Posted on 11/02/2009 8:10:58 AM PST by Alex Murphy
It's hard to tell in the quiet of a colour-splashed autumn morning, but Redeemer Fellowship Church is trying to set roots in a rough neighbourhood. For churches, anyway.
Until this new church opened last month, its 19th-century Congregational church building in suburban Watertown was empty for nearly two years. Just across the street, a closed Baptist church is filled with condos. So is a former Catholic church a kilo-metre away.
Dead churches are a familiar story in New England, which recent surveys indicate is now the least religious region in the United States. But some see opportunity in a place where America's Christian faith laid its roots.
"You look at this area and it's a great area of potential, it's a great area of need," said Redeemer Fellowship pastor Chris Bass, a Houston native.
Several Christian denominations see New England as a "mission field" -- a term often associated with unchurched, foreign lands. As they evangelize and work to plant new churches, they speak of possibility, but also frustration. The area's highly educated population is skeptical and often indifferent to their faith.
"About once every hour, I give up. It's tough, man," said a half-joking Joe Souza, a Southern Baptist missionary working north of Boston. "It's like, you found a cure for cancer and you want to give it away and nobody wants it."
Trinity College's American Religious Identification Survey released this year showed New England overtaking the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region in the country. Twenty-two per cent of respondents here said they have no religious faith of any kind, highest in the country.
In a Gallup poll this year, all six New England states were in the Top 10 least religious in the country, with Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts claiming the top four spots.
New England's religious apathy has developed over decades, but it's striking where the Pilgrims landed seeking religious freedom and the great 18th-century preacher Jonathan Edwards helped spark the First Great Awakening. Stately churches near town centres all over the region are reminders of the central importance religion once held.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut do host the nation's heaviest concentration of Catholics, but those numbers have dropped substantially. In 1990, 50 per cent of New England residents identified themselves as Catholic; by 2008, it dropped to 36 per cent following the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston, according to American Religious Identification Survey 2008.
Several groups trying to reignite New England's faith are theologically conservative, such as the Southern Baptists, Presbyterian Church in America and the Conservative Baptists' Mission Northeast. They say a reason for the region's hollowed-out faith is a pervasive theology that departs from traditional Biblical interpretation on issues such as the divinity of Jesus, the exclusivity of Christianity as a path to salvation and homosexuality.
Rev. Wes Pastor, head of the NETS Institute for Church Planting in Williston, Vt., said New England's liberal mainline denominations, such as the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church, have been practising a "different religion."
"I'm not saying it to be snooty, but they have a different belief system and that belief system ... is a profound departure from historic Christianity," said Pastor, whose group trained Bass and supports his Baptist church.
Rev. Paul Nickerson, a church planting specialist at the UCC's Massachusetts Conference, said local churches declined because of a creeping insularity, not because "we're theologically inept." Progressive churches that refocus on the needs of the unchurched are growing, he said.
"The depiction that all the mainliners have lost the Bible, and are too progressive, and so conservatives have to come in and reclaim the territory, I don't buy that kind of stereotype," Nickerson said.
Theological differences aside, there's broad agreement that New England churches need to better serve people outside their walls and build the relationships that attract people to faith.
It's not easy among busy New Englanders who protect their time. Many lack even a basic knowledge of church life that's culturally ingrained elsewhere, said Rev. Doug Warren of Christ the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Portland, Maine, which he helped plant in 2001.
In a Gallup poll this year, all six New England states were in the Top 10 least religious in the country, with Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts claiming the top four spots....
....Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut do host the nation's heaviest concentration of Catholics, but those numbers have dropped substantially. In 1990, 50 per cent of New England residents identified themselves as Catholic; by 2008, it dropped to 36 per cent following the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston, according to American Religious Identification Survey 2008.
“The fields are white unto harvest ...”
I read that somewhere once ...
When you see the Kennedy's flagrant anti-Catholic and anti-biblical behavior (both in their personal and political lives) and the Catholic Church warmly embraces them at every turn - I would leave the church too as it obivously stands for nothing.
They are mistaken. People are still worshipping their god. It is the god that has changed. We see this in Europe where only about 15% of the people attend Christian services regularly. The other 85% is either in a mosque or bending the knee to the spirit of antichrist that pervades so much of the west. This is happening in this nation too. The state is only one aspect of the god that dominates in places like Europe and now New England. It doesn’t matter much what god is in place it serves its purpose of eclipsing the real God and of escourting the lost to perdition.
“In 1990, 50 per cent of New England residents identified themselves as Catholic; by 2008, it dropped to 36 per cent following the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston, according to American Religious Identification Survey 2008.”
