[HN Gopher] The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside
___________________________________________________________________
The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside
Author : infinate
Score : 63 points
Date : 2024-03-26 17:25 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newstatesman.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newstatesman.com)
| bell-cot wrote:
| Say what you will about God, theology, and such - but a good
| church is far more a giant nest of social bonds than it is a
| cross or creed. And as the churches quietly die off, human
| society looses more and more of those.
| eej71 wrote:
| On the flip side, I think religion has had a monopoly on the
| idea that only it can provide that kind of space for such
| relationships. I don't think that's true.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| It's not necessarily true, but functionally ... we lack a lot
| of counterexamples that have really scaled to the level
| churches have.
| johnea wrote:
| Just wait a couple thousand years, and add the threat of
| murder/dismemberment/incineration for not participating,
| and I'm sure some alternatives would arise...
| prpl wrote:
| I don't know, I haven't seen a great replacement. The only
| things that come/came close are things like Elks Lodge, VFW,
| Country Clubs/sports clubs, and things like that. I don't
| think most of these have thrived into in the 21st century.
|
| After that, maybe kids' schools if you have the energy.
| bell-cot wrote:
| At least in SE Michigan, some of the lodges of the Loyal
| Order of the Moose (fraternal organization) are really
| good.
|
| OTOH...the Moose are a pretty religious organization, in
| many ways.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Thanks for that second paragraph, because my (otherwise
| neutral and uniformed) alarm bells on the subject were
| blaring with the notion that we should replace religious-
| institution-backed schools with secular schools run by...
| _The Loyal Order of the Moose_.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I haven't either, but I'm hesitant to suggest that there's
| something particular about the religiosity of faith
| communities that make them work the way they do.
|
| My take is that it's a familiar social institution and we
| haven't yet formulated the social protocols to reproduce a
| secular version. You mention a variety of semi-
| institutionalized social groups. To me they are associated
| with older folks, which naturally leads to the question:
| why aren't young people[1] making their own formal groups?
| why do young folks communities tend to be anarchic? And
| what would empower young folks to form their own formal
| social institutions?
|
| 1. We're talking about a rather wide swath of 18-50
| yearolds, but that doesn't _necessarily_ mean specific
| groups must correspondingly be as age-inclusive
| biomcgary wrote:
| Think of this in terms of game theory. Some religious
| communities, e.g., Christianity, explicitly ask for
| personal sacrifice for community good with compensation
| to be provided post-death, e.g., eternally blessed life.
|
| In game theory terms, cooperative behavior is rewarded
| from outside the observable system! That's the faith part
| of faith communities. Even if only a relatively small
| fraction truly hold these belief, those communities
| naturally get pay-it-forward dynamics.
|
| I'm not sure how game theory can lead to the same result
| in non-faith communities (i.e., closed systems). Someone
| has to pay the cost of "redeeming" the effects of
| cheaters / defectors.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Maybe a tangent idk, but how do unitary universalist
| groups work or religious communities without afterlife
| reward doctrines? They exist, but I don't necessarily
| think their minority status means there isn't something
| they're doing that we can learn from or expand our model
| with.
| skissane wrote:
| > Maybe a tangent idk, but how do unitary universalist
| groups work or religious communities without afterlife
| reward doctrines?
|
| Unitarian-Universalists aren't growing, they are
| shrinking. Most denominations are shrinking, but on the
| whole, conservative denominations are shrinking rather
| more slowly than liberal ones, including the super-
| liberal UUs. I remember, when I was younger, I tried out
| a few different churches. I saw more than one
| conservative Protestant church overflowing with young
| families. I also went to a Unitarian church (only one,
| but there aren't many around here), and I was the only
| person there under 50.
|
| In general, religious communities without afterlife
| reward doctrines, struggle to survive and thrive in the
| long-run. Their members tend to defect either to
| secularism or to religious communities which make bigger
| promises
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| The real answer unfortunately is that they mostly don't.
| They're an absolutely tiny minority of active religious
| people and because of that they struggle to take
| effective group action based on their values or sustain
| their communities across generations.
