Ship of Fools: Is Organised Religion Dead?

Thread: Is Organised Religion Dead? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Ancient Mariner (# 4) on :

I have been asked to take part in a discussion on Wednesday at the swish, new BBC buildings in Salford (next to Manchester) Re:THINK 2012 - What Does Britain Believe?

I will be asked, with my SoF hat on, whether I think organised religion is dead and what lessons we have learned from the ship in this regard. I would value any comments on this subject, especially in relation to the impact of the ship/ internet on your own thinking and, possibly, corporately.

I do not think the event is being broadcast but my session is hosted by Nicky Campbell.

Richard Dawkins appears in debate as an also-ran after our session.

[Cool]

[ 10. September 2012, 14:47: Message edited by: Ancient Mariner ]

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

I assume the question is whether organized religion is dead in Britain.

Since I'm not in Britain but in the U.S. I have no informed answer.

But I would like to mention that the world is very large and that there is no evidence that organized religion is suffering in most of it. If it is suffering in Britain and Europe, or the U.S.A. this is only a minority of the world's population.

Worldwide evidence is that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is more widespread on a percentage basis, and has many times more receivers than at any time in the past.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

You can speak for your bit of the US, Freddy, but my experience locally is that any form of religious practise is mortally wounded, if not actually dead, in over half of the population.

The SERIOUS churchgoers are, of course, totally involved in "our form of religion matters", but a lot of that energy has gone into forming little clique churches run by the half-dozen Guys Who Matter, those being the ones who don't like anyone else organising anything (particularly women).

The remaining 20% or so attend "organised-religion" churches which spend a lot of time analysing what to do about the declining numbers and increasing average age of their attenders.

I do understand that the US context is different, and that social pressure to be seen in church has a much stronger effect than it does up here. But you might ask how it is that the third-largest religious group in the US census is now the 16% who claim "no religion", three-quarters of whom can't even be bothered to say they are atheist or agnostic, just "nothing in particular".

Posted by *Leon* (# 3377) on :

Is there an accepted precise definition of 'organised'?

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :

It surely comes down to what is meant by 'dead'. Clearly the historic mainline denominations have lost a large proportion of their membership but most have stabilised, and independent churches, both black and white, are growing rapidly. Religious societies, headed by Christian Unions, remain the largest societies on many campuses. Recorded church attendance, at well over 2m a week, easily exceeds that of any organised sport. The virulent reaction of the rabid atheists to the prospect of creationism appearing in a school indicates that they still believe organised religion is a threat. It may not be anything like as significant as it was when it was the primary source of morality (if it ever really was), but it is still influencing a remarkably large number of people.

Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :

Is organised religion dead? Almost certainly. I've only ever seen evidence of the disorganised kind.

Ahem. Sorry about that...

I think the answer depends on what you mean by "religion", and indeed "organised". The answer is probably that it's not dead, but it's not very well.

To many people, organised religion has a top-down, hierarchical structure, with God talking to a select priesthood, either directly or through holy texts, and those priests then telling the ordinary man in the street what to do. That might sound fairly foreign to us, but for all the talk of a priesthood of all believers, it's a pretty fair description of Christianity for most of its existence. If that's what organised religion is, it's more or less dead already.

That's why I think it's important to define your terms. They'll mean different things to different people, depending on what point they're trying to prove at the time. "Religion" is often used pejoratively by Christians to denote the sort of thing that other people believe, "whereas we have a relationship with God". Courses in meditation and mindfulness are quite popular in some areas - are they "organised religion"? What if you just do it in a small group? On your own?

I think religion (organised or otherwise) will need to change or die, because I think the challenge it faces is changing. People aren't so prepared to accept something because The Man In Charge says it, and are more likely to ask why it's always a man. That's partly down to general cultural changes, with authority viewed more as something you earn, not something you assert, and an increasing fragmentation of what we view as society, leading to lots of smaller distinct social circles. Religion's going to find it harder to command centre stage in people's lives unless it tries to push out all possible competition. (Some churches do this.)