Wow, I have a feeling those 14% weren’t all that religious to begin with. Seriously who abandons the most important thing - faith - based on the poor actions of a few? Also, I suspect that other things happened between 1990 and 2008 to account for that drop.
Interesting to note that gay marriage has taken root, mostly in New England. I’m not surprised that New England is the “least religious.” It’s also the reliable Democratic states.
They worship Socialism, State authority, high taxes, global warming, Darwinism, Serfdom etc.
They have their fill of religion.
This is the fault of the lefty religious leaders (to include Catholic bishops). Doesn’t have as much to do with the priest pedarist scandal as one would think.
Obviously, I can’t speak for evangelicals, but, as far as Catholics are concerned, we have no excuse. Popes since the time of Clement XII in the early 18th Century, have warned us about what is coming our way. Gregory XVI warned us about liberalism; Pius IX and Leo XIII (and successive popes) made clarion calls about socialism. Unfortunately, the people didn’t listen.
The trouble is that the concept of Christian Socialism doesn’t exist, no matter how many liberals claim otherwise. “You cannot serve God and mammon.” An embrace of socialism forces that choice upon the individual. Tepid faith is the immediate result (as we can’t risk angering our State masters). Eventually, a questioning of one’s faith will happen (after all, “my government will supply for all my needs...not God”), followed by agnosticism and atheism.
We are just reaping what we have sowed.
And I would ask how long do we call dying denominations who don't believe in God or scripture "mainliners"?
Yes, this is a mission field and yes it is "conservatives" who will have to do the work. Not "conservatives" in the political sense, but conservative in the older meaning, people who actually believe in God and scripture.
Although, oddly enough, there is a correlation between theological conservatives and political conservatives. They tend to be the same people. If you can't elect conservatives into office, and even your conservative party has forgotten what a conservative looks like, you've often got a deeper more spiritual problem. Time for a spiritual reawakening. And it can't come soon enough.
I would agree with you, but that's not what the Catholics are telling me.
Its a cultural difference. Just as there is a difference between european conservatism and American conservatism. European conservatism posits a strong central government, just as European leftism does. In fact, on that point, there is little difference between the Euro left and the Euro right. Both would fit comfortably in the old Democratic Party.
Christian Democrats in Europe are often considered to be our conservative analogs but in fact they are quite socialist, as are obviously the Christian Socialists.
The US Democratic party was quite heavily catholic simply because that was the political starting point for most of them. If the DNC is bleeding catholics, its self-inflicted. On the simple difference of central versus distributed power, a Christian could at least theoretically come down on either side of the issue. It is the moral issues that is driving conservative catholics to migrate out of the DNC, slowly, over time (and this is why it is suicide for Repubs to soft-pedal moral issues). The same is true for southern Christians in general, Baptists and others, who were traditionally Democrat and have over time been migrating to the GOP (but a lot of them remain at least nominally Democrats).
There is another fact I am seeing among evangelicals. Some of these churches are growing very fast, and their primary mission field tends to be Democrat almost by definition. A spiritual conversion typically shows dramatic effects in one’s private life, but it does not immediately alter your voting patterns. If you thought Halliburton was massacring people to steal their oil the day before you were baptized, you aren’t going to immediately change your mind about it; a person’s political world view changes slowly. Rapid growth means a rapid influx of Democrats whose political identity will change but change slowly. Again, it is suicide for the GOP to soft-pedal its moral stance. It is on these issues that these voters will migrate out of the DNC when they do.
When you get all your news from CNN, and your education from the public schools, the moral issues are all there is to bring voters in. They aren’t going to hear any good political or historical reasons to join the GOP from CNN or State University.
There are different flavors of political conservatism. The Ayn Rand-derived conservative faction (see, for example, Barry Goldwater) are definitely not theologically conservative. A lot of them are atheists.
Why do you think so many RC's vote for liberals?
An embrace of socialism forces that choice upon the individual. Tepid faith is the immediate result (as we can’t risk angering our State masters).
Great point.
What areas of the country that are majority RC are also conservative?
The south is majority Evangelical. If the areas that are majority RC are liberal the question is why and what can be done to change that?
***Obviously, I can’t speak for evangelicals, but, as far as Catholics are concerned, we have no excuse.
Why do you think so many RC’s vote for liberals?***
The same reason that so many Catholics vote for conservatives. The two party system requires a decision on religious, social, military and many other considerations; if we had a multi party system, a more suitable party would probably arise that had more of the large bloc voter morals or beliefs and therefore would attract more of these voters.
If you get your news from CNN, or the other “alphabets”, if you believe what your college professors tell you, you’d have to wonder how anyone is a Republican anywhere.
The belief that Republicans are out invading countries to steal their oil, and is determined to starve the poor with their tax cuts for the rich, and hates ethnic minorities, has kept a lot of otherwise conservative people on the DNC reservation. Thats why the DNC bleeds Christians, the ones still there, but they don’t all leave in a torrent.
