"This year, a lady said 'I went to a book signing Richard Dawkins did a few weeks ago, and there were SO MANY young atheists there. We need more young people, and I think the problems is that our services are too theist. How can we make our church more atheist as to attract more people? If we don't, our church is going to die ... '"Chalice Chick made the following comment about this:
"It's been my observation that cold war era kids all had justifications why their hometown, wherever they grew up, was the first place the Russians were going to attack.And Ms. Kitty made the following observation in the comment section of this blog:
I can't help but think "There are billions of people out there who believe what I do, and the church is dying because it has not properly conformed itself to what I believe. If only UUism were more theist / atheist / spiritual / pagan / multicultural / activist, then it might have a chance, but it's not and indeed my people are terribly discriminated against, so it is surely doomed" comes from the same impulse.
Why do so many of us get off on feeling so persecuted,while at the same time believing that our message will be salvific for UUism?"
"I'll bet the ministers in the porch chat just quietly and internally sighed at the shortsightedness of this questioner."I think that there is a kernel of truth the congregant's concern about Unitarian Universalist churches becoming less friendly and welcoming for non-theists (Atheists, Agnostics, and other non-believers).
I think we're in danger of losing Will's "Denomination of Last Resort" market niche because church attendance as a behavior and the expectation of church attendance is dropping in North America. There is no need for a "Denomination of Last Resort" if there is no community pressure to attend church weekly.
Prior to the baby boomer generation, there was a community norm that everyone should be at church on Sunday morning.
Perhaps an exception would be made for Jewish folks and Christians who held their sabbath on the 7th day of the week.
But the idea that a person would sit at home or do something else other than church on Sunday morning would be a violation of community norms.
I suggest that this may have been a reason for many older Atheist, Agnostic, and Humanist Unitarian and Unitarian Universalists joining our congregations.
If your neighbors expect you to go to church, you're going to find the one that is most Atheist-friendly. We didn't require a belief in God -- because of our non-creedal nature, we were a welcome home for Atheists and Agnostics.
But our society has changed. Sunday church attendance isn't a community norm any more.
40% of Americans (according to social science survey data) SAY they attend church weekly. When behavior is observed, the actual figure is a two-fold over-estimate. Observed weekly church attendance is closer to 20%. See the information on the Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance web site for details behind this change.
To further complicate this, Christianity is shrinking relative to the US population (7.3% between 1990 and 2001 according to the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). The "No Religion - Atheist - Agnostic" category has grown by 6.6% during this same period (8.4% of the population in 1990 vs. 15.0% of the population in 2001 according to the ARIS data).
To summarize:
(1) Church attendance isn't a social norm anymore.
(2) Because of changes in social norms (item 1), we shouldn't assume that our Atheist, Agnostic, and Humanist friends will always be in our congregations.
(3) Christianity is losing "market share" in North America.
(4) The "No Religion - Atheist - Agnostic" is gaining market share.
Given these trends, can Unitarian Universalism adapt to a North American culture that is becoming less traditionally religious and can we provide a welcoming home for the growing North American non-religious demographic?
Or will we compete over a shrinking theistic market share with our Mainline Protestant church neighbors?
What we can offer as a religion is salvation for a world badly in need of salvation here-and-now and not in the afterlife (see my blog posts here about Unitarian Universalist salvation).
How do we survive as a religious community that offers salvation in a world that is becoming less traditionally theistic and less traditionally religious so we can continue to provide this salvation?
19 comments:
Let's not forget that U*Uism has lost market share in the last 40 years or so. It is my own belief that one of the main reasons that the U*U community has lost market share is precisely because it was just a bit too atheist friendly and allowed intolerant fundamentalist atheist to not only attend U*U churches but even to become U*U ministers. How many God-believing people want to go to "church" on Sunday only to be made to feel far from welcome by intolerant atheists? I am not saying that *all* U*U atheists are intolerant and abusive towards God believing people, but quite regrettably a fair number of U*U "Humanists" are rather less than humane towards God believing people, including members of their own less than welcoming U*U congregations.
The very fact that the atheist woman mentioned in ChaliceChick's blog post was at a Richard Dawkins book signing leads me to suspect that she may be a "fundie" atheist U*U. It would seem that she belongs to a dying U*U "church" and feels that the best way to revive it is to make her "church" more atheist-friendly in order to attract more atheists. The last time I checked more than 90% of Americans believe in God with the vast majority of them being of Christian persuasion or background. It seems to me that if U*U "churches" want to gain "market share" they would do well to make themselves more theist so as to attract more people. . . That does not mean that atheists and agnostics of good will should be unwelcome in U*U "churches"; however, IMWIO the intolerant and abusive "fundie" atheists, who make so many U*U "churches" rather less than "Welcoming Congregations" to God believing people of all kinds, should stay at home on Sunday mornings as most well-adjusted atheists do in any case. . . I still haven't figured out why dogmatic fundamentalist atheists feel the need to go to "church" on Sunday, U*U "church" or otherwise.
