – that presbyteries voting for Amendment A have triple the membership losses and a poorer contribution record – seemed to be confirmed by a study prepared by a long-time evangelical observer of the denomination that rated presbyteries on a five-point scale from “conservative,” “lean conservative,” “too close to call,” “lean liberal” and “liberal.” In that assessment, 36 presbyteries were rated “liberal” because of their votes on Amendment A and other issues. Twenty-three were rated as “conservative.” From 1990 to 1996, the “conservative” presbyteries lost 2.5 percent of their members. The attrition rate was more than five times as high – 12.9 percent – in the “liberal” presbyteries. The disparity in giving was also pronounced. “Conservative” presbyteries averaged contributions of $800.08 per member in 1996. That was 33.6 percent higher than the $449.32 average in the “liberal” presbyteries.  |
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