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> where people connect with the spiritual world In the USA, this is quickly becoming an obsolete understanding of religion. Regular church attendance is down f

> where people connect with the spiritual world In the USA, this is quickly becoming an obsolete understanding of religion. Regular church attendance is down from 70% to just over 50% in the last 20 years, according to Gallup. People are leaving the churches. The real question is what will replace them. If people need community, build community centers. There are other solutions that do not rely on continuing to provide tax exemptions to organizations that more and more people are fleeing.

saltyfever 6y ago
Are people fleeing churches or have they never been?
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  Do you mean in generational terms, or individual life experiences?
- ggggtez 6y ago
  People are fleeing, in fact. An important thing to remember is that in these polls, when they say things like "No religion in particular" they don't actually mean that these people are Atheists. They mean they don't ascribe to a specific dogma, like Catholic, or Baptist. These people often may still think of themselves as "christian" but, for one reason or another, have rejected organized religion. From 70% to 50% is such a large change in 20 years. For this to be caused by a change in _parenting only_ would mean that probably every child born 38 years ago until today never attended a church. (this data counts adults, so they would only start counting when they turned 18). That seems very unlikely. https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-sharply-past-two-decades.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-s...
juskrey 6y ago
You should see some Soviet community centers before thinking they can replace anything. USA is highly uneven. In some states like Florida you can see churches on every other corner, and they are very active and developing, serving not only as community centers, but also as halls, child day care, hospitals, schools, galleries etc. No freaking "community center" can replace that.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  > some Soviet community centers before Could you elaborate?
  - juskrey 6y ago
    I was born in the exUSSR and there, if you want to find the most apocalyptic, neglected, boring and useless building which lives by renting out itself to some strange businesses (if at all), you can ask for the local community center.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      I thought that would be the reply, but a community centre isn't a building but a function (that happens to need a building), but they're not the same.
      - juskrey 6y ago
        Exactly that. Community centers there are useless and only work as a cheap building for rent
    - ggggtez 6y ago
      Have you considered that you might just be jaded? Why should a 1980 USSR concrete building be your idea of the best that a "community center" can be, in the USA in 2020? Doesn't your complaint have more to do with the USSR than it has to do with community centers?
      - ikt 6y ago
        Yeah this veered off into personal opinion real fast, I'm like we have thousands of Community hubs in Australia and they're great and only getting better. For example: https://southperth.wa.gov.au/our-future/projects-and-places/manning-community-hub https://southperth.wa.gov.au/our-future/projects-and-places/... I didn't even realise there was a connection to Russia until he brought it up.
dropit_sphere 6y ago
> obsolete >just over 50% k (I feel like the glib single-character response stands on its own, but more verbosely: yeah, the trend isn't good, but a) there's no reason to assume it's linear, "fair-weather believers" is a thing, and b) I'm not a TIOBE follower, but let's say java use was 70% 20 years ago, and down to just over 50% today. Is "obsolete" the word you'd use?)
- ggggtez 6y ago
  > this is quickly becoming an obsolete understanding of religion Yes, I stand by my words. If you read them again, you'll see you are arguing with something I didn't say. If 29% of religious people have left the church (50/70=71% still attend church)... then that is a major shift. It would be foolish to continue with previous assumptions about the role of churches going forward without taking into account how religious people are changing their behaviors.
  - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
    Just wanted to point out this might not be true of other religions in the US. Yes they make up a smaller number, but I know for a fact that Muslims are religiously more participatory than they were 20 years ago in America. It could be sheer rising numbers, but I and many of my peers have also become more involved in our religious centers than we used to be. So what if, in order to accommodate the changing role of the church in America, you prevent the other minority religions and minority communities from ever having their centers grow in the same way churches were able to?
drdeadringer 6y ago
> If people need community, build community centers. Granted I've always been the last person to know where the party is and still don't know where to buy weed in a state where it's legal if it hit me in the face, but what I do know is that if I ever wanted to meet people the last two places I would go to is the local community center and church like it's 1971. In my experience, joining a hospice social club would be an equally bright experience.
iateanapple 6y ago
> If people need community, build community centers. There are other solutions that do not rely on continuing to provide tax exemptions to organizations Community centres are an order of magnitude more expensive than providing tax breaks to churches.
- ggggtez 6y ago
  I have to imagine that's because people spend 10% of their income on the churches that you aren't accounting for. The people are paying one way or another, the question is whether public society will fill the gap or leave it to commercial businesses.
  - iateanapple 6y ago
    > I have to imagine that's because people spend 10% of their income on the churches that you aren't accounting for. That is one part. However, it is naive to assume people would pay the same for community services. The other is most of the church work is at heavily discounted rates. My hourly rate is $160/hr in my day job and I do about 10/hrs a week for my church at $20/hr. Does your typical government worker ever do such heavily discounted work?
TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
Well, then just leave them untaxed, and let "the problem" take care of itself. My parents go to a typical < 100 member Protestant church, which is filled with nothing but gray hair, and they are the young ones. When the boomers are gone, I figure at least half of the churches in America will simply stop existing. I don't know what happens with all of that property. (The problem is that the only way to keep the lights on in these churches is to appeal to people in their 60's and 70's, but programs geared for that age bracket will turn away people in their 20's and 30's, and deprive the church of new people, new perspective, and new funding. These kinds of churches are slowly starving to death, victims of simple attrition.)

