Alternate View On Dwindling Church Attendance

10 July, 2006. 321 words.

I’ve always found it annoying when people disparage religion as if it were a hopelessly outdated fad (“that’s soooo 1950s”). Lately I find it even more annoying when conservatives disparage the Episcopal Church. It reminds me of high school cliques — Catholic writers refer to the Episcopal Church the same way that football jocks refer to the chess club. Maybe they’re still bitter about Henry’s divorce.

Anyway, the latest example of annoyance comes to us courtesy of liberal-watcher Crowhill: An LA Times op-ed piece entitled Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins, written by Ann Coulter aspirant and “Catholicism editor” Charlotte Allen. (I guess a Catholicism editor is supposed to cut out anything that’s too Christian-sounding.)

Charlotte’s piece is yet another example of opinion “journalism” where practically every sentence has some kind of logical fallacy, one-sided misrepresentation, or snarky put-down in it. Allow me to summarize so you don’t lose any IQ points by reading it: She cites announcements from recent conventions by the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches as further proof that “liberal Christianity” has failed. “[T]hat’s ultimately why their attendance figures are dwindling,” she writes.

I personally see a different cause for dwindling church attendance figures: Rising levels of narcissism in modern society. Churches are about “community,” but unless there’s instant messaging, interactive entertainment, or the threat of severe punishment involved, youngsters today don’t particularly care about going out and joining a community. So why would “liberal” churches experience more drop-off? Assuming that’s even true, I suspect that conservative parents are more likely to threaten severe punishment, so it follows that conservative youngsters would be more likely to keep going to conservative churches. Plus, by definition, conservatives are much more likely to keep doing the same thing they’ve always done.

Of course, I have no evidence to back that up… you’ll just have to take my word for it. :) Hey, I could be an op-ed journalist just like Charlotte!

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