|
| Look at the Quakers for a really admirable but ultimately
| pessimistic illustration of it. A long and almost
| uniquely sound history of true dedication to causes of
| human freedom, safety, comfort, and thriving, but with no
| shared creed per se. At times united in their activism
| and influential because of it (abolition, prohibition,
| civil rights). Now generations removed from any unifying
| cause, they are fragmented into an entire continuum of
| irreconcilable beliefs; fewer than half a million left
| globally. And the only thriving, growing communities
| among them are in africa, with belief and worship
| virtually indistinguishable from the local main stream of
| evangelical christianity.
|
| Whatever it is that makes religions culturally impactful
| does not seem easily separable from whatever it is that
| makes them _religions_. People have tried over and over,
| not all of them completely unsuccessfully. But I don 't
| know of any with the kind of durable cultural influence
| we see in the mainstream religions that don't value or
| attempt that separation.
| skissane wrote:
| > Look at the Quakers for a really admirable but
| ultimately pessimistic illustration of it
|
| > And the only thriving, growing communities among them
| are in africa, with belief and worship virtually
| indistinguishable from the local main stream of
| evangelical christianity.
|
| To add to what you say, not just in Africa but also in
| the West, the branchers of Quakerism which seem to be in
| the greatest health, are at its evangelical Protestant
| end - whereas, the end of the Quaker spectrum which you
| are talking about, is the one in the worst health
| bombcar wrote:
| The main thing churches have going for them is that they
| are "all ages" and specifically _family_.
|
| The VFW, Elks Lodge, Masons, Knights of Columbus, they're
| all _old_ and mostly _men_.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| KofC is also very specifically tied to the Catholic
| Church, so it has no reason to try to substitute for the
| role filled by a Church.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| We're pretty deep into an experiment to see if it's
| otherwise. A lot of people have been confident that other
| structures will emerge, and a lot of institutions have
| presented themselves as the alternative. I haven't seen
| anything convincingly comparable, though I'm sure others see
| it differently.
| jayknight wrote:
| Certainly not. But a good church (and not all of them are)
| actively promotes parishioners to connect in deep ways,
| sharing vulnerabilities and weaknesses in ways that usually
| don't happen without some intentional guidance.
| Unfortunately, this "feature" also opens up churches to be
| places where different kinds of abuse can (and does) happen.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Talk to some really old people, who recall the 1950's. At
| least in America, there were a huge number of non-church
| social groups. And families tended to be both far larger, and
| considerably better connected.
|
| If some churchgoer was saying, _today_ , that the churches
| have some sort of monopoly on providing such spaces...my
| interpretation would tend toward "we have a monopoly, while
| we last, because every other provider is already gone".
|
| (Yes, if you go further back, especially in Europe, the
| church had _somewhat_ more of a monopoly. Partly that was
| because governments were rather authoritarian, and didn 't
| want organizations to exist, beyond their tightly-controlled
| churches.)
| causi wrote:
| As an atheist, I disagree. The power of the church has been
| dying _at the same time_ as the availability of other, non-
| religious "third places". Thirty years ago you not only had
| a stronger church, but you also had more shopping malls,
| community centers, diners, and parks. Superficial electronic
| socializing and personal isolation is killing the concept of
| community across the board.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| People keep waiting for this new concept / institution that
| can replace religion for community building, moral cohesion,
| and cross generational culture to emerge... but at this point
| I'm fairly certain it aint coming. I consider this hope the
| optimism of mid-wits who believe in emergence and evolution,
| but can't grasp why ideologies that co-evolved with humanity
| for a few thousand years might be better at filling those
| roles and needs than their fad secular prophet's
| intelligently designed philosophies. The modern Nietzscheian
| free thinker of the day is rebelling against conventional
| wisdom and propaganda by saying maybe we DO need religion. Oh
| the irony.
| knightoffaith wrote:
| But what else is the secular world to do? Suppose you're
| right and we do need religion. Surely the solution isn't
| for atheists to pretend that religion is true, right? Even
| if they did, the psychological benefits of religion are
| probably at least greatly weakened (if not absent) when the
| follower doesn't even believe it's true.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| Agreed. I recently made it out of a high demand religion.
| When talking to my brother-in-law (still in the religion)
| about it, he said something along the lines of "I don't think
| the church is necessarily true. But I think I personally need
| it in order to be a good person."
|
| Well.. of course that is what the religion you were born
| into, brainwashed by, and are currently paying crazy amounts
| of money to wants you to think. It is necessary for the
| churches survival.
|
| People need to be careful about believing anything taught by
| an organization when that organization's very survival
| depends on you believing that thing.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > People need to be careful about believing anything taught
| by an organization when that organization's very survival
| depends on you believing that thing.
|
| I think you're off the mark here. Your brother-in-law
| _doesn 't_ believe what the church teaches. He believes in
| the effect he sees it having on his own life (and maybe
| also the effect that _not_ having it has on his own life).
