Coronavirus

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Plug-In: Minichurches and burned-out pastors -- four crucial COVID-19 trends to follow

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Plug-In: Minichurches and burned-out pastors -- four crucial COVID-19 trends to follow

COVID-19 rages on.

So does the pandemic’s big impact on American religion.

From in-person attendance declining to pastors burning out, here are four related trends to watch:

(1) Churches changed during the pandemic and many aren’t going back (by Janet Adamy, Wall Street Journal)

“The number of churchgoers has steadily dropped in the U.S. over the past few decades,” Adamy reports. “But Covid-19 and its lockdown restrictions accelerated that fall. In-person church attendance is roughly 30% to 50% lower than it was before the pandemic, estimates Barna Group, a research firm that studies faith in the U.S.”

(2) Why the minichurch is the latest trend in American religion (by Bob Smietana, Religion News Service)

Smietana profiles a small church in Wisconsin, noting, “Cornerstone is part of the fastest-growing group of congregations in America: the minichurch. According to the recently released Faith Communities Today study, half of the congregations in the United States have 65 people or fewer, while two-thirds of congregations have fewer than 100.”

(3) The pastors aren’t all right: 38% consider leaving ministry (by Kate Shellnutt, Christianity Today)

“Pastoral burnout has worsened during the pandemic,” Shellnutt explains. “A Barna Group survey released (this week) found that 38 percent of pastors are seriously considering leaving full-time ministry, up from 29 percent in January.”

See related coverage from the Washington Times, by former GetReligionista Mark A. Kellner.

(4) Most churches find financial stability in 2021 (by Aaron Earls, Lifeway Research)

“Emerging from the pandemic, most churches don’t seem to be underwater financially, but many are treading water,” Earls reports.


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Wut happened? Tensions behind World's move to push Olasky out of his editor's chair

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Wut happened? Tensions behind World's move to push Olasky out of his editor's chair

First things first: Readers need to know that Marvin Olasky has been a friend of mine for yearly three decades. If I was dangling off a cliff, I’d trust Olasky to hold the rope.

Through the years, Marvin and I have disagreed on many journalism issues and had some stimulating debates. For example: He was dead right when, in the first years of Internet life, he predicted that life in the digital world — think social media in particular — would undercut old-school standards of balance and objectivity in journalism. In GetReligion terms, think “Kellerism” and much of today’s New York Times.

Back to the present, and a pretty solid Times piece that is lighting up Twitter. Here’s the double-decker headline:

His Reasons for Opposing Trump Were Biblical. Now a Top Christian Editor Is Out.

A clash over culture and politics comes to World, a groundbreaking journalistic institution that covers evangelical Christians.

There is, of course, no way to leave Donald Trump out of this story, with Olasky submitting his resignation (he was planning to retire next summer) after a coup in the World board after several years of tensions. Among the hot-button issues, readers learn, were COVID-19 masks and voter fraud (#DUH).

As I said, the story is pretty good, with Olasky — rare, this — portrayed in the elite press as a good guy. However, there is one statement that I need to challenge right up front:

At one level, Mr. Olasky’s departure is just another example of the American news media sinking deeper into polarization, as one more conservative news outlet, which had almost miraculously retained its independence, is conquered by Mr. Trump.

Has the newsroom at World been “conquered by Trump”?

I would say that we do not know that, yet. It’s clear that the World board signed off on the creation of an ambitious World-branded commentary website — without Olasky’s approval as editor. But do we know that the news team will not bravely carry on with its work?

We do not know that, do we?


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New podcast: Left, right, middle? Two giant U.S. seminaries are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate

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New podcast: Left, right, middle? Two giant U.S. seminaries are pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate

Let’s do a COVID-19 religion-news flashback, looking at a storyline or two near the start of the pandemic.

I’m doing this in order to analyze how the press is framing a major new development — the federal-court lawsuit filed by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Asbury Seminary challenging the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate. These are, by the way, two of the largest seminaries in the United States and, while other seminaries are collapsing, these two are growing.

