The Great Recession's Religious Downsizing

[marmar]

AP via Yahoo!:



Religious life won't be the same after downturn
By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer


NEW YORK – Organized religion was already in trouble before the fall of 2008. Denominations were stagnating or shrinking, and congregations across faith groups were fretting about their finances.

The Great Recession made things worse.

It's further drained the financial resources of many congregations, seminaries and religious day schools. Some congregations have disappeared and schools have been closed. In areas hit hardest by the recession, worshippers have moved away to find jobs, leaving those who remain to minister to communities struggling with rising home foreclosures, unemployment and uncertainty.

Religion has a long history of drawing hope out of suffering, but there's little good news emerging from the recession. Long after the economy improves, the changes made today will have a profound effect on how people practice their faith, where they turn for help in times of stress and how they pass their beliefs to their children.

"In 2010, I think we're going to see 10 or 15 percent of congregations saying they're in serious financial trouble," says David Roozen, a lead researcher for the Faith Communities Today multi-faith survey, which measures congregational health annually. "With around 320,000 or 350,000 congregations, that's a hell of a lot of them." ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090928/ap_on_bi_ge/us_rel_meltdown_religion

[scheming daemons]

1. Thanks for the good news...

Organized religion is the bane of society.


Not "faith". "religion".


Religion is a social construct designed to control the masses. Anything bad for organized religion is good for society.

[marmar]

2. Agree. I have no problem with personal faith.....Organized religion is another matter entirely.

nt

[cliffordu]

3. You nailed that right in the kisser.

[el_bryanto]

6. How organized is organized?

I suspect that the mega-churches and denominations such as the Catholics or Mormons (my own faith) will weather this particular storm. It seems to me more likely that the ones that will go away will be the small local churches, often ones that serbe ve the poorer communities already.

I could be wrong.

Bryant

[conscious evolution]

8. You are probably right

Unfortunately.
Remember,the capitalist class is really a monopoly class.In addition to business's I am quite sure the prospect of a monopoly on religion would suit their fancy just fine.

One god=one corporation.Different goals,same business model

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. +1

:thumbsup:

[rd_kent]

4. This is GREAT NEWS!!!! Maybe we will see an END to religion

at least as a political force. One can only hope and dream.........

[SoCalDem]

5. Gee, maybe some of the money-grubbing evangelical ministers will have to find real jobs now

:rofl:

It's hard to get by when fleecing the sheep no longer pays off :)

[felinetta]

7. YIPPEE, YIPPEE, YIPPEE, YIPPEE, YIPPEE!

[mopinko]

9. +1

[Festivito]

10. I think some here do not realize what this will mean.

Smaller churches that do help communities will be lost while large churches with many ways to pull in spending, reducing help, and did not percentage-wise help much anyway, will survive.

If this turns to be good, it will be with more dogmatic, centrally controlled, and/or new religions, not the absence of religions.

[roguevalley]

12. exactly. there are plenty of small churches that feed and cloth people

and find them work and homes. too bad.

[4_TN_TITANS]

13. Religion will take a hit because of

the tens of millions of prayers for a return to stability/status quo that will go 'unanswered' for a long time. If I were a religious person, I would view the current economic sitituation as God bringing a much needed shift in Americans priorities (if I believed in God).