I have been baited, what can I say? The Good Student has recently argued that The Church should do more for its members and society in general and that doing this will arrest the decline in religiosity. I would encourage any readers to see his original article here so he can be understood in his own words: Unpopular Opinion #1: The reason religion and the Church are in decline is that the Church does not do enough for its members or society in general. – Animelit
For those who want a TLDR, I basically agree with his conclusion, but I have some disagreements when it comes to why people are less religious, the relationship between religious institutions and government and where “people are”.
I have split up his points into the following list. Apologies for taking this simplified approach, but as T.G.S. knows, I like putting things in bullet points because helps me keep track of the conversation threads.
- The church is in decline because it does not do enough for its members
- Churches and religious institutions can reverse their decline through direct and local investment in their own members.
- This investment can come in the form of: finding a marriage partner, affording a proper funeral for loved ones, securing good jobs, having the basic dignity of owning your own homes, assisting with medical emergencies, etc.
- People are and have always been rational and will not buy into a religious organisation that is useless to themselves and their society
- Religious people call others “Materialistic” which is merely a buzzword
- The theory that religiosity is declining because people want to live with less constraints is false
- Modern life is not easy to live under, this is proof that people have no deep desire to free themselves of constraints and declining conditions.
- It’s wrong to say religion is declining because of government and scientific advances
- the strategy of outbreeding the non-religious is misguided and bound to fail for the reasons specified and because religiosity is not an inherited trait. It also reduces people to livestock status.
1 The church is in decline because it does not do enough for its members
To begin, I should clarify that I am not a religious person so it’s possible that there’s some finer details I won’t be able to get into, but I have gone to plenty of churches, experienced some services and more than anything attended traditional weddings and funerals. Regardless of the circumstances I have always gotten this cold feeling from them, nobody donates unless they are encouraged to do so, and the sermons are dry and procedural. At weddings, going to the church and actually saying the vows comes across as more of a chore than anything else, a hangover from an older time but don’t worry, after we do this boring part, there’s the reception and we can start enjoying ourselves. This might be a strange thing to bring up, but I’d say Kirei from Fate/stay night inspires more warmth and pious devotion than any of my real-life experiences, to finally address the point, I’d even say Kirei, through his limited assistance to Shiro, truly goes above and beyond compared to what you’d expect from the local Vicar. This is to say the church impacts my life in a minimal way, but who is to blame?
For a lot of our history, it’s been perfectly normal for people to give sizeable donations to their church and martyr their lives for their religious convictions, at the same time, the church gave a lot back, before the scouring of Britian by King Henry VIII, a church or abbey was very much the centre of its community, a place where knowledge would be pooled and artefacts of historical significance would be kept, many originating from Byzantium and the fragments of The Western Roman Empire.
There was obviously something The Church was doing right in these moments, but I also need to stop here because we aren’t living in the past anymore, even if I argue about causality and say the opposite is true here and state that people are less religious because they aren’t giving enough, this would not matter because the hard reality is that people aren’t going to give more than they already do to the Church unless the context of our time dramatically changes.
2 Churches and religious institutions can reverse their decline through direct and local investment in their own members.
3 This investment can come in the form of: finding a marriage partner, affording a proper funeral for loved ones, securing good jobs, having the basic dignity of owning your own homes, assisting with medical emergencies, etc.
Yes, I have no disagreements here, sign me up.
4 People are and have always been rational and will not buy into a religious organisation that is useless to themselves and their society
I don’t really want to get into definition lawyering, but I’d say that it’s true that most people will react intuitively to direct stimulus and incentives and that this has not changed over the course of history. Of course, the contemporary definition of “rational” does not apply to most historical figures, our idea of scientific, objective truth is quite new as well as how we apply certain invented logical frameworks, game theory is one that comes to mind, perhaps in our overreliance on technology we will come to be seen as the irrational ones.
I think it’s pretty indisputable that someone will not convert to a religion unless they get something out of it, whether it’s to get closer to a metaphysical truth or something like being able to hang out with your church friends after school.
5 Religious people call others “Materialistic” which is merely a buzzword
This is the only point I hard disagree with but I think there is a serious framing issue around the idea. People have always been materialistic to some extent; this is perfectly normal and being able to indulge oneself with better quality goods has been a constant mark of the success their civilisation more broadly. I think the problem is a lack of the opposite, which is a connection to some form of The Sacred and so to fill this gap, people have become more materialistic, certainly more profane.
6 The theory that religiosity is declining because people want to live with less constraints is false
I agree, but for different reasons. I don’t think culture moves out of the popular consensus of the masses, if this was the case then I would have gone to church today, maybe have even got to see a public execution, things would be very different. I think there is a convincing argument to say that because religion had widely disappeared among in the elites around the turn of the 20th century, it was inevitable that this would trickle downwards. Doubtless today we can see individuals who voluntarily divorce themselves from as many historical connections as they possibly can, maybe experiment with dyeing their hair different colours but they are in the minority.