Coverage of this lawsuit was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. (CLICK HERE to tune that in.)

So now the flashback. Remember when I was writing — at GetReligion and in my national “On Religion” column for the Universal syndicate — about the vast majority of American religious groups who were caught in the middle of the “shelter in place” and lockdown wars linked to COVID-19?

Remember the Catholic priests in Texas who were trying to hear confessions out in the open air (in a big field and parking lot), while following guidelines for social distancing? Or how about the churches that were under attack for holding services in drive-in movie theaters, with the faithful in cars, while it was OK for folks to be in parking-lot scrums at liquor stores and big box super-marts? Then you had the whole casinos are “essential services” while religious congregations were not “essential.”

I argued, at that time, that this was way more complicated than religious people who cooperated with the government and those who didn’t. This was not a simple left vs. right, good vs. bad situation. In fact, there were at least FIVE different groups to cover in these newsy debates:

They are (1) the 99% of religious leaders who cooperated and took worship online, (2) some religious leaders who (think drive-in worship or drive-thru confessions) who tried to create activities that followed social-distancing standards, (3) a few preachers who rebelled, period, (4) lots of government leaders who established logical laws and tried to be consistent with sacred and secular activities and (5) some politicians who seemed to think drive-in religious events were more dangerous than their secular counterparts.

That’s complicated stuff.

The problem is that, in the world of American politics, things have to be crushed down into left and right templates or even, there for a few years, into pro-Donald Trump and the anti-Donald Trump. I’m sure we’re past that last part. Right?


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Journalism tips on: (1) Evangelical crack-ups, (2) campus faith fights, (3) COVID exemptions

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Journalism tips on: (1) Evangelical crack-ups, (2) campus faith fights, (3) COVID exemptions

A potential U.S. evangelical crack-up continues as a lively story topic since Guy Memos here since these two Memos here at GetReligion, “Are we finally witnessing the long-anticipated (by journalists) evangelical crack-up?” and also “Concerning evangelical elites, Donald Trump and the press: The great crack-up continues.” In USA Today, Daniel Darling, for one, sought hope despite his recent victimhood in these tensions.

Media professionals considering work on this theme should note a lament at book length coming next week: "Struggling with Evangelicalism: Why I Want to Leave and What It Takes to Stay" by Dan Stringer. The author is a lifelong evangelical, Wheaton College (Illinois) and Fuller Theological Seminary alum, leader of InterVarsity's graduate student and faculty ministries in Hawaii and Evangelical Covenant Church minister. This book comes from InterVarsity Press.

The Guy has yet to read this book, but it looks to be a must-read for reporters covering American evangelicals in the Bible-Belt and elsewhere. Stringer ponders how evangelicalism can move beyond too-familiar sexual scandals, racial and gender conflicts, and Trump Era political rancor -- what a blurb by retired Fuller President Richard Mouw calls "blind spots, toxic brokenness and complicity with injustice."

Regarding the Donald Trump factor, the evangelical elite was largely silent, with one faction openly opposed, while certain outspoken evangelicals backed the problematic populist.

As The Guy has observed, recent politics exposed the already existing gap between institutional officials and the Trumpified evangelical rank and file. Problem is, to thrive any religious or cultural movement needs intelligent leaders united with a substantial grass-roots constituency to build long-term strategy.

Evangelicalism has always combined basic unity in belief with a wide variety of differences. Think denominational vs. independent, Arminian vs. Calvinist, gender "complementarian" vs. "egalitarian," Pentecostal-Charismatic vs. others and a racial divide so wide that many Black evangelicals shun the e-word alltogether.

In an October 21 Patheos article, historian Daniel K. Williams at the University of West Georgia added North vs. South to those internal divisions. He recounts that the Southern Baptist Convention remained mostly apart when northerners began to supplant "fundamentalism" with "evangelicalism" in the World War II era. Eventually, he says, this movement formed a North-South alliance but it's now eroding.


