Summary
Churches across the U.S. are grappling with dwindling attendance and financial instability, forcing many to close or sell properties.
The Diocese of Buffalo has shut down 100 parishes since the 2000s and plans to close 70 more. Nationwide, church membership has dropped from 80% in the 1940s to 45% today.
Some churches repurpose their land to survive, like Atlanta’s First United Methodist Church, which is building affordable housing.
Others, like Calcium Church in New York, make cutbacks to stay open. Leaders warn of the long-term risks of declining community and support for churches.
Seems every commenter is a militant atheist. I think this is sad! Christianity gave me a lot in a time in my life I needed it. Christian denominations really need to consider why it isn’t appealing to the next generations and if they really want to continue to mix with anti-science, alt-right, bigoted groups. Many denominations have voted quite progressively in recent years but that’s not enough to make giving up Sunday morning worth it to busy struggling young Americans.
It also seems the way districts are run is nonsensical. My family’s church was run by a phenomenal second career pastor, used to be an engineer, who was quite logical in his approach to Christianity. As someone slowly becoming Buddhist he was very open to my ideas and I enjoyed talking with him. Then they switched in some ignorant selfish pastor who literally destroyed the church causing 50% of the people to leave along with all of their financial support. It took the district almost a year to “send them in vacation”. What the heck!
They need to get a grip or they will die.
Christianity or science. It can’t be both. There’s either magic or there’s not magic. If there’s magic, science is meaningless.
Magic is just the stuff that science hasn’t proven yet. Emphasis on the “yet”.
EDIT: Before anyone else misunderstands what I meant, I’m not saying every aspect of Christianity or the Bible will inevitably be proven (though I can see how it can be read that way, hence this edit).
I’m saying that magic is what we can “observe” happening but not be able to explain with science. The ratio of magic to science has been rapidly shrinking in the last century or so, and I’m suggesting that we will continue to understand “magic” (or, the previously-unexplained) better as science progresses.
When books like the Bible were written, there was a lot more “magic”/unexplainable stuff. Of course, there were likely also misunderstandings and fabrications. It shouldn’t be taken as a reliable account of observations, either, so its magic will not necessarily be explained by science, just as Harry Potter’s won’t.
That’s not magic. Magic is supernatural, meaning it does not obey physical laws.
If things do not always obey physical laws, such as much of what happens in the Bible in terms of magic, then how can you ever trust the scientific method?
How is there a valid scientific method in a universe where 40 days of rain covers an entire planet with water or a staff can be thrown onto the ground and turned into a snake?
Science hasn’t proven people can’t walk on water, turn blood into wine, or resurrect from death?
Wasn’t aware those were still up in the air.
Begging your pardon, but the likes of CS Lewis, Francis Collins, and Jesus of Nazareth would like to have a word with you about that… e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “be skeptical about everything”, and John 13:34 “be ye not giant dickeths to one another”.
Or there’s 1 Timothy 5:18 “the worker deserves their wages”, or Deuteronomy 24:15 “pay your workers the very same day” (literally: “before the sun sets, bc they need it”), or James 1:27 “offer healthcare regardless of ability to pay”, and so on.
It turns out that religious numbnuts who refuse to read anything at all but keep making up new rules to add to the pile (heaping heavy burdens onto people without bothering to lift a finger to help)… don’t really know much of anything? Not about what “freedom” is, or “love”, or “religion” either. Go figure!? 🤪 Maybe it would help if instead of listening to child rapists who just want their money (and children) they would instead pick up a book - any book - and read it!?
So yeah, fuck religious hypocrites. Seriously, Jesus in Matthew 23: 1 - 12 says exactly that too:
do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
and
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil?
You… on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.
I find that people of any faith whatsoever - Christianity, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. - share a lot in common if they are not extremists. And right now there’s a lot of value in atheism since nearly everyone is “first generation”, but eventually atheism will fall prey to the same fate as well - it’s human nature, and no system or belief is perfect. But I do think it helps to accurately diagnose the issue and point the blame more squarely where it belongs, i.e. the tribal “in-group=good but out-group=bad” is something that would be fantastic to get past as quickly as possible.
Bc to me your words seem to line up perfectly with 1 Thessalonians 5:21, hence you even agree with Jesus that most people calling themselves “Christians” (or “patriots” or whatever) are fucking idiots, however strange that sounds.
None of that has to do with the fact that the universe can either have magic or science, not both.
WTF is a militant atheist? I don’t think anyone here has murdered or even beat the shit out of someone in the name of atheism.