7 Modern life is not easy to live under, this is proof that people have no deep desire to free themselves of constraints and declining conditions.
Sadly, I have to agree. But I do believe things are never truly over and that there is hope.
8 It’s wrong to say religion is declining because of government and scientific advances
It’s going to be very hard to answer this briefly. There are a lot of very good arguments, written by the religious and non-religious alike who argue that the state needs to facilitate The Church, even give The Church or a specific denomination, primacy in their legal system. The Church of England was granted primacy during the Tudor period, while Catholics were persecuted, of course we saw a decline in Catholicism (surprise, surprise) and an increase in Protestant converts; and this is just one example out of many.
I would go as far as to say the government is only one rival institution among many which have taken power and relevance away from The Church. Take universities for example, at one time most scientific discoveries were carried out by Monks and other men of the cloth with a disproportionate amount of spare time and a desire to uncover the mysteries of God’s universe, but with higher educational establishments getting more popular and religious dogmas calcifying The Church, these kind of people wound up again in relative boredom and isolation just this time in their offices. And what about education? We still have church schools in this country, but they are on the decline too because of public education, again a rival institution.
I’m conscious that I have skirted around the real question, maybe because it’s not answerable in absolute terms, was government allowed to encroach on religious institutions because people were slowly losing their faith, or did the expansion of various government mandates, driven by other means, lead to increasing faithlessness as The Church was driven out of public life? It’s hard not to imagine both were happening in tandem, so for the first part I can only half-agree.
As for scientific advances, it seems that where the institution or individual they originated from matters far more than the discovery or breakthrough itself, an alchemist isn’t going to be operating outside of a metaphysical framework and so then proclaim that there is no need for The Church or God* whereas a Scientist, growing up in the modern world may, in an episode of fruitless egoism, say this unironically. But there may still be discoveries which on their own, directly refute the religious teaching, ones which can’t be ignored at least in the moment. For a while it was broadly believed that the universe was eternal, it had no end and beginning, does this not disprove creation? For some the answer to this question was yes, it doesn’t matter so much that a new theory, based on new information came along to replace it, what matters is that people were more inclined to believe one method over another, so as Science TM became more popular as it produced results, its only logical to imagine more people would have had their faith tested.
But how many? And even today many working in a scientific field consider themselves religious, for them the story that science disproved religion is erroneous. I’ve gone on for too long at this point while only asking more questions but in balance I’d say scientific advances themselves do not contribute to the decline or religion, but they can be used as weapons against it.
9 the strategy of outbreeding the non-religious is misguided and bound to fail for the reasons specified and because religiosity is not an inherited trait. It also reduces people to livestock status.
Yes.
*at least in a general sense, they could be Gnostic and so a heretic to the Church, but this is just an example to point out the importance of the originator.
No disagreements with points 1, 2, 3, and 4. Also, what a wonderful idea to number the points. Unfortunately, my points and thoughts have no clear beginning or end, but I’ll try to number my responses here.
I’ll start by saying I was thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere when considering a religious organisation that gained political influence through social work. The same applies to Hezbollah and Hamas. In general, I feel that mosques do more for Muslims than churches do for Christians, but we’ll see how long that lasts. Of course, the political situations are not the same, and it’s not as though Muslim countries aren’t also experiencing religious decline.
Regarding point 5:
I think the problem is that the church has always—or for the majority of its existence—been materialistic out of necessity (as an organisation that exists in the real material world). So, to avoid judging the church by the material benefits it provides to its members and society would inevitably result in judging it by other-worldly standards, which would find it lacking.
I think the issue for the religious, when placing too fine a point on sacredness and such, is that people then measure the church (and its members) by the same yardstick. They notice the church for all the land, cash flows and assets which it doubtlessly owns and which are undoubtedly materialistic.
Well, people will judge the church by its actions regardless, but that is precisely my point. If the church acted more proactively and did something meaningful and real, there might be some substance behind its talk. Without Good Works, it doesn’t really matter how good their words are. It will sound shallow.
I agree that the church is not as central as it used to be because other factions, such as NGOs and the state, provide social services. However, the church is not even trying. As I mentioned, people often need help that the impersonal state does not provide. The church looks on indifferently. I don’t feel the church can keep blaming outside circumstances for its decline. It can, but it will just continue to decline.
As for the Church of England (CoE), it has a steady stream of cash that could be used more effectively. Perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury could live in one palace rather than two, especially when most people struggle to pay rent or mortgages in Britain. Most state churches in Europe are in terminal decline because they do not depend on members for financial support. As a result, they do not have to respond to members’ needs, having coasted along with state support and fallen into decadence.