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| Yes. And he has been told every day of his entire life,
| by said church, that he can only get that effect through
| them. High demand religions are an entirely different
| beast. They control every aspect of your life.
| adamc wrote:
| I'm not religious, but I don't see a lot of evidence of other
| forces filling that space. In part, it takes a lot of
| commitment (and resources) to do it well. Religious
| communities have been motivated, but I don't see other groups
| filling the void as they depart.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Yeah but I think the issue is the loss of tight knit
| communities, not that the churches are the only way.
|
| I think they are simply the ones that survived the most in
| our current era of narcissism and consumerism because they
| were bigger to begin with.
|
| I mean I live in an old fashioned, traditionnally poor
| gipsy neighborhood. Most people around here don't go to the
| church, but this is a tight knit community. As a stranger,
| and for good reasons[1], it took me a long time to be
| accepted as part of it, and in a sense I will never be
| completely part of it. However I have already been shown
| that my neighbors are ready to give me a hand when I need
| it and even that they are ready to fight for me had I been
| in a situation that required it, no question asked. Which
| is funny because these are the same people that initially
| tried to rob me!
|
| [1] first and foremost because the presence of expats
| working remotely for big corps like me is one of the reason
| the rents are ever increasing and becoming out of reach to
| skissane wrote:
| I look at my local Catholic parish, and one thing that really
| helps keep it alive, is the parish school. A lot of parents who
| don't really believe in it all will still take their kids to be
| baptised so they can get into the school (and then for the
| other sacraments to get into the local Catholic high schools).
| And, once you have a large number of people with that
| connection, a few of them may decide to take it deeper. One dad
| I know from the school is officially converting (from some kind
| of Protestant) this Easter Sunday, he told me "my wife and kids
| are Catholic, I might as well be too".
|
| It surely helps that here in Australia, private schools receive
| extensive government funding, roughly on par with what public
| schools get, which assists the Catholic Church in running lots
| of (relatively low fee) private schools. In effect similar to
| the idea of "school vouchers" in the US, although not actually
| implemented that way.
|
| I note Methodists don't have as strong a tradition of running
| their own schools as Catholics do. In Australia, if you go back
| to some point in the 19th century, there were no public
| schools, only private religious ones, Methodist included
| (although Church of England was most common). Then, the
| Protestant churches made deals with the colonial governments,
| the colonial governments would take over most of their private
| religious schools and turn them into public ones, the churches
| would keep only their most prestigious schools (aimed at the
| upper classes)-the Catholic Church refused to take part, and
| then spent decades agitating for its schools to be publicly
| funded ("why do Catholics pay taxes to educate Protestant
| children but not their own?"), until finally in the 1960s the
| federal government agreed to fund them (in part because it
| really needed the Catholic vote, in part because the bishops
| threatened to close all their private schools, which would have
| completely overwhelmed the public system)
| bombcar wrote:
| The USA has something similar, though the schools aren't
| subsidized (much, there's some in some places, but it's
| relatively minor) by the state or feds.
|
| They _are_ subsidized by the diocese, the "Annual Catholic
| Appeal" is mostly taken from parishes and sent to the
| parishes with schools.
|
| The schools close usually from lack of kids not lack of
| funds.
| skissane wrote:
| > The schools close usually from lack of kids not lack of
| funds.
