Unfortunately, evangelical church membership is staying pretty steady. Religious people are either deciding religion is to extreme and leaving altogether or deciding their genre of it isn't extreme enough and going that way.
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Gallup: Church, mosque, and synagogue membership in the U.S. falls below 50% for the first time in history
- Thread starter RastaMentality
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Most of my friends and family identify as Christian (as well as my self) but idk anyone whos gone to a church in the last few years other than a select few. I think online resources, covid, and of course the church's attachment to trump is effecting these numbers a decent amount.
Ideally churches would evolve to grow the charity and community building and yeet the anti-science and bigotry. But I could see the opposite happening if socially liberal youth feel ostracized by the church. And that's probably closer to reality, unfortunately.
I always make it a point to keep tab on whats happening conservative bubble world because "Know Your Enemy" (c) and I always chuckle when they try to hype up their boomer audience with this supposed wave of youth rejecting the amorality of the modern era (LGBTQ, rap, recycling) to come back to church. I remember it hit an apex when those 'The kids aren't having sex as often as the previous generation' polls were all the rage a couple of years ago. As opposed to seeing it as kids not buying into the sexed up roles that they help push with their puritainism on some forbidden fruit shit, they thought it was going to be a bunch of new blond Christians running to church.
I've lost all respect for the sermon format over the last year. Small groups and Bible studies are actually biblical
No wonder so many priests are losing their minds and getting more extreme, their tithing plates aren't paying their bills like they used to.
Churches in the US thrive on making/squeezing money out so that plays more of a factor than anything.
Like the church my family goes to - they raised the subscription (yes that's a thing in the US) from $500 to $750 per family (and planning to raise it to $1,000)
Compare that to the church I go to in india where there is no subscription fee at all
I always tell my folks , I believe in God , but not in the people who run churches
God knows what you want in advance, but also needs you to pray to tell him what you want, but you shouldn't ask God for things because you shouldn't challenge his judgement, but prayer also works and doesn't work at the same time.
Also God made the entire universe, but when it comes to making crisp, clean, unmarked 100 dollar bills that's his kryptonite.
I love God but fuck all the grifters using faith to convince struggling people to go broke trying to buy a blessing.
Hence I stopped going to church years and years ago. Not funding pastors cocaine habit and a new car for his side chick.
Also:
Hence I stopped going to church years and years ago. Not funding pastors cocaine habit and a new car for his side chick.
Also:
User Banned (1 Week): Inflammatory Commentary Towards Religion
Keep that shit rollin HARD - lets eradicate this usless filth off the planet once and for all
I love God but fuck all the grifters using faith to convince struggling people to go broke trying to buy a blessing.
Hence I stopped going to church years and years ago. Not funding pastors cocaine habit and a new car for his side chick.
Also:
Love this.
I don't know if this specifically means that people still don't hold religious beliefs. They may not see the need to go to a specific church.
That's the insidious thing about Q. You don't have to leave your church to believe in it. The whole "God wins" religious aspect is one of the absorption methods that helps it sustain itself.
Of course, the
absolute faith in an all-knowing authority figure with a perfect plan, prophesied to one day soon come forth with a world-shattering revelation that will cleanse the world in a wave of righteous justice that punishes the guilty
stuff helps too.
Agreed. My church just took a hard turn into some more conservative beliefs after several years of trying to be more progressive (i.e. we're no longer improving outreach and not truly caring for those in this country that are being persecuted). It's been hard to stomach.
As someone who appreciates what the church can be when it is truly modeled after the teachings of Jesus Christ, I'm not the least bit surprised attendance is dropping.
Also, I agree with the others that say COVID is having a big impact.
This is how my family is. We're catholic but we haven't went to church in years. Not supporting corruption.
CS Lewis wrote a good book on suffering actually(which considering the dude fought in the trenches in WW is saying something).
What I find weird is my folks who were a lot more free flowing as independent pastors of a non denominational church growing up now pushing us more for the traditional stuff...
As someone who is a white Christian but also ex-vangelical, going to churches outside the mega/Protestant loop was an amazing breath of fresh air. When it became more and more apparent evangelicalism was a tool of white supremacy, there was no way my soul could be at peace at such a church. My parents still go through.
I know the Internet has been very responsible for the increase of people leaving the Mormon church.
The church has been forced to recognize that they misled people on a lot of church history.
For example, for decades they portrayed Joseph Smith as translating the golden plates by reading them and dictating the translation to a scribe.
The truth, however, was that he didn't need the plates... he put a magic rock in a hat and put his face inside the hat and that's how he translated the Book of Mormon.
Same magic rock he used to scam people into paying him to find hidden treasures.
Not to mention the fact that he married and slept with14-year olds (or "almost 15", like the church likes to say).
I can only imagine the kind of church history the Catholic Church is hiding in its archives in the Vatican. I wish that stuff would find its way online.
Paying to have someone tell you what an awful sinner you are 52x a year.. Lol
Actually, some argued that COVID would cause an INCREASE in church membership, because a tragedy would cause more people to look towards spiritual guidance.
People are surely more spiritual after this pandemic, given for many people it was the first time in their lives to consider their mortality and individuality.
But the answers they are seeking are in no prayer.
I mean they can still be in prayer. Just not at a church.
No religious affiliation, for example, doesn't mean they don't have religious beliefs. They just don't consider themselves a member of a specific religion.
Looks like a pretty long term trend - church attendance has been declining since the 2000's. At most we might see a small jump in 2022 or so but I doubt it'll be the start of an upwards swing. This sort of trend is happening in a ton of other countries as well.
But wat will they believe in next? Don't think easily manipulated people suddenly become rational or something. They'll not suddenly be less xenophobic.
They won't suddenly embrace science. That's too far away from them.
When religion stops working for them they'll search for something that DOES work for them. Something that DOES feed their xenophobia and bigotry.
Politics for instance. Sorry, i'm not optimistic. Wish i had more reason to be an optimist.
Bro what? A subscription? Your family is getting taken for a ride. My church doesn't do that, they just do the whole offering plate thing and people just put in whatever.
Seems to be membership being measured rather than attendance.
You can still believe without having to go to a church, although I get the want for community.