Are you replying in bad faith or do you not know what militant means? I did not mean a military if atheists lol ;)
I think that they are referring to the somewhat adversarial attitude of the comments in this thread. I think that a religious person, especially a self identifying Christian, would feel a bit uncomfortable reading these comments.
Merriam-Webster on “militant” (2nd definition): aggressively active (as in a cause) : combative; militant conservationists; a militant attitude
Christianity gave me a lot in a time in my life I needed it.
Selection bias.
I’m biased about how it affected my own life? You can read that I also criticized Christianity but was critical of militant atheism. Hard to make your point when you just pick half a sentence
It’s anecdotal evidence. Christianity has had a profoundly negative influence on my life.
Seems every commenter is a militant atheist. I think this is sad!
It’s called self defense. Feel fortunate we desire peace and not the retribution inflicted upon us throughout history and modern times in religion’s name.
As someone who leans towards perennialism I can see the value in religious traditions but militant atheists are a reaction to the hypocrisy of organised religion. it’s great you where able to get something of value from the church but many more don’t and indeed lose something into the bargain through no fault of their own.
Good points.
I personally dislike militant atheism. There is a line between anti-Christianity or religious it’s versus praising their downfall. It’s more terminally online atheist communities such as Reddit that are like this though.
That said, I think you’re wrong that more are being hurt though. Christianity is actually on the rise in the US (I think?) and China (fastest growing Christian nation actually).
you’re conflating the church with Christianity. I would think most western people become atheists because of the church not because of Christ. and the vast majority of them have every reason to be militant.
Personally, I’m anti Christianity because I grew up in Boston and there was a massive conspiracy to protect pedophiles… also because it’s strongly related to the pro-life movement… also because a Christian school rejected my stepson with extreme special needs because my partner “wasn’t the right kind of Christian”… also because Christians are slow to denounce other Christians (anyone who doesn’t consider Westboro Baptist a hate group can get fucked)… also because a lot of Christians feel the need to make everyone else Christian too… also because Churches don’t deserve tax breaks… also because a huge number Christians repeatedly voted for Trump because he was “The most Godly candidate”… also because they’re trying to take over America… also because a good chunk of them applaud the genocide in Gaza… also because a lot of the large churches deny climate change…
Fuck man, I could keep going.
I know an alcoholic who got clean through Christianity - I’m happy he cleaned up his life. In the grand balance of things though Christianity is so fucking deep into being a net harm. But, you’re correct about one thing - it’s hardly a monolith. I was raised in a UCC congregation and those folks are pretty alright. Our church had an official statement condemning bigotry and embracing gay and other LGBT+ folks in the early nineties. You’d be hard to find a fault in the above list that applied to that congregation…
But in this case the bathwater is so toxic that it’s worth throwing out the baby with it.
Well written. Thanks for the long thought out comment.
As someone who also recognizes how Christianity hurt my world view and becoming Buddhist wildly opened me to the world, I really appreciate this ex Christian’s YouTube channel
https://m.youtube.com/@BeliefItOrNot
Sorry on mobile
As churches decline we’re losing what is, essentially, a free communal space. Church was a place where people built community.
We need to replace it with something, not just cheer because a shitty religion is dying.
We need to replace it with something, not just cheer because a shitty religion is dying.
Why not both?
That was my point?
If you’re not sure whether that’s your point, we’re not gonna be much help.
We need a new religion that worships reality with clerics who are trained in humanities, epistemology, and combatting disinformation.
EDIT: Apparently reality isn’t as popular as I’d hoped.
I wish I could buy into the idea of church as a community; my mom very much saw it that way. However, church is inherently exclusive. It turns away people who refuse to conform to very specific beliefs. It’s hard for me to root for or even accept that as a communal space.
I want to see more YMCA and less church.
Edit: yes I know the Y is technically a Christian thing, but it’s not the religion I object to it’s the exclusion. Never been to a Y that felt like I needed to be Christian to be there.
Unfortunately the internet is now the new 3rd space.
Religion advocated for bad policies in government which dug their own grave.
I don’t feel bad they’re closing down.
The internet isn’t a third place! Not only do you have to pay to access it, but more importantly, it isn’t a physical place. None of us are people here. We’re strings of characters on a screen behind pseudo-anonymous handles. You can’t help me, I can’t help you.
This is not community. It can’t be.
I think you’re a person. You should be more kind to yourself. That kind of talk never gets us anywhere.
A third place has nothing at all to do with what is and isn’t paywalled. If I rented a Boeing 787 to take day trips with my friends every day for the next month, that’d still be a third place. It has everything to do with the first place being home and the second being work. It also has nothing, therefore, to do with “community” or “not community”.