I think the internet's an important part of this, because it makes it easy to encounter different views in an accessible way. Once upon a time, ideas would mainly be exchanged within your RL social groups, which would tend to closely match and reinforce your existing beliefs, but now any opinion you want to discover is only a couple of clicks away. All my early contact and engagement with atheist thought was through the internet. It also gives more of a voice to various dissenters who would once have been either in or out, causing religion's borders to be more obviously porous.

I suspect religion's future could lead in one of two directions - either a porous, open body which embraces change and competes for people's time and money like any other leisure activity, or a withdrawn, exclusive and demanding sect which attempts to cut its members off from deep personal contact with unbelievers. There would probably be some of each. The latter would clearly be organised religion, but would the former?

Hmm, that was quite a braindump.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

What do you want to do?

There are many ways to define the question that you are pretty free to decide how you want to answer it.

What is religion?
Do they mean nineteenth-twentieth century denominational Christianity?
Do they mean Christianity?
Do they mean major world religions including Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism etc
Or anything a person believes.

What do they mean by organised?
Full blown organisation such as the Roman Catholic church has?
Less centralised ones that various protestant denominations have?
A local group of people with a constitution meeting together
A group of friends that meet together to at arranged dates?
One that appears in the public rather than the private sphere?
One that has set ritual practices that devotees follow?
A group with an agreed set of beliefs?

What does dead mean?
Nobody is following any longer
It is only followed by a few elderly followers and has no way of increasing?
It is a minority occupation that most people aren't interested in?
Where has this to be England, Europe, the West, World Wide?

You can feel free to shuffle these cards as you feel fit.

Jengie

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I don't think organised religion ever dies - it is often the way that religion carries on through persecution or difficult times, the publicly acceptable face of religion, which keeps sailing on regardless of outside forces. (The other way is through the survival of underground radical sects.) Organised religion is seen as less threatening than the more radical alternatives, as the authorities believe it is easier to control.

It was interesting to see what happened in Russia, for example; Mr. C. attended this church while he was there, which was turned into a recording studio during the Communist regime; they have now rebuilt their cathedral, after the old one was knocked down and turned into a swimming pool.

What goes around comes around.

Posted by Ancient Mariner (# 4) on :

Thanks for responses. Yep, a classic journalistic approach is to ask a question and give you all of 30 seconds to pontificate.

I'm more interested in the impact of the ship on our collective and individual consciousness about organised religion. I would rather speak from what we have learned in our journeys together here than go off on a wide-ranging definition of terms. They won't let me do that in the time allowed...

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think it has a deep sickness, not because of its basic ideas, but as others have said, because of its hierarchical nature, and top-down structure.

I think these grate on people today.

It does not mean that people are not spiritually or religiously minded, but they feel more independent, and don't want the Man to talk down to them.

But this is probably an endless cycle. The old order is overthrown, and new structures emerge, which in turn will become fossilized and top-heavy.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

The SERIOUS churchgoers are, of course, totally involved in "our form of religion matters", but a lot of that energy has gone into forming little clique churches run by the half-dozen Guys Who Matter, those being the ones who don't like anyone else organising anything (particularly women).

The remaining 20% or so attend "organised-religion" churches which spend a lot of time analysing what to do about the declining numbers and increasing average age of their attenders.

I don't quite understand these two paragraphs, especially that figure of 20%. I don't think it's the case that only 20% of British churches allow women to organise anything!! Without the active commitment of women, most churches couldn't function. Indifference or hostility to church life or to religion in general is more of a feature of male than of female attitudes.

'Organised religion' doesn't just mean Christianity, of course. Where I live, mosques are numerous and are well-attended. But in terms of Christianity, it's somewhat ironic that in a country with a state church people can say that 'organised religion' is dead. What could be more 'organised' than an established church? Churchgoing and diffusive Christianity have clearly waned, and are likely to decline further, but there seems to be little desire to consolidate that decline by removing the 'organised', established status of the CofE.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

But the state nature of the C of E could be said to contribute to its moribund nature. It is too identified with the Establishment, with pomposity, and top-down stuff.

