Decline of religion

[Nay_Sayer]

I have a strong feeling Religion, specifically Christianity will be surging again, perhaps, mandatorily so.

[Fireball]

How do you get rid of a pulpit? Or a communion table?

Depending on materials, I know several people, myself included, who would take these off his hands. Reclaimed wood furniture and guitars are in high demand. Of course, if it's shit-wood, no deal.

Haven't seen anything of even a pseudo-religious nature at my local Habitat ReStore, but I've bought some truly remarkable pieces of antique furniture for cheap. I'll scrounge for a pic of a French Country buffet from the 1880s that I bought for $300 and did a little refinishing on. I've seen some like it elsewhere for $6k+, which I sure as hell couldn't/wouldn't pay.

[h4ym4n]

I have a strong feeling Religion, specifically Christianity will be surging again, perhaps, mandatorily so.

Trump did say he wants to make America pray again.

[Fake Messiah]

Former Christians Are Sharing The Turning Points That Made Them Leave The Faith, And They Had A Lot To Say

We asked the former Christians of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us their turning point to leave the religion. Here are some of their insightful stories:

1."There were a lot of reasons I left the church. The pastor had an affair, and it was conveniently swept under the rug because heaven forbid people actually acknowledge the issue. And there was the time the youth pastor told me (a then-preteen) that I needed to put on a bra because I was distracting. And also when members of the church in charge of hiring a new pastor utilized both sexist and racist practices and kept women and minorities from being hired."

2. Pastor gave a sermon about how kids just couldn't 'turn out right' without a father in the house. He said the kid would become a 'criminal, a drug addict, a sex worker, or somehow a less-than-good member of society.' We didn't walk out that day. But we didn't go back, either.

3. I got a job with a Catholic organization working under a very difficult priest, who believed that we should be working full time for free because we were doing God's work. He would always berate us for not working hard enough or putting in more hours. He said we should be glad to be 'filled with the light of God instead of being materialistic' (which was expecting a living wage). "Someone once replied, 'God doesn't pay my bills or put food on the table,' and he went into a flying rage. Then, on Sundays, he would preach about goodness and kindness.

4. I was raised Catholic and was taught that God would intervene if you prayed to him. My friend was having a difficult pregnancy, and I prayed every day that it would turn out OK, but she miscarried. When I spoke to my priest, he said that God had chosen to terminate the pregnancy because my friend wasn’t married and wasn’t a Catholic. That was six years ago, and I never returned to the church after that.

5. The last time I went to a church it was a lovely and inspirational sermon until the pastor started disparaging gays for absolutely no reason. Even at my grandfather's funeral, the pastor there managed to blame gays for the state of the world. Just random unnecessary hate.

6. My friend was very, very religious and went to the pastor for guidance about an abusive and violent husband, and he put no blame on the husband at all. He guilted her into staying in the marriage and acted as if prayer would fix everything! I was disgusted.

7. The pastor at the family church was involved in a scandal with a child and no one would do anything because he was a 'man of God.' I was instantly turned off of organized religion after finding out.

8. My mother was raised in the Catholic Church, but her breaking point was when they demanded 10% of her monthly income in order to attend. My mom basically told them to fuck off and NEVER looked back.

Read more on
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/former-c...02605.html

[Sheldon]

Former Christians Are Sharing The Turning Points That Made Them Leave The Faith, And They Had A Lot To Say

We asked the former Christians of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us their turning point to leave the religion. Here are some of their insightful stories:

1."There were a lot of reasons I left the church. The pastor had an affair, and it was conveniently swept under the rug because heaven forbid people actually acknowledge the issue. And there was the time the youth pastor told me (a then-preteen) that I needed to put on a bra because I was distracting. And also when members of the church in charge of hiring a new pastor utilized both sexist and racist practices and kept women and minorities from being hired."

2. Pastor gave a sermon about how kids just couldn't 'turn out right' without a father in the house. He said the kid would become a 'criminal, a drug addict, a sex worker, or somehow a less-than-good member of society.' We didn't walk out that day. But we didn't go back, either.