Even if we work under your (completely wrong) definition of third places as inherently fostering tight-knit community and not just being a place for you to exist around other people, smaller communities absolutely have the opportunity to do this. Roblox was one of my main third places when I was a kid, and it was a better third place than I could’ve had in real life. I met actual, real friends who I talked to daily for years and who accepted me. Right now I work on Wikipedia, which if you spend long enough there unambiguously has a community among the more experienced editors. I’m even in a Discord server where I joined for the project, ended up joining the team, and now feel like I’m good friends with the people there. Even Lemmy I’d say is small enough to start seeing a lot of familiar faces over time.
The Internet isn’t inherently bad at fostering community. It’s just that the modern Internet places a fuckload of emphasis on being in gigantic, uninteractive pools of people like Twitch chats that fly at a million miles a second and require you to spend $500 for a streamer to blink in your direction; a shitty short-form video service where you can comment and like but aren’t seriously befriending anyone outside of extreme edge cases; a gigantic link aggregator where what you say is almost always drowned out immediately; multiplayer games that have new lobbies every match; etc.
I know you’re getting dragged in the comments / downvoted, but the premise that the internet is not a fully reasonable ‘third’ place has some rationality, as does the premise that churches have been this ‘third’ place for many. And I think ‘third’ places are where leftist community-engagement thrives, even in religous settings.
I mention leftist simply because many here are commenting from leftist Lemmy instances, myself included. Historically – and for a moment, consider this outside the typically nonreligious, leftist approaches to community building – churches have occupied a helpful, physical ‘third’ place like this for centuries.
When they are healthy, churches have been relationship hubs of solidarity and mutual aid. They have also been regularly used platforms from which to mobilize for social justice and collective action – even today, I know of some churches that are engaged directly in social justice and collective action for queer communities, debt reduction / removal, resource sharing, and more. Liberation theology is gravely leftist, as well, and comes from Latin American churches with leftist clergy and non-clergy at the helm of both theory and praxis. The Civil Rights Movement was borne out of black American churches, and suffrage movements met in churchhouses as much as anywhere else. This list goes on.
Liberation / radical inclusivity activities can spring from any setting where people gather regularly and talk about change. While the internet can make that sometimes easier, it has been historically in-person, where folks gather, that these movements find momentum time and again. ‘Third’ places are historically and functionally physical.
Theory is great for the internet, and even some community-engagement through internet discussions on theory is great. Some, but not all.
Praxis happens offline, though, in anti-technofeudally controlled arenas.
I think it counts as a third place. All it really takes to be a third place is not being home or work. Whether physical or not is definitely debatable and I think physical third places are a must, but I don’t think a third place being paid disqualifies it.
For one, a lot of folks don’t have to pay for internet. I can go to my local library or community center and be online if needed. There are also some government programs that may provide free internet. But even if it is paid, typical third places have traditionally included settings like cafes, bars, the gym, bookstores, theaters, etc. which are also all pay-to-use environments.
but more importantly, it isn’t a physical place
Welcome to the capitalist process of dematerialization, substituting a shitty simulacrum for an authentic experience. You want a nice meal? You get McDonalds. You want to have a sexual relationship? You get online porn. The real thing you thought you wanted has been transformed into a caricature, offering symbolic signifiers where there once was something real. And advertising trains you to believe the fake experience is the distilled essence of the real one.
Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse were writing about this as long ago as the late 1930s. Doctorow’s rant about enshittification is a modern refinement of this sort of analysis (with less Marx).
That “community” is a judgmental indoctrinating shithole that destroys people.
Good riddance.
Okay, but that community also kept me from being homeless as a child. I got to eat food when otherwise I wouldn’t.
We need to replace it, we can’t just let community die with nothing in its place.
That charity likely came from the community, not just the church. In my little town I can’t give money or food to any groups other than churches. So that’s where my money goes, despite not belonging to a church.
It didn’t use to be. I remember most churches on the 80s had a message of, “try to be a good person” and then everyone would hang out and chat. Pretty chill space. Can’t stand going to any churches now.
I guess you were never guilt tripped after being forced to watch Hell’s Bells.
Also, Chick Tracts were huge in the 80’s and those are not “chill and be a good person” kind of things. Nor is slut shaming. I could go on.
Only in Germany. In America, that is optional. In fact, most of these closings could be avoided if all members gave 5%. Average is much lower.
Just because no one is taking it directly from the paycheck does not mean it’s “optional”. Religions in general, and Christianity in particular are very good at coercing donations.
Most the places that are closing are closing because they never managed to get kids in and brainwashed and their core followers are aging out of an income.
In sectarian societies, there are community centres, free library’s and non-religious community groups with public spaces.
