1967 and the Unraveling of the Episcopal Church

A Graph. A Memory. And the Long Sordid Tale of the Collapse of the Episcopal Church, the Once Proud, Prep-school for Presidents.

It Wasn’t About Sexuality

How Theology and Leadership Changed the Episcopal Church in 1967

Warning: This is longer than most articles. You may want to take a break.

In my ongoing series The Christ Church Stories, I recently noted that the Episcopal Church began its dramatic decline in 1968, as illustrated in the graph below.

But I was wrong.

It wasn’t 1968. It was 1967.

That was the year the trajectory changed—and the Episcopal Church hasn’t had a good year since.

In this article, I explain what happened in 1967. I take no pleasure in writing this, but researching that pivotal convention, held in Seattle when I was just twelve years old, has been unexpectedly clarifying. What happened there, and what followed, reshaped the Church I served and loved.

Just a few introductory points to be made:

1. I want to say clearly at the outset that the decline of the Episcopal Church was not caused by homosexuality, though that issue has too often been blamed. The issues are more profound—much deeper. They are theological and institutionally rooted in a shift in the Church’s self-understanding and leadership priorities.

2. On Thursday at 6:12 AM, I’ll release Episode 4 of Part Two of The Christ Church Stories. It is a more personal article reflecting on our decision to withdraw from the Episcopal Church and the complicated aftermath that followed.
   
   Today’s article is something different: a backgrounder. A look at the history that brought us to that moment of decision.

3. Readers should know I am not a professional historian or academic researcher. Others—whose work I have read and deeply respect—may nuance or adjust my interpretations, but likely not the core facts. I have done my best to tell this story faithfully, drawing on the records of General Convention and my own lived experience growing up within the Episcopal Church.

And as a result of what I’ve discovered, I am, like the old saying goes, sadder but wiser. Saddened by what was lost. Wiser about how it happened.

Grace and peace,

David Roseberry

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The Year 1967: The Beginning of the Unraveling

I begin with a graph and a memory.

The graph belongs to Ryan Burge’s now-famous “Graphs About Religion” project. It’s the sort of nerdy corner of the internet that pastors, church consultants, and seminary professors tend to frequent. Burge has an eye for turning dry data into vivid narratives. And when he posts about the Episcopal Church, the internet notices.

“For whatever reason,” he writes, “people want to read about the demise of the Episcopal Church.”

I know one reason why people want to read about the demise of TEC. It’s because TEC, more than nearly any other denomination, airs its dirty laundry. It publishes its demographic bad news every year.

So Mr. Burge is not wrong. Titles like The Data is Clear: Episcopalians Are in Trouble or The Death of the Episcopal Church Is Near aren’t just provocative. They reflect a painful truth.

His graphs show it starkly: membership peaked around 1968. It has declined every year since.

Do you wonder why?

I don’t. And I don’t need a graph to know something shifted back then. I lived through it.

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Nogales, Arizona c. 1967

In 1968, I was thirteen years old, serving as an acolyte at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Nogales, Arizona, a dusty, dinky town straddling the Mexican border. We had a proper church with wooden pews, lace-trimmed surplices, and a rector named Fr. Charles Ridge who stood tall in the receiving line after each service.

Everything had its place. The priest led. The women wore hats. The men shook hands with confidence. Boys served at the altar. Fr. Ridge presided over Word and Sacrament with minimal lay involvement. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer was the script—elegant, elevated, and fixed.

St. Andrew's, Nogales, Arizona was a mission of St. Paul's, Tombstone. My mother brought me here in 1963. I have memories of being a diligent acolyte and a member of a Sunday School taught in the undercroft.

One Sunday after church, I stood beside Fr. Ridge—never Fr. Chuck— watching him greet parishioners. Most offered kind words: “Nice sermon, Father.” “Thank you for your prayers.”

But then I remember one man—an older gentleman in a suit with big, wrinkled hands—stepped forward. He took Father Ridge’s hand and pulled him close. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to give a penny to the Episcopal Church,” he said through clenched teeth. “They are communists.”

That was it. That’s all I remember. He was referring to the actions and the press reports of the Episcopal Church’s General Convention meeting in Seattle, Washington the year before.

I didn’t understand what he was talking about then.

But I do now.

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What Happened in 1967?

