- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.ca
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.
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I worked for an agency helping close a midwestern diocese. They branded it a positive thing but I was in the meetings with priests hearing the low down and how closings will go. It’s sad. Half the priests are old and just trying to get through. The other half want to help but are being told the cost of their renovations is more important. Let it crumble.
It’s quite a bummer to not have anything planned to take its place as a more healthy alternative, not to mention how it will impact the livelihood of some people.
If you compare it to coal, which may have employed about the same set of people (?), at least talk of retraining was being made…
As problematic as religion is, at least a lot of it was completely outside the sphere of commerce. I could see the broligarchs thinking this kind of thing being a good thing for them, since if people have fewer and fewer options outside of commerce, they’ll be forced to engage more and more with commerce, or else just be hermits.
Now the religious companies that remain are all merging together or being bought out by larger religious companies. They change their names to some douchey name that sounds like a shitty christian rock band and franchise. Somehow they’re still allowed to be non-profits despite being so much for-profit.
Now That’s What I Call Christianity: Des Moines Volume
Good.
FINALLY! You guys start to get secular state!
We still have to deal with Putin’s “200 churches” bullshit.
Good.
Good.
Fantastic news, less grifting. Now shutdown mega churches.
Good.
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.
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…
So you’re saying we should have more boardgaming conventions?
I’m all in on that proposal.
Or convert them to crack houses.
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.
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.
reopen bowling allies, small music venues and community dive bars.
i.e. places you need to spend money
Indeed, it’s a real quandary. The current choices for “public” spaces have mostly been a choice between religion or commerce.
If only there were more truly public spaces for people to congregate that were neither. Where just congregating and just doing something together (or alone, but among others in the same building) was not considered a criminal act (“loitering”).
I think about this a lot. And yes, for things like board games and other meetups. A well lit, warm, safe space for people to meet in public, and without having to engage in commerce. Without having to profess a belief in some creed.
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.
That sounds amazing. We have nothing like that here.
Do you mean that you have no library, or the library doesn’t have a game night? If the latter, you could try to start it; it’d just be a matter of getting their permission to use the space, setting a schedule, and putting up a sign. It might not take off immediately; it’d probably help if you brought a friend or two the first few times, but if there’s interest in your community, I bet folks would start coming once it became clear something was happening.
I mean my local library has, like, six tables and 10 book shelves. My town has 1200 people. What you’re talking about isn’t realistic.
We’d need something like a communal boardgame hall, supported by donations that anyone can come to without needing to pay anything.
All I’m getting at is, you have this - it’s the library. If you have the population to support a boardgame hall, you have the population to support a gathering at the library. Even if this doesn’t apply to you, it surely applies to other people who might not have considered the possibility.
Seconded. This would be far more productive than a religion with an obvious agenda/motive, you could build real communities without ties to guilt, tithing, less freedom, etc.
I like the way you think!
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”…
Use required, at the very least, selling your soul.
But since souls aren’t real it was free.
But more pragmatically, a flat 10% tax-
Tithes are voluntary. Taxes are enforced at the tip of a sword or the barrel of a gun. Quiet different.
I think they meant soul as in personhood or however you want to put it, its metaphorical speech ya pedant.
Secondly tithes are socially enforced to what degree depends on what group we are talking about but at minimum there is an expectation that you pay it, you also get fuck all out of it making it a completely empty transaction unlike taxes which gives roads, fire departments, libraries, et cetera.
Okay, but they did get something out of it. They got the Church, and the services it provided them. We can replace that with tax funded secular institutions, but it doesn’t seem like that’s happening.
Instead the church dies and nothing replaces it.
deleted by creator
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.
What the actual fuck lol‽
I remember my roommate telling me his fiance was running around the house looking for the checkbook just before church. She was beside herself. He was like, WTH, I have cash if you cannot find it, we’ll just throw that in the plate. She was like, “NO, they track the amount, it has to be a CHECK.”
