The "Disappeared"

It appears that the data on Truro and The Falls Church and other churches that have voted to depart The Episcopal Church have been "disappeared" from The Episcopal Church "Growth and Development" pages. This is where you can look up your churches stats gleaned from the yearly parochial reports. The amazing ElfGirl at TitusOneNine (resourceful and creative as always) anticipated that might happen and has kept pdf copies of all the reports.

What strikes me is that the Diocese of Virginia is maintaining that the Episcopal Churches who departed The Episcopal Church have never actually left and still exist as Episcopal Churches (it's those dissidents who have departed, not the congregation). This is particularly the case for St. Stephen's Heathesville, though their church stats have also been "disappeared." Oops! Guess there is no St. Stephen's Episcopal (just as the voters decided) after all. It seems someone at the TEC Database Central really takes the democratic principle of the freedom to vote seriously and responsibly took the stats down, or someone swiped the stats to make Virginia come out looking better stat-wise (when thousands of members of Episcopal Churches vote to depart it does affect the diocese's status - it's not clear whether Virginia is still the largest diocese in TEC - I doubt it, congrats to the Diocese of Texas).

But one wonders if Database Central checked with 815 Central Command (or Mayo House) before conducting the "disappeared" operations - for it seems that, from the point of view of 815 - Truro, The Falls Church, Church of the Apostles, All Saints Dale City, St. Stephen's Heathesville, Church of the Epiphany, Herndon, Christ the Redeemer, Our Saviour Oatlands, St. Paul's Haymarket, St. Margaret's, Christ Our Lord (which is really weird, since Bishop Lee made a big deal about putting a new temp vicar in the building), Potomac Falls - those are the ones that spring to mind - no longer exist as Episcopal Churches in the Diocese of Virginia. All disappeared. So no Episcopal Churches, then the property must officially not be Episcopalian either. Those churches no longer exist in the eyes of 815, or is there something their webmaster knows that KJS does not?

Weird.

Fortunately, ElfGirl has supplied both Truro and The Falls Church data (see graphics above - to enlarge them reading, just click on the chart). Thank you ElfGirl! Honorary TinFoil Hat is in the mail to your undisclosed location via owlpost!

If you need the info on the others, just let us know here at the BabyBlueCafe, where we have our tinfoil hats on and ready!