Churches--Merging and Splitting, and Also Tech

 I've mentioned some of my paternal ancestors were Presbyterians, so I've a little knowledge of how that denomination has split and merged over the centuries. 

In my youth there was movement towards the unification of many Christian denominations; it was being pushed by the National Council of Churches.  It was generally liberal, based on Social Gospel, internationalism (World Council of Churches), etc.  

Beginning in the 1970s or before it seems the tide has changed; instead of churches flowing together from tributaries into one big body of common belief, the water is rising and flowing back into the various tributaries.  

The recent split of the Methodists  is just the latest instance of secession movements. 

There seems to be a broader phenomenon of institutions growing larger, then splitting.  Back  around 1970 we had a lot of "conglomerates"--companies buying up other companies into one big outfit.  Even GE under Jack Welch was adding different lines of business. But there too the tide has turned, and selling off branches now seems the trend, at least in older parts of the economy.  The new tech outfits like Amazon and Google have expanded.  When and whether the acquisition process will reverse remains to be seen.

Hasidic School in New York

 NYTimes recently ran an article, seeming to show that because of their political clout, Hasidic schools spend most of their time on religious subjects, slighting the basics, which mean their students, particularly boys, do not pass state exams. The article has led to a lot of discussion.

When you have a diverse society, we have a problem in drawing lines. Over my life the society has often backed off an original decision: no facial hair for military, no afros, no turbans for Sikhs, etc. The Amish do schooling up through 8th grade only, and don't participate in Social Security.  There's no problem with the hijab and the burka, the sari and the whatever, though low-slung jeans that show underwear are, or were, controversial.

There's always been controversies over books in school, not to mention the behavior of teachers.  No pregnant teachers in the past, no beards, etc. We once wanted books which embodied the Protestant version of Christianity.  I don't remember whether, when we said the Lord's Prayer every morning in my school, whether we said "debts" or "trespasses". 

There's always tension between the authority/teachings of the professional teacher and the authority/teachings of the parents (and these days, between parents who are separated or divorced).

I wonder how nations who are more diverse than the US, such as India or Indonesia, handle the lines.  I doubt we'll ever get consensus on the lines.  

Mainline Christianity--Membership Versus Affiliation

 

My curiosity was triggered by this tweet:

In fact, the only denomination among whites that has increased recently is "mainline Protestant," which is decidedly liberal on abortion. The decline of "evangelical Protestant" - especially compared to other sects - since 2006 is very noticeable. pic.twitter.com/XUxdJa4VV0

— Aaron Astor (@AstorAaron) July 3, 2022

So I did a little looking at Wikipedia.   It seems Pew did surveys in 2014 and 2020 of individuals, asking their affiliations.  And the survey does show an increase between those years, with 16.4 percent being members of mainline Protestant churches (Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Disciples of Christ).  But in 2010 a survey of denominations for their membership showed 7.3 percent.

That's quite a gap. 

I Remember the Lord's Prayer

 Sometime in the early 1950's our morning routine in my school changed.  IIRC at just before 8 am the principal would come the loudspeaker system (in each classroom) with any announcements.  Then we'd all stand with hands across our hearts and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  (A pledge changed to add the words "under God" during those years.)

The change was adding the Lord's Prayer to the routine. At various times my mother and sister both taught Sunday School.  My paternal great grandparents and my grandfather were all ministers. Early on I was very into Sunday School and the singing in our local Methodist church (no nearby Presbyterian churches). But by the mid-50's I turned against religion, considering myself to be an agnostic.  (Now I claim to be an atheist.) So at sometime I stopped saying the Lord's Prayer.  It was a bit uncomfortable.  I don't remember whether anyone conforted me; if they did the fact my father was school board chair was protection (though I never told dad of my stand).

Religion and Liberalism

 Saw a tweet saying that mainstream Protestantism had been replaced by liberalism. Looked at another way mainstream Protestantism has always been evolving into liberalism.  Back in the 1960's "God is dead" was a fad, but the liberal World Council of Churches has, in my limited view and knowledge, focused on a common denominator of "justice, peace, and the protection of creation". 

You can trace American individualism back to Luther and Calvin--with various offshoots over the years going in the liberal direction, until finally the offshoots have overtaken the original Protestant thrust. 

Amish Versus Satmars

 New Yorker has a review of a book on the Satmar, the Hasidic sect with its own town in NY. It starts with this joke, which led me to think about the distinction between the two.  

