United States
The Economist May 23rd - 2020
Dechurching
The Sunday slump
WASHINGTON, DC
The virus is accelerating a trend away from organised religion
Living in the shadow of Disney's Magic Kingdom has mostly been a happy experience for Community Presbyterian church in Celebration, Orlando. Its handsome white building, with storybook steeple, was part-funded by a pious niece of Walt. The nearby theme parks have supplied the church with many of its 800-odd members as well as a steady stream of visitors—in the winter, when tourists flock to Florida, the congregation often swells to 1,500. But when Walt Disney World closed in mid-March and the church did too, its fortunes took a dive.
Its income, which comes chiefly from weekly donations, plummeted. Several employees lost their jobs. Among them was. Bill Vanderbush, one of two pastors at the church. "You know, as a pastor, that you are living on the generosity of those around you," he says. "To lose your job when people are suffering is the nature of ministry."
His words may prove prophetic. The Covid-19 pandemic has hammered churches of all sizes and denominations across America. Most, even those that had encouraged their members to shell out online before the pandemic hit, have seen their incomes plunge. Many do not have sufficient cash reserves to tide them over for more than a few months. And reopening is unlikely to bring the relief that it will to other parts of the economy. In many churches the majority of worshippers are old; if a vaccine is not developed soon, or is less effective in the elderly, many may be reluctant to go to church in future.
The result could be a significant reduction in the number of churches in America. David Kinnaman, the president of Barna Group, an evangelical research outfit, reckons that as many as one in five churches— and one in three mainline ones—could close for good within the next 18 months.
This would represent a rapid acceleration of a long-term decline in American religiosity. Though the process of secularization has been slower to take hold in America than in other parts of the rich world, it is now well under way. According to Pew Research, the share of Americans who say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month has dropped by seven points over the past decade to 45%. The share who go to church every Sunday is a lot lower: some pollsters put it at 20%. Though the decline is evident among all demographic groups, it appears to be fastest among poor whites.
The institutions that were already seeing the sharp end of this decline will be the first to go. Many of them will be Catholic.
Successive clerical sex-abuse scandals have stopped many from going to mass or from going as regularly as they used. That has hit church coffers, reducing the financial support parishes give their dioceses, many of which have been bankrupted by payouts to victims of abuse, leaving them, in turn, less able to support struggling churches. Vocations to the priesthood, meanwhile, which are falling across all mainline churches, have all but disappeared in many Catholic dioceses.
The end can be swift. After the last priest of St Casimir's in Lansing, Michigan, retired last year and it became clear there were no priests available to replace him permanently, parishioners wondered whether the 99-year-old church would have to close. Within weeks of lockdown it had done so. "It's almost like a death in the family," says Greg Perkowski, a member of the church council…….
But the pandemic may also lead to the closure of churches that might otherwise have survived for years. Few organizations of any kind have been ready for the shock of sudden, weeks' long closure, but many even vibrant churches seem to be particularly ill-prepared. David King, assistant professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University-Perdue University in Indianapolis says that 39% of all congregations do not have enough cash to survive more than three months.
In the case of small, urban churches this is often because putting aside money that would otherwise be spent on services for the poor is anathema, says Justin Giboney, a political strategist in Atlanta, Georgia. He has helped launch Churches Helping Churches, which has so far provided 121 churches with grants of $3,000 each. Anecdotal evidence suggests that smaller churches have had less success applying for small-business loans under the government's cares Act, which, to the fury of some advocates of the separation of church and state, are available to religious outfits.
Big churches can also find themselves suddenly close to the edge. Many have been walloped by the closure of their peripheral businesses, like preschools. Some mega-churches, with big running costs, are heavily mortgaged. It seems likely that, among the small minority of churches that defied orders to close, some were driven by financial considerations as much as by religious-liberty ones.
Which churches will escape unscathed from the pandemic? Small congregations, despite their immediate vulnerability, may prove more robust; many already have part-time pastors and are less likely to be attached to a particular space…..
Though a majority of churches have moved services online, many report falling levels of engagement. The longer parishioners endure a weekly struggle with tech and fail to attain the sense of connection that took them to church in the first place, the likelier they will be to give the whole thing a miss. ■
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WELL I FOR ONE REJOICE AT THE DOWNFALL OF SUNDAY CHURCHES….. I PRAY IT WILL KEEP GOING DOWN.
I HAVE NO USE FOR SUNDAY CHURCHES AND THEIR PASTORS/PRIESTS.
WHY? HERE’S WHY!
