Demographics, not doctrine, has lead to the decline in communicants of the Episcopal Church and other “mainline” denominations, a recent study finds. Writing in the Oct. 4 issue of the Christian Century, three sociologists — Michael Hout of the University of California-Berkeley, Andrew Greeley of the University of Arizona, and Melissa Wilde of Indiana University — found that support for progressive causes was “irrelevant” in the decline of the Episcopal Church and other mainline churches.

In 1900, the mainline churches — Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, and Congregationalist — accounted for 60 percent of all protestants. By 1960, they accounted for only 40 percent, with “conservative denominations” — Pentecostal churches, Assembly of God, and Baptist — seeing their market share rise.

Popular theories ascribing the relative decline of mainline church membership to the espousal of progressive theological views over the last 100 years, ranging from the social gospel, pacifism, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and the rise of “Bible-based” churches during the same period over an appeal to certainty were misplaced, the study concluded.

Falling birth rates accounted for 70 percent of mainline decline, the study concluded, while “the declining propensity of conservatives to convert to the mainline accounts for the 30 percent of mainline decline that fertility rates cannot account for.”

One-Percent Decline

The authors predicted the demographic decline of the mainline churches “may be nearing the end” as birth rates of mainline and conservative denominations are closer, and will produce a 1-percent decline in mainline membership in the coming decade. “Unless conservative protestants increase their family size or mainline protestants further reduce theirs, this factor in mainline decline will not be present in the future.”

The rate of attrition from mainline to conservative churches has fallen as well, the study found. In the 1930s, 30 percent of the growth of conservative denominations came from church switching from the mainline to conservative churches. By the early ’90s, the study found, only 10 percent of the conservatives came from mainline churches.

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