Kurt Simons made an interesting assertion in “A Note on New Church Government”:
the Academy split came at the end of the nineteenth century, during which church membership had been approximately doubling every decade, ending in the highest membership the US organized New Church ever saw (7,095 in 1890) ([Marguerite Block, The New Church in the New World], p. 173). But after the split that growth not only stopped, but decline set in, to the smaller numbers that still apply to both bodies today, a century later.
I found that interesting, so looked up the stats cited by Block:
| Year | Societies | Ordained ministers | Members |
| 1820 | 12 | 8 | 230 |
| 1830 | 28 | 16 | 500 |
| 1840 | 26 | 20 | 850 |
| 1850 | 54 | 32 | 1,450 |
| 1860 | 64 | 42 | 2,550 |
| 1870 | 90 | 68 | 4,150 |
| 1880 | 94 | 94 | 5,100 |
| 1890 | 154 | 119 | 7,095 |
Unfortunately I don’t have the numbers, right now, for the 20th century, post-schism. Anyone willing to provide those? I’m looking for all North American numbers, not just General Church.
It is interesting to note not just the rapid growth in number of members, but also the corresponding multiplication of congregations. Here’s the above data on a log scale:
New Church Growth in North America, 1820-1890 (Block, p. 173)
#1 by Kurt Simons on 2009.06.20 - 4:35pm
Mac
You can find current Convention membership statistics on p. 64 of the 2008 edition of their Journal, online at
http://swedenborg.org/documents/2008Journal_Web.pdf
And you can, of course, back extrapolate from that.
Kurt
#2 by Kurt Simons on 2009.06.21 - 7:51am
PS Block’s book summary (p. 356) of post-1890 Convention membership, following same format, i.e.
Year Societies Ordained ministers Members
1890 187 111 5272
1900 113 105 6926
1910 100 101 6430
1920 101 100 6430
1920 83 107 5805(?)
#3 by Mac on 2009.06.22 - 11:45am
Thanks, Kurt!
#4 by Janice Archer on 2010.06.06 - 4:26pm
Just a musing. The consequences of a split seem similar to what happens following a divorce. The life forces are no longer following the same line, but each side branches off into it’s own direction and neither is as strong as what was there in the original marriage.