|
| Australia has much more of a private schooling culture than
| the US. About 36% of Australian children go to private
| schools, compared to only about 9% in the US. And slightly
| over 50% of Australia's private schools are Catholic. So
| Catholic schools closing from "lack of kids", I wouldn't
| say it never happens in Australia, but certainly a lot less
| common than in the US. Decline in Catholic religious
| affiliation doesn't necessarily lead to school closure,
| because many Australian Catholic schools enrol large
| numbers of non-Catholics
|
| I suspect funding is a big part of this-if the US
| introduced widespread school vouchers, the private
| percentage would likely creep up. But Australia has had
| publicly funded private schools for over 50 years now, so
| even with school vouchers, it could take decades for
| private schooling in the US to reach Australian percentages
| bombcar wrote:
| Vouchers would certainly raise the percentage in the US,
| but it would take quite a long time to get to 36% or even
| 18% - that's a lot of schools that would have to be
| reopened or rebuilt, and teachers found or trained.
|
| The lack of kids is often because the school is in an
| older part of town, which has become "newly wed or nearly
| dead" and they don't have enough people willing to drive
| long distances to use the school. Others are rural in
| areas that are just depopulated now.
| skissane wrote:
| > The lack of kids is often because the school is in an
| older part of town
|
| This happens less in Australia, because Australia has
| rather different population dynamics from the US.
|
| Significant population decline in inland rural areas,
| especially in smaller towns, which leads to school
| closures (for public schools too)-something also
| happening in some parts of the US
|
| But, the problem the US has with decaying urban areas
| (e.g. Detroit) just doesn't happen in contemporary
| Australia. Most of the population lives in a handful of
| big metro areas, which just keep on booming, due to
| runaway property prices, and absorbing a constant stream
| of immigrants (on a per capita basis, Australia's
| official immigration rate is almost twice that of the
| US.) Also, local government is a lot weaker, urban
| planning is controlled by the state governments, and they
| just won't let that kind of urban blight happen on their
| watch
| macintux wrote:
| Combine this with the great cousin decline discussed[0] a few
| months back and it doesn't bode well for society.
|
| Jobs are no longer life-long. Families are smaller and
| increasingly dispersed. Churches aren't what they used to be.
|
| And online communities are often toxic and radicalized in the
| name of profit and division.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38719249
| tomrod wrote:
| Fraternal societies were very good for providing community self
| organization and services until the Great Depression resulted
| in loss of dues, shuttering most of them.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Which is doing the most harm, though - the decline of religion,
| or the rise of 'virtual communities', replacing in-person
| interaction and community-building with something less real and
| more gameified?
| uticus wrote:
| > a good church is far more a giant nest of social bonds than
| it is a cross or creed
|
| History has shown different. Martyrs relied more on cross and
| creed (and indeed a specific person the cross & creed spoke of)
| than social bonds. 'Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life
| also' is a sample from a specific slice, but representative of
| a larger concept.
|
| Of course a martyr may die _wrongly_ , but the point is that a
| definition of a 'good' church should include considering
| concepts of before birth and after death, in addition to life.
| In my experience, that leads to the social bonds.
|
| The lack of this care for cross and creed in many churches I've
| visited seems to be the precurser to a dying church. There is
| little to attract new generations if little things are at
| stake.
| ilamont wrote:
| Outside of Boston many churches have closed or consolidated over
| the decades owing to declining attendance and the Catholic clergy
| scandal from the early 2000s. Others have barely managed to
| persevere, in large part because of child care centers located on
| the premises which provide operating funds, as well as
| volunteer/community efforts to provide help where needed.
|
| One positive trend: New or growing ethnic groups who take over a
| fading building. When the Archdiocese of Boston shut down or
| combined several churches in the wake of the scandal, it decided
| to let a Korean congregation use one of its smaller churches that
| had been closed. Services were well attended because it's near
| the intersection of two major highways, and congregants come from
| many miles away, including from other states in New England.
|
| After a few years, the Archdiocese of Boston deeded the entire
| property to the Korean congregation who did a wonderful job of
| fixing the building and bringing life back to that church. It's a
| beautiful church and I was so glad to see it happen.
|
| https://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.php?ID=196714
|
| https://ccfboston.org/impact-stories/st-antoine-daveluy-pari...
| martinpw wrote:
| I was a local preacher in the Methodist church a long time ago,
| in Birmingham England. (There are more churches than ministers in
| the Methodist church so the gap is filled by laypeople who lead
| services on Sundays.) I remember in particular going to churches
| in the Black Country, home of the industrial revolution. Large
| churches from a time when they were far more attendees, many from
| the factories, but now holding just a handful of mostly elderly
| congregants. Even with such small numbers the singing was
| magnificent.