We often think churches don’t change. In all truth, they shouldn’t change much. They represent something that was done 2000 years ago on a Cross. They represent a storyline in the Bible about which there is a warning—actually two warnings—if someone should change, alter, delete, or edit a word.

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.
—Deuteronomy 4:2

If anyone adds to what is written in this book, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.
— Revelation 22:18

One could be forgiven for thinking that the Church shouldn’t change—or at least, that it shouldn’t change much, and certainly not suddenly.

But a generation or two ago, it did.

Cultural forces pressed hard. And with the rise of mass communication, air travel, and a growing spirit of individualism—particularly in America—change didn’t just happen gradually. It happened rapidly. Almost overnight.

It is not an exaggeration to say that in the blink of an eye—in the summer of 1967—everything in the Episcopal Church began to shift.

Many historians point to 1967–68 as the moment when things began to unravel. And not just in the Church, but across the globe. A simple search will show you: those two years were filled with events—national and international—that rocked the world.

And they rocked the Church, too.

Rocking the World and the Church

In The Religious Crisis of the 1960s, historian Hugh McLeod explains—in careful, scholarly detail—the four major shifts that transformed the landscape of religion and church life during that turbulent decade of the 1960’s.

His analysis is thorough and sobering. Here is a brief summary of the four movements he describes:

1. A flood of new spiritual options.

Suddenly, an enormous range of beliefs, practices, and philosophies from around the globe became widely accessible—to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Alternate spiritualities and eclectic worldviews were no longer fringe or foreign; they entered the mainstream and became part of the American religious imagination.

This wasn’t just theoretical. In 1965, a major change in U.S. immigration policy accelerated the trend. The Immigration and Nationality Act—better known as the Hart-Celler Act—abolished the long-standing national origins quotas that had heavily favored European immigrants. In their place came a system that prioritized family reunification and skilled labor.

If you are my age and you look around and wonder why things are crowded—cities, airports, freeways, and malls—you are not imagining things. The United States is much more crowded than it was in the ’50s and ’60s. By a lot.

If you were born around 1955, the population of our country has more than doubled in your lifetime—from about 165 million then to over 330 million today.¹ And it wasn’t primarily childbirth that caused the increase. It was immigration—vast numbers of people from all over the globe, bringing their cultures, traditions, and worldviews with them.

The result was a wave of new arrivals from Asia, Africa, and Latin America—bringing with them not only new cultures, but new religions.

2. A rethinking of religious identity.

People began to question what it meant to be “religious” or “Christian” in America. The old consensus—that we were, by and large, a Christian nation—was eroding.

I remember attending summer camps in the Diocese of Arizona, where Eastern philosophies were introduced right alongside our Episcopal chapel services. I was thirteen years old when I first participated in guided Buddhist meditation—led by Episcopal priests. At the time, it felt like exploration. In hindsight, it was confusion.

3. A breakdown in religious transmission.

Parents began outsourcing the religious formation of their children. Fewer homes practiced prayer or opened a Bible. Fewer parents talked to their kids about God or Jesus. Instead, they delegated that sacred responsibility to Sunday school programs—offering 45 minutes a week of moral instruction and hoping it would suffice.

It wasn’t enough. The faith wasn’t being passed down.

Mary Eberstadt, in her compelling book “How the West Really Lost God” maintains that the breakdown in the family was the cause of the collapse of the Christian church, and not the other way around. She writes:

…broken and frayed homes not only interrupt the transmission of the Christian message: in some cases, they provide the emotional material for a whole new barrier wall to Christian belief. — pg. 164

4. A collapse of cohesion within denominations.

While Vatican II (1962-65) opened the doors to greater unity between Roman Catholics and Protestants, it also gave rise to new tensions within both camps. Protestant denominations were increasingly divided—internally and with each other—over theology, ethics, liturgy, and authority. Catholics, too, found themselves navigating internal unrest. Ecumenism widened the table, but it also exposed the fractures.

If you’re a baby boomer raised in a denominational church (as most were), your memory of religion during this period may feel more like a salad bar than a sacred tradition. Services were often a blend of practices from around the world, carefully curated to be broad and non-offensive. But in that process, much was lost.

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These four ideas are outlined in painful detail in his book. But the pivotal period—the saddest of all in many respects—was the period of 1967 to 1968.