Of course, there are also plus points - it may give a sense of social cohesion, national unity, patriotism, and so on.

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :

This may sound odd, but I think the Ship has helped me to stick with a church that at various times has seemed parochial (in a bad way), intellectually and spiritually unengaging, apathetic or inturned. (I'm not talking about my denomination as a whole, let alone Christianity, or organised religion, whatever that is), but the actual church I go to.

But the Ship enables me to roam freely, and learn and think about things far beyond the purview if what my little church can countenance. It enables me to value what that church does have - its caring, its fellowship, its rootedness in its community, for instance - while also being able to share in robust, well informed, wide ranging, unrestful debate of a kind that would never be possible there.

In RL I'm a talker, but one of the things that the ship does for me intellectually and spiritually, is enable me to be a listener.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But the state nature of the C of E could be said to contribute to its moribund nature. It is too identified with the Establishment, with pomposity, and top-down stuff.

Of course, there are also plus points - it may give a sense of social cohesion, national unity, patriotism, and so on.

Both could be true. I'm just making the point that, if the issue is about being 'organised', then surely, that's what we have: an organised church. If we have an organised church then, logically, 'organised religion' must still exist.

Maybe 'organised religion' doesn't actually require or expect much in the way of personal faith or commitment from individuals. Some sociologists have said as much. But that's another issue.

Posted by Truman White (# 17290) on :

You occasionally get a bit of research posted on these boards. Short answer is 'it's dying in some places and revivifying elsewhere'. 5,000 new churches and significant growth in a London diocese shows organised Christian religion has plenty of life left. Christianity shares the characteristics of its founder. You kill it - it comes back to life.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
You can speak for your bit of the US, Freddy, but my experience locally is that any form of religious practise is mortally wounded, if not actually dead, in over half of the population.

Sure. I'm not saying that it is much different in the USA.

My point is that Europe makes up 11% of the world's population, and North America adds an additional 5%. This small minority of the world's population is where we often say that organised religion is struggling.

By contrast Asia holds 60% of all the people on earth, Africa an additional 15%, and Latin America 9%. The Middle East makes up 2%. In these places - which hold 84% of the world's population - organized religion is going strong for the most part.

I'm sure that some of this could be debated. Is religion "strong" in China?

But my point is that the question here seems clearly to be whether organized religion is dead in Britain, specifically. The state of things in Europe and North America is also relevant, since there is considerable cultural crossover on this question.

I just object to a question that makes something sound like a world-wide phenomenon when it is not. Or, worse, that makes it sound like Christianity itself is weak and failing, when it is only weak and failing in a small portion of the globe.

Posted by tomsk (# 15370) on :

I see the link says the Q&A session is about 'what does Britain believe?'

I find the ship interesting and like reading other's views. But the blogosphere's it's own world, and the ship only a small part of it. It's obviously much loved by those who like it, but I'm not sure it has much impact on UK Christianity, let alone on what Britain believes. It's in RL that life reely happens.

Religion in UK is clearly at a bit of a low ebb. But it doesn't follow that things will always be the same. The low ebb is anomalous in the world today, let alone in history.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ancient Mariner:
I will be asked, with my SoF hat on, whether I think organised religion is dead

[tangent] I've started a thread, in Heaven, on what this 'hat' might look like [/tangent] [Cool]

With the Ship you can have 'Organised Religion Plus' which seems to suit me rather well: each on their own wouldn't be enough, but both together make a fine pair. I think it's to do with the Ship giving you the chance to discuss and reflect on the organised religion experience, in a way it's difficult to do in formal church.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Of course this can't be done in the 30-second slot you'll get for answering, but . . .

What does "religion" (whatever that is) do when it's "alive?" (whatever THAT is).

Seems as though the question really is something different, i.e., what influence is religion having, if any, on our (whoever that may be) collective life / culture / governance / behavior / fill-in-noun-of-choice.

I'm in the U.S., not the UK; one influence it's having here is decidedly divisive, and even occasionally violent.