He was nominally Protestant, and she was Catholic. He was quite taken aback by this rather grotesque practice…these days, do they have a QR code to scan and take cash apps? I think I can guess the answer…
Boardgaming congregations, then.
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
Hell yeah, my wife won’t play Arcs with me. I fully support more board gaming.
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.
Yes. Schools and libraries.
Neither my local library nor school has a weekly get together where we all hang out and talk.
Also, uh, not everyone has kids. Do they not deserve community?
My local library has weekly reading days, crochet club, adult focused book clubs, and regular events.
But the thing is that people in the community helped start those things. If your library doesn’t have any you should probably talk to them about starting something. I’m sure they’d be more than happy to be involved and increase the amount of people that visit!
The school was about what you said feeding kids. And yes, a lot of libraries have reservable meeting space now. More should for exactly the reason you are saying. I am agreeing with you about needing to fill the void, and saying we should expand schools and libraries to better and more consistently do that. Currently they probably only do that in blue states.
It sounded like you were telling me that there wasn’t a problem, because schools and libraries exist.
Schools and libraries aren’t filling the void. They can, if we make them, but it’s not automatic.
Yeah, my bad. They do in some places, and I want them to do so in more. I also would like to reduce thier dependence on local government for funding.
Libraries actually almost always have multiple events a week. You may want to check your local branch out. Also, you’re describing a very extroverted interest.
We need more than that. We need places where people go regularly and choose to interact with each other. Church sucks, but seeing your neighbors, engaging in community activities like celebrating births and marriages and holidays and just regularly seeing each other and being reminded of your connections to each other are important. People talk about modern isolation and by giving up community activities and spaces that’s what we get.
The fact that churches have captured the commemoration of major life events is part of the problem. Those things shouldn’t have ever been attached to a particular religion or religious denomination, those should be common to the whole community (though some sub-communities might also offer bonus commemorations such as quinceañeras).
I have seen birthday parties in the reservable spaces of libraries. Sounds perfect. Just need to expand that style of library to more places.
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.
Yeah, community co-ops do some of that where I’ve lived. And I’ve seen priests and rabbis participate as well. They’re not religious but don’t enforce secularism.
Hm, community co-ops? Do tell more.
You’re right, and I am not defending the Church. We need ways for the community to express its charity without the church, because the church is dying.
My daydream is that the building remains open, the community remains welcome, there are helpful lectures on dealing with life’s hassles, and potluck dinners in the basement, and it’s all on a voluntary pay-what-you-can basis — sorta like a church, only without the god.
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.
Yeah, I think the experiences vary. I rejected xtianity as dogma very early on, so I would have noticed people trying to push narratives. Yes, there were the kooks and the zealots, but I remember some of those types of churches the other poster mentioned where they’d put on things that were teen and/or family-focused and I’m not sure I remember hearing any god-talk when you’d walk in. Some of them were my friends’ church, some of them were friends of my parents who invited the family over for a potluck in the basement kind of thing…it could be parents would get the pitch, but I was not getting any of that as a kid/teen…
Then there are the cases where you’d go to some VBS (Vacation Bible School) - I don’t think it went craaaaazy into the pitch, but the religion was definitely there and are projects would involve something with the name of Jesus in it…
Chick tracts are still around. Someone left this awful one on my car last year after this latest war in Israel and Palestine started up. The short version is it starts with environmental disaster fears over pollution and food shortages and ends with needing a world war against Israel to bring Jesus back from the dead to save our souls.
Yeah but now we have a vague aura of judgemental indoctrinating philosophy and 0 community. We’re basically where we were just without any of the benefits. There’s some opportunity to build something new and better here.
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.
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.
I cannot speak for the South, but I do see that quite a few churches in Colorado seem to have prominent signs outside saying “EVERYONE is welcome” etc.