The surprise isn’t that they believe those things, since thats what they are told every day from every side; the surprise is that any of us ever manage to slip free of the mind-control at all.
This is how the DNC blunts the abortion problem with their Christian voters, by showing them an alternative that slaughters poor Afghans to make Cheney even richer. The fact that its an utter and grotesque falsehood is neither here nor there; if people get their news from CNN then that is what they believe.
So its a two-fold problem we face. First this country needs desperately a spiritual awakening. And secondly we have to do a better job of communicating. If people believe the worst about you, because they’ve only heard the worst, then you’ve got a big problem.
***If you get your news from CNN, or the other “alphabets”, if you believe what your college professors tell you, you’d have to wonder how anyone is a Republican anywhere.
The belief that Republicans are out invading countries to steal their oil, and is determined to starve the poor with their tax cuts for the rich, and hates ethnic minorities, has kept a lot of otherwise conservative people on the DNC reservation. Thats why the DNC bleeds Christians, the ones still there, but they don’t all leave in a torrent.***
That’s certainly a major portion of the problem.
***This is how the DNC blunts the abortion problem with their Christian voters, by showing them an alternative that slaughters poor Afghans to make Cheney even richer. The fact that its an utter and grotesque falsehood is neither here nor there; if people get their news from CNN then that is what they believe.***
My wife’s family is made up of good, sincere, upright, forthright, honest Polish and Irish morons that swallow it and then like it.
***So its a two-fold problem we face. First this country needs desperately a spiritual awakening. And secondly we have to do a better job of communicating. If people believe the worst about you, because they’ve only heard the worst, then you’ve got a big problem.***
The DNC is still milking the anti Catholic sentiments of the Republicans from a century ago. And it keeps serving them in good stead. It’s up to us all to make sure that the message gets across.
Amen!
And secondly we have to do a better job of communicating.
I think this is dancing around the question. Talk radio is all over the country, Fox News is on cable and the internet is widely used. We will never be accurately portrayed in the legacy media and more often then not willfully misrepresented.
Why is it that RC dominated areas vote Rat and Evangelical areas vote Pub?
Do RC's view the Rats as for the "little guy", or is it the social justice agenda. Is there a wing of believers that hold to free markets as the best way to help everyone?
Complicated question. There are two distinct rationales:
Back prior to Roe v Wade, I have seen that Catholics voted at least 80% for Democrats. Since that time, it has gone to about 50%. In honesty, that is mostly based upon the abortion issue alone.
The problem is that the Democrats talk about helping the little guy. They talk about approving programs that help the children, the women, the elderly. That appeals to our Matthew 25 call. Unfortunately, I think it also was the precursor to a lot of heterodoxy that has plagued us in the past 50 years. But that's a different subject.
The good news is that if you were to read what the popes have written over time about liberalism and socialism, you would probably be heartened a bit. So the basis is there. Our recent popes, JPII and BXVI have been stalwart on the subject. If you read Centesimus Annus, you will see a direct challenge to the "Social Assistance State" and a read of BXVI's recent Caritas in Veritate will show him exalting volunteerism (vice State support) and subsidiarity (doing at the most immediate social level -- from the family on out). In addition, the vast majority of younger priests I have met are solidly orthodox...and, to the degree that I can tell, pretty conservative economically and politically. And, as you have, I'm sure, read on FR, there have been a small, but statistically significant number of younger bishops who have come out opposed to this Obamacare bill...not strictly because it is pro-abortion, but because they recognize that it violates subsidiarity. 10 years ago, I could not have imagined seeing that.
And as these younger clergy exercise their teaching offices on these subjects, I believe you will see the laity change, as well.
But it will take time. There have always been Catholic conservatives. I think you will see more in time.
One thing to keep in mind: I am personally not concerned with teaching Catholics to be conservative. I am concerned with teaching them to be orthodox Catholics. A truly orthodox Catholic will:
In other words, I think you would find that a good Orthodox Catholic would likely line up with a solid, conservative political alignment.
Again, that is not to besmirch all Catholics...there are a large number who are good, solid, orthodox Catholics who are politically conservative. I'm not talking about that 30-40% of us who actually take the Faith seriously.
I'm talking about Joe and Sally Catholic with the two kids (See, Sally had to start using hormonal treatments to control cramping and PMS after her second child...the fact that the hormones also acted as birth control is besides the point). Joe and Sally come to church most weeks, when the kids' baseball and soccer schedule allows. Of course, they show up in athletic clothes, because they have got to go to practice afterwards. But, hey, they're at Mass.