saltyfever 6y ago

Are people fleeing churches or have they never been?

lazyasciiart 6y ago
Do you mean in generational terms, or individual life experiences?
ggggtez 6y ago
People are fleeing, in fact. An important thing to remember is that in these polls, when they say things like "No religion in particular" they don't actually mean that these people are Atheists. They mean they don't ascribe to a specific dogma, like Catholic, or Baptist. These people often may still think of themselves as "christian" but, for one reason or another, have rejected organized religion. From 70% to 50% is such a large change in 20 years. For this to be caused by a change in _parenting only_ would mean that probably every child born 38 years ago until today never attended a church. (this data counts adults, so they would only start counting when they turned 18). That seems very unlikely. https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-sharply-past-two-decades.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-s...

juskrey 6y ago

You should see some Soviet community centers before thinking they can replace anything. USA is highly uneven. In some states like Florida you can see churches on every other corner, and they are very active and developing, serving not only as community centers, but also as halls, child day care, hospitals, schools, galleries etc. No freaking "community center" can replace that.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
> some Soviet community centers before Could you elaborate?
- juskrey 6y ago
  I was born in the exUSSR and there, if you want to find the most apocalyptic, neglected, boring and useless building which lives by renting out itself to some strange businesses (if at all), you can ask for the local community center.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    I thought that would be the reply, but a community centre isn't a building but a function (that happens to need a building), but they're not the same.
    - juskrey 6y ago
      Exactly that. Community centers there are useless and only work as a cheap building for rent
  - ggggtez 6y ago
    Have you considered that you might just be jaded? Why should a 1980 USSR concrete building be your idea of the best that a "community center" can be, in the USA in 2020? Doesn't your complaint have more to do with the USSR than it has to do with community centers?
    - ikt 6y ago
      Yeah this veered off into personal opinion real fast, I'm like we have thousands of Community hubs in Australia and they're great and only getting better. For example: https://southperth.wa.gov.au/our-future/projects-and-places/manning-community-hub https://southperth.wa.gov.au/our-future/projects-and-places/... I didn't even realise there was a connection to Russia until he brought it up.

dropit_sphere 6y ago

> obsolete >just over 50% k (I feel like the glib single-character response stands on its own, but more verbosely: yeah, the trend isn't good, but a) there's no reason to assume it's linear, "fair-weather believers" is a thing, and b) I'm not a TIOBE follower, but let's say java use was 70% 20 years ago, and down to just over 50% today. Is "obsolete" the word you'd use?)

ggggtez 6y ago
> this is quickly becoming an obsolete understanding of religion Yes, I stand by my words. If you read them again, you'll see you are arguing with something I didn't say. If 29% of religious people have left the church (50/70=71% still attend church)... then that is a major shift. It would be foolish to continue with previous assumptions about the role of churches going forward without taking into account how religious people are changing their behaviors.
- notsureaboutpg 6y ago
  Just wanted to point out this might not be true of other religions in the US. Yes they make up a smaller number, but I know for a fact that Muslims are religiously more participatory than they were 20 years ago in America. It could be sheer rising numbers, but I and many of my peers have also become more involved in our religious centers than we used to be. So what if, in order to accommodate the changing role of the church in America, you prevent the other minority religions and minority communities from ever having their centers grow in the same way churches were able to?

drdeadringer 6y ago

> If people need community, build community centers. Granted I've always been the last person to know where the party is and still don't know where to buy weed in a state where it's legal if it hit me in the face, but what I do know is that if I ever wanted to meet people the last two places I would go to is the local community center and church like it's 1971. In my experience, joining a hospice social club would be an equally bright experience.

iateanapple 6y ago

> If people need community, build community centers. There are other solutions that do not rely on continuing to provide tax exemptions to organizations Community centres are an order of magnitude more expensive than providing tax breaks to churches.

ggggtez 6y ago
I have to imagine that's because people spend 10% of their income on the churches that you aren't accounting for. The people are paying one way or another, the question is whether public society will fill the gap or leave it to commercial businesses.
- iateanapple 6y ago
  > I have to imagine that's because people spend 10% of their income on the churches that you aren't accounting for. That is one part. However, it is naive to assume people would pay the same for community services. The other is most of the church work is at heavily discounted rates. My hourly rate is $160/hr in my day job and I do about 10/hrs a week for my church at $20/hr. Does your typical government worker ever do such heavily discounted work?

TheRealDunkirk 6y ago

Well, then just leave them untaxed, and let "the problem" take care of itself. My parents go to a typical < 100 member Protestant church, which is filled with nothing but gray hair, and they are the young ones. When the boomers are gone, I figure at least half of the churches in America will simply stop existing. I don't know what happens with all of that property. (The problem is that the only way to keep the lights on in these churches is to appeal to people in their 60's and 70's, but programs geared for that age bracket will turn away people in their 20's and 30's, and deprive the church of new people, new perspective, and new funding. These kinds of churches are slowly starving to death, victims of simple attrition.)