I imagine like Scouts of America, many churches have to adapt or die. But Colorado is definitely not the South…
sure. but how long are they welcome for? And how much do you need to align your culture and beliefs and how act and talk and dress, and even sway to the music, to stay welcome?
Even in churches that supposedly celebrate diversity… there will always be some sort of overriding homegenousness. Even if it starts with “we recognize the value in people different from us”, anyone who doesn’t gets asked to leave; and it’s just a different kind of sameness.
Oh, of course, but I’d say that holds true for so many institutions. Just try to truly be yourself on the job, for example… LOL.
But yeah. This is probably why I don’t go to church.
You do know that the vast majority of libraries have events going on every week?
No. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe if you’re in a city? My local rural library does jack shit, it just has a few shelves and a computer lab. That’s not community, not the way the local rural church is with soup kitchens and holiday events.
It sounds like your library is underfunded, but you should check with them anyway because they probably are doing things, you just don’t hear about them for various reasons. Local governments love to cut library funds and then use the lack of use to cut it further, and making it hard to know what events your library does is part of that.
My local library suffers from the same issue, but we at least have a community center the town built with meeting rooms and a gym that you can use for events. The closest city just renovated one of their libraries to include a second floor with meeting rooms and a cafe. I think another one had kitchen space added to it.
Churches are really just community space that got a pass from conservatives and capitalists in the rush to commidify every part of the human experience.
Every library is underfunded, and yes, that’s because the right hates communal spaces. We don’t have a community center, there’s like, 1200 people spread out over a 15 mile strip of seven different villages. There’s the church, and nothing else.
Skill issue. The local library in my home town does a readalong every weekend and a bunk fund every month.
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.
This fact (and I see this in the Denver area, too - the libraries here have always just blown me away in their excellence, although maybe some areas have even better ones) is why I think the libraries are under assault by the right. They seem to just fundamentally hate the idea of building healthy community as an alternative to the only public interaction that seems to compute for them, and that is commerce.
The first murmurings I heard of this was right after 9/11 - there seemed to be this concern about terrorists using the Internet w/o monitoring or something. Also, they were worried about “porn”. And “freeloaders” reading books/watching movies without paying Amazon! In any case, it seemed rather piecemeal, but you could tell that the qons probably never really loved libraries (just like their hatred of the USPS) but were trying to formulate something to put an end to it.
Then, in more recent years, they seemed to have arrived at the trans thing and this narrative of librarians being “groomers” and they have really cranked up the assault on librarians and libraries…
It’s simple, they can’t fathom the idea that they wouldn’t get something in direct return for doing a job and that’s the corr philosophy of libraries. They will, of course, underpay any and all staff and claim “that’s market rate and you should be happy” so we aren’t allowed to be mad when we don’t get paid.
Libraries are a thing that genuinely exist for the love the game. Every conservative so broken by the system that they genuinely believe that the only way to enjoy work is by being lazy, because any passion has been stripped from them, cannot understand this. They cannot understand doing something and allowing that betterment to come around later to help fund the library.
Conservatives are wildy unimaginative and full of a hatred they’re too emotionally stunted to control. They turn that hatred on the weak and vulnerable instead of their bosses who kick them in the teeth every morning and in the ass when they leave work later. Libraries are happy places, and they left true joy behind a long time ago.
I agree with all of that. It is fairly obvious to me that a lot of qons just generally hate humans that are not their immediate family (and in some cases, they hate even them). See how they treat the notion of ANY public spaces, unless they are of the xtian kind. I mean, the notion of making benches impossible to sleep on, so that the homeless have nowhere to go. The way they treat libraries. And public schools.
I think some of this hatred of public services/goods even underlies some of their hatred of USPS, since it is something that benefits nearly everyone.
One one level, I kind of understand how some uppercrust qon douches like Elon might have an aversion to public goods because they have accrued such obscene wealth that they don’t need them. But when the person that is barely scraping by, but glued to Faux and waving their silly donvict flags? I just don’t understand how these people are dragged into the same mindset. I get that a few whites/men get annoyed at seeing anyone else benefit from government services in any way whatsoever, so I guess that is at least part of it.
