Churches versus worshippers

We were sitting around talking about people in the UK telling survey takers that they hadn't quit going to church because of a loss of personal faith, but because they felt the church had abandoned moral and doctrinal teaching, and about Joshua Livestro's article in The Weekly Standard in which he discusses what he calls Holland's Post-Secular Future. Livestro found evidence of "a Dutch relapse into religiosity" - but one that wasn't as visible as it might be because so many of the newer congregations don't meet in church buildings.

This led to a discussion about how the stats on religion here in Oregon always strike us as suspect, because if you only count the big denominations you miss a whole lot of Christians. Independent and community churches are big here. And although churches and meeting halls of one type and another are thick enough on the ground, we know of one grange hall in our valley that unobtrusively provides meeting space for two congregations, and another that provides meeting space for three. There's a little church tucked into what used to be an office downtown; it's obviously a fellowship if you read the sign, but otherwise it looks like a seminar room of some sort. A cowboy church meets once in a while in non-church settings. And I wouldn't want to guess about home churches. Etc.

All of which led to the following story from a friend of mine. He knew of a town in South Dakota, he said, that used to have several churches all holding their services at the local grange hall. He thought it was seven congregations all told. When the Catholic Church burned and they had to find some place to meet, the only time slot available at the grange was something like 7:30 at night, he thought. At any rate, it was right after the Lutherans, and there had been a lot of bad blood between the Lutherans and the Catholics so nobody was happy about having the Catholics showing up as the Lutherans let out. But after a while of forced encounters and a few hellos exchanged, things began to thaw, and before you knew it the Catholics and Lutherans were holding joint potlucks, etc.

I wish the story ended there, but it doesn't. My friend said that shortly after the Catholics got their church rebuilt the rift returned.

It sounds like folklore to me, but on the other hand I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were true, people being what they are. Sigh.

On a semi-related note, see this post at Mere Comments for links to discussions of Rites & Wrongs of Passage, on (according to the Mere Comments post) "what the Marine Corps remembers about ritual and solemnity that many churches have forgotten."