Of course, things can get ugly when a religious organisation, like the Mormon Church, takes a 10% cut of its members’ incomes. Yet, American churches are probably healthier due to less state financial support compared to their European counterparts. Easy money breeds complacency in individuals living off state benefits. The Church of England has lived off state benefits for hundreds of years, and complacency has set in. Of course, good leadership could turn this around, but as a member (I assume you belong to the CoE, though I could be wrong), how much say do you feel you have in the church? If the answer is none, that means there is no feedback loop from members to the church’s leadership.
I wouldn’t mind paying a membership subscription to the church provided a few conditions were met: the church should not accept money from the state or large donors (no one should be able to buy influence in the church), there should be complete transparency in how the money is spent, and members should have a say in how the organisation is run, including decisions about the fee. The fee should be the same for everyone (except for those who can’t afford it, who should still be allowed membership for free), and it should be reasonable and affordable. Basically, as a member, I would like to feel I belong to something meaningful rather than nothing.
The church needs money and resources to operate, but it must procure these cleanly and use them effectively to grow. These financial and material issues should be addressed openly, rather than arrogantly pretending everything is fine while losing members, leaving only a small group of religious folk to run the church as their personal organisation with financial perks, rather than as a church for the people. The most egregious cope of copes I’ve heard is religious people claiming it’s okay for the church to lose members because it leaves only the “super-religious” ones. I suppose it’s fun to feel part of a special group. As if there weren’t already a thousand extreme splinter groups who have come and gone into irrelevancy.
Story time:
I won’t go into details, but when I tried to get help from a local church where I had been a member since I was eight years old, it felt like they didn’t care about me. I might as well have been talking to a mortgage advisor. They seemed more interested in how much I was willing to pay, with the extent of the service provided depending on my payment. This “pay-to-win” monetisation model is unsuitable for a church. I went to that church every Sunday for ten years, and unfortunately, I must agree it often felt like the same mealy-mouthed rubbish you experienced in your church—words that couldn’t move anyone.
If anything, the church asked members for money to fund construction projects to beautify the building rather than giving much back. The church was affiliated with a state-funded Catholic school, which was in complete disrepair while the church kept adding marble decorations. It ended up looking more like a flashy Mormon temple (complete with massive columns and plaster angels with trumpets on the roof) than the simple granite-walled church I had attended before all these tacky, bloated additions. They even added television screens during a time when most people experienced power outages after the country defaulted on its debt for the first time. It felt like watching a previously poor man suddenly become rich, with everyone’s true nature revealed. If I may contradict myself, I would say it was an overly materialistic display.
One shameless incident, many years ago, still sticks with me. During a sermon, the head priest openly praised some of the wealthier members of the congregation for making larger donations towards the (in my view, entirely unnecessary) reconstruction efforts, while condemning the rest of us for not donating enough because construction was not going as fast as he had hoped. Another issue I noticed was the lack of input from church members on how things were run and so naturally projects were started without checking if that’s what people really wanted.
End of Story Time.
If you liked Kotomine, you might enjoy Anderson from Hellsing Ultimate, another unlimited-bayonet-works priest. It’s rather pathetic that we have to resort to fictional examples though, rather than examples from our lives. I went to a school where I was taught by Catholic nuns. They were strict but fair and were good at writing and drawing on the blackboard but it’s not like the syllabus they were taught was anything that special. It was just the national Italian syllabus.
When the elites stopped being virtuous, the public followed suit—and who can blame them? It’s not as though the public mindlessly obeyed the elites. Rather, when elites acted hypocritically (e.g. see the Profumo Scandal in Britain), the public felt there was no reason to follow strict religious edicts such as fidelity to their spouses. Why should ordinary people make sacrifices for society’s benefit when the leadership doesn’t believe in or live by those values, acting purely for its own gain instead?
Point 8:
I think there’s no definitive proof for or against God’s existence. Essentially, based on our discoveries so far, you can make sense of reality (somewhat, but not entirely) with or without God.
Christians survived Roman state persecution harsher than anything else they face now that they’re dwindling in countries such as Austria. They didn’t need the state breastfeed the church in order to survive. So yes, the question of church and state cannot be answered in absolute terms. For example, it might have made sense for the America at the time of its founding to have a separation between church and state owing to the fragmented nature of the churches in that country, but there is no way that back then they could have known what effects it would have now. However what I believe is that right now in Europe there is not much advantage to it. The pivotal moment that the churches of europe lost their credibility was in my view when the main churches of every major European nation unilaterally supported war against the people of other European Christian nations in WWI and WWII. This was inevitable with the church becoming an organ of the state. Of course things can go too much in the other direction, there is the danger of the church becoming a proxy for a foreign presence within your country. Hezbollah in Lebanon is an example of that. Some have accused the Catholic church to have played a similar role.
There are no easy answers but right now I don’t feel like the church is doing itself any favours by associating itself with leaders of ill repute and incompetent (if not actively malicious) governments.