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by pumblechook
3676 days ago
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As someone who's lived in the southeast US my entire life, this is spot on. The Bible Belt gets a lot of flack, most of it deserved, but it is hard to overstate the importance of the church community here. I suspect this, not the religious part, is why churches have continued to thrive here. The problem for me (as well as many others I know), is that the tradeoff isn't worth it. There is an entire generation of people who are receptive to religion and the church community, but who are completely at odds with the traditional interpretations of religion that preach intolerance and other backward moral positions. The so-called 'contemporary' churches that have been sprouting like weeds have addressed this somewhat, but scant few are actually progressive thinkers, rather than just traditional churches that play religious rock music. I would love to be a part of a church community, but not if it means I'm constantly inundated with a message that runs counter to everything I believe in. |
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The question is whether the decline of the church in America is a symptom of other things besides the issues mentioned in the article and elsewhere (eg: churches being too connected to money and power, too focused on rules, too intolerant, too judgemental). Most unchurched still believe, so if it's just those things, then America is merely ripe for a disruptive church that would correct the current modern America church sins.
However, from what I've seen with more liberal churches that exist, the crowd is elderly and small. So I think that there's been a bit of a greater societal shift. "Make an atheist church" is not a solution, because that style just does not work for a more connected, global, diverse world where individualism is more valued. Look at this thread; many people in this thread are rejecting church because the pressure to "conform to the norm" is not worth the community gain.
Is it possible to gain the benefits of community, without sacrificing the benefits individualism? (I personally think the sins of the collective tend to be worse than the sins of the individualism, so I personally would not want to see that balance shifted to the sort of conformity many churches seem to demand.)