In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, some conservative Christians have been reckoning with feelings of alienation from their peers, who generally voted for Trump in strong numbers. But at least some progressive Protestant churches are experiencing the opposite effect: People have been returning to the pews.
“The Sunday after the election was the size of an average Palm Sunday,” wrote Eric Folkerth, the senior pastor at Dallas’s Northaven United Methodist Church, in an email. More than 30 first-time visitors signed in that day, “which is more than double the average [across] three weeks of a typical year,” he added. “I sincerely don’t recall another time when it feels like there has been a sustained desire on people’s part to be together with other progressive Christians.”
Anecdotal evidence suggests other liberal churches from a variety of denominations have been experiencing a similar spike over the past month, with their higher-than-usual levels of attendance staying relatively constant for several weeks. It’s not at all clear that the Trump bump, as the writer Diana Butler Bass termed it in a conversation with me, will be sustained beyond the first few months of the new administration. But it suggests that some progressives are searching for a moral vocabulary in grappling with the president-elect—including ways of thinking about community that don’t have to do with electoral politics. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... source=fbb
Re: Trump sparking an increase in Progressive church attenda
2I noticed some pew packing at the UU church lately and I don't think it's due to Advent.
Puffing up is no substitute for smarts but it's a common home remedy
Re: Trump sparking an increase in Progressive church attenda
3I recently got in a conversation with a Unitarian in which I let slip that I came from a long line of Quakers on my mother's side. The Unitarian said that she couldn't understand Quakers because they have some "strange beliefs".
I replied "you mean like denying the Trinity?" She shut up after that.
Point is: progressive denominations are as splintered/fractured as the conservative ones, if not more so, and just as small-minded in their way. They won't be much help.
I replied "you mean like denying the Trinity?" She shut up after that.
Point is: progressive denominations are as splintered/fractured as the conservative ones, if not more so, and just as small-minded in their way. They won't be much help.
Re: Trump sparking an increase in Progressive church attenda
4Anecdotal proof:
Following the election and the rise in greed, explicit racism and general narcissism I've noticed, I decided it's time I start attending church a bit more with my kids.
They find the Episcopal ritual a bit stodgy, but the homily is usually a good antidote to the Trump message of selfish individualism, misogyny and fear.
I was planning to go this morning.... but PJs, Xbox and hot chocolate won out!
Following the election and the rise in greed, explicit racism and general narcissism I've noticed, I decided it's time I start attending church a bit more with my kids.
They find the Episcopal ritual a bit stodgy, but the homily is usually a good antidote to the Trump message of selfish individualism, misogyny and fear.
I was planning to go this morning.... but PJs, Xbox and hot chocolate won out!
Last edited by Dropbear on Sun Dec 18, 2016 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
The Drop Bear, Thylarctos plummetus, is a large, arboreal, predatory marsupial related to the Koala.
Re: Trump sparking an increase in Progressive church attenda
5I see it as a means to build community and people are perhaps searching for something they've lost or not found.
Re: Trump sparking an increase in Progressive church attenda
6I know a minister who is working her ass off these days. People are scared and looking for a place to find each other. Also, churches are organizations with resources who can be reminded that "justice" and "liberation" aren't just about personal metaphor, but real work to be done.
Re: Trump sparking an increase in Progressive church attenda
7Interesting the article title says Protestant. I think the trend is probably also there in the catholic faiths.
The Drop Bear, Thylarctos plummetus, is a large, arboreal, predatory marsupial related to the Koala.
Re: Trump sparking an increase in Progressive church attenda
8Same in our congregation. It started with November 13 and hasn't slowed down.Simmer down wrote:I noticed some pew packing at the UU church lately and I don't think it's due to Advent.
"There never was a union of church and state which did not bring serious evils to religion."
The Right Reverend John England, first Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston SC, 1825.
The Right Reverend John England, first Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston SC, 1825.