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My pet theory is that the decline of churches has less to do with the secularization of culture and more to do with the fact that they're not very entertaining
by AbrahamParangi 3y ago
My pet theory is that the decline of churches has less to do with the secularization of culture and more to do with the fact that they're not very entertaining or engaging relative to whatever else you could be doing on your weekend.
The "engagingness" of entertainment has been increasing in absolute terms for a while now, and it really picked up in the 20th century. Meanwhile, the "engagingness" of mainstream religion has not kept pace. It is perhaps indicative that those groups of people best able to keep devout religious practices also typically shun all the rest of consumer entertainment.
In that frame, megachurches represent an evolution to survive this higher-engagement ecosystem. To compete, church must be more fun, which in this case means turning into a giant pep-rally/rock concert.
- CharlesW 3y agoThis is a really interesting point — Facebook vs. congregation, Netflix vs. meditation, etc.
- tivert 3y ago> My pet theory is that the decline of churches has less to do with the secularization of culture and more to do with the fact that they're not very entertaining or engaging relative to whatever else you could be doing on your weekend. The (excellent) book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman made a similar point. Basically, the characteristics of communication mediums have a strong influence on the content (e.g. television has to entertain), and as certain mediums get popular, they set up corrosive expectations (e.g. learning has to be fun, so people reject learning things that may be important and valuable but aren't entertaining). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death