Churches aren’t good enough, but the are certainly community centers.
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.
We don’t have any of that shit, and a pub is not a communal space. You have to pay for it.
We have a church. A shrinking church that will die when all the boomers die. That’s it.
Ok, so it sounds like the church is a bad community investment but if the building is repurposed into a community centre run by the municipality then that’s the best option, no? It can even hold religious services for multiple religions now that it’s just a building.
Also you could totally have dances in a church! The social dances where I’m from are held in the basement of a church on Fridays. Before it moved to a community centre the organization where I live now held them in a church that had been converted like I mentioned above.
Your issue is a lack of imagination, not a lack of church.
That’s what’s happening now in England. The Church of England is selling off redundant churches and church halls, and encourages the buyers to continue using them as community spaces. I know an architect who bought a church hall in our neighbourhood, has put a large amount of money into restoring it after decades of under-investment, and has converted it to his home and offices for his business, but he’s also kept the main hall available for community groups. There are dance groups for kids, political party meetings, t’ai chi classes, and a book circle, and those are only the ones I’ve noticed.
I also noticed on a visit that a former church in Amsterdam is now a leather club.
Oooo fuck yea that’s awesome! The conversion in England sounds fun too :P
But yea that’s very uplifting to hear about, I’m glad the architect to make that work and that the town has taken to it so readily.
you misunderstand it’s the corporate landlords squatting on the prime real estate they snapped up from the church so their competition can’t move into town. I’m sure they’ll attempt to murder anyone trying to survive on their vacant land.
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.
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).
Reminds me of Gramsci. In the first instance we have the object: sex. In the second instance we have a reflection of the object: porn. In the third instance we have a reflection of the reflection: pornographic art. Then in the final instance we have a reflection with no object as a reference: AI porn. In this last instance the real thing has been replaced entirely by a simulacrum.
“Grandma, what was it like when people had sex? Before we all lived in the Metaverse?”
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 don’t think the people you meet on Roblox or Wikipedia can be community the way a church can. Even if you want to force the definition of community to include ephemeral, non-physical, and paid places then you have to accept that a church fills a far different kind of communal void than the internet. People at your church can come to your house and help you do stuff. That’s huge! You’d struggle to get any kind of real, tangible help from an internet place. Maybe some money, but that’s it.
That just doesn’t feel like community to me.
Real community is when people are in a cult whose authority figures systematically molest children. Got it.
Any other words of wisdom, oh one so ignorant of what a third place is?
Real community is when people can go to each other’s houses and help with difficult chores, or can cook food for each other and eat together, or can take care of one another when they are sick, or hide from government agents who come to kill their neighbors.
Death to Christianity. I am not making any defense of the church. In fact, I literally said we need to replace it. 🙄
Religion in general fosters these sorts of toxic power structures because it’s based on fucking nonsense.
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.
Pay-to-use can not be the basis of community.
Why’s that? Any enthusiast hobby is the basis of community, and that typically includes some degree of material investment into said hobby.
I used to take martial arts classes, which was a great way to meet new people. And we’d have opportunities to get together and meet outside of our regularly scheduled classes, but the unifier that brought everyone together was the class that we were each paying to attend.
I mean, even in the church example, you get guilted for not donating when they pass the collection box around. What difference is there with a community that shames you for not paying?
Sorry, I meant “can not” in the sense that we can’t let that be the basis of community.
Commodified spaces and hobbies alienate people who can’t afford to pay. The church, at least, allows the poor to attend.
I’m not sure if the church “allows” the poor insomuch as they simply need the poor. The vulnerable members of society are really the church’s only vehicle for growth, and so they take advantage of the needs of marginalized people to spread their ideology. Indoctrination masked behind charity. It’s more of an exploitative relationship in that regard.