In fact, McLeod devotes an entire chapter to the year 1968.

And rightly so. It wasn’t just a turning point politically or culturally. 1967-68 was seismic. It caused a theological rupture.

Recently, I attended an anniversary celebration for some dear friends. Along the way, I was greeted by several people who’ve been reading these Anglican articles. Many expressed their gratitude—and I was deeply humbled. It means more than you know to hear that readers across the country (and beyond) are engaging with what I’ve written.

One kind soul asked me about my birthday wish—that I might mark my 70th year (coming up on the 27th) by welcoming 70 new paid subscribers. I had to admit, it’s not going quite as hoped.

We now have over 5,500 readers, and about 270 have become paid subscribers. We need 30 more Paid subscribers for me to have a very happy Birthday! :)

So today, I’d like to ask—humbly and gratefully—that if you’ve been reading as a free subscriber and have found these reflections helpful, would you consider becoming a paid subscriber? Your support helps sustain the work of The Anglican and allows me to keep writing, teaching, and sharing the stories that matter.

Thank you for reading—and for walking this road with me.

☕️ You’re about half-way through this article. It’s worth finishing. But if you need to, grab a coffee and take a break.
If you want buy this Anglican one too, go here. :)

The Episcopal Church’s General Convention in 1967

For the Episcopal Church, change happened at the 1967 General Convention held in Seattle, Washington. This convention wasn’t originally scheduled. The church had postponed its 1964 gathering until 1965 due to leadership transitions, making 1967 an “extra” meeting called to reset the triennial rhythm.

Perhaps they should have waited the extra year to let things settle out. But they didn’t. They held their General Convention a year earlier. (One of my hero bishops, Fitzsimmons Allison, once described General Conventions as a “ten-day toothache”. Many would agree.)

Plenty was going on in the world in 1967. The Summer of 1967 was called the Long Hot Summer for good reason.

• Racial Unrest: The summer of 1967 witnessed widespread riots in cities like Detroit, Newark, and Cincinnati, fueled by racial tensions and police brutality. The violence resulted in over 83 deaths and 17,000 arrests, underscoring the deep-seated inequalities within American society.

• Vietnam War: The Vietnam War continued to escalate, with President Johnson requesting additional funding and troop deployments. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became increasingly vocal against the war, denouncing it as a moral abomination.

• Counterculture Movement: The "Summer of Love" in San Francisco, marked by the Human Be-In, launched a wave of counterculture that challenged traditional values and embraced peace, love, and psychedelic experiences.

• The Anglican/Episcopal Church: On the Anglican (England) and Episcopal front, things started to unwind.

How old were you and were you in the Summer of 1967? Feel free to leave a comment. I was 12. I lived in Nogales, Arizona on the Mexican border.

Reimagining the Church

If I hear the term “reimagine” these days, I usually run from whatever is being reimagined. But it’s precisely the right word for what happened to the Episcopal Church in the mid-1960s. Beginning around 1967, five major, structural shifts occurred—each seismic. Together, they reimagined the Church into something it had never been before—and set it on a path it has never fully recovered from.

1. Marriage and Divorce: Covenant Rewritten

For centuries, the Episcopal Church held a firm and pastoral line: marriage was for life, and remarriage after divorce was only possible in narrow circumstances with episcopal approval. But as the culture shifted—and no-fault divorce became normalized—the Church began to loosen its grip.

At the 1967 General Convention, a commission was formed to revise the marriage canon. The goal was pastoral sensitivity, but the result was a diminishing of marriage as a covenant. By the early 1970s, remarriage after divorce became more common, often without clear theological grounding. What once required repentance and ecclesial oversight now asks little more than accommodation.

2. Lay and Women’s Ministry: Orders Redefined

At the same 1967 Convention, women were given voice—but not yet a vote—in the House of Deputies. By 1970, they were seated as full deputies. Soon after, debates over the ordination of women intensified, and the traditional threefold order—bishop, priest, and deacon—began to blur with a broader emphasis on the “ministry of all the baptized.”

While the intention was inclusion, the effect was disorientation. The line between laity and clergy, between sacramental authority and general participation, became less clear. The traditional understanding of orders as a divine calling within the apostolic succession gave way to a functional view of ministry as shared leadership.

