Whole lotta quaking going on

Scallop here, requesting numbers check.

Around the first of the month in February and March, reports of numbers of congregations exiting the ELCA congregation roster made their way into the blogosphere.

So far:

As of February 3, we have been advised that 220 congregations have taken votes to leave the ELCA. In 156 congregations, the first vote passed; in 64 congregations the first vote failed. 28 congregations have taken a second vote, all of which passed. (This does not mean that all 28 of these congregations have been removed from the roster because Synod Council approval is required for congregations established by the ELCA and former congregations of the Lutheran Church in America, and, in some cases, the vote is disputed because questions exist regarding the process.)

From Shrimp, Friday, Feb. 5, quoting a forwarded report attributed to ELCA Secretary Swartling.

On February 18, an ELCA news release, "ELCA Churchwide Organization Responds to Lutheran CORE Announcement," restated most of the Feb. 3 figures and added:

It also is worthy to note that 16 synods have not reported any congregations that have voted to terminate their relationship with the ELCA.

As reported in the latest (April 2010) issue of The Lutheran,

As of March 4, 62 of the ELCA's some 10,200 congregations passed a second and final vote to leave the denomination. This does not mean that all of those have been removed from the roster because synod council approval is required for congregations established by the ELCA and former congregations of the Lutheran Church in America, and, in some cases, the vote is disputed because questions exist regarding the process. The Office of the Secretary also said an additional 135 passed a first vote, while first votes in 79 congregations failed.

Well, Feb. 3, March 4, and April 5, 6, 7, 8 and now April 9? Time for another CW report? Ya think? Please? Maybe when the ELCA Church Council meets April 9-12?

"Why," one might ask?

Well, "Why NOT?" Statistics tell what anecdotes alone don't.

Pass or fail, the facts would help clear waters that get clouded by generalizations, partial reporting and prognosticating. If we were experiencing earthquakes, we'd take it for granted that such information would be readily availalbe. How much more for faithquakes?

Meanwhile, partial reports continue to filter in:


Captain Thin for ELCA Fallout, http://blog.captainthin.net/?p=294.

NE Iowa Synod http://www.neiasynod.org/synod_news/CongregationalVotes.asp and Southeastern Synod http://www.elca-ses.org/Congregational-Actions-Concerning-CWA-Decisions.html which have website pages showing status of congregations that have taken votes. There might be other synods that have posted such details. Scallop apologizes for not being able to check all 65 synods.* Maybe, just maybe, the folks at TLC (the Lutheran Center) and other synods could take a que from Northeastern Iowa and Southeastern Synods and start their own stats pages.

*Feel free to post your favorite stats-link on congregational votes in reply to this post.

Scallop out.