If religion includes the major belief streams (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Mammon, etc.) then we are no longer looking at victims (dead or dying) but at potential killers, or at least inspirers of same.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

It was a zombie last night in Leicester city centre that's for sure. Mark Ritchie turned up with his rocket launcher: "Cross Britain". Three churches were present, in less numbers than for a Sunday evening service for one of them. And about 20 of me homeless mates who came for the barby.

Mark did an altar call and 10-15 people put their hands up. Apparently at least 80% of them will have done that many times before. So 1-3 were saved ... for the first time.

One of my fellow servants was disappointed that the homeless were more interested in a burger than in walking away from the cross leaving all of their problems there.

That's dead organised religion all right.

On the way home, I sang to the missus, a la Cilla Black, "What's it all about, Je-sus?".

I know, I know, all will be well, let's encourage each other.

I got a burger for a guy on crutches who couldn't queue and he shared that he prayed every night as he settled down in a doorway and that 'to be honest', he drinks to dull the pain and he was touched to tears that I'd given him the time of day.

I just had to say good evening to a Sikh taxi driver with his window down, I was so inspired, he gave me the thumbs up.

THAT did inspire me. The day of small things or what?

Pyx-e, you understand mate don't you?

Oh, and on Saturday I walked up the most beautiful part of inner city Leicester, New Walk, and as I got to Holy Cross, the front door was open for the first time in five years and it looked really beautiful inside. And completely empty (as it was the last time I went in). I was wearing my stark bone crucifix and made eye contact with a passing priest, quite prepared to nod, smile, stop, share. He looked right through me. Perhaps I wasn't there.

I suspect that he was blaming everyone for staying away when they were missing out on so much. Nasty minded of me I'm sure.

Vicious, murderous, insane non-Christian religion is alive and well.

[ 10. September 2012, 21:54: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
What does dead mean?
Nobody is following any longer
It is only followed by a few elderly followers and has no way of increasing?
It is a minority occupation that most people aren't interested in?
Where has this to be England, Europe, the West, World Wide?

Engaging in fire sales to avoid bankruptcy would be an indicator, I think.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has had recent headline stories about Archbishop Chaput's grueling first year. He has a reputation as very smart, well-educated in the humanist tradition, energetic (it takes my breath away to think that he is older than I am but looks ten years younger), outspoken, and a problem solver. He said that when the pope moved him from Colorado to Philadelphia a year ago, he had no idea why, but it didn't take him long to learn. The archdiocese had been tottering for years and his predecessor swept the problems under the carpet and made himself hard to reach. He has had to fight several fires all at once, any one of which would be worthy of his undivided attention. Closing parishes, schools, and publications, laying off staff, and selling various real estate are among the decisions already made. Apparently under consideration is moving St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, now with no more than 1/5 of the student body for which it was built, to more modest quarters and selling that glorious campus as well.

The Episcopal Diocese of Pa. isn't doing any better.

But I would suggest another question to consider along with the above: what good things in our society are not dying? I'm by no means convinced that the church is worse off than many others (whether tangible or intangible), and have little doubt that it will survive in some vital form after many of the others have collapsed. Lead, kindly light...

Posted by Sarah G (# 11669) on :

Perhaps I'm seeing things that aren't there, but having listened to NC on 5 live I would warn that he tends to attack Christianity, in particular on the homosexual issue. Hopefully you can persuade him that we're not all fans of Christian Voice's approach.

The numerical arguments above are very useful. Further, if it were true that religion will soon have had its day, the voluntary sector's in trouble.

Good luck.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by tomsk:
The low ebb is anomalous in the world today, let alone in history.

Nicely put. I think that is worth noting.

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
But I would suggest another question to consider along with the above: what good things in our society are not dying? I'm by no means convinced that the church is worse off than many others (whether tangible or intangible), and have little doubt that it will survive in some vital form after many of the others have collapsed. Lead, kindly light...