In an old joke, a secular Jew sits down on a park bench next to a man with a large black hat and a long black coat. The secular Jew turns to the darkly garbed man and says, “What’s the matter with you Hasids? This isn’t the Old Country—it’s the modern world. You people are an embarrassment to the rest of us.” The man turns around and says, “Hasid? I’m Amish.” The secular Jew immediately replies, “It’s so wonderful the way you’ve held on to your traditions!”

For some reason I have warmer feelings about the Amish than the Satmar--why?

• Amish are/were dairy farmers, therefore closer to my heart
• More generally Amish do physical work, while my understanding of the Satmar is that the culture is focused on religious study. 
• Amish have been in US as long or longer than most of my ancestors while Satmar are 20th century.
• Amish are familiar, Satmar are strange.
• Amish seem to have been more withdrawn than the Satmar--to the best of my knowledge the Amish haven't used the power of numbers to seek political power, while the Satmar got their own town/city--we don't have the draft anymore so I don't know whether they'd be conscientious objectors to military service--I think the Amish were CO's. )
• I'm human, and susceptible to tribalism/othering.

Some perspectives from others and here.

 

The Imperfect Universe

 If we say that perfection equals uniformity, then the universe was imperfect from the beginning.  See this Chris Blattman post:

https://chrisblattman.com/2022/01/20/let-there-be-light/

Identities: Race and Religion

 Two of the more idiosyncratic bloggers I follow are University Diaries, written by Margaret Sotan, a GWU English professor, and The Daily Howler, written by Bob Somerby, a retired schoolteacher and Harvard grad. Both have, as my mother might have said, bees in their bonnet. I say Prof. Soltan's are guns, corruption in colleges, and Haridim. Mr. Somerby's are liberal media (particularly on education and statistics) and philosophy.  

Soltan has a post on an article from Mosaic, an online Jewish magazine, describing education in the Haridim schools in New York City.  There seems not to be much education occurring within the schools.  She calls it a cult, and questions its acceptance within American culture.  

Somerby has posts yesterday and today on a NYTimes Magazine piece on Rebecca Hall and an upcoming movie.  He questions whether an individual belongs to a race, and the nature of the linkage. Is it the one-blood rule, is it the context within which the person grows up, or something else? Is there any reality to race?

Seems to me both bloggers are dealing with issues of belonging and identity. If you view, as I do, the bonds between individual and nation as rather rubbery, stretching and contracting depending on the individual and the circumstances, under what circumstances do the links break.  I've no problem with the Amish Americans, even though they end education early and get some special treatment. But Haridi Americans (is that a term) stretch the bonds more, perhaps simply because they have the history here than the Amish do. But for both the Amish and the Haridi the bond between individual and group are voluntary, though as long as one is a member you're subject to group pressure.

Somerby's subject relates to involuntary bonds--you can't choose your grandparents or the cultural context you grow up in.  At least, they used to be involuntary, entirely determined by the community.  It turns out there is choice: first for those whose color is ambiguous, they can "pass", and now for many who can choose which parts of their history they accept.  (Somerby has some fun with the words "Allen whose great great grandfather...", pointing out she had several  great grandfathers (16 to be specific). 

Changes in Society--Religion

 As I've mentioned, my paternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister.  Recently I've been doing a little research using the newspapers.com archive of old newspapers. Before that I'd done a handful of searches in the NYTimes archive. 

There's a big contrast of course between newspapers in the 1890's through 1920's and now.  One hundred years makes a big difference. In terms of religion, the daily newspapers in Wilkes Barre and West Pittston paid a lot more attention to religious events than they do today. As you might expect the Times paid less attention than the smaller cities, but still there was considerable coverage, particularly on a controversy within the Presbyterian church over whether a minister was too liberal. There was also coverage in the PA cities of significant events: the dedicating of a church after its debt was paid off, an address by a minister returned from a visit to the "Holy Land", the departure of a minister for a church in Minneapolis.

These days I can't think of much in religious affairs which is covered in the media, except for religious leaders joining one side or another in political controversies, or splits over issues like the place of homosexuality in the church or the role of women priests.

Times have changed.

Great Awakening and Wokeism

 "Great Awakenings" in American history are periods of religious revivals. Wikipedia says: "The Awakenings all resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal guilt, their sin, and the need of salvation by Christ."

There are some parallels between such awakenings and the current enthusiasm for woke.  

This was stimulated by Ross Douthat in the NYTimes who wrote:

What's really inflaming today's fights, though, is that the structural-racist diagnosis isn't being offered on its own. Instead it's yoked to two sweeping theories about how to fight the problem it describes.

First, there is a novel theory of moral education, according to which the best way to deal with systemic inequality is to confront its white beneficiaries with their privileges and encourage them to wrestle with their sins.