Secular meeting spaces with no cost would be preferred, and they definitely exist, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a sort of standardized approach across environments and demographics without the dictatorial voice of god (or the state) demanding compliance to the degree the church does, which makes it an institution.
As another example, I also used to be part of a local Cantonese language practice meetup that would meet once weekly at our local mall. It was a small group, but we’d just sit at the food court and practice basic conversations. No barrier for entry, all welcome, but not the sort of thing that would have broad appeal, you know?
Unfortunately we have to pay monthly tribute to our landed lord to be in any community.
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 don’t know how people can insist “the internet is a community!” then then use downvotes as if that shit isn’t toxic to community.
You pay for nearly every third space.
Bars,bowling alleys, sports leagues, internet, and even churches.
In every space you are a name with a personality
Of course there are no people online. We’re all dogs using the internet while the humans are at work.
Yall are dogs to right?
Like , say, a community center? I took karate when I was 12 at my local community center.
Having a karate class in a now defunct church sounds amazing.
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.
They don’t have the money to spend on the church either, that’s why churches are closing.
Per capita contributions haven’t gone down nearly as much as attendance, though. Churches are losing money because the public is rejecting them on principle.
Not what I meant.
I mean, people aren’t going to church, and they’re just spending the money on themselves. Bills and shit. People who stop going to church aren’t donating it to their community center, which means community centers are not replacing churches.
I thought we were discussing what could be? Or what ought to be? I understand that community centers have not already replaced churches.
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.
We need to replace it with something, not just cheer because a shitty religion is dying.
Why not both?
We aren’t doing both. That was my point?
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.
As much as I’m happy to see churches go, I agree with this. I used to go to church even as a non believer for this reason. Outreach into the community is much easier when backed by an organization that is trusted, and has resources at their disposal.
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).
When did I say community requires religion?
Also my society doesn’t have jack shit. We’re all alone and it’s only getting worse. There’s nothing for me. If all y’all have community that’s fucking great, but so many of us are being left behind.
While I like that the church is less popular, you are right. A sense of community is needed for a social species like us humans. This is how street gangs work, they recruit young and probably lost/lonely kids and make them feel like they are part of something.
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.
Okay, we are physical beings and we need to gather in physical spaces.
We can’t all just be alone in our homes screaming at each other on the internet.
I’d bet a lot of American churches could fairly easily be converted into small music venues.
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.
Unless you mean like a cafe or restaurant that also happens to have live music sometimes not really. It’s not really financially viable. A 50-200 person venue that doesn’t serve alcohol and only has shows during the day is not a niche that exists.
A lot of them are built with acoustic architecture, so definitely. Also lecture halls, debate halls, maybe even public theater.
I like all of those ideas!
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.
they weren’t free. Attendance required a 10% income tax.
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.
Is this a Catholic thing? I’ve been forced to attend many different churches and none of them forced my family to pay anything.
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.
We have to actively replace them, it won’t happen on its own.
Boardroom meme:
Boss: Church attendance is down. What can we do to turn this around?
Person 1: discreetly move pedophile pastors around to hide their proclivities?
Person 2: assure the congregation that we still hate gay people
Person 3: follow the teachings of Christ and show love and charity to our neighbors regardless of who they are
Person 3 is thrown out the stained glass window.
Person 2: Why don’t we literally do what Saudi Arabia / Iran does but Christian
I remember when someone (was it on Pharyngula?) coined the term “fatwa envy”. And maaaaaaan, did that really summarize it just so much. You can tell that some NatCs are downright jealous of what their conservative Abrahamic cousins can get away with in other countries.
I chuckled that the window in this meme was stained glass, instead of the highrise like it usually is.
I was pretty happy to see the Atlanta church mentioned in the article who appears to be opting for the third option!
The United Methodist Church in my town is similar. However, the American UMC just had a schism, where all the homophobes left for their new denomination.
