(July 16, 2019 at 5:17 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I think that a lot of it is community. It's a feeling of belonging even if it's only surface deep. Those things and the ritual. I think people find the routine/ritual comforting.
We can pick it apart all we want but there is also the need to be able to make the claim of having a certain faith even if they really don't.
When someone asks "What church do you attend?" it's uncomfortable in a lot of places not to have an answer.
I think community and belonging are the main attraction when you unpack it all. For that to work, you need shared beliefs and/or a strong shared experience. Shared experiences can include shared social life, ritual and custom, or, as is the case with evangelicals, a shared spiritual or mystical experience ("salvation", plus, in the case of Pentecostals, "the baptism in the holy spirit").
The importance of overt ritual varies with different personalities. I think those who truly find ritual and tradition comforting tend to gravitate toward the "high church" traditions (Catholicism, Church of England, Episcopalian, Eastern Orthodox, etc) and those who find that stifling, toward the rest of Protestantism ... and if they're averse enough to it, to fundamentalism. Fundamentalism in fact often portrays it self as an interactive, vital, relational, "living" faith, whereas the traditional denominations, particularly Catholicism, are seen as sterile, even "dead". So ritual is isn't of equal value to all believers; it is of negative value to some.