That's a similar strategy to the revivalist appeals prominent in the Great Awakenings--you convince the sinner of his depravity and the essential need for repentance as a prerequisite to God's grace.  A further step is to examine your actions every day to determine if you are following a righteous path--for predestinarians that's the way to feel some confidence that you're one of the "elect", that you're saved from hell.

How To Unite the Country: a Common Foe, Like the Pope

 The Post's Made by History series included this piece. Before the Revolution the anniversary of the discovery of the Guy Fawkes conspiracy as Pope's Day--many Protestants feared Catholicism and the Pope as tyranny. (Those who remember Rev. Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland know the modern day relics.) The prejudice was rooted in the religious wars of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. It was, according to the piece, one thing which crossed colonial lines and united Americans. 

But come the American Revolution, with the new common foe of Britain and the need to enlist American Catholics and try to appeal to the French Canadians to join the cause, George Washington banned the celebrations.  (It didn't eliminate anti-Catholic feeling; my mother was still very suspicious of the church.) 

The Decline of Mainline Religion--How McDonalds Killed God

 Rural Blog has a piece by a minister on the many reasons for the decline of religion in the U.S.  Ross Douthat has a piece on the same subject in the Times, focusing mostly on how the intelligentsia are divorced from religion.

Given my religious ancestors and my own atheism I'm interested.  I've watched from the outside as my sister was heavily involved with her Presbyterian church.  The other day I came across a newspaper report of a lecture my grandfather gave in 1902, describing his (and his wife) visit to Jerusalem.  The newspaper found this noteworthy, presumably because grandfather was prominent in the West Pittston-Wilkes Barre area, the subject was somewhat exotic, and the lecture drew a good audience. 

How often today, even before the decline of local city newspapers, did the media pay attention to clergy as authoritative figures?  It seems most media stories deal with political/cultural/religious controversies.  Back in 1902 churches/ministers filled a need for entertainment and instruction, a need 20 years later to be filled by radio, 45 years later by television, and today by the internet.  

I grew up before McDonalds had spread to New York, so church suppers were an occasion. But church suppers can't compete with McDonalds, nor can slide shows/travelogues which I remember compete with TV. 

The Most Christian Continent?

 From this source via the Templeton foundation, it's Africa.  The trick here is that the ranking is based on total numbers, so Africa with 631 million has more Christians than Latin America with only 601 million, but in percentage terms Latin America at 92 percent blows away the other continents.

Where is North America, you ask? At 277 million it's the smallest of the big five continents.

Our Vanishing Churches--a Miscellany

That's the title of John Phipps post on AGweb.  It's an eloquent analysis of the plight of small rural churches, getting smaller as the community shrinks, and as their religion seems less relevant.

The Post has an article on the vanishing churches of DC.  It attributes the decline to black congregations moving to the suburbs.  But the article notes that some congregations are moving into alternate spaces, rentals, homes, movie theaters, rather than the traditional church building.  (A building, which IMHO, often was a status symbol, displaying the wealth and therefore spiritual devotion of the congregation.

The Post has another article on Lutheran ministers riding circuit--a couple handling five churches. As is mentioned in the article, Methodists have often used the process--the church my parents married in was Methodist and by the time I arrived, it was one of three churches being served by one minister.

My grandfather at the end of his career as a Presbyterian minister was sort of a roving troubleshooter in the Dakotas, much of his time apparently dealing with the issues of declining membership.  That's a trend which has only continued.

Bowling Alone and White Identity

To expand on the last paragraph of my post yesterday, which read: "Another note--it seems to me in the 1950's older people had firmer identities--they were Catholics or Methodists, union or management, Italian or Slovak.  Those identities have faded now, leaving only whiteness and politics."

Putnam's "Bowling Alone" and other books have noted the decline of organizations.  When I was growing up, one's identity was Methodist, Catholic, Orthodox, etc., which was reinforced by organizations associated with the church--Knights of Columbus.  For many whose parents or grandparents had immigrated to the US in the last of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th, their identity was hyphenated: Italian-American, Irish-American etc. (I was German-American but the two world wars essentially suppressed the German-American identity.) For others unions provided an identity--coal miner, steel worker, autoworker, longshoreman, etc.  If you weren't in a union, likely your employer was an identity, as IBM and EJ were identities in my area. And still others had an identity based on military service and participation in American Legion or VFW. 

Compare that with today: unions are in decline, as are the mainline churches. Veterans organizations are diffused and losing membership.  Ethnicity has declined as the passage of time means people never knew their immigrant ancestors.

What we have now is the general "white identity", education, class, and the general "(white) evangelical" religion.

