The Collapse of the Anglican Church of Canada

These are truly remarkable numbers. A church already in steep decline saw that decline speed up during COVID. Attendance in 2022 was 40 percent of attendance in 2001. And between 2017 and 2022, the ACoC lost a quarter of its Sunday attendance.

There is online worship, but this remains extremely hard to measure, and other metrics tell a similar story.

The church is not only smaller, but is also much, much older. Here is the data for baptisms — and it is worth looking at a longer run of years to see the true extent of the fall:

1961 44,416
1981 23,334
2001 13,304
2017 4,784
2022 3,583

By 2022, the number of those ACoC baptized has fallen by 90 percent compared to the number it baptized in 1961. And the pace of decline has grown more rapid in recent years. Baptisms have fallen by nearly 75 percent since 2001. ACoC congregations now have very few children in them and very few people coming to faith in them. The collapse of baptism is an extinction-level event.

Some will reply, “But what about St. Whomever’s?” Of course, there are pockets of vitality in the ACoC. Not every church will shrink at once. But the overall trend is overwhelming.

Most of the ACoC church buildings in use in 2000 are still in use today. But the church is not primarily masonry, and baptisms are a fundamental metric of its vitality. There have been debates about when the ACoC will cease to exist. In baptismal terms, it no longer meaningfully exists now.

What Is the Truth?

First, this is not a church “in decline” or “close to collapse.” This is what collapse looks like. Ecclesial collapse includes large falls in attendance and financial woes. But these are lagging indicators. The key metrics are the numbers of those being baptized and whether a denomination has a healthy age profile, rather than one in which the bulk of congregations are of a certain age. By these indicators, ACoC has already collapsed. It is far too convenient to say “numbers don’t matter” or “decline is inevitable” or that “the kingdom” can be advanced even when congregations are shrinking.

Second, all the trends show that this decline will continue.

Third, the New Testament places a hugely high value on the local church. The same is true of the vast majority of the Christian tradition. To assume that congregations are dispensable, or that their value lies primarily as a base for activism for other causes, chimes with secular individualism, but it is the antithesis of Scripture and the historic teaching of the church.

Fourth, the Christian church has consistently taught that congregations are the primary basis for mission. If you want to change a place, you form a community of believers in that place. Not external, parachuted in; but incarnated, enfleshed, there. Not the least of the tragedies related to the ACoC’s collapse is the effect this has on other aspects of kingdom ministry — such as serving the poor and seeking the welfare of the wider community. Empty pews disable such ministries.

Some Signs of Hope

There is much more to Canadian Christianity than the ACoC. There has been rapid population growth in Canada, largely fueled by migration. Coupled with a declining birthrate in the existing Canadian population, this means Canada is changing very rapidly. Canada has one of the highest rates of immigration in the Western world. And migrants to Canada are much more favorable to Christianity than its existing population. The bulk of black migrants (74%) describe themselves as Christians. This is helping fuel the growth of many Canadian churches.

Canada is home to many migrants from countries with strong Anglican churches, such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Congo — yet African Anglicans form a tiny part of the ACoC. Canada’s massive immigration is a potent fuel for congregational life across the nation, even if this has passed by the ACoC.

Linked to migration (though not wholly due to it), there have been large rises in the numbers of Canadians who are Orthodox or belong to non-historic denominations. Census data show that Roman Catholicism in Canada has declined, but noticeably less than the ACoC, as a percentage of Canadians. Roman Catholicism has shown a degree of resilience that the ACoC has lacked.

Canada’s Christians[2]

2001 2021
ACoC 2.3 million 1.1 million
Catholics 12.8 million 10.8 million
Orthodox 495,000 623,000
Other Christians 780,000 3.3 million

Canada has seen much secularization. But many churches in Canada are doing much better than the ACoC.

What of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANIC)? It is growing and is a significant presence in some areas (notably in greater Vancouver, where it may have overtaken official Anglicanism). But nationally, it remains relatively small and has no presence in many areas.

Conclusions

It is routinely said that churches must “move with the times,” that adapting faith is “the only way to connect with younger generations.” The ACoC shows this to be untrue.

Canada is the Titanic of the Anglican Communion. Some years ago it hit the iceberg. Since then, it has listed violently in a progressive direction. Now it is sinking beneath the waves. The figures are deeply sad, but they do not lie. And Western Anglicans would do well to learn from Canada’s baleful example. Much of Western Anglicanism is heading in the same direction, unless it changes course.

A church can have structural functionality — bishops, synods, cathedrals. But when its congregations disappear, it ceases to exist meaningfully. The Bishop of the Yukon attended and voted at the latest Lambeth Conference, yet the Sunday attendance of the entire diocese of the Yukon was 191 as of 2017. It is likely smaller now. There had been predictions that the ACoC would collapse by 2040. Those predictions were overly optimistic. The ACoC has effectively collapsed now. It contains the exterior façade of a denomination, but not the interior life that congregations constitute. There are sparks of life in the ACoC, but if you look at Canada as a whole, it has collapsed.

This is a cause for reflection, not just for Canadian Anglicans, but for all of Western Anglicanism. Canada is the first major Anglican province to collapse. But it is unlikely to be the last. Decline elsewhere — notably in Wales, Scotland, parts of England and the United States — has a similar trajectory. In these provinces, large chunks of the country have no meaningful Anglican presence, yet cathedral and diocesan posts proliferate.

Canada’s determination to be in the vanguard of progressive theology has been shown conclusively to lead to congregational collapse.

The late Tim Keller commented that the key cause of mainline decline was the tendency to relegate the gospel to second place behind other matters. Canadian Anglicanism is an example of exactly that. We can debate the merits of its stance on a wide range of issues, but what is clear is its adoption of progressive causes sidelined its attempt to call people to follow Jesus, and the formation and nurture of congregations.

Churches that intend to grow tend to grow. Canada shows that the opposite is also true. Churches whose primary intention is something other than the nurture of individual faith and congregational growth tend to decline. Making central the proclamation of faith to individuals and the growth of congregations does not guarantee congregational growth. But it is a fundamental first step to congregational growth. And, without local communities of Christians, the church ceases to exist.
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[1] The most recent data come from the important work of Neil Elliot and in an article by Matthew Puddister in Anglican Journal, May 1. They are also discussed in the Anglican Samizdat blog run by David Jenkins. Neil Elliot’s blog, NumbersMatters, is also a mine of information.
[2] These numbers come from census data, which measure affiliation (those who self-identify as members of a particular faith/tradition). Affiliation is not a measure of formal membership, let alone regular attendance.

The Collapse of the Anglican Church of Canada

By David Goodhew
THE LIVING CHURCH
August 5, 2024

New numbers for the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) are out, and they show that Canada is the first major province of the Anglican Communion to have collapsed.[1]

This is highly significant, both for Canada and for other Western provinces following its trajectory.

The Data

Here are the data for average Sunday attendance:

2001 162,000
2017 87,000
2022 65,000