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Churches close their doors as fewer Americans attend
(abcnews.go.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2024
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45% is considerably higher than I expected. I thought it would be closer to 10-15%.
Membership is not the same as attendance, and it's WAY less than the number of people giving financially.
I was a preacher at a 1200-member church that had weekly attendance around 150-200.
And based on the demographics of the area, we received less than 1% of the annual income for those who did attend regularly.
The thing about churches is that they don't require payment of any kind, and kind people will dedicate time and effort in a very loving way that is inefficient, when what we really need is cash.
My go-to example is the quilting ladies who spend 40 hours each on handmade quilts using expensive materials to give to the poor. It's extremely kind and their work is exquisite, but with the money spent making those quilts for 20 people, we could buy blankets, a couple weeks of food, and new clothing for 50 full families.
The thing about giving money, though, is that it feels impersonal to the person giving the gift. This is also why the poor should be taken care of through taxation. Taking care of people's basic needs shouldn't need to feel intimate and spiritual - it should be routine and boring.
Yeah but those ladies feel better about themselves, which is what religion is about not helping people.
Those ladies justifiably feel good for sharing their time and resources to help others. Fuck anyone who thinks kindness isn't laudable.
The tragedy of it is that their kindness on its own isn't enough because of greater societal issues that shouldn't have to be addressed by private charities, including the church. The church shouldn't have to be a food bank and disaster relief organization. It shouldn't have to weigh the value of gifts based on how they'll address the basic human needs of the community.
But in so much of the country, the church makes up the entirety of local social services. In small towns, you have a police department to handle crime and the church to handle everything else.
And the other side of that token is that people shouldn't have to rely on churches for survival. I'm sure you do good work, and I generally have no grief with (f/ex) the unitarians who also do good community work, but churches (and secular aid orgs, etc.) do not make society on their own and should not take the fall or bear responsibility for the failings of capitalism.
That's the exact point I'm trying to make.
Our government fails to take care of its citizens, so private institutions, including religious organizations, food banks, and more are relied upon to provide those services.
So when that kind church lady spends $200 and 40 hours making a custom quilt for a poor person, it's viewed as a waste of resources when so many more important needs for that person aren't being addressed.
Instead, the government should be providing those services, the kind old lady can just be kind with her gifts Instead of wasteful, and the churches can responsibly spend money inwardly to sustain themselves without doing a disservice to society.