The Past and White Identity

Here's an Atlantic article discussing "white identity".  Graham is interviewing a social scientist who says:

I think the term white identity politics often conjures up this image of a working-class white man who maybe lost his manufacturing job and feels he’s being left behind. There’s not a lot of evidence that such a person is the typical white identifier. People high on white identity tend to be older [emphasis added] and without college degrees. Women are actually slightly more likely to identify as white than men. And white identifiers are not exclusively found among those in the working class. White identifiers have similar incomes, are no less likely to be unemployed, and are just as likely to own their own home as whites who do not have a strong sense of racial identity.

She goes on to distinguish between having a positive attitude towards one's racial identity and a negative attitude towards other racial/ethnic groups (i.e. prejudice).  By attacking immigrants, Trump attracts both the prejudiced and the white identity groups, the latter which dislikes the idea of being in the minority.

Why would white identity people tend to be older?  One theory would be they learned the attitude at their mother's knee, and carried it forward through life, in contrast to younger people who didn't learn such feelings in youth.  Might be something to that, but I prefer another theory.

My guess is that as people get older they tend to try to understand their life.  When you're young, you're too busy living to have much time for navel grazing,but when you're in your 60's and beyond you've got the time, and at least in my case the motivation to make sense of things.  That's one basis for my theory.  The other basis is the truism that old people view the past through rose-colored glasses.  The way things were when we were young seems still the natural order of things. Changes since one's youth seem "newfangled", unnatural, wrong, or at least grating.  (The last popular music I really liked and listened to was the Beatles.)

Combine the two: the force of nostalgia and the drive to understand and you have a formula for white identity.

I'd note I don't remember much "white identity" back in the 1950's, at least not identity that was separate from prejudice. 

Another note--it seems to me in the 1950's older people had firmer identities--they were Catholics or Methodists, union or management, Italian or Slovak.  Those identities have faded now, leaving only whiteness and politics.

Farewell to Cokesbury

My sister was a devoted patron of the Cokesbury book store in Syracuse.  It closed in 2012 as part of the closure of its 57 physical stores, shifting to online only.

I suspect the closure reflects both the decline of mainline Protestantism and the impact of Amazon on bookstores. 

Slate has a long piece on the decline of the religious bookstore here, and John Fea links it to evangelical religion.

The Decline of Churches (and GE)

Monday the Post and Times both had articles on the decline of churches.  The Post covered the last service at a historic black church in NW DC while the Times article was on two declining black churches in Harlem, one of which has a carillon and both of which need repairs.

In both cases the articles focus on the impact of gentrification, on the loss of worshipers to the suburbs. That's a factor, I'm sure.  But other factors include the decline of religion generally, the aging of the population  which means fewer young people to bring to the church, and an inability to adapt to changing conditions.  A social institution like a church can do very well in one era but fail in another, something like a company like General Electric, which was one of the titans of the economy at the turn of the century and now is fragmenting before our eyes. 

"Hollow Dolls" and Essentialism and My Cousin's Book

Just finished "The Lies That Bind Us" by Appiah.  I recommend it. The lies are: creed, culture, color, class, and country.  One of the keys to the binding is the lie of "essentialism"--the idea that everyone who shares in the lie is essentially the same: all Americans are alike, all Muslims are alike, all blacks are alike, etc.

It's stretching a bit, I know, but I was reminded of essentialism when I read an article in the Times entitled "The robots aren't as human as they seem."  A biped robot is assumed to be humanlike, a quadraped is likely a dog, or maybe a cheetah.  That very human impulse seen with robots also leads us astray when considering flesh and blood humans and their beliefs about patriotism, religion, etc.

And since I've referred to "Dueling Dragons" in my post yesterday, I'll bring it up again today: I see its theme as the impact of tribalism based on all of Appiah's lies on Ulster.

[Updated--I don't think my post of yesterday does what I wanted--so some additions: if we humans can look at a biped and think it's human, it's easy for me to see that humans can look at other humans and project into the person what they believe.  And the projections will be consistent, because they're not based on facts, on reality, on data perceived in real time but based on ideas in the mind, wherever the ideas come from, past experience or the broader culture.

The reader can see that in in Dueling Dragons, as George Henderson, the newspaper editor, and John Martin exchange their mistaken (my take, definitely not the author's) views of the state and future of Ireland.]

Appalachian Religion

This seems totally wrong, but I swear I got it from a tweet by Lyman Stone, who comes off as pretty knowledgable on both Appalachia and religion. But I can't find the tweet again.

"Statistically, Appalachia is one of the *least* religious places in America. It's as secular as a college campus in California."