Quite frankly the U*U World is badly in need of salvation here-and-now and is chronically unready, obstinately unwilling, and seemingly unable to resolve its own internal injustices and abuses. How can such a messed up "religious community" hope to offer salvation in the here and now to the real world when it cannot even heal its own internal wounds?
I'm all for being atheist and agnostic friendly. We go out of our way here to serve a wide variety of religious beliefs including those...and we are a growing church.
But the Dawkins style atheists are not very religion-friendly and are probably not going to come to any religious community because the one thing Dawkins (actually, I think it's Sam Harris who says this) dislikes more than fundamentalist religious people, it's liberal religious people.
We can serve Atheists only if they are willing to be a part of a liberal religious congregation, and that means being willing to coexist civilly with persons of other theological stripes. No doubt many individual atheists are willing..I've got several hundred right here. But the Dawkins/Harris/Hitchins style atheists won't do that, so we can't serve them and remain faithful to our own core.
You are quite mistaken Christine. Dawkins style atheists, who are not very religion-friendly, are found in many U*U "churches" and some are even ordained U*U clergy.
:We can serve Atheists only if they are willing to be a part of a liberal religious congregation, and that means being willing to coexist civilly with persons of other theological stripes.
I agree but there is plenty of evidence that a fair number of U*U atheists, including some U*U clergy, are obstinately unwilling to coexist civilly with persons of other theological stripes.
:No doubt many individual atheists are willing..I've got several hundred right here. But the Dawkins/Harris/Hitchins style atheists won't do that, so we can't serve them and remain faithful to our own core.
Agreed. That is precisely why I am publicly accusing U*Us of being anything but faithful to their own core principles, purposes and ideals in serving and supporting Rev. Ray Drennan and other Dawkins style atheist U*U clergy.
Steve, I don't think that UUism's declining appeal to atheists, on the one hand, and what you call "Christianity's declining market share", on the other, are independent phenomena. Rather, I think that both reflect the same consequences of the diminishing cultural expectation of church attendance. I think you're correct that we have experienced a decline in interest in (atheistic expressions of) humanism precisely because "there is no need for a 'Denomination of Last Resort' if there is no community pressure to attend church weekly." However, a lot of those fallen-away "Christians" weren't really believers either. It's just that, now that they no longer feel any social pressure to attend a church, they also feel less constrained to describe themselves with the name of the denomination they attended but never really believed in, and more willing to describe themselves as "atheist" in statistical polls.
If an increasing number of nonbelievers no longer feel a need to attend any church, I don't think it serves much of a purpose for UUs to try to figure out how to be the one church among all the others that they might still want to attend. Neither that nor "competing over a shrinking theistic market share", as you put it, are good strategies for sustaining a healthy religious community. We can't sustain a genuine community of faith by inventing a new gospel that we think strangers (of whatever theological bent) might want to hear. We can only testify authentically to the genuine faith we inherit from those who held it before us, both in our professions of belief and in the way we use them to sturcture our lives, and hope it will continue to resonate with those who will come after us.
"We can't sustain a genuine community of faith by inventing a new gospel that we think strangers (of whatever theological bent) might want to hear."
But isn't that pretty much what U*Us have been doing for the last little while Fausto?
Folks -- if we're looking at growth issues in Unitarian Universalism, let's look at the demographics of who we are (well, actually who we were in 2001 since that's the most current information I can find):
Humanist - 54%
Agnostic - 33%
Earth-centered - 31%
Atheist - 18%
Buddhist - 16.5%
Christian - 13.1%
Pagan - 13.1%
Sources:
http://archive.uua.org/news/011205.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism#Profile
I would say that easily 1/2 of our folks are comfortable with the Atheist - Agnostic - Humanist views based on these demographics.
And I feel that this portion of Unitarian Universalism has the best chance of connecting to those outside Unitarian Universalism who are also Atheists, Agnostics, and non-believers.
Also, I don't think that supernatural theism has much future as a religious belief for any faith that is grounded in reason.
As we learn more and more about the universe, there is less and less for god to do.
The trend in history has been one of moving from supernatural theistic explanation to naturalistic explanation.
To the best of my knowledge, we have no examples of naturalistic explanation being replaced by the supernatural theistic explanation (I know that Intelligent Design crowd is trying to find an example of the divine replacing the natural but they haven't succeeded yet).
Fausto wrote:
-snip-
"We can't sustain a genuine community of faith by inventing a new gospel that we think strangers (of whatever theological bent) might want to hear. We can only testify authentically to the genuine faith we inherit from those who held it before us, both in our professions of belief and in the way we use them to sturcture our lives, and hope it will continue to resonate with those who will come after us."
Fausto,
Actually, we are in a very good position to reach those who are both non-believing and unchurched.
To borrow the evolutionary biology term, we are "pre-adapted" for reaching the "No Religion - Atheist - Agnostic" demographic.
"Pre-adaptation" is defined as a situation where "an organism uses a preexisting anatomical structure inherited from an ancestor for a potentially unrelated purpose."
