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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/52667802
Experts project an estimated 100,000 churches in the US will close or be repurposed over the next decade.
Many churches will be unable to escape this “tsunami” of closings — a grim trajectory one pastor described as, “Every year the pews are getting emptier and the collection plates getting lighter.”
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God finally answered one of my prayers!
Liberall denominations — the ones that are consistent in their regard for beatitudes and calls to care for the poor, sick, isolated and stranger — have been on the ropes for some time. There was a lot of migration from liberal faiths into the atheist movement and secular community groups. And a lot fewer people went to church.
This would be likely a mass exodus from mainline and fundamentalist groups and yes, it’s fueled by the rise of white Christian nationalism and the association of MAGA and Trump with Christianity. Young people are seeing WCN as exemplary of what to expect in any Christian ministry, and want nothing to do with it.
Curiously, the He Gets Us movement utilized Jesus’ call to compassion only as a marketing tool, but was promoting WCN ministries who stand against those ideas, so it onlt taught its rarget audience to distrust Christian media.
No doubt Trumpism draws people to mega churches spouting even more hateful rhetoric than traditional ones, so I would not necessarily count this as a win.
It’s a start.
Thank god
If churches practiced what they preach young people would go. The old that are supposed to lead by example are actively showing they can’t.
I mean, a lot of them are practicing exactly what they preach. The problem is that they preach a hateful political program that considers anything outside of what they consider “normal” worthy of violent repression.
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
It doesn’t. The closer to reality ones shut down, the batshit crazy ones thrive.
We might be a bit ahead here in Germany. A lot of churches around me have been closed or repurposed some years ago. Including the one where I grew up.
I think some of the contributing factors are how church never modernizes or listens to the people. Despite Christianity claiming to be about people or some kind of community of people. And where I’m at, they just massively cut funding to youth projects. So no wonder they’re struggling with succession. They’re still catering to old people, who will go to heaven sometime soon-ish and they might leave donations in their last will. But there’s no replacement for their followers becoming extinct, since they don’t have anything of value to offer to younger people. And they’re now actively throwing them overboard because young people’s spaces and concerns are just (financial) ballast.
So… I think this is largely self-inflicted. I mean they could make an effort to offer something of value. Something that contributes to people’s lives in the 21st century. Or relates to their real-world wants and needs. But they don’t do any of that.
Here there is a common theme of daycare/church combos. It’s money, using Sunday school space for daycare during the week. It’s likely those will survive.
Yes. Their current scheme is to run daycares and elderly care institutions. The former are very profitable. I think elderly care has become less profitable over time. At least I’ve seen some of them close because of money and a shortage in trained professionals. And hospitals (which they have as well) aren’t profitable either.
I wonder where they’re going with this, though. There’s nothing unique about a business which runs daycares. I think transitioning into that will cost them their identity. And they’ll become hooked on state money because that’s who funds the lion’s share of all daycares, schools etc.
Hospitals tend to be profitable, religious affiliated or otherwise. Religion, aside from some seventh day adventist institutions, tends to be more veneer. Business CEOs and doctors gone over to business run them, not actual nuns or religious leaders.
It would be highly unusual for an urban hospital, in an area where doctors want to live and work, to go out of business. Medicine is contingent on location, locations where doctors want to live and work. For hospitals, that means specialists and surgeons, because that’s where the money is.
The loss leader of medicine is mother baby, and NICU. The latter are commonly referred to a million dollar babies, and that was well before 2020 inflation happened. Birth centers exist in the red, which is why not every hospital has one. Surgeons in other areas earn the money to support a birth center. That gastric bypass? That open heart surgery? Paying for mother baby to stay open.
When hospitals close birth centers or rural locations it’s not about religion, it’s straight up income stream based on earning doctors at that location, or how capable the city location is at covering the rural location while still maintaining profit.
Non-profit is a tax status that isn’t what it sounds like. There is always profit for a hospital or it would be closed.
Hospitals tend to be profitable
we saw a wave of closures two years ago, and are about to see another one when the medicaid cuts hit after the november elections.
Next up thousands of youtuber videos of converting churches to houses
I don’t know if it’s currently like this, but Portland OR used to have quite a few repurposed churches. One of the popular ones was by the theatre and art museum downtown. I saw Al Franken stand at an ornate wooden pulpit and discuss one of his books in it back around the Bush era.
There was another rented out for Indy band reversals. Good acoustics.
Another became a resource center for abused women.
There are options here.
My larger concern is the Methodist church is fairly chill, as churches go. To have that tempering portion of that faith shrink and die, leaving evangelicals in greater proportion, is a bit scary.
turning Houses into houses.
From the article: “There are recent signs that the gradual decline in church attendance has leveled off. For the first time in 25 years, the number of people attending in-person worship in the US has increased.”
The article also says that about 100 million people (30%) attend a weekly service in the US nowadays. They talk about the heyday of the mid 20th century where 50% of Americans attended a weekly service. The population of the US in 1950 was 150 million. So that’s 25 million more people attending church today.
So why are all the smaller churches closing? The article (and possibly the PBS doc) fails to place some of the blame on the congregation capture of mega churches and how politics has driven people into these behemoths. I know that is what’s happening where I live in the South. They have a large sanctuary and expand that with an enormous online presence. How else can we have more Church goers and less churches?
Smaller churches with smaller congregations provide necessary support and community for people. Mega churches are money machines with political agendas. The documentary wants me to mourn the loss of community, fine, but it’s the Christians that are doing it to themselves. I’m not shedding any tears.
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Covert to mosques to own the performative Christians
Thank you Jesus!
But there are downsides too. /j
Edit: woosh, I’m all for closing churches because people aren’t stupid enough to go there any more, yay! So I think it is a good thing. Hence the joke “there are downsides too”.
Like institutions who don’t pay taxes not getting to endorse candidates running for public office? Or do you mean something else?
I think the biggest downside would be them taking society down with them.
Empty churches?
