Posted on 12/31/2017 11:00:54 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
You may have noticed some new faces and fuller pews at church this Christmas. A welcome sight, to be sure, but attendance figures will return to normal all too soon. Unfortunately, “normal” these days adds up to fewer people than ever — and that’s bad news for everyone.
The long-term decline in church attendance should trouble even those who aren’t personally religious. The benefits of regular church attendance (or any other kind of religious observance), both societal and personal, are virtually impossible to dispute.
For starters, it can literally add years to your life — two to three, to be exact. Though no one knows exactly why, it is well documented. At least part of the reason is that it promotes healthier lifestyles. On average, regular churchgoers drink, smoke and use recreational drugs less than non-churchgoers do. They are also less likely to be sexually promiscuous.
That is what churchgoers don’t do. At least as important is what they do.
A few years ago, Stanford anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann told a story about a Bible study she attended while researching evangelicals. When a member of the study tearfully told the group that she lacked $1,500 for a necessary dental procedure, Luhrmann was amazed that the group paid for the procedure anonymously.
Luhrmann may have been amazed, but I suspect that regular churchgoers are not. One of the characteristics of regular churchgoing is that it increases social ties and strengthens already existing ones. In other words, churchgoing creates communities that become the means by which people take care of another.
Then there is the effect of churchgoing on children. “Compared to their unchurched peers, youth who are involved in a religious organization take tougher courses, get higher grades and test scores and are less likely to drop out of high school,” sociologist Robert Putnam writes in his book “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis.” “They also “have better relations with their parents and other adults, have more friendships with high-performing peers, are more involved in sports and other extracurricular activities.”
Moreover, Putnam writes, “A child whose parents attend church regularly is 40 to 50 percent more likely to go on to college than a matched child of non-attenders.”
This holds true regardless of socioeconomic status. The problem is that regular church attendance is increasingly tied to socioeconomic status. According to Putnam, while “weekly church attendance” among college-educated families since the late 1970s has remained more or less the same, it has dropped by almost a third among those with a high school diploma or less. The result is “a substantial class gap that did not exist” 50 years ago. It is yet another way that poorer children are falling behind their more affluent counterparts.
Churchgoing benefits those outside of the church as well. A recent study by Brian and Melissa Grim of Georgetown University and the Newseum Institute, respectively, found that the “value of the services provided by religious organizations and the impact religion has on a number of important American businesses” totals $1.2 trillion.
Thus, regular church attendance and religious observance are good both for individuals and for society as a whole. Unfortunately, this suggests that the opposite is also true: Fewer people going to church is not good news, either for individuals or for their communities.
In a sad irony, this decline is most visible in vulnerable communities of the sort described by Charles Murray in his 2012 book “Coming Apart.” In the poorer, less-educated communities that he calls “Fishtown,” what Murray calls the “religiously disengaged” have become the majority. While the label “religiously disengaged” doesn’t mean that they are not morally upright — many of them are — it does mean that as a group, they don’t generate the same level of social capital (i.e., social relationships that produce benefits) that the churchgoing population generates.
Those who are vulnerable and whose personal “margin for error” is already very thin are making their already precarious situation even more precarious by not attending church. But even non-churchgoers who are better off are doing themselves no favors.
If the goal of a good society is to produce people who can take advantage of opportunities for personal and familial advancement, then the decline in church attendance will only make things worse.
BUMP
How’s that workin’ for the “church” at the AFA...
https://www.usafa.edu/academics/facilities/cadet-chapel/
The dominionists give up yet or what?
“accept diversity or get out”
https://www.mombian.com/2017/03/22/new-air-force-academy-commandant-bomber-pilot-lesbian-mom/
What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city? Over a half century ago, Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse offered his own scenario in his weekly sermon that was also broadcast nationwide on CBS radio.
Barnhouse speculated that if Satan took over Philadelphia, all of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am,” and the churches would be full every Sunday . . . where Christ is not preached.
http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2013/06/it-satan-were-in-control.html
Did you know that “church “ is not in the Bible. In 1611 the King James English translators , in order to assert control over Christians fashion a non existent translation for Ekklesia , the Greek word meaning the “”called out” ( believers). There was never the word or concept of “church” for the first 1,600 years after Christ. Why now? Don’t tell me Ekklesia meant “gathering or assembly” either. The Greek word for that was “Sanhedrin” . The English translated the word originally to “Circe” or the Scotch “kirke’ meaning “circle “which was the pagan worship formation. Church was never intended as a Biblical concept.
Then when Pliny and the other s said that the “Christians were meeting in the morning to testify to each other, what would YOU call that?
When the Bible talks about Peter and the Apostles preaching to the disciples in Solomons Stables, what would you call that?
When Paul was telling the faithful to not forsake the fellowship of the believers, and was meeting and preaching to them, what would you call that?
And if you start the argument “that word is not in the Bible”, there are a lot of words used in Theology that are not in the Bible, but are explanatory for what is in the Bible, and reasonable people understand that.
Or is this just a mental exercise you use to justify not being with the faithful when they meet?
Of course, as Christians, we recognize that it’s not the church going in and of itself that is what is making the difference.
It’s a life changed by the grace of Jesus Christ as those are the people more likely to be going to church.
Except that meeting together is, no matter what you call it.
See you in Church in 2018
I’ll be there. It’s the comforting port in the storm.
You are correct MM. I read a book, back in the 70s, called “none of these diseases.” As another poster pointed out, a changed life, usually begets a cleaner lifestyle, with less self destructive behavior. The result, can be a longer life. 👍
I think I will attend Church, anyway. 👍😇😁
By the way bro, I see Jack Del Rio got the axe. Oh well.
In other words if this world is your home you
can enjoy your stay a little longer if you live
Like mister clean.
And any one who reads tther Bible can see that the
the no smoking and no drinking preachers are liars
for the most part.
I thought the object of going to church was to learn
the gospel and get our hearts right with God so as to
avoif our original destination which is heall.
But the devil’s workers,the religious leaders of Christ’s
day taught the same thing so maybe you are right.
If Satan took over?...…..
.........................
That is axactly what would happen.
.....
And it can make ETERNAL life a bit more pleasant; too!
A rose; by any other name; would be called something else.
No green Jello© for YOU!
Bkmk
Unless you are a Mormon withOUT a valid TR when you die. (Which is the MAJORITY of them)
Then you get to spend eternity with the likes of ME!
And maybe the Pope; too!
D&C 49:18-19 18 And whoso forbiddeth to abstain from meats, that man should not eat the same, is not ordained of God; |
 |
D&C 89:12-13
12 Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; |
HEAVEN-The Mormon church teaches there are three levels of heaven (three "degrees of glory"):
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