|
| I am sure almost all those congregations are gone now. Is it a
| loss? I don't know. I no longer have the faith I did then, but I
| did see the power of community, genuine concern for one another,
| and a deep faith expressed in a very specific understated way. It
| is something I still remember all these years later, and I
| haven't really seen it reproduced in other social environments.
| tomrod wrote:
| We can build non-religious communities with good governance and
| inviting attendees. We desperately need it.
| toyg wrote:
| Those communities still need some sort of faith to keep
| going. It doesn't have to be faith in supernatural gods; it
| could be in the destiny of mankind to surf the universe, or
| in the revolution of the proletariat, but it will still be a
| type of faith.
| libraryofbabel wrote:
| Why? That may sound vaguely profound somehow but it's just
| not true. Communities don't have to be secular churches. A
| cycling club or a board games meetup or a book club don't
| have "faith", just a shared focus and people who are
| willing to show up every week.
| snapcaster wrote:
| But those groups (board games, book club) don't fulfill
| all the same social functions as church/religion. I tend
| to agree with you (people say it a lot without evidence)
| but I don't seem to see any examples out there
| contradicting it. For example, a lot of people seek out
| religious communities when raising children but I've
| never heard someone say that about their cycling club
| silverquiet wrote:
| The talk about clubs made me think of "Fight Club" which
| within the story went on to be a sort of all-encompassing
| cult. In retrospect, it really wasn't all that subtle
| about the problem of nihilism in advanced societies.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Churches are essentially tribes (i.e. shared identity)
| unified by a sense of purpose external to one's self.
|
| Cycling clubs and board games groups can bring people
| together, but they don't ask for the same kind of
| commitment or engender the same sense of shared identity.
|
| It isn't that they _cannot_ substitute and create many of
| the benefits, but are unlikely to.
| harimau777 wrote:
| Something like a cycling or book club isn't going to have
| the deep connection, commitment to unconditional love,
| etc. that a healthy church has.
|
| Humans are emotional, physical, and (whether you
| interpret it as supernatural or not) spiritual creatures.
| The ritual and belief in something bigger than oneself
| are an essential part of the process. If you look at
| other organizations that serve similar roles to
| conventional churches (such as the Grangers, Freemasons,
| Shriners, The Lions Club, etc.) they all replicate the
| ritual and higher purpose commonly associated with
| churches.
| barrysteve wrote:
| They're not communities, they're just activities that are
| attended by a friendship group.
|
| Church is way more meaningful than that. Baptisms,
| deaths, marriages are run by churches and the meaning can
| survive the majority of attendants not showing up.
|
| The problem in modern society, is teaching the meaning
| behind churches. It takes longer than a couple cycling
| classes and is more demanding on the spirit.
| smackay wrote:
| Shared purpose in some ways works better. It certainly can
| be fostered in the same ways that faith can. Sports works
| really well and "fringe" activities like birding bind
| people together really well. For example the solidarity
| among cyclists (the ones out and about in the countryside)
| here in Portugal is really strong. Pretty much everyone
| says hello and you can't stop on the side of the road or
| trail without everyone who passes asking if everything is
| ok.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Without an underlying morality driving it the efforts would
| be in vain.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| I'm saying this as an agnostic who grew up in the UMC:
|
| All attempts to do this, particularly in the internet age,
| have failed _spectacularly_. They just turn into the worst
| parts of organized religion without the higher power.
| Remember the Reddit atheist movement of 10-15 years ago? A
| not-insignificant portion of that population went on to
| become the alt-right.
| tempaway153751 wrote:
| _Remember the Reddit atheist movement of 10-15 years ago? A
| not-insignificant portion of that population went on to
| become the alt-right._
|
| You're making an observation about the USA type of atheist
| here, and I'll leave that to you because I understand that
| in the USA atheists are an unusual thing. But I just want
| to point out that in the UK and many parts of Europe, being
| atheist is just very normal. Its so normal that there's not
| really a label or a scene, and there's also a lot of just
| agnostic/dont-really-ever-think-about-it type people that
| would probably be classed as atheist in the USA, but in the
| UK they're just <unlabelled> because no-one cares whether
| they believe in deities of some kind or not. And many
| people might say they are christian when asked (46%), but
| dont ever pray, or go to church. A lot of UK people have
| christian weddings and funerals, but thats about the sum
| total of their involvement. Only 8% of the UK are getting
| baptised, only about 5% go to church regularly.
