Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

That's a lot of horseradish.

 

and Chag Sameach to everyone celebrating.

 

My wife's oldest sister and her husband usually have the family over for Passover, and there is always a moment when he loads up on that stuff to show off how much he can handle. Tonight, he met his match. He and his son were left gasping as I fought hard against the urge to laugh.

Both of my brothers-in-law have been particularly skittish about COVID, so this was actually the first time we've all been together since the summer. I had even been looking forward to the Seder, a rare thing.

 

That’s quite a drop in 20 years.

 

Happening in Canada too. The church I sing for has a drastically reduced congregation (and cash flow) as the older generation dies off and the younger ones show up to get married and baptize their children, never to be seen again.

 

Regardless of your feelings on organized religion, those declines bode poorly when it comes to continued declines in civic engagement. Even atheist and agnostic groups admit they have not been able to create a parallel structure that creates the lasting beneficial knock-on effects for civic culture that churches do.

 

And the ones that do are following strident religions based on fear, hate and guns..

 

I read Bowling Alone - and later interviewed the author for an article on civic engagement. There are obvious parallels to religion and even the decline in people who ID as Democrats and Republicans - we still like "participating" (bowling), but there is far less appetite to "committing." (a bowling league). See also the number of people who describe themselves as "spiritual."
The slicing and dicing of Americans into smaller groups - often by choice - (see the decline of general interest newspapers and magazines, stores like Sears, and where we choose to get our news, or maybe we watch something else on the thousand different cable channels) makes it harder and harder for people to "conform" to one mass idea or group - if they even want to - since there is probably some sub-group where they will feel right at home.

 

I don't like organized religion, BUT, the dying of community in this country is a huge problem. No matter how you define community.

 

And, just think, there are many who would think this is a good thing.

It is not, and we're already seeing the results/consequences of it.

 

Civic/religious/social/league participation may very well be on their last legs. I belong to more than one local civic organization, and participation is in the gutter, and that predates COVID.
These type groups used to give people an outlet to - if nothing else - just get out of the house and engage with others. Now, people don't want to get out of the house and engage with others. People sitting at the same table can't get their nose out of their phone long enough to talk to the person sitting across from them.
Those who do get out of the house have their time consumed by dragging their kids to 47 different events each week.

 

I’m wondering if we get a dead cat bounce in group participation the second half of this year and into 2022 with people burnt out on being at home. Long term, I absolutely believe you.