Churches Merge, Close: Christendom Is "A Thing Of The Past"
Posted: 10-25-2017 01:26 PM
The Incredible Shrinking Church: A Sign Of The Times?
An increasingly common phenomenon, faith leaders closing or consolidating houses of worship is a way of adjusting to a culture that has grown less hospitable to their mission.
The driving force behind the trend is the well-documented decline in Americans’ commitment to organized Judeo-Christian religion. Denominations large and small report falling membership numbers, decreased attendance and faltering financial support. The decline began accelerating in the 1990s.
Membership at churches and synagogues has fallen by nearly 20 percentage points since World War II, according to Gallup.The Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church USA have lost nearly half their members since 1967. More than a thousand Catholic parishes have closed since 1995.The number of Jews who call themselves culturally but not religiously Jewish is rising sharply among millennials.
A few faith traditions have fared better. The Muslim and Orthodox Jewish populations are growing, and evangelical Christianity’s numbers are holding steady. But more than 20 percent of Americans say they’re unaffiliated with any religion. That’s the highest number ever.
The Rev. Daniel Webster, canon for evangelism and media for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, has studied and written about the current trend for nearly two decades.
While it’s hard to pinpoint a single most important factor, Webster says, it’s impossible to ignore the repeal of most of the old state blue laws, regulations that had long placed restrictions on commercial activity on Sundays, starting in the mid-20th century.
Today’s faith leaders must compete with everything from youth soccer and pro football games to shopping at the mall.
“When I was growing up in what I call the salad days of the 1950s and early 1960s, the question in the neighborhood was ‘What church do you go to?’” Webster says. “Now it’s, ‘Why do you go to church?’”
“We no longer live in Christendom. We really have to accept that it's a thing of the past.”
The larger question, faith leaders say, is what they should do about it. More and more often, the answer seems to be: shed your baggage, move more nimbly and sharpen your sense of mission.
FULL STORY
An increasingly common phenomenon, faith leaders closing or consolidating houses of worship is a way of adjusting to a culture that has grown less hospitable to their mission.
The driving force behind the trend is the well-documented decline in Americans’ commitment to organized Judeo-Christian religion. Denominations large and small report falling membership numbers, decreased attendance and faltering financial support. The decline began accelerating in the 1990s.
Membership at churches and synagogues has fallen by nearly 20 percentage points since World War II, according to Gallup.The Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church USA have lost nearly half their members since 1967. More than a thousand Catholic parishes have closed since 1995.The number of Jews who call themselves culturally but not religiously Jewish is rising sharply among millennials.
A few faith traditions have fared better. The Muslim and Orthodox Jewish populations are growing, and evangelical Christianity’s numbers are holding steady. But more than 20 percent of Americans say they’re unaffiliated with any religion. That’s the highest number ever.
The Rev. Daniel Webster, canon for evangelism and media for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, has studied and written about the current trend for nearly two decades.
While it’s hard to pinpoint a single most important factor, Webster says, it’s impossible to ignore the repeal of most of the old state blue laws, regulations that had long placed restrictions on commercial activity on Sundays, starting in the mid-20th century.
Today’s faith leaders must compete with everything from youth soccer and pro football games to shopping at the mall.
“When I was growing up in what I call the salad days of the 1950s and early 1960s, the question in the neighborhood was ‘What church do you go to?’” Webster says. “Now it’s, ‘Why do you go to church?’”
“We no longer live in Christendom. We really have to accept that it's a thing of the past.”
The larger question, faith leaders say, is what they should do about it. More and more often, the answer seems to be: shed your baggage, move more nimbly and sharpen your sense of mission.
FULL STORY