|
| For example I see that in the USA its very important for
| politicians to talk about their faith, and if a politician
| is atheist it gets talked about as a 'thing'. In the UK its
| the exact opposite, the last thing we expect politicians to
| talk about is their faith in god, and if they do talk about
| it we get kindof weirded out (ref: Tony Blair in the late
| 90s).
|
| I just want to point that out, because I know the UK
| exported Dawkins and that might give people the wrong
| impression. Most of the UK are quiet-atheist or quiet-
| agnostic. And they are quiet because its no big deal,
| there's no political or moral stakes, no-one gets judged
| for being non-religious over here. (Even in politics, where
| you might expect political opponents to nit-pick everything
| about each other, no politician here would ever call out an
| opponent for being atheist, because it would just be a
| nonsensical thing to call out, and they would be laughed at
| for even trying to call it out)
| slongfield wrote:
| The Unitarian Universalists exist. It's not really non-
| religious, but it is inviting to non-theist people, or those
| who don't otherwise believe in the supernatural.
|
| https://www.uua.org/beliefs
|
| Full disclosure: I'm an atheist UU and a member of my
| church's board of trustees.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There's some humanist communities out there that might fit
| the bill. But it's difficult to unite people.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| I've thought about 'secular Sabbath.' Low or no technology,
| community, food, being self sustaining outdoors.
|
| There is a lot of appeal to some practices of the mountain
| Mennonite/amish in CO where I'm at.
|
| But a lot of those things that appeal to me, and trying to
| organize something like that, could quickly turn into a
| prepper cult ;0
| mprev wrote:
| Did you ever come across a minister named Holt in Gornal?
| martinpw wrote:
| I don't remember that name, but it was a long time ago...
| sgt101 wrote:
| Now, we have e/acc... but they don't seem to want to sing hymns
| and do go works.
| snapcaster wrote:
| e/acc doesn't fulfill the same functions as church though.
| Churches and religions create a community they're not just
| charity dispensers
| dang wrote:
| [stub for offtopicness]
| Alex63 wrote:
| Off topic: I thought (probably incorrectly) that the EU
| required that the cookie preferences for sites were supposed to
| offer "Reject All" if they offered "Accept All". I realize The
| New Statesman may not need to comply since Brexit, but their
| opt-out logic seems almost to be calculated to make people give
| up before they opt out of everything. Net result is that I
| didn't read an article that might have interested me, and I
| didn't see any of their advertisements because I didn't want to
| be tracked.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| The cookie law still applies in the UK because it has not
| been revoked. IIRC, there was a ruling recently that it must
| be as easy to reject all as it is to accept all. Not every
| site has been updated/fixed; I still see dark patterns,
| frequently, but I do feel like it has gotten better.
| red_admiral wrote:
| I believe you are correct, definitely in terms of the spirit
| of the law and probably in terms of the text. It's just that
| there haven't been any landmark legal cases yet to settle
| this point (further complicated by the fact that the EU is
| more civil law than common law).
| surfingdino wrote:
| Funny how all those "eternal" gods never outlive their
| believers.
| aliasxneo wrote:
| The Western church (as it relates to Protestant Christianity)
| has been dying for some time now. However, I wouldn't really
| use the West as any sort of thermometer for Christianity's
| influence. The underground church in oppressive countries has
| been growing at a fairly steady rate for some time now. From
| my perspective, I'm seeing more of a shift than anything
| else. I suspect it won't be long before countries start
| sending Christian missionaries to the US (I know of at least
| a few cases of this already happening).
|
| Source: I work within a para-church organization that keeps
| track of this stuff.