Even in Capitalistic societies, shopping centres and shopping malls are a place for communities to grow.
The myth that Community requires Region was created by religions so they could more easily control their indoctrinated (just like capitalism).
I’d bet a lot of American churches could fairly easily be converted into small music venues.
A lot of them are built with acoustic architecture, so definitely. Also lecture halls, debate halls, maybe even public theater.
Architecturally sure but zoning wise probably not. I can actually sympathize with nimbys in this scenario, locked into a mortgage next door to a church vs next door to a music venue with a liquor license are two totally different scenarios.
A lot of American Protestant chuches already are music venues in the sense that they hold 2 or 3 services a day, which involve 15-45 minute musical sessions, with mics, amps, audio leveling/equalizing equipment, etc.
These are the ones I am referring to.
No, not the insane, literally stadium sized mega churches.
Just your run of the mill, Protestant chuch serving a few hundred people, built in the last 20 years in America.
Plenty of these are built in the middle of residential neighborhoods.
With zoning laws… these of course vary widely, but generally, as long as you aren’t playing music outside of basically daylight hours, you are fine.
I’ve even actually seen some definct churches converted into night clubs, but that is the scenario where zoning laws and permits become more of a hassle.
As far as just… a daytime, small to medium music venue?
Probably any defunct church that was originally designed to accomodate daytime, amped up worship services, or retrofitted for such, is already built according to relevant noise regulations.
… Also, you can have a music venue without a liquor liscense.
I agree wholeheartedly. I don’t know what the replacement would be, however. I keep thinking about that when I think about trying to bootstrap something in my community. Something that somehow (?) is supported to keep the heat and the lights on, and everything clean and very safe, the taxes paid, but provides a place to: 1) meet-up for book clubs 2) has a maker/hacker space 3) Has break-outs for hosting meetups along with projectors, etc. 4) provides open source training of various kinds. 5) Throws social functions, with food and modest amounts of alcohol… 6) A place with trained staff that put on things for kids to do after school lets out or in the summers
Something with wifi, where access to snacks/coffee is also possible, where people can hang out all day and not feel any guilt for buying nothing or only one coffee and just being in the presence of others.
In some cases, I see libraries trying to serve some of these functions. In some cases, I have seen some “community centers” or the building owned by Elks/Masons also trying for a subset of this… if there is some nonprofit or b corp out there making something like this happen at scale, I’d love to hear it. I’ve been part of meetups that struggle to find/keep spaces they can use, often they have to rely on someone being employed at some company or another.
But yes, I’m no champion of churches. I also don’t want every single public space to essentially dwindle to nothing. Malls are not that - and they are mostly dwindling, too. Starbucks is not that. If the only remaining public space is only trails and maybe the post office (if Musk et al don’t kill that too) and the DMV, what a sad state of affairs…
We’ll replace it with more commercial real estate squatting.
See you in the Library.
The library isn’t community, you can’t even talk to people there. It’s a quiet place by its very nature.
And squatting? That’s better, but it’s ephemeral. You can’t get attached to your squat, the cops can come at any moment and then everyone has to bail and find a new squat. That’s not good enough.
Churches aren’t community centres and they are highly exclusionary. Libraries are vastly undersold to the public but they do still offer TONNES of services and hold all kinds of community events. I’ve personally seen them as part community centre, part summer camp, or part theatre, among other things. They offer programs to help the homeless, they let you use the internet for free, and they are places of learning that aren’t spewing nonsense. They do so much for the community and they don’t even require you to do or believe anything in return.
Churches only have as much of a community as anything else that gathers weekly. My weekly social dances have the same thing, someone else might have a big game night at a board/cardgame shop, and others may go to the pub. One place near me has a giant folk music jam you can just roll up to to play or watch. Churches aren’t only not the only place to go for community but they’re also not even that good at it.
The library isn’t community, you can’t even talk to people there. It’s a quiet place by its very nature.
You do know that the vast majority of libraries have events going on every week? From dozens of book clubs through movie clubs. Heck, my local library had a troupe of mongolian gymnasts come through that was ridiculously fun.
Libraries are way more a public forum than churches ever will be. Go to any bible belt church in the south wearing a rainbow and you likely won’t even be let in through the front door. Or walking in with the wrong color skin.
It’s not free, though… I’ve watched my mother give obscene amounts of money to the church. She even did it when I was growing up, and we had NO extra money to give.
So yeah, cheer. Replace these with something better, like an affinity club with upfront dues that are significantly cheaper.
So you’re saying we should have more boardgaming conventions?
I’m all in on that proposal.
