Is the Episcopal Church obsolete? It may be unfair to ask the question. The assessment of Christian Smith is that traditional American religions are long past the point of trouble. They are losing their members, and they no longer meet the needs of the American population. In this context, the Episcopal Church may be suffering, but its misery is shared. We all go down together.
In Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America (2025), Smith draws on vast quantities of survey data and the analysis of many trends to conclude that a sea change took place in American religious practice in recent decades, with 1991 being a major turning point.
The section “Perfect Storms Converging” is especially worth reading for ministers and other faith leaders: it will give a sense of how the decline in religious observance has been driven by many factors and trends, any one of which might have posed a serious challenge. Few of these factors can be tied specifically to the behaviors or teachings of traditional American religions. In other words, his claim is that the decline is mostly not our fault.
But the chapter “Religious Self-Destructions” brings up those problems of corruption and sin for which we are to blame. And they are serious: embezzlement, sex scandals, the abuse of the vulnerable, and much else besides. It will take generations to restore trust.
There’s something for everyone in Smith’s chapters, but his most laudable feature remains his data-driven analysis, and how he refrains from endorsing many of the common explanations for religious decline, particularly those beloved of culture warriors in each church.
Instead, the book derives its energy from a nearly exhaustive series of causes and problems. “Perfect Storms Converging” covers everything from higher education and mass consumerism to geographical mobility, from the end of the Cold War to the Digital Revolution, from the rise of the Religious Right to the spread of Eastern religions and the New Age.
It’s not that historic churches are being slain by a single, identifiable enemy. They are succumbing instead to an environment of chaos. They may be imagined as an ancient building, eroded by rain and flood, by winds bursting against it; meanwhile, its denizens are undermining its structure. We shall see whether its foundation is strong enough to weather the storm.
As the rector of an Episcopal parish, I found the book tremendously interesting, if depressing. It was responsible for a few sleepless nights. But I also found myself primarily interested in my unfair question: Is our church obsolete?
American religion may have experienced serious declines. Religion—as opposed to spirituality—is simply not a part of American life in the way it once was. I acknowledge these as brute facts. What is much harder to deal with is the serious decline of the Episcopal Church, and I mean this and I mourn this in particular ways.
Like many rectors, I mean to steer a congregation through the tossing waves of this wonderful but turbulent world. And, by the grace of God, the parish I have recently joined has not only proved resilient in the face of many challenges, but has grown again recently and has numerous opportunities to continue growing in the fertile religious soil of the American Midwest. It’s hard to know what to make of such a situation. (And I recognize that for many rectors even in my diocese, the challenges are very different. Forgive me for attending to my own.)
On the one hand, one can assert that American religion is obsolete, and the Episcopal Church in particular has been on death’s door for some time. On the other hand, “we” seem to be flourishing. But “we” are flourishing in a context in which institutional support may continue diminishing for years to come, and in which we could become a lonely if vigorous outpost of Anglican identity in the vast prairies that surround us. What sort of responsibilities does this place upon us?
I have experienced a dynamic a little like this before. During my 13 years in England, I knew the strange dichotomies involved in leading or taking part in thriving ministries amid a wider national decline. A parish I attended not only grew but was frequently booming. Numerous college chapels in Cambridge and in Oxford had healthy ministries among students and staff of the university, as well as a unique outreach to locals and to tourists alike. The same was true of several other churches I knew or visited. Cathedrals were doing well. There are reasons people come from all over the world to some of these places. But the C of E has been in a death spiral for years.
I have vivid memories from early in my curacy: we often did not have enough chairs or pews. Similarly, the college chapel I led in Oxford went from pitiful attendance to a packed house within a short period of time. We sometimes had to start the service late because people wouldn’t stop showing up, and we couldn’t process to our places.
In England, it felt a little like running a dying subculture, beloved but small, a “Blockbuster kiosk inside a Tower Records,” to use the words of Jon Stewart’s homage to Stephen Colbert. It was absurd. Lots of people were coming, but not enough to turn the tide of the culture. The idea of being part of a small but creative minority—a beloved phrase of American religious conservatives in recent years—felt true in England, though it failed to encapsulate the whole experience.
What does it mean to be an established church, dying at the national level but vital in parts, intimately knit into the fabric of civic life, but essentially ignored by most? What does it mean to lead a thriving congregation in the face of an overwhelming apathy? What does it mean to be obsolete in England? I still don’t know. But these are no longer my questions, after moving back to my native land this past spring.
The numbers and dynamics are different, not least because of the size and volatility of the United States. Perhaps the only quibble I have with Smith’s book lies here: Why Religion Went Obsolete focuses on the macro environment. By design, it does not account much for regional variety. And, in my experience, ministry colleagues in the Northwest Pacific, in the Southwest, or in New England often have different problems from those in the Midwest or South.
Even here in Illinois, there are micro climates of religious observance, matching the different temperaments of our towns and regions. The Diocese of Springfield encompasses a geographical area roughly the size of Ireland, and our congregations are spread thinly across its divergent cultures.
In central Illinois, it doesn’t seem hard to find people who will show up to church, even if the “non-denoms” are the main winners. It doesn’t even seem hard to find people who will show up to “our” church. Are all churches as full as they once were? No. Do I think every resident of Champaign County wakes up with a hearty desire to join our congregation? No, not even one in a 1,000. But one in 500 wouldn’t be bad, and seems achievable.
Will they know themselves to be joining the Episcopal Church? And will that church continue to exist in a meaningful form? I can imagine a time when our once proud denomination has shrunk to a small number of reasonably vibrant congregations dotted here and there across the wide expanse of our country, with a sort of vestigial or distantly exercised episcopal ministry. Of course, I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. But I struggle to see a different future for many dioceses, unless things change dramatically.
What will our congregations become in this environment?
I am not sure. I suspect they will be more congregational, and in that way more like their neighbors: full of vitality and concerned for those around them, but rather less interested in convocations, synods, and conventions. What I would hope is that they are able to be more than this: to become more like the churches they once were, when the nation was young and the Episcopal Church was young, too. They may become engines of mission and renewal, and our national life may be renewed. But perhaps it is enough to weather our current storms and, more than that, to thrive.
The Rev. Zachary Guiliano, PhD is a Guest Writer. He is rector of Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church, Champaign, Illinois. Previous appointments include Priest Vicar of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and Chaplain of St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford. His 2021 book The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon won the 2023 Book Prize of the Ecclesiastical History Society.