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preadaptation
Since roughly 1/2 of our denomination is "preadapted" for reaching the growing "No Religion - Atheist - Agnostic" demographic, we are not chasing some non-UU theology as a growth strategy. This is already an organic part of Unitarian Universalism.
We would be using our existing faith demographic strengths that we have inherited from our Humanist ancestors in search of this new growth.
My point is not that we don't share a meaningful approach to the world with the unchurched, but that they don't share a meaningful appreciation of the value of a religious community with us. To reach the unchurched, it's not as important to help them see that they think or believe like us, as to help them see that their lives would be enriched by joining us. I think where we have the most trouble making our case to the unchurched -- doubters and believers alike -- has less to do with answering the question "what do you believe?" than the question "why should I bother joining you?"
I'll be back to comment more later Steve but I really must ask just where is this "non-religious world" you are talking about anyway? It sure as hell isn't in the U.S. of A. . . ;-)
Fausto -- the demographic trend is pretty clear -- both non-believers and unchurched are growing demographics.
So how would one "market" Unitarian Universalism to non-believers and unchurched persons?
Given current demographic trends, this question will become more relevant for North American Unitarian Universalists. I suggest that this is the future for our culture.
On 12 September 2007, Robin asked:
-snip-
"I'll be back to comment more later Steve but I really must ask just where is this "non-religious world" you are talking about anyway? It sure as hell isn't in the U.S. of A."
Robin -- North America is lagging behind but following the trend in Western Europe towards a decline in religiousity. Here's a brief snippet about this trend in Europe:
"Today, theism is losing prevalence in Europe. European countries have experienced a decline in Church attendance, as well as a decline in the number of people professing a belief in God, particularly in Protestant Europe. The 2005 Eurobarometer poll[2] found that 52% of the citizens of EU member state that they believe in God. 18% express positive atheism, while the remaining 30% fall under various "nontheisms". According to a recent study (Dogan, Mattei, Religious Beliefs in Europe: Factors of Accelerated Decline), 47% of Frenchman declared themselves as agnostic in 2003.
This situation is often called "Post-Christian Europe". A decrease in religiousness and church attendance in western Europe (especially France, Germany and Sweden) has been noted, but in contrary to it, there is an increase in Eastern Europe, especially in Greece and Romania (2% in 1 year)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Europe#Religiosity
We're currently on the same demographic path but we're just a few decades behind Western Europe.
So how would one "market" Unitarian Universalism to non-believers and unchurched persons?
Well, I have some ideas. For example:
By remembering that "non-believers" and "unchurched persons" are two separate populations with some degree of overlap, not a single undifferentiated population.
By maintaining the perspective that "marketing" is only an outreach effort, not a core mission or identity.
By avoiding arguments ad populum based on dry statistical observations, whether within our denomination or beyond, and focusing instead on questions like "why would an unchurched person want to become churched?" and "if so, why with us?"
By making the things about us that are genuine and unique to us more visible, rather than affecting things that we think we ought to say in order to please someone else.
By reminding atheists who are unchurched that rejection of the Judeo-Christian image of God should not entail rejection of morality; and that morality is easier to uphold in community than in isolation, especially if the community genuinely allows rather than forbids disparities in belief.
By telling unchurched secular humanists about our genuine and unique tradition of Religious Humanism.
By telling unchurched (or badly churched) Christian dissenters about our but genuine and unique traditions of Pelagian and Universalist soteriology, and Arian and Socinian christology.
By telling people who are unchurched because they feel no one religion holds all spiritual truth to the exclusion of the others about our genuine and unique tradition of religious and cultural syncretism.
And so on.
Fausto said - "By reminding atheists who are unchurched that rejection of the Judeo-Christian image of God should not entail rejection of morality;"
I expect most atheists would be the first to say that Fausto. . . Atheist do not appreciate being perceived as lacking in morality simply because they do not believe in God.
Atheist do not appreciate being perceived as lacking in morality simply because they do not believe in God.
Of course. And it's easier to lead a life of ethical integrity when you have a community with shared values to support you.
Is it really Fausto? I am not sure sure. Very often communities can and do support far from moral and ethical conduct on the part of their members, perhaps especially their leaders. . . Jsut how much ethical integrity has the Montreal Unitarian U*U community, to say nothing of the UUA and the greater U*U World, demonstrated in its dealings with me? Not much as far as I can see. In fact I can present strong arguments to the effect that Rev. Ray Drennan's obviously immoral and unethical behaviour towards me was supported by both the Unitarian Church of Montreal and the UUA.
Drennan' s retired. Who's talking about Drennan, other than you? Steve and I were talking about strategies for appealing to new members, not resolving conflicts (or not) among existing ones.
Since you mention your situation in Montreal, though, I suspect it would be a good example of why we should conceive of ourselves as a community that supports a number of different theological orientations, rather than as one with a dominant humanist or atheist orientation. You quoted my comment about supporting atheists' moral values in community, but you left out an important part of what I was saying: "morality is easier to uphold in community than in isolation, especially if the community genuinely allows rather than forbids disparities in belief."
non-religious world?
which world is that?!
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