Not conventions. A convention requires paying for a convention space, and that requires making attendees pay for admittance or getting sponsors to pay in their stead so they can sell products. That’s not community.
The power of churches is they are entirely free and not commodified. That’s what makes them communal. We’d need something like a communal boardgame hall, supported by donations that anyone can come to without needing to pay anything.
The power of churches is they are entirely free and not commodified. That’s what makes them communal. We’d need something like a communal boardgame hall, supported by donations that anyone can come to without needing to pay anything.
I think you don’t understand “Free”. They weren’t free.
Use required, at the very least, selling your soul. But more pragmatically, a flat 10% tax- which frequently funded ostentatious lifestyles of the priests and pastors; and sacrificing your children to pedos.
But sure. It created “community”…
Around here the churches require you to submit your personal finances so that they can tell you how much you need to tithe in order to attend services.
Where I live, the library serves this purpose. They even have advertised game nights for various age groups on weekly to monthly basis. Maybe reach out to your public library and see if they would host.
Honestly a community hall that fills similar roles to the library as others mention would be awesome. You could get people running community brunches on weekends, you could get holiday parties and rooms for groups to meet. You could use it to host food not bombs or other food giveaways. You could let it be what churches are supposed to be, but replace the pastor and pews with a meal space and some administrators
The power of churches is they are entirely free and not commodified.
If they belong to a denomination, that’s absolutely not true. If they don’t, they’re nearly all fundie evangelicals whose independence is solely financial, since they all believe essentially the same bullshit, and any “community” they have consists of enforcing toxic social norms and conformity to antidemocratic ideals. Good riddance. You want community, reopen bowling allies, small music venues and community dive bars.
My daughters (public) school choir had to pay $2500 to rent a church for their winter performance last year. Well, didn’t have to, but the teacher wanted a different space than the school and apparently everyone thought that was an acceptable amount of money for a 2 hour performance. I was pretty upset when I learned the cost.
Like , say, a community center? I took karate when I was 12 at my local community center.
Absolutely.
But every rural shithole community has a church. Only cities have community centers.
That’s opportunity cost - they would have money for a community center if they didn’t spend it on the church.
It’s not just religions drying up, it’s all of the old hierarchical social clubs. Their membership are aging and dying off, and they’re not doing anything to recruit Millennials or GenZ. The internet opened up vast opportunities for non-work social contact and relaxed the demand that people gather in one physical place at a fixed time with rules to minimize chaos.
Good.
Great news! Maybe we can finally tax these cults as well.
No, we don’t want to tax them. Remember “no taxation without representation”. Taxing them means allowing their influence in government.
Not to say that they aren’t already influencing our government, but taxing them just opens up the floodgates for it to be done on an official level.
That’s the point. They are influencing the government by picking political sides, which officially disqualifies them from tax exempt status but that’s something that’s never been enforced.
Considering scientology has their tendrils in a fair bit of Hollywood, that might actually backfire on government coffers. If they demand their members strike, the film industry is going to be in for pain.
No way would SAG strike over Scientology getting taxed. Scientology are parasites and we’d all be better off without them.
Not SAG, just the cultists. There’s enough of them in prominent roles that it would cause financial damage (including to themselves), delays, and problems.
Jesus christ I thought r/atheism was bad. Anything religion related gets you ppl foaming at the mouth
Religion was inevitable. There’s no way to look at volcanic lightning or the aurora borealis and not rationalize a higher being. There’s no way to come to peace with life being meaningless without exhausting all other options first. Moving on takes patience and education, not additional hatred.
Oh well.
Look, I have no problem with people worshiping God or Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This world is hard enough, if that helps them navigate it, GREAT.
Where I do have a problem is the hypocrisy. Christians beat us over the head with their bible, claiming they’re the ones being oppressed, then they vote for a guy that’s been divorced three times and cheated on his pregnant wife with a prostitute. The bible says we should help the needy, but these “Christians” support cutting programs that do just that. They worship the prosperity gospel, which is the opposite of what the bible actually says. The bible says, “Love thy neighbor” but many Christians seem to have added, “…unless he’s gay, Muslim, or not white.” I’m a cyclist, and I firmly believe that some drivers would happily run me off the road on their way to Sunday mass.
They go to church every Sunday and proclaim themselves “good Christians”, but then treat everyone else like shit the other 6 days and 23 hours. If my Catholic education was correct, God cares more about your behavior during that time you’re NOT in church. Maybe they’ll get theirs in hell, but they’re making life shit here on earth for everyone else.
I know, it’s not all Christians. Unfortunately the 90% that are doing these things are ruining the reputation of the rest.