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| There should be many church closures if you believe the Bible
| itself. Jesus starts the church based on faith in how His life
| and death earns our forgiveness for us, resulting in eternal
| life (see GetHisWord.com). His church is to prioritize the
| truth, reflect Christ's character in every area of life, have
| strong fellowship with each other (which is fun!), share the
| Gospel, and help those in need. God's Word (and China today)
| shows such churches multiplying even as believers are jailed
| for sharing Christ.
|
| Jesus and the Apostles also promised that people would turn
| away to false religions and versions of Christianity. Even in
| NT, we see the denying the divinity of Christ, adopting parts
| of worldly culture to appeal to outsiders, not loving each
| other, preaching focused on health + wealth, etc. God's Word
| said in the last days that that would be extremely common with
| record amounts of people being godless, in churches with non-
| Biblical teaching, and following false prophets who work false
| miracles (eg TV preachers). Jesus also says in Revelation 2-3
| that He'll shut down many churches like that. All of that is
| happening.
|
| So, the correct thing is to return to the real Gospel, teaching
| built on God's Word, churches focused on living it, and love
| and accountability among believers. More non-believers will
| believe it when they see it. Also, more prayer... every church
| praying for the nation as we were commanded to... so we see
| more great moves of God. Prior revivals had thousands of souls
| changed and lives changed. In Wales, crime effectively stopped
| for a while to the point the police were all bored. Imagine
| that.
| mrwyndham wrote:
| Let me strengthen my brothers for a moment.
|
| The church is not dying. False believers are leaving.
|
| Loving Jesus but not obeying Jesus is called being a false
| believer.
|
| In my church many people my age are being saved I'm 26 and it
| is all god.
|
| People literally show up cause god told them to.
|
| He is real and he is working. Gods not dead.
|
| He is bigger than your unbelief and bigger than false red
| letter, liberal, social club, nice set of stories Christianity.
|
| He doesn't need you, you need him.
| zoogeny wrote:
| Something of this story reminds me of the famous Ozymandias poem.
| In a very real sense we are surrounded by the artifacts of a
| kingdom that no longer exists.
|
| I think it is easy to feel the shock of massive and violent
| cultural revolutions like the ones that took place in some
| communist countries. It is another thing to watch the slow death
| of our own cultural heritage. Nothing is being forcefully taken
| from us and so it is hard to register that there is any loss
| happening at all.
|
| What I can say personally, is I have no desire whatsoever to join
| an elks club or odd fellows or anything of that sort. I find it
| hard to imagine any kind of institution that could replace the
| multitude of activities that constitutes a church.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| I guess I'm saying this as a young person who is part of the
| "Young people aren't joining churches" phenomenon:
|
| There are no activities that churches do, that appeal to me.
| That's why I didn't even stick with the local UU church.
|
| This does seem like a bad sign - I don't have connections to my
| own town, I don't feel like I'm thriving here, I'm getting by
| with pretty loose friendships with people who sometimes live in
| other towns, I don't have any connections with anyone outside
| my own age group.
|
| From another perspective, it's what I want. I like socializing
| with people my own age, who I've chosen to form small groups
| with, and not having to avoid that one person at church who
| believes in way more woo than I do. I don't really want a
| mutual aid network. If I have to move to a bigger city, maybe
| that's fine - Lots of people already moved out of my town... :(
| sys32768 wrote:
| I miss church, but mostly the church community. A lot of good
| people who genuinely love each other.
|
| I cannot find my Cheers bar.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| > I cannot find my Cheers bar.
|
| That's because Cheers deliberately kept the character most
| central to the show's sense of comraderie out of the sight
| lines: an uncredited bouncer posted just outside the door, with
| the thoroughly Southie name Plot Armor.
| beAbU wrote:
| I recently moved to a new country, and I have some friends who
| did the same. I'm not a church goer, but some of my friends are.
|
| Truly, going to church is the easy mode of integrating into a new
| society. I have no idea where to even begin making friends :(
| prmoustache wrote:
| Don't you have a hobby?
| jamiecurle wrote:
| I grew up playing at this church in the 1970's and passed it
| everyday until the early 2000s when I moved a bit further north.
|
| It's a wonderful building and a loss for the town, but as a whole
| the town has completely changed (for the worse) since the
| internet grabbed local commerce by the neck. It's not a unique
| story, probably most of us in the smaller towns in England have
| seen it.
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