3.  I got a job with a Catholic organization working under a very difficult priest, who believed that we should be working full time for free because we were doing God's work. He would always berate us for not working hard enough or putting in more hours. He said we should be glad to be 'filled with the light of God instead of being materialistic' (which was expecting a living wage). "Someone once replied, 'God doesn't pay my bills or put food on the table,' and he went into a flying rage. Then, on Sundays, he would preach about goodness and kindness.

4. I was raised Catholic and was taught that God would intervene if you prayed to him. My friend was having a difficult pregnancy, and I prayed every day that it would turn out OK, but she miscarried. When I spoke to my priest, he said that God had chosen to terminate the pregnancy because my friend wasn’t married and wasn’t a Catholic. That was six years ago, and I never returned to the church after that.

5. The last time I went to a church it was a lovely and inspirational sermon until the pastor started disparaging gays for absolutely no reason. Even at my grandfather's funeral, the pastor there managed to blame gays for the state of the world. Just random unnecessary hate.

6. My friend was very, very religious and went to the pastor for guidance about an abusive and violent husband, and he put no blame on the husband at all. He guilted her into staying in the marriage and acted as if prayer would fix everything! I was disgusted.

7. The pastor at the family church was involved in a scandal with a child and no one would do anything because he was a 'man of God.' I was instantly turned off of organized religion after finding out.

8. My mother was raised in the Catholic Church, but her breaking point was when they demanded 10% of her monthly income in order to attend. My mom basically told them to fuck off and NEVER looked back.

Read more on
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/former-c...02605.html

Very edifying, but shouldn't number 1 be... "no one could offer anything approaching any objective evidence that any deity exists, or is even possible!"

[Fake Messiah]

Can't say that I blame them.

Record number of Belgians request Catholic disaffiliation

More than 14,000 people requested to be removed from the baptismal registers of the Catholic Church in Belgium last year, a number that almost triples the previous record, according to an annual report from the Belgian bishops.

In 2023, 14,251 people made such a request.

The number usually hovers around 1,500 people a year and had previously reached a peak of 5,237 in 2021, when the Vatican’s doctrine office stated that the Catholic Church does not have the power to bless same-sex unions — an unpopular statement for many Belgians.

The number of requests seems to have skyrocketed last year in part because of abuse scandals in the country, and especially the documentary series “Godvergeten” — Godforsaken — about abuse cases in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium.

The series prompted nationwide outrage when it was aired in Belgium in September last year, triggering a parliamentary inquiry and reportedly prompted a surge in Catholics leaving the Church.

https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/record-...ns-request

[Fake Messiah]

Trinity Lutheran Church to hold final mass on Christmas Eve after 118 years of worship

It has been 118 years since Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church's congregation first gathered to worship.

On Christmas Eve, they'll come together for a final time.

"Honestly, that is the cycle of life, right? We're celebrating the birth of Jesus as we're also celebrating the end of our ministry," pastor Sarah Dymund said.

At its peak the church was serving well over 1,000 people, according to Dymund, although those days have long since passed.

The decision to close the church has been hard, the pastor said, but it was made by the flock. The churchgoers voted in June to close the ministry and dissolve the congregation.

Kitz said it's been hard seeing the number of attendees shrink over the years, leading to parts of the church being sold off.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trinity-luther...00303.html

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With one last hymn, parishioners bid farewell to 150-year-old church in small Minnesota town

WILSON TOWNSHIP, MINN. – The last time the Catholic church here faced an existential threat was on New Year’s Eve 1935, when the church was set ablaze. Not even a trace of its sacred vessels was found in the debris.

The hardship of the Great Depression did little to deter the congregation here just outside Winona. Within weeks, parishioners were rebuilding. Men of the parish volunteered to clean up debris and excavate the property, while others scraped together $3,000 — close to $70,000 today — to rebuild.

After 150 years of worship, Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Wilson is on the verge of destruction yet again. This fall, the Diocese of Winona-Rochester announced its intention to demolish the church as part of an effort to consolidate churches in the area after years of declining attendance.

For longtime parishioners, that meant the Sunday service was likely their last opportunity to bid farewell to a local landmark that served as an anchor for the Catholic community in this farming town of about 1,100 people. The diocese plans to use the land under the building to expand a neighboring cemetery that predates the church.

As the final hymn rang out across the pews, tears were shed, hugs exchanged and memories brought back to life.

