Summary
Churches across the U.S. are grappling with dwindling attendance and financial instability, forcing many to close or sell properties.
The Diocese of Buffalo has shut down 100 parishes since the 2000s and plans to close 70 more. Nationwide, church membership has dropped from 80% in the 1940s to 45% today.
Some churches repurpose their land to survive, like Atlanta’s First United Methodist Church, which is building affordable housing.
Others, like Calcium Church in New York, make cutbacks to stay open. Leaders warn of the long-term risks of declining community and support for churches.
I think the risk more is the bad theology and idol worship that American Christianity is becoming. It’s sorta like how almost all mega churches are “non denominational.” There’s not a commitment to an actual ideology or set of religious beliefs, it’s become a strange cult fixated on Trump. It’s more dangerous in some ways because it’s less predictable. Being a “Christian” has nothing to do with believing that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, it’s more a conservative White identity status.
The cultists drive out the moderates who would keep things on an even keel.
Don’t kid yourself. These “moderates” keep their heads down and white knuckle through it until they convince themselves “it’s not that bad.” People don’t leave their churches.
Yes.
Say, Islam as a religion has the “cut in stone” part, the only way to change that is a new prophet. Literally. And it has the rest, which is up to very wide interpretation. And it doesn’t have a central authority (no Caliph today, though a certain ISIS type claimed that role).
So, that didn’t make Islam a more tolerant religion. Not even remotely.
Gotta wonder how things would have shaken out if Mohammad had a son survive long enough to take over.
With Islam, you do have multiple thorough legal traditions to choose from for authority. There’s at least some consistency. Iirc, there’s an entire system of grading Hadith based on how many steps removed they are from the prophet - while your average American Christian believes that Mark, Matthew, John and Luke wrote Mark, Matthew, John and Luke.
Evangelicals don’t have that kind of textual tradition, and what they do have is cockeyed squinting at their Bibles while trying to make it work with their pop culture understanding of theology. The focus on having a “personal” relationship with Jesus + sola scriptura when most of these folks have sub fifth grade reading levels means that whatever feels good at the time is what God wants.
I’ve met a lot of (ex-Soviet, that should be kept in mind) Muslims, most wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between this madhhab and that.
And Christian theology, when you don’t reduce it to average American Christians, has a lot of tradition.
What I mean … you typical Salafi is just like that:
Can we just agree that most people with religious identities don’t care about actual philosophy?
I don’t disagree with you about Christian theology in general. I think a part of it is that American Evangelical Christianity is rapidly diverging from what most would recognize as Christianity. I’ve seen a few news articles where pastors get pushback on things like the Sermon on the Mount. I’ve never a seen a literalist/dominionist advocate for the clearing of debts every 7 years; only stoning queer people. I could see Trump ending up as some sort of messiah figure.
I think Salafism and American evangelical fundamentalism have a lot in common; in my religious historiography class we discussed how increased literacy in general in the 19th century led to a lot of these “literalist” movements.
100% - for the vast majority of individuals it’s more of a cultural/in group experience. Very enlightening when you study periods of mass conversion… usually more of a practical concern than one of conviction.
Literacy increase in 1920s-1930s USSR (European parts) led to a certain kind of people for whom things officially printed are obviously true.
They unironically consider it the ultimate argument that some general summary, that is printed in an official history book for schools, says what they say. They don’t get the idea of cross-checking sources, they don’t get the idea of hermeneutics, they don’t get the idea of dispute. Actually it’s worse - they think they get all these ideas, and all these ideas are barbarism, while reading something officially printed and not doubting it is enlightenment. It’s that bad.