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"If experts were predicting that 100,000 library buildings were going to be empty in small and large communities, someone would probably sit up and take notice," Religion News Service quotes the Rev.
Mark Elsdon as saying.
"We are not getting the same response when we say that 100,000 churches are going to close."
Elsdon is the editor of Gone for Good?: Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition, a book of essays about the future of houses of worship.
Elsdon says the 100,000 figure is an estimate based on trends in worship attendance.
Those who go to church prefer to be part of large congregations, flocking to packed-out megachurches while driving by a host of struggling congregations with 60 people or fewer.
There is little data about how many churches close or what happens to houses of worship when they are no longer needed by a congregation.
But even a half or a quarter of that number, Elsdon says, would be significant.
"The bottom line is that there are fewer and fewer people identifying as Christians and attending traditional church activities in church buildings," Elsdon said earlier this year at an event introducing his book.
"Therefore, there are far more church buildings today than will be viable or needed in the future."
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