Economist: “What has gone so wrong for America’s oldest churches? One answer is age. According to data from the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, a majority of mainline Christians are over 50 and one-third are older than 65. Only about one in ten are under the age of 30. For many churches, older congregants are simply dying too quickly to be replaced by new members . . . Pew reckons that if these trends continue, the non-religious could become the dominant group in American society as soon as 2055. One concern is what the shepherds will do next. A deeper one is what happens to a wandering flock.”

Alongside this, the US is seeing major declines in volunteerism which means churches are forced to decide whether they can afford employees who perform tasks once done by volunteers or, simply put, to let some things fall by the wayside (small and midsize churches, with small and midsized budgets, feel this acutely). There’s also the yet-to-be-addressed crisis of pastors who are anxious, unsupported, and burned out. There’s also major declines in seminary enrollments resulting in fewer pastors in the pipeline. It seems to me that the US is in the midst of yet another reformation (or reformationS).

There are other reasons for church decline: Americans in general have more money to spend on leisure and travel; parents and grandparents engage with their children differently than in previous generations, which means, among other things, people are prioritizing school events over church ones, many of which are held on weekends; people increasingly consume temporarily rather than engage longitudinally; podcasts and video streaming mean people don’t have to step foot in a church to “attend”; religion and spirituality are increasingly, like everything, hyper-individualistic, a me (and me only) thing (ie, if you don’t do, say, think like me I’m out); culture is shifting so fast that church leaders struggle to respond; church scandals have led to distrust of clergy and denominations; counties like the one I live in has seen major declines in church attendance as, curiously, the number of churches actually rose . . . in other words, more (and more) churches are competing for less (and less) churchgoers; I could go on, but I’ll stop there.

Not all churches will fold. But if the statisticians & sociologists are right, we’ll be reading about church–and seminary–closure with increased frequency in the coming years. The remaining churches–and seminaries–won’t be “winners” per se. Some have big endowments that will allow them to muddle through, but that’ll be a minority for sure.

This isn’t the first–or the last–time churches have faced a reckoning. Not even the first time in the US, a relatively young(ish) nation. A guided tour of the churches along the Boston Common will underscore that fact in 2-3 hours tops.

I have a theory why some churches will close and others won’t. The theory involves humor, light, tolerance for questions, trust, and most of all, God, which leads me to my main point: God will find a way. I’ll write more about the optimistic side of this conversation soon.

I took a trip to the Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist archives at Harvard Divinity School (HDS). Cambridge MA is a lovely place to visit, especially in spring, and Harvard’s archivists are wonderful.

The First Universalist (now also Unitarian) Church of Wausau WI (UUWausau) has a unique place in U/U/UU history. It boasts two of the last Universalist Church of America superintendents and, in its time, was regarded as one of the most beautiful Universalist churches in the US.

The Universalists, unlike the meticulous Unitarians, were notoriously lax when it came to record-keeping. Thankfully, HDS’s archivists were able to uncover nearly a dozen boxes of material on UUWausau and its former pastors (I can’t find when “pastor” was transitioned to “minister”…as if anyone other than me cares). I learned SO much!

The church was profiled by a Universalist magazine in 1961. The magazine sent a photographer to Wausau to capture the church’s beauty and congregation in action. Here are a few of the photos from that shoot.

What you’ll see…

1. The exterior of the church before the parsonage was torn down
2. A Sunday school activity led by a child in Cyrus Yawkey Hall
3. A Sunday school activity led by an adult in Cyrus Yawkey Hall
4. The children’s choir posing for a photo on the chancel

The Economist: “In Wisconsin, locals drink a sickly sweet version of an Old Fashioned made with Korbel, a Californian brandy, and Sprite, topped with a glazed cherry. Over half of Korbel’s sales are in the Badger State.”

CNN: For years, church leaders and commentators have warned that Christianity is dying in America. They say the American church is poised to follow the path of churches in Western Europe: soaring Gothic cathedrals with empty pews, shuttered church buildings converted into skate parts and nightclubs, and a secularized society where one theologian said Christianity as a norm is “probably gone for good — or at least for the next 100 years.”

Yet when CNN asked some of the nation’s top religion scholars and historians recently about the future of Christianity in the US, they had a different message.

They said the American church is poised to find new life for one major reason: Waves of Christians are migrating to the US.

And they said the biggest challenge to Christianity’s future in America is not declining numbers, but the church’s ability to adapt to this migration.

John Updike’s “Seven Stanzas at Easter”

NYT interview with Union Theological Seminary’s president Serene Jones on, among other things, Easter

Painting: Andrea Mantegna’s Resurrection

“Victimae paschali laudes” at Notre-Dame

New WSJ poll builds on data showing major declines in religious participation in America. It also shows that patriotism, having children/family creation, and community involvement are also in decline. What priority is on the rise? Money. Best read with Bobby D’s “The Times They Are a-Changin'” playing on the stereo.

Perhaps Palm Sunday or Easter

*“Unitarian” was added to the church’s name a couple decades after the 1961 consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and Universalist Church of America (UCA). Info on the photo backs refer to the church as a “Society.” My guess is that whoever wrote that had memory of the church stretching back into the late 19thC when the church was still, officially speaking, registered with the UCA as a society (aka, before the community had a physical church & ordained pastor). Photo source: Andover-Harvard Theological Library at Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge MA