Of course, Joe and Sally are good Catholic parents: they send their kids to good Catholic schools (after all, you know how the public schools are...the kids may be able to get better scholarships and go to better colleges later on). They listen very attentively when the priest talks about the Beatitudes and about caring for the poor. And, well, the Democrats have that program, right?
Of course, there's that abortion thing that they mention once or twice a year in church. But, hey, the politician says that she's personally opposed to abortion, but doesn't want to impose her religious beliefs on others. And, hey, that's Joe and Sally's attitude too. Who likes talking about religion in public, after all.
Joe and Sally are good Catholics, though. They take the kids twice a year to do service projects. After they get done distributing groceries to the poor or working at the soup kitchen on Thanksgiving or whatever, man, they have got to shower for hours to get the stench of those unwashed people off of them (why can't poor people learn to shower regularly?). When they talk to the kids, they thank God for providing food stamps and emergency shelters and subsidized housing so that they only have to do that once or twice a year. Gee, if the government did more, maybe there wouldn't be so many poor and they could go plant seedlings to work on their carbon offset. Yup, they will have to go talk to their Democrat Congresswoman about that one.
Wmfights, it's those 30-40%, like Joe and Sally, that we need to work on.
I have no doubt that over 40% of RC's are conservative, especially FReepers.
But why did this crucial swing vote go for 0? Why is it that Rats are in control over areas of the country that they are a majority in? What is it that attracts more than half to vote Rat?
Great point. Now it's govt that will fullfill our personal Christian obligations.
In addition, the vast majority of younger priests I have met are solidly orthodox...and, to the degree that I can tell, pretty conservative economically and politically.
This may be a turning point. In Evangelical churches it is the personal responsibility for Matthew 25 that is most commonly preached not an abstract that supporting those who claim to fullfill it is the same as doing it.
A truly orthodox Catholic will:...
The list you provide is really no different than what you will find in an Evangelical church. I think the most strident issue being immigration, but I really don't disagree with what you posted.
Joe and Sally are good Catholics, though.
We don't have as many Joe and Sally Evangelicals. They tend to gravitate to the old Protestant churches, not that they don't exist just not as a majority.
Thanks for offering such good points.
Episcopal church completed a face lift last week (photos).
Congregational church, where the first classes of what became Yale were held, is going strong. (photos of church fair)
First Orthodox church opened a few years back as did a non-denomination evangelical church. All those churches are within a mile of each other. Catholics are strong a mile more down the road.
I blame Thomas Jefferson. He waged a Holy War against the conservative Christian, Federalist power structure in Connecticut. He weakened it but it broke under Madison when Jefferson’s Jacobins (i.e. “democrats”) got Episcopalians to side with Baptists (the liberals at the time) against the old order.
Pagans or unbelievers vote against Jehovah God,
His beloved Son Jesus,
His Word,
His principles and
His people,
each and every time they get a chance.
It makes no difference what religion they claim.
But God IS Sovereign and He WILL have His Way!
With every single person, every single time. Amen!
Ironically, the Jeffersonians and Professional Confederates like to claim that modern northeastern liberalism is the direct descendant of New England Puritanism (and some liberals like to claim this as well).
True, Jefferson and Madison's early followers supported the French Revolution, but liberalism back in their day was still a far cry from what is has become today. In fact, it's a far cry from what it was under JFK!
All that being said, that the northeast became more liberal exactly as it was becoming more Catholic is also a very uncomfortable but incontrovertible fact.
There's something to that. But the problem with established churches is that they don't inspire the kind of enthusiasm that competitive denominations do. When the compulsion goes, people drift away.
Some other parts of the country are still almost wholly Protestant, and evangelicalism is stronger there. When Protestants became a minority in New England, they lost their energy. It didn't seem to matter as much when most of your neighbors weren't concerned about the same theological issues.
Not "exactly as."
New England was becoming more Catholic in the early 20th century, but not necessarily more liberal in the usual sense of the word.
It was with the decline of both Protestantism and Catholicism in the latter half of the century that political and cultural liberalism triumphed.
Praise the Lord God!
:)
***But why did this crucial swing vote go for 0? Why is it that Rats are in control over areas of the country that they are a majority in? What is it that attracts more than half to vote Rat?***
Ingrained tradition, especially in the CINO population, which does contain most of those who ‘remember’ the unfair treatment from the late 1800s through the 1960, in which the KKK and the Republican establishment both fought against Catholics, not only recent ethnic immigrants, but against the Church as a whole.
Immediate belief, especially since many Catholics are working class (Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans) who were sucked into the union mindset.
Social Catholics who are more concerned with certain aspects of social policy instead of economical reality and the long term aspects of short sighted social policies.
A mixture, as it were, of habit and appeal to certain base emotions. There is probably a fair bit more, but these have a lot to do with it.
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