I WAS RAISED AT AGE 7 TO 17 IN A CHURCH OF ENGLAND [ANGLICAN] SCHOOL. I WAS DELIGHTED TO HAVE THE BIBLE GIVEN TO ME THAT FIRST SCHOOL DAY. THE TEACHER LADY READ GENESIS ONE AND TWO. IT WAS THE ANSWER TO MY WONDERMENT AT ALL CREATION AROUND ME. I ACCEPTED GOD AND HIS WORD. I STARTED TO ATTEND SUNDAY SCHOOL IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, AND LEARNT ABOUT JESUS. I WAS TAUGHT BY ALL TEACHERS IN MY LIFE TO OBEY THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. THE TOWNS CLOSED DOWN ON SUNDAY; THERE WAS NO PRO SPORTS ON SUNDAY; BACK IN THE 1950s. IN SCHOOL I HAD TO LEARN BY MEMORY THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS FOUND IN EXODUS 20 OF THE KJV BIBLE—- EVERY WORD, NOT THE SHORT VERSION. I KNEW EVERY WORD OF THE 4TH COMMANDMENT—— THE SABBATH DAY COMMANDMENT. I HAD ALSO LEARN FROM GENESIS 2 THAT GOD SANCTIFIED THE 7TH DAY. IT WAS SIMPLE TO ME AS A CHILD THAT GOD HAD BLESSED AND SET APART THE 7TH DAY OF THE WEEK. THE 4TH COMMANDMENT TIED IT TOGETHER. AND JESUS OBSERVED ALL TEN COMMANDMENTS PERFECTLY. THE GOSPELS MADE IT ALL PLAIN FOR ME. O INDEED JESUS SAID UNLESS YOU BECOME AS A LITTLE CHILD YOU WILL NOT ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
NOT ONE TEACHER OR PRIEST OR PASTOR OR SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER EVER TOLD ME SUNDAY WAS NOT THE 7TH DAY OF THE WEEK. I WAS AN INNOCENT CHILD AND TEENAGER. ALL OF CHRISTIANITY I KNEW WAS TO MY MIND OBEYING THE 4TH COMMANDMENT, AND OBSERVING THE 7TH DAY AS HOLY AND AS THE WEEKLY SABBATH.
I CAME TO CANADA AT AGE 18. I HAD A BAPTIST LANDLORD. HE INVITED ME TO HIS CHURCH. I WENT. I WAS 20 AND TALKING TO HIM ONE DAY, HE TOLD ME SUNDAY WAS NOT THE 7TH DAY BUT THE 1ST DAY OF THE WEEK. I WAS SHOCKED TO THE BONE. I WENT TO THE LIBRARY AND FOUND A BOOK BY A CATHOLIC BISHOP CALLED “CHRISTIAN FEASTS AND CUSTOMS”—— HIS CHAPTER ON THE SABBATH DAY WAS PLAINLY BLUNT. THE FIRST SENTENCE WAS A PLAIN STATEMENT THAT NOWHERE IN THE BIBLE WAS THE FIRST DAY EVER SANCTIFIED, OR MADE HOLY. ONLY THE 7TH DAY WAS SANCTIFIED AND HOLY AND THE SABBATH; BUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WAS FROM THE APOSTLE PETER, AND HAD THE AUTHORITY TO CHANGE THE WEEKLY SABBATH FROM THE 7TH DAY TO THE 1ST DAY.
I WAS AGAIN IN TOTAL SHOCK!
I COULD NOT BELIEVE THAT ALL OF CHRISTIANITY I KNEW AND LIVED AMONG FROM AGE 7 TO 20, WAS IN ERROR!
BUT IT WAS AND IS STILL TO THIS DAY.
YOU MAY HEAR ALL KINDS OF FANCY ARGUMENTS FROM CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS, THAT THE SABBATH COMMANDMENT WAS ONLY FOR THE JEWS, OR “DONE AWAY” WITH UNDER THE NEW TESTAMENT, OR CHANGED TO THE FIRST DAY AS THE ROMAN CHURCH TEACHES. IT’S ALL A BUNCH OF HOG-WASH-PIG-SWILL, AND THEOLOGY FROM PLANET PLUTO.
THE JEWS OF CHRIST’S DAY HAD 4 VERY IMPORTANT THEOLOGY POINTS—— THE PHYSICAL TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM; THE PRIESTHOOD AND SACRIFICES; PHYSICAL CIRCUMCISION; THE WEEKLY 7TH DAY SABBATH. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH HAD TO HAVE A “MINISTER” CONFERENCE TO DECIDE IF PHYSICAL CIRCUMCISION WAS REQUIRED TO “BE SAVED.” YOU CAN READ ABOUT IT IN ACTS 15.
YOU CAN BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR, IF THERE WAS ANY QUESTION ABOUT THE WEEKLY 7TH DAY SABBATH BEING CHANGED OR DONE AWAY WITH, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN A MINISTER CONFERENCE TO DECIDE THE ISSUE.
NO SUCH CONFERENCE CAN BE FOUND IN THE NEW TESTAMENT!
THE 7TH DAY SABBATH IS STILL THE 4TH COMMANDMENT OF THE GREAT TEN, THAT PEOPLE NEED TO BE WILLING TO OBSERVE TO INHERIT ETERNAL LIFE—— JESUS SAID SO IN MATTHEW 19 AND THE GOSPELS OF MARK AND LUKE.
IT IS JUST THAT SIMPLE.
SO AM I DELIGHTED THAT POPULAR CHRISTIANITY IS LOOSING GROUND AND DWINDLING; AM I DELIGHTED THAT PRIESTS AND PASTORS ARE LOOSING THEIR JOB AND PAY-CHECK?—— O YOU BET I AM !
Keith Hunt
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