Summary
Churches across the U.S. are grappling with dwindling attendance and financial instability, forcing many to close or sell properties.
The Diocese of Buffalo has shut down 100 parishes since the 2000s and plans to close 70 more. Nationwide, church membership has dropped from 80% in the 1940s to 45% today.
Some churches repurpose their land to survive, like Atlanta’s First United Methodist Church, which is building affordable housing.
Others, like Calcium Church in New York, make cutbacks to stay open. Leaders warn of the long-term risks of declining community and support for churches.
As churches decline we’re losing what is, essentially, a free communal space. Church was a place where people built community.
We need to replace it with something, not just cheer because a shitty religion is dying.
We’ll replace it with more commercial real estate squatting.
See you in the Library.
The library isn’t community, you can’t even talk to people there. It’s a quiet place by its very nature.
And squatting? That’s better, but it’s ephemeral. You can’t get attached to your squat, the cops can come at any moment and then everyone has to bail and find a new squat. That’s not good enough.
So you’re saying we should have more boardgaming conventions?
I’m all in on that proposal.
Not conventions. A convention requires paying for a convention space, and that requires making attendees pay for admittance or getting sponsors to pay in their stead so they can sell products. That’s not community.
The power of churches is they are entirely free and not commodified. That’s what makes them communal. We’d need something like a communal boardgame hall, supported by donations that anyone can come to without needing to pay anything.
Where I live, the library serves this purpose. They even have advertised game nights for various age groups on weekly to monthly basis. Maybe reach out to your public library and see if they would host.
Missed you at the latest city council meeting. See you at the next one!
Unfortunately the internet is now the new 3rd space.
Religion advocated for bad policies in government which dug their own grave.
I don’t feel bad they’re closing down.
The internet isn’t a third place! Not only do you have to pay to access it, but more importantly, it isn’t a physical place. None of us are people here. We’re strings of characters on a screen behind pseudo-anonymous handles. You can’t help me, I can’t help you.
This is not community. It can’t be.
I think you’re a person. You should be more kind to yourself. That kind of talk never gets us anywhere.
Not on the internet. I’m a string of characters. I don’t have a face, I don’t have a voice, I don’t have a body, I am a handle and a comment tree. I cease to exist as soon as you aren’t paying attention to this comment chain. I could be a bot, you have no idea.
The internet can never be community. We are only human when we do human things. This digital space isn’t human at all.
Tell that to the numerous thriving online communities.
I mean, why are you even here then? Exchanging information IS a human thing, and we’re (probably) all people behind the screens. I agree that physicality is a necessity for a 3rd space, but I disagree that it’s necessary for community.
To say that we can’t help people with our words strikes me as rather pessimistic.
Sorry, Im pretty sure thats all were likely to get. The way things are going well be lucky to have public schools in 20 years, let alone a bunch of new publicly funded community spaces.
Why not both?
We aren’t doing both. That was my point?
If you’re not sure whether that’s your point, we’re not gonna be much help.
We need communal spaces that aren’t churches. That’s my point. I think I was pretty clear about that too.
They basically just repeated what I said, and so I was confused about what they think my point actually was.
We need a new religion that worships reality with clerics who are trained in humanities, epistemology, and combatting disinformation.
As much as I’m happy to see churches go, I agree with this. I used to go to church even as a non believer for this reason. Outreach into the community is much easier when backed by an organization that is trusted, and has resources at their disposal.
I wish I could buy into the idea of church as a community; my mom very much saw it that way. However, church is inherently exclusive. It turns away people who refuse to conform to very specific beliefs. It’s hard for me to root for or even accept that as a communal space.
I want to see more YMCA and less church.
It’s not just religions drying up, it’s all of the old hierarchical social clubs. Their membership are aging and dying off, and they’re not doing anything to recruit Millennials or GenZ. The internet opened up vast opportunities for non-work social contact and relaxed the demand that people gather in one physical place at a fixed time with rules to minimize chaos.