In 1965, the denomination numbered 4,254,597 members. Today, the number is 2,016,091.

Presbyterian Church (USA) statistics have been released by national church headquarters, revealing a massive membership hemorrhage. On December 31, 2010, the PCUSA recorded a loss of 61,047 members. At its current loss rate, the denomination will dead in less than 40 years.

The PCUSA has shown losses every year since 1965, the year its General Assembly adopted a Book of Confessions, including “The Confession of 1967,” a document that calls Scripture “the words of men.” In 1965, the denomination numbered 4,254,597 members. Today, the number is 2,016,091.

“These numbers are not what anyone wants to see,” said The Rev. Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, who is attending the denomination’s “Big Tent” event in Indianapolis. Parsons told the Presbyterian News Service that he is enthusiastic about the PCUSA’s recently adopted New Form of Government, a document that centralizes power in the denomination’s hierarchy and severely limits the subjects that local church congregations can address in their meetings. He told his big tent crowd that the new form of government “will encourage all of us to think differently about how we do church.”

Included in Parsons’ statistics is the fact that 22 new churches were organized, but 77 were dissolved, and 26 were dismissed to other denominations. His dismissal figure includes only those congregations whose presbyteries gave them permission to leave. Not counted are those congregations that simply left the denomination without asking permission.

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