IS ANGLICANISM GROWING OR DYING? NEW DATA
The Rev. Dr. David Goodhew  February 22, 2022  Analysis, Church of England

The membership of the Episcopal Church (TEC) has halved since 1970. During the same period, the Anglican Communion’s combined membership has doubled. It is now heading toward 100 million. The result is a massive shift in the center of gravity of the Anglican Communion. Is the Communion growing or dying? It is growing and, in parts, it is dying too.

Members of TEC (and the wider Communion) urgently need to assimilate these patterns of growth and decline, especially as we approach the 2022 Lambeth Conference.

This article draws on the work of the widely respected scholars Todd Johnson and Gina Zurlo and the Center for the Study of Worldwide Christianity based at Gordon Conwell, as well as other materials. Johnson and Zurlo now provide data for the entire Communion up to 2015, which constitutes an updating of their groundbreaking work in the volume Growth and Decline in the Anglican Communion which also appeared in an earlier article on Covenant.

Global Anglicanism, 1970 to 2015[i]

                                                     1970                                        2015
Africa                                    7,718,000                              56,947,000
Asia [ii]                                    358,000                                   891,000
Europe                              29,367,000                             24,922,000
North America                  4,395,000                               2,549,000
Latin America [iii]                 775,000                                   929,000
Oceania                             4,781,000                                4,533,000
Global Total                     47,394,000                              90,771,000

The data for 2015 are the latest figures we have for the whole Communion. Individual provinces have more recent data. Since 2015 the Communion has grown further. Notwithstanding COVID, the Anglican Communion is now at least double the size it was in 1970. Those who would write Anglicanism off, please take note.