It’s weird how history rhymes - see the formation of the Southern Baptists…
And nothing of value was lost
Government grifters and charlatan faith leaders have completely debased the idea of ‘Christianity’ over the past few decades to the point where most people associate Christianity as some joke religion that no one really takes seriously.
Personally, I see anyone who proclaims themselves as Christian as a liar, bigot, narcissist and someone lacking in empathy for others. Sure you can tell me about Jesus Christ but I associate anyone who claims him are just paying lip service to the religion and that they are just psychotic sociopaths who are only interested in power and money.
I don’t mind Churches dying out because they’ve basically destroyed their own religion themselves.
Unfortunately, humans are a dumb species that rely heavily on wanting to believe in something so once this religion dies out another one will take its place and repeat the process. It’s been happening for thousands of years so I don’t think we’ll stop that tradition any time soon.
Some churches repurpose their land to survive, like Atlanta’s First United Methodist Church, which is building affordable housing.
That’s something more churches should do. They always preach about “helping the poor” but most don’t give a fuck.
If every church took in two homeless people, there would be no homeless in America…
They’re more than happy to take in everyone’s dollars, though. Can’t get enough of those.
Reverend Larry:
I DO want your money, because god wants your money.
One of the best things my family church did to reach out to the community was running a low-cost daycare center in our tiny rural town. It helped local families, bolstered the church’s finances, and brought new families into the church.
Unfortunately, it was an Assembly of God church with toxic teachings that I’m still working through decades later. So … straights and roundabouts, I guess.
Those poor children. Churches and religion should be no where near education.
Almost like taxing them would have been better for society all along.
The small churches that are more likely to actually be charitable and are more likely to be inclusive will shut down. The bigot-run megachurches will be just fine.
The mega rich that run them are the fundamental issue.
As always.
Crazy that it takes the church shitting down for them to actually follow gods message of giving to the poor.
There’s shit down everywhere!
it’s shit turtles all the way down
They are working behind the scenes to push women back into the kitchen and stoking white nationalist rage.
And yet, somehow, they still make all the policy in this country.
A very vocal and very active minority I guess.
Interesting that they can’t stay afloat financially, because they don’t pay taxes.
Sometimes parasites suck their hosts dry.
OK I’ll make you a deal you no longer pay taxes but your full pay gets cut to 1/4 of what it is now.
Why do you think not paying taxes makes magic money appear? If people aren’t attending and donating they don’t have money to not pay taxes on in the first place.
80 to 45 is less than a 50% decrease
The nationwide statistics don’t tell the complete story, as local situations can vary significantly. While some congregations may be minimally affected, stable or growing, others are experiencing severe declines that threaten their sustainability. A dramatic decline in one location (such as a 90% drop in attendance at a single church) doesn’t necessarily reflect the national average.
And also you’re literally missing the point even if what you said was true for a given church, since I bet you wouldn’t want a 35% pay cut on your entire wage just to not pay taxes anymore either, and that depending on your circumstances that could affect your ability to live critically.
The internet is killing God but giving birth to a new age of conspiracy theorists.
So, not much has changed.
They feed on gullibility and a craving to be pushed around by authority. Sadly, those aren’t going away anytime soon.
Agreed. I welcome this, but I will withhold being optimistic that it means that it is because critical thinking skills are proliferating throughout the population…sure, it should be, because for decades now we have the ability to easily debunk really stupid claims nearly instantly, there are a lot of people making a lot of money pushing complete nonsense at people with algorithms now…
If I were to guess at the real reason it’s because, well, there is a lot of entertainment that church is in competition with: games, streaming services, social media, sportsball, reality TV and so on…and face it, attending church is generally dull as dirt.
Or the membership of individual churches is increasing, while the number of churches is declining. Reverend Bob’s Drive-Thru Church of Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezus on a Jet Ski is probably doing roaring business.
Ha ha, the jet ski really paints a picture. The Righteous Gemstones did have those ridiculous monster trucks, but I don’t remember a jet ski!