In 2022, with attendance dwindling, the diocese announced Immaculate Conception would merge with the congregation at nearby St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Lewiston.

The merger was part of a series of consolidations and closures in southeast Minnesota triggered by the diocese’s “Vision 2016″ plan, which was meant to address shortages in clergy and declining church attendance. It was around the same time that the diocese filed for bankruptcy in response to claims of abuse by clergy. The diocese later reached a $21.5 million settlement with 145 childhood sexual abuse victims.

https://www.startribune.com/with-one-las.../601194537

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From the last month:

St. James Church in Ferndale holds final Mass

After serving the community for more than a century, St. James Church held its last Mass on Sunday.

The church will be closing its doors, but the building will find new life. It will be available for secular use starting Monday. As for what that could be, no information has been shared yet.

“I’m abundantly sad but life goes on,” Rev. Paul Chateau said. “I deal with death a lot, and this is akin to that.”

The packed mass, which left many standing, felt bittersweet for parishioners.

“On a normal weekend, we average about 95 parishioners here at this Mass,” said Christopher Hickner, who’s also on the transition team. “So, it’s a beautiful thing to see the church full today but for all those who made comments on Facebook about being parishioners here -- in the past, if you were here all this time, this church would not be closing today.”

Other members on the transition team also tell Local 4 the deterioration of the building only compounded the financial stress.

Parishioners will now have to migrate to nearby churches.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/loca...inal-mass/

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From September:

Historic New Jersey church holds final mass: 'Today is a very sad day'

Grandparents and grandchildren reflected on 110 years' worth of memories, taking their final seats in the sanctuary as songs, prayers and mass won’t ring through it next week.

Clergy leaders made the decision to close the church this summer following a shrinking attendance by 35% since 201, on top of mounting costs of maintenance and repairs.

But after the final mass, the archbishop of the Newark archdiocese issued a final blessing on the building, which felt bigger than a church.

It was an emotional final mass and now that the doors are closed, parishioners and church leaders are transitioned to Saint Mary's blocks away, which will be the new church home.

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/nj-church-fi...se-bayonne

[Fake Messiah]

Less than half of Americans attend Christmas church services compared to 10 years ago, study shows

Lifeway, a Christian media company, reported approximately half of US adults are attending church compared to ten years ago.

And Father Jon Seda says this doesn’t surprise him.

“I mean, I’ve been a priest 36 years, and all the churches, the numbers are going down. We’re becoming a more secular society.” he said.

And although two thirds of Americans identify as Christians, he says this doesn’t mean they’ll keep this label their whole life.

“The culture kind of carried it, but, eventually, you have to come to it yourself. It can’t be Mom and Dad’s faith. It can’t be, you know, other people’s, it has to be yours. And so you’re seeing some of the cultural Christians simply are not connected with the church anymore.” he said.

https://www.kcrg.com/2024/12/26/less-tha...udy-shows/

[Fake Messiah]

Churches fight to stay open as attendance dwindles

Houses of worship around the country are adopting varying strategies to survive.

On Earth, many parishes are accepting that it's time to sell their properties. As the person leading renewal and development for the Diocese of Buffalo, Father Bryan Zielenieski is one of many religious leaders across America who have closed houses of worship in recent years.

Zielenieski expects he'll need to shut down another 70 churches in what the Diocese is calling its "road to renewal." It's a very biblical name for the challenge facing churches: People just aren't going as much as they used to.

On average, more than half of the diocese's churches today are baptizing fewer than one person a month, and 59% of them are spending more than they take in, Zielenieski noted.

In the late 1940s, nearly 80% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue, mosque or temple, according to Gallup. Today, just 45% say the same, the analytics company noted, and only 32% say that they worship God in a house of prayer once a week.

In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, America was losing as many as 1,000 churches a year.

Some former churches are being converted for businesses or residential use. One old Methodist church in Atlanta, which was down to about 60 members when it closed, was sold to a luxury real estate developer seven years ago. Now, it's become a series of 3,000-square-foot condos.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/churches-fight...=116905100

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I’m starting to think that what we’re seeing isn’t so much the decline of religion as it is the decline of churches. Religious belief appears to be shifting and morphing, not necessarily disappearing. 

Boru