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Dang it! Your GetReligionistas pounced a bit too early on the 'parental rights' wars

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Dang it! Your GetReligionistas pounced a bit too early on the 'parental rights' wars

Dang it (said the Texas Baptist preacher’s kid), I really hate it when GetReligion gets to a serious media topic Just. A. Bit. Too. Early.

What am I talking about?

Well, take a look at the New York Times headline featured in the tweet at the top of this post, a tweet authored by a symbolic figure in the wider world of Democratic Party life. Michael Wear is a political consultant, but he is best known as the faith-outreach director for Barack Obama's 2012 campaign and then as part of Obama's White House staff. Here’s that headline:

Republicans Seize on Schools as a Wedge Issue to Unite the Party

Rallying around what it calls “parental rights,” the party is pushing to build on its victories this week by stoking white resentment and tapping into broader anger at the education system.

First of all, I think the verb “seize” is a stand-in for the world “pounce,” which has become a bit of a cliche in recent years. Here is the Urban Dictionary take on the “Republicans pounce!” phenomenon or click here for a National Review essay on the subject. The whole point is that the issue at hand isn’t really all that important, but conservatives have “pounced” on it and are using this alleged issue to hurt liberals in social media, conservative news sources, etc.

Major media on the coasts, of course, avoid covering the topic — unless it leads to an embarrassing defeats for Democrats in a symbolic state like Virginia.

Anyway, the Times headline may ring a bell or two for those who read this October 22 podcast-post here at GetReligion: “Are 'parental rights' references (inside scare quotes) the new 'religious liberty.” Here is the opening of that post:


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When facing modern chaos, priests need old symbols and truths -- not more politics

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When facing modern chaos, priests need old symbols and truths -- not more politics

Chaos is coming, so get ready.

That was the warning that -- four years ago -- iconographer and YouTube maven Jonathan Pageau offered to leaders of the Orthodox Church in America's Diocese of the South.

The French-Canadian artist was reacting to cracks in "cultural cohesion" after Donald Trump's rise to power, with wild reactions on left and right. And corporate leaders, especially in Big Tech, were throwing their "woke" weight around in fights over gender, racism, schools, religious liberty and other topics. Fear and angst were bubbling up in media messages about zombies, fundamentalist handmaidens and angry demands for "safe spaces."

Pageau didn't predict a global pandemic that would lock church doors.

But that's what happened. Thus, he doubled down on his "chaos" message several weeks ago, while addressing the same body of OCA priests and parish leaders.

"If some of you didn't believe me back then, I imagine you are more willing to believe me now," he said.

Pageau focused, in part, on waves of online conspiracy theories that have shaken many flocks and the shepherds who lead them. Wild rumors and questions, he said, often reveal what people are thinking and feeling and, especially, whether they trust authority figures.

"Even the craziest conspiracy nuts, what they are saying is not arbitrary," he said, in Diocese of the South meetings in Miami, which I attended as a delegate from my parish in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

"It's like an alarm bell. It's like an alarm bell that you can hear, and you can understand that the person that's ringing the alarm maybe doesn't understand what is going on. ... They may think that they have an inside track based on what they've heard and think that they know what is going on. But the alarm is not a false alarm, necessarily."

The chaos is real, stressed Pageau. There is chaos in politics, science, schools, technology, economic systems, family structures and many issues linked to sex and gender.


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Is this statement accurate? All true evangelicals wanted to vote for Donald Trump -- period

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Is this statement accurate? All true evangelicals wanted to vote for Donald Trump -- period

As a rule, your GetReligionistas strive to avoid writing about analysis features that are published in magazines such as The Atlantic.

However, when I keep hearing people asking questions about one of these “think pieces,” it’s hard not to want to add a comment or two to the discussion.