3. Doctrine De-centered: The Anchor Lifted

At the 1968 Lambeth Conference, the bishops of the Anglican Communion voted to reclassify the Thirty-Nine Articles as “historic documents.” They were no longer required affirmations for clergy. This quiet but consequential decision symbolized a deeper drift.

Decades later, a friend of mine would write a book entitled, The Thirty-Nine Articles: Buried Alive?: The Anglican Articles of Religion and the Case for Confessional Christianity. The fact that it has only one, one-star review isn’t an indication of its truth or value. I read it years ago and remember that it was eye-opening.

However, the Episcopal Church, following suit, removed doctrinal assent from its expectations of clergy, and over time, the creeds and confessions became optional rather than foundational. Orthodoxy was replaced by latitude. Teaching became a matter of perspective.

The Church no longer asked its leaders, “Do you believe?” but rather, “Are you open?”

4. Liturgical Experimentation: The 1928 BCP gets Shelved

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, which had formed generations in reverent, theologically rich worship, was formally scheduled for revision in 1967. Almost immediately, trial rites were introduced.

• Altars were moved.

• Priests turned to face the congregation.

• Language was modernized.

• The experience of worship shifted from heavenward adoration to horizontal engagement.

The goal was to connect with modern people, but something holy was lost. The sanctuary became a stage, and the liturgy became a conversation. The result? Worship became more accessible but less transcendent.

Some readers might wonder: Wasn’t moving the altar and turning the priest to face the congregation a minor liturgical change? Actually, it was something quite significant. When the altar was placed against the wall and the priest faced east—his back to the people—he stood as a mediator, offering prayer on behalf of the people and lifting their worship heavenward. It was a posture of intercession, of standing between earth and heaven.

But when the altar was moved forward and the priest turned to face the congregation, his role shifted. He now stood not as a mediator, but as a host at a table—presiding over a communal meal. Both are meaningful images. Both are rooted in Christian tradition. But they communicate very different theological “vibes,” as it were—and that shift in posture reflected a much larger shift in the Church’s self-understanding.

5. Activism Ascendant: The Pulpit Becomes a Podium

Perhaps the most dramatic shift came in the Church’s self-understanding.

The General Convention Special Program (GCSP), launched by the Episcopal Church in 1967 under the leadership of Presiding Bishop John Hines, was intended as a bold response to the racial unrest and inequality shaking American cities.

The Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (1965–1974), was a vocal advocate for progressive causes. He supported population control efforts, overseeing the Church’s sponsorship of over 15 birth control clinics, including in Catholic-majority countries. In the wake of Dr. King’s assassination, he called for social justice and self-determination—launching the controversial General Convention Special Program in 1967.

Hines sought to reorder the Church’s financial priorities—diverting millions of dollars away from diocesan structures and toward minority-led groups, many with radical political agendas. The aim was empowerment, self-determination, and direct action.

But the backlash was swift and widespread.

Many faithful Episcopalians were deeply concerned—not with the desire to address injustice, but with the methods employed. Funds were redirected without accountability. Programs were supported without theological clarity.

Some of the groups receiving church funds had explicit ties to Marxist and communist ideologies. Congregations began withholding financial support. The unity of the Church fractured.

The Special Program signaled a dramatic shift: the Episcopal Church no longer saw itself primarily as a body gathered around Word and Sacrament. It was now a national platform for political and social transformation. The priest gave way to the prophet. Evangelism faded. Catechesis disappeared.

And the pulpit became a podium.

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That’s enough! These changes weren’t minor adjustments. They were a comprehensive reimagining of what the Church is. And they didn’t happen in isolation—they cascaded together, reshaping Episcopal identity.

The tragedy is not that the Church addressed hard questions. The tragedy is that it abandoned its theological and liturgical center, choosing relevance over reverence, novelty over continuity, and influence over faithfulness.

And the results speak for themselves.

The First Backlash

The Church, in many places, ceased to be an assembly for worship and the transmission of the faith. It became, instead, a kind of nonprofit institution organized around a cause.

I submit that most people come to church not to be activated, but to be anchored—to worship and pray, to connect with friends, and to introduce their families to the historic Christian faith. The Gospel is not a program for public protest; it is a message for the human heart.

When people could no longer trust that the sermon would be rooted in Scripture or the creeds—but instead found the pulpit co-opted by activism or political positioning—they quietly slipped away.

