Churches close their doors as fewer Americans attend
Churches close their doors as fewer Americans attend
Churches faced with empty pews are fighting to keep their doors open, while former houses of worship are being converted into bars, clubs and luxury condos.
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.
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Congrats to Buffalo, it sounds like things are looking up there.
In my area (WA state) there was a small-ish Xian church (the one-storey building was probably <2000 sq ft and cheaply built - the steeple-ish thing (w/o a bell of course) blew off in a windstorm once)) that shut down a year or two ago and was boarded-up. It's been repurposed as a homeless shelter that specifically serves people with serious medical problems. The change has greatly improved the 'hood.
People here are arguing for the (gate-kept) community that Xian churches once offered in the US. By "gate-kept" I'm referring to the fact that Xian churches were, and are, open to only the "right kind" of people. I'm sympathetic to the need for community, and have even looked around locally for what's on offer from Xian or Xian-aligned/compatible organizations, but haven't found any that promote an ideology that isn't based on superstition and that don't demand that I defer in all things moral/ontological to a human power hierarchy within the church. One whose authority, such as it is, is based on "it's in the Book".
Hard pass on that. I'll find my community through volunteering and possibly, one day, through fraternal orgs, though I've found the ones around here (Masons, Rotary, &etc) are still hardcore on gatekeeping themselves, despite being on the wane just as much as Xian churches are. If you think you'd be most comfortable in a Xian-churchy sort of context, but are politically and socially "liberal", the UCC seems pretty inoffensive, though they still (at least locally here) carry on about "worshipping" invisible deities all the time. The Unitarian Universalists (uua.org) seem the least offensive of any old-timey church that I've encountered and it has a certain appeal to me for its association with New England and with 19th-century intellectuals like Emerson and Thoreau. The local UUs have had a local schism in the past five years, with the historical church taking a politically rightward lurch and another UU church spinning-off it but seemingly being more preoccupied with how their church is controlled (no more all-powerful pastor-types, only collective decision-making allowed) and less with charity and community. Finally we have Unity here (unity.org) which has potential for community, but where weekly service addendees seem to be almost exclusively elderly, so I wonder how much longer it will be a going concern?
I'm hoping that someday we get a Satanic Temple that meets in-person here. I could definitely see myself joining that. The Church of the Subgenius (https://www.subgenius.com/), praise "Bob", would suit me well too, and I already own a copy of the Sacred Text, but they don't meet in person AFAIK.
It’s been repurposed as a homeless shelter that specifically serves people with serious medical problems.
Church had to shut down to accomplish what Jesus would had done? Sounds like an onion article.
I tried to join the Masons here last week. I was a decent fit, and I didn’t mind the dude being a little up himself about the org, but they don’t take agnostics. Ok good luck, I’m sure you’re getting plenty of interest from younger prospective members.
Honest question: does collective consciousness not for criteria for "Supreme Being?”
The Freemasons locally all invoke The Great (or Grand) Architect of the Universe as a way to avoid seeming to require that prospective members have any particular religious beliefs. The whole approach to religion seemed very "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and I was told, by Masons, while socializing w/them at the Lodge, that Freemasonry didn't dictate any particular religious beliefs and that they had among them Brothers with very non-mainstream supernatural beliefs.
But ... while you could (I was told) hold pretty much any supernatural/superstitious beliefs you wanted to and still become a Freemason, having no superstitious beliefs at all was a hard disqualifier. No exceptions. This was a bunch of years ago, and I'm pretty sure I asked "why do you care about my supernatural beliefs if you care so little about their exact nature" and I got only "mumble mumble 'reasons' mumble" and something about needing superstitious beliefs to "understand" (or at least accept?) Masonic teachings &etc. Maybe what they're looking for is guys who are pre-screened (via organized religion) to be intellectually and morally pliable more than anything?
Oh yeah, and you still can't be a chick and join, and yeah, they'll jump to tell you about the "auxiliary" groups that DO admit women, but just like having no religion, being a woman is a hard disqualifier for joining a mainline lodge. For reasons.
Meanwhile, amidst all this gatekeeping, the Lodges (some w/beautiful historic buildings) are shutting down left and right, their premises invariably ending up repurposed as for-profit "event centers" that get little utilization or for restaurants and other commercial endeavors ... almost never for the kind of "community" space that people here are describing. The lodge back in my hometown, one that many of my family going back generations (just the men of course) have belonged to, is teetering on the brink of shutting down as the oldsters have died off. It's a shame, but they seem to have chosen "no change, no exceptions" as the hill to die on, so ...
How bizarre. Does the FSM qualify? Pliability? Quite possible. Otoh, plenty of people can't seem to grasp that the "higher self" is enough to keep them from being horrible people. It's unfortunate, either way.