So first, let’s start with something that GetReligion team members have been saying for nearly two decades, as a reminder to readers who have never worked in mainstream newsrooms: Reporters/writers rarely write the headlines that dominate the layouts at the top of their pieces.

Case in point: The double-decker headline on that buzz-worthy Peter Wehner commentary piece at The Atlantic:

The Evangelical Church is Breaking Apart

Christians must reclaim Jesus from his church.

Yes, I know. There is no such thing as “the evangelical church.”

Do basic facts matter? There are, of course, denominations that are predominantly evangelical. Some of them disagree on all kinds of things — such as baptism or the ordination of women. There are Pentecostal denominations that share many, but not all, doctrines with flocks that are connected with the evangelical movement. There are lots of evangelicals who still sit — though many are quite unhappy — in liberal Protestant pews.

We won’t even talk about that second line: “Christians must reclaim Jesus from his church.”

You can get to the heart of this confusion by — if you are reading the Wehner piece online — glancing at the tagline that appears in the subject line in your computer browser. That semi-headline reads: “Trump is Tearing Apart the Evangelical Church.”

Ah, that’s the heart of this matter.


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Looking for signs of life? Study the birth rates among religious faiths in America

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Looking for signs of life? Study the birth rates among religious faiths in America

A team of economists from Wellesley College and the University of Maryland recently published a working paper that focused on a peculiar puzzle facing the United States: declining birth rates.

More particularly, the team of researchers was trying to understand why birth rates continued to fall even after the economy was recovering from the Great Recession of 2007. Those economists concluded that one of the biggest factors was shifting priorities among younger Americans — away from raising children and toward career and travel aspirations.

But fertility is obviously incredibly multifaceted. The decision to become a parent is often one that is made with a number of factors in mind. Young adults have to consider their educational plans, the amount of income they would have available to pay for a child and how to handle childcare responsibilities once they become parents.

One factor that can have a tremendous impact on this decision is religion.

Every major religious tradition on Earth encourages reproduction, and thus there can be a theological nudge for people to have children. But a local religious community can also make the decision easier for potential parents by offering up a safety net that can provide financial support or easy access to caregivers for babies and children in the congregation.

Clearly, it’s in the best interest of religious groups to encourage their young families to have children if they want to ensure the long-term viability of their traditions. It’s no secret that families with children are the easiest pathway to ensure that a church, mosque or synagogue will be able to sustain itself for decades to come. But which traditions are doing a good job of having children, and which ones aren’t? And what does that tell us about the future of American religion?


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Familiar, but newsworthy, trends: Catholicism grows in Africa and Asia, while Europe fades

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Familiar, but newsworthy, trends: Catholicism grows in Africa and Asia, while Europe fades

The number of Roman Catholics across Africa and Asia continues to grow, according to a new report highlighted by the Vatican.

That’s one news hook for coverage. Here is another: the number of Catholic believers in Europe continues to implode.

“If we keep the faith to ourselves, we will become weak, and if we keep the faith to a small group, it might become an elite group,” Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines warned on Oct. 21 during a news conference held at the Vatican.

This new report, compiled by Fides News Service, serves as a statistical snapshot of the church’s global population and institutions. It compared 2019 with the prior year and was based on the latest available statistics.

The findings, akin to a Vatican census, did not take into account the pandemic and the impact COVID-19 had on faith and church attendance as a result of shutdown orders across much of the world. The report was released to coincide with World Mission Day, which is celebrated on the third Sunday of October each year.

Pope Francis, in a message posted to the Holy See’s official website, highlighted the day’s purpose.

“We recall with gratitude all those men and women who by their testimony of life help us to renew our baptismal commitment to be generous and joyful apostles of the gospel,” he wrote. “Let us remember especially all those who resolutely set out, leaving home and family behind, to bring the gospel to all those places and people athirst for its saving message.”

Overall, the total number of Catholics throughout the world grew by 15.4 million people.


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