The Presbyterian Church (USA) reported another massive departure of membership and congregations in 2022 as the nation’s largest Protestant denomination adopted controversial positions on Israel last year and said it would count “nonbinary” and “genderqueer” members separately.

The denomination lost 53,105 members — almost 2,000 more than it did in 2021, leaving the mainline Protestant church with 1,140,665 members, down more than 342,000 in seven years.

The loss of 4.4% of its membership in a year averages out to more than 1,000 departures a week.

The Louisville, Kentucky-based denomination said Monday 108 churches disaffiliated, dropping the number of congregations to 8,704, a shedding of 747 churches since 2016.

The denomination remains overwhelmingly White, with 89.08% of members — 816,359 people — identified in that category. Black members number 41,024, or 4.5% of membership. Just over 58% of members are age 56 and above, the statistical report revealed.

After announcing in October they would count “nonbinary/genderqueer” members in a separate membership listing, the 2022 statistical report said 1,317 members self-identified in that category, or 0.15% of the total membership.

The group’s chief executive blamed the pandemic for the decline in membership.

“We are not surprised by the numbers we are seeing. While the pandemic may be over, the impact on church membership is still being felt,” the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II said in a statement.

A 1983 merger between the chiefly southern U.S.-based Presbyterian Church in the United States and the more nationally based United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America created the PCUSA denomination.

The new organization started out with approximately 3 million members but lost nearly two-thirds of that number as its governing body, the General Assembly, adopted increasingly radical positions. 

Last July, delegates voted to declare Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as meeting “the international legal definition of apartheid.”

A separate measure called on delegates to add May 15 as “Palestinian Nakba Remembrance Day” to the PCUSA calendar. “Nakba,” meaning disaster or catastrophe, is a term used by Palestinians to describe the 1948 declaration of independence by the State of Israel.

PCUSA members who are aligned with Presbyterians for Middle East Peace said the votes would create an impression of the denomination as antisemitic.

• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.