Episcopal Church leader says belief that denomination is dying 'a lie straight from the pit of Hell'
Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe has declared that the belief that the mainline Protestant denomination is dying amid considerable attendance decline is “a lie straight from the pit of Hell.”
Rowe spoke with Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, at the Episcopal Parish Network 2026 Annual Conference last week in Charlotte, North Carolina.
At one point during the discussion, Rauch asked Rowe about the substantial documented decline in membership and attendance for The Episcopal Church and its longer-term significance.
“People look at the mainline churches generally and the Episcopal Church specifically, and they say, ‘Let's face it, the numbers just aren't there. It's an aging church. It's going to diminish quickly. A turnaround is just not in the offing,’” said Rauch.
“What do you say to people who say that?”
Rowe answered that he hears about this “all the time” and said that “people make their living telling us that,” sparking laughter from the audience.
While the presiding bishop acknowledged that “our numbers are in decline overall,” he also believes there is a “spiritual perspective” to consider.
To consider the numerical decline of The Episcopal Church to be the “final word” and the “final story” is “a lie straight from the pit of Hell,” Rowe said, eliciting considerable applause from the gathering.
“That's not the teaching of Jesus, which reminds us that this Church will remain no matter what. Maybe not as the Episcopal Church, in this way, but the body of Christ will remain in the world,” he continued.
“I believe that this is an opportunity for us to recalibrate, to rethink, to step back for a moment, to think about how we can strategically then step forward and make an impact on the world.”
Rowe believed that the decline is “just a way for us to frame our next intervention, our next spiritual step forward” and that God will “ultimately take us to a different place, to a promised land, to a land of hope and to a place where what Jesus says is not only words, but lived reality.”
In recent decades, as with most religious groups in the United States, the Episcopal Church has experienced a considerable decline in membership and worship attendance.
While multiple factors have contributed to the decline, the denomination's progressive theological direction has alienated some members. For example, in 2003, when the Episcopal Church consecrated the Rev. Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop, scores of congregations voted to leave in protest.
In 2010, the denomination reported that the number of active baptized members in their churches had dropped just below 2 million. By 2023, that number decreased to approximately 1.547 million people.
For its 2024 Parochial Report, released last October, The Episcopal Church omitted a membership tally, explaining that there were questions about how to properly chart the numbers.
The report did note that there were 19,624 baptisms of children and adults in 2024, a considerable decline from 2014, when the denomination reported over 28,000 total baptisms.
Additionally, while the denomination reported a slight increase in worship attendance in 2024 compared to 2023, going from less than 411,000 to over 413,000, this number was still well below the approximately 600,000 reported for 2014.
In August 2013, then Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori gave a speech before the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Churchwide Assembly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in which she addressed the issue of decline.
"Some have judged our smaller numbers as faithlessness but it may actually be the Spirit's way of pruning for greater fruitfulness," Jefferts Schori speculated at the time.
“If we see ourselves standing at the foot of the cross, any such judgment will be far less important than our response.”
