788
Churches close their doors as fewer Americans attend
(abcnews.go.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2024
788 points (98.6% liked)
News
23786 readers
3398 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
As churches decline we're losing what is, essentially, a free communal space. Church was a place where people built community.
We need to replace it with something, not just cheer because a shitty religion is dying.
I agree wholeheartedly. I don't know what the replacement would be, however. I keep thinking about that when I think about trying to bootstrap something in my community. Something that somehow (?) is supported to keep the heat and the lights on, and everything clean and very safe, the taxes paid, but provides a place to: 1) meet-up for book clubs 2) has a maker/hacker space 3) Has break-outs for hosting meetups along with projectors, etc. 4) provides open source training of various kinds. 5) Throws social functions, with food and modest amounts of alcohol.... 6) A place with trained staff that put on things for kids to do after school lets out or in the summers
Something with wifi, where access to snacks/coffee is also possible, where people can hang out all day and not feel any guilt for buying nothing or only one coffee and just being in the presence of others.
In some cases, I see libraries trying to serve some of these functions. In some cases, I have seen some "community centers" or the building owned by Elks/Masons also trying for a subset of this... if there is some nonprofit or b corp out there making something like this happen at scale, I'd love to hear it. I've been part of meetups that struggle to find/keep spaces they can use, often they have to rely on someone being employed at some company or another.
But yes, I'm no champion of churches. I also don't want every single public space to essentially dwindle to nothing. Malls are not that - and they are mostly dwindling, too. Starbucks is not that. If the only remaining public space is only trails and maybe the post office (if Musk et al don't kill that too) and the DMV, what a sad state of affairs...
So you're saying we should have more boardgaming conventions?
I'm all in on that proposal.
Missed you at the latest city council meeting. See you at the next one!
Most of the council members have a restraining order against me.
Not conventions. A convention requires paying for a convention space, and that requires making attendees pay for admittance or getting sponsors to pay in their stead so they can sell products. That's not community.
The power of churches is they are entirely free and not commodified. That's what makes them communal. We'd need something like a communal boardgame hall, supported by donations that anyone can come to without needing to pay anything.
Where I live, the library serves this purpose. They even have advertised game nights for various age groups on weekly to monthly basis. Maybe reach out to your public library and see if they would host.
I think you don't understand "Free". They weren't free.
Use required, at the very least, selling your soul. But more pragmatically, a flat 10% tax- which frequently funded ostentatious lifestyles of the priests and pastors; and sacrificing your children to pedos.
But sure. It created "community"...
That "community" is a judgmental indoctrinating shithole that destroys people.
Good riddance.
Okay, but that community also kept me from being homeless as a child. I got to eat food when otherwise I wouldn't.
We need to replace it, we can't just let community die with nothing in its place.
Yes. Schools and libraries.
It didn't use to be. I remember most churches on the 80s had a message of, "try to be a good person" and then everyone would hang out and chat. Pretty chill space. Can't stand going to any churches now.
I guess you were never guilt tripped after being forced to watch Hell's Bells.
Also, Chick Tracts were huge in the 80's and those are not "chill and be a good person" kind of things. Nor is slut shaming. I could go on.
Yeah, I think the experiences vary. I rejected xtianity as dogma very early on, so I would have noticed people trying to push narratives. Yes, there were the kooks and the zealots, but I remember some of those types of churches the other poster mentioned where they'd put on things that were teen and/or family-focused and I'm not sure I remember hearing any god-talk when you'd walk in. Some of them were my friends' church, some of them were friends of my parents who invited the family over for a potluck in the basement kind of thing...it could be parents would get the pitch, but I was not getting any of that as a kid/teen...
Then there are the cases where you'd go to some VBS (Vacation Bible School) - I don't think it went craaaaazy into the pitch, but the religion was definitely there and are projects would involve something with the name of Jesus in it....
We'll replace it with more commercial real estate squatting.
See you in the Library.
Unfortunately the internet is now the new 3rd space.
Religion advocated for bad policies in government which dug their own grave.
I don't feel bad they're closing down.
The internet isn't a third place! Not only do you have to pay to access it, but more importantly, it isn't a physical place. None of us are people here. We're strings of characters on a screen behind pseudo-anonymous handles. You can't help me, I can't help you.
This is not community. It can't be.
I think you're a person. You should be more kind to yourself. That kind of talk never gets us anywhere.
Like , say, a community center? I took karate when I was 12 at my local community center.
Having a karate class in a now defunct church sounds amazing.
My daughters (public) school choir had to pay $2500 to rent a church for their winter performance last year. Well, didn't have to, but the teacher wanted a different space than the school and apparently everyone thought that was an acceptable amount of money for a 2 hour performance. I was pretty upset when I learned the cost.
Why not both?
As much as I'm happy to see churches go, I agree with this. I used to go to church even as a non believer for this reason. Outreach into the community is much easier when backed by an organization that is trusted, and has resources at their disposal.
While I like that the church is less popular, you are right. A sense of community is needed for a social species like us humans. This is how street gangs work, they recruit young and probably lost/lonely kids and make them feel like they are part of something.