They stopped attending not because they stopped believing, but because they stopped recognizing the Church as a church.

And that brings me back to the man at the church door of St. Andrew’s, Nogales, Arizona.

He had watched his church change overnight. He felt it in his bones: the silent exchange of doctrine for ideology, mystery for activism, sacrament for slogan. He wasn’t a theologian. He couldn’t quote the Articles. But he knew something precious had been traded away.

The man at the church door wasn’t alone.

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The Long Decline

The numbers tell the rest:

• 1965: 3.4 million members

• 1970: 3.2 million

• 2000: 2.3 million

• Today: fewer than 1.5 million

This is not pruning. It is a collapse.

Attendance waned. Seminaries emptied. Parishes closed. Clergy fled to Rome, Constantinople, or new non-denominational churches. And those seminarians who did submit to an ordination process were indoctrinated in a seminary that often marched in lockstep with the major universities and protest movements.

Or if a young man or woman felt a call to be a church worker or minister, they often found a happier, spiritually rooted denomination in a non-denominational church which were bursting upon the scene.

I can tell you of a hundred conversations I’ve had with people in other churches who are leaders, youth workers, elders, and small group leaders who will enthusiastically volunteer their former status: they used to be Episcopalian.

I call them former Episcopalians, and I know several dozen. I am sure readers of this Substack know many as well.

Do you know former Episcopalians? Are you one?

And today, perhaps 50% of the 100,000 members of the ACNA would say the same thing: they used to be Episcopalian.

The Bottom Line

I am a former Episcopalian. But, as I have described in The Christ Church Stories, the Episcopal Church embraced a theology of progressive liberalism and thus a trajectory of precipitous decline.

Looking back over the data and the dates of my involvement, from my early preteen years to our departure from TEC in 2006, I can see it more clearly now.

In its quest to become relevant, the Episcopal Church became indistinguishable from the culture it once sought to reach. And thus, it became irrelevant.

Faithfulness makes a church relevant. Relevance, pursued for its own sake, makes a church unfaithful.

There is an outlier here, and I can’t tell if it’s good or bad news for the former great Episcopal Church. Giving is up. According to Ryan Burge, financial support for the dwindling denomination has not deteriorated. The victims of the lawsuits launched by TEC against former congregation and diocese would say the same thing. TEC seemed to have no end to their financial resources to sue former congregations. As Burge writes in a wonderfully poignant but tragic quote:

Now the ratio between plate/pledge and weekly attendance is $3,642. That’s a 77% increase in this calculation between 2014 and 2022. It’s clear to me that the people are going to run out before the money does.

A Warning and a Word of Hope

The 1967 story is not only history. It is a warning.

Any church that seeks applause more than truth, and affirmation more than obedience, will walk the same path.

The pulpit is not a platform.
The Gospel is not a cause.
And Jesus is not a mascot for social reform.

But there is hope.

The Anglican Church in North America emerged not from rage, but from remembrance. We remembered the Scriptures. We remembered the Creeds. We remembered that Jesus is Lord.

We are not perfect. But we try to be faithful.

Let us never forget: we are not called to win popularity contests. We are called to proclaim Christ, teach the truth, love our neighbor, and build up the Church.

What Was the Real Problem?

Looking back, it’s tempting to point to one issue or moment and say, “That was the cause of it all.” But the truth is harder—and more important.

The crisis in the Episcopal Church was not ultimately about a single controversy. It was about a long drift from the center: a loss of theological conviction, a shift in mission, and a subtle but steady replacement of the Gospel with causes, programs, and platforms. The Church forgot what it was for. And in doing so, it forgot who it was for.

I repent of how easy it was to assign blame—on groups, on trends, on “those people”—instead of looking inward. Too often, we were silent when we should have spoken, and shrill when we should have been kind. I am deeply sorry for the pain this caused to many who came looking for Gospel truth and found only rejection or confusion.

May the Church become again what it was always meant to be:

A people of mercy, truth, and grace—gathered around Word and Sacrament, open to all whom the Lord draws.

St. Paul’s words to the Philippians are our guide:

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. And the God of peace will be with you.”

May it be so.

1. U.S. Census Bureau estimates: The U.S. population in 1955 was approximately 165 million; in 2024, it exceeds 330 million.