Indeed Robert Putnam's 'Bowling Alone' argues that the mainline churches are merely one of the institutions that have faded in strength in the past 50 years. If so, this does say something quite negative about how real the life of churches as a supernaturally inspired institution was; whether the relative success of megachurches in maintaining numbers is a significant challenge to this, or merely the result of providing what the punters want, unlike the traditional churches, is also interesting!

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
If so, this does say something quite negative about how real the life of churches as a supernaturally inspired institution was;

Not necessarily. The large scale trends of human civilization worldwide are very interesting.

If numbers are the evidence, whether we are counting believers or Bibles distributed, then it is easy to believe that this massive and growing movement is supernaturally inspired.

The fact that some pockets of the world have been less succeptible to this inspiration over time does little to diminish it.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

I wouldn't say that organised religion was dead, or even dying. But in the west (particularly the UK and lately the USA) it is in serious decline.

I can only speak from a christian perspective (all denominations), and I think part of the problem is that the churches don't engage properly with people (particularly working class people).

Doctrine seems to be often dumbed down, being replaced largely by intellectualism and a "social gospel". Is this what someone searching for God is looking for?

Another problem is that christianity seems to be in such disarray these days, with so many denominations and differences in beliefs (even fundamental things like salvation and eternal life).

I don't have any easy answers, but broadly speaking (no pun intended!) the churches need to be less centered around preachers' egos, intellectualism etc, and more outward looking, more evangelistically inclined.

We also need to remember that while our social/moral opinions will be pleasing to some, others will be turned off by them.

Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Indeed Robert Putnam's 'Bowling Alone' argues that the mainline churches are merely one of the institutions that have faded in strength in the past 50 years.

I'm sorry to be arsey, but I'm reasonably sure the link in your post has nothing to do with Putnam's Bowling Alone.

Moreover, Bowling Alone is not really about church at all and is hardly a recent source given it was published in 2000.

That said, it is an interesting and arresting observation of societal changes. People seem to want to participate rather than commit to belong to institutions.

I don't know the extent to which we can assume the same things are happening in the UK. I suspect to some extent, in the past people belonged to churches because a) it was the expected thing to do and b) there wasn't much else to belong to.

But I'm not sure that this is the same as a decline in the sense of belonging to an organised religion. If you regularly attend a Baptist church but never become a member or get baptised, are you an insider or an outsider?

It strikes me that the majority of surviving churches actually have quite small and distinct memberships at the core but widening fuzzy edges of association and influence - where the usual concepts of belonging do not seem to count for much.

Ultimately, the issue with the phrase 'is organised religion dead?' is that all of the terms in the question need to be better defined. What is organisation, what is religion, what is death? How does one tell if an individual is engaged with a traditional religion?

[ 11. September 2012, 07:20: Message edited by: the long ranger ]

Posted by Demas (# 24) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
what good things in our society are not dying?

The Internet?

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

[tangent]...in fact, we cannot even say that the Church is in any sense declining - for the Church of God is heavenly as well as earthly, so those who have "passed on" or are "at rest" are still part of it!
[/tangent]

Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ancient Mariner:
I'm more interested in the impact of the ship on our collective and individual consciousness about organised religion. I would rather speak from what we have learned in our journeys together here than go off on a wide-ranging definition of terms. They won't let me do that in the time allowed...

I tried to cover that, but to give a bit more detail...

The Ship is a good example of the sort of porous, open-door churchy kind of institution (who wants to spend all their time in an institution?) that allows far more room for discussion, discovery and individualism than was common pre-internet. In some cases, that allows people like Niminypiminy to scratch itches that the church doesn't reach. I found something similar myself - a truly subversive treatment of religion is a great refuge for those who are being worn down or driven away by rigid dogma.

I don't think there's been any dramatic change in the way people think, but there are now so many more ways for people to express their opinions and to find other people who think in similar ways. The Clergy Project is thriving, and helping many clergy who find they no longer believe. David Hayward's Naked Pastor site combines cynicism, affection, hang-ups and longing for what the church could/should be, and has a substantial following from people who fall all over the place on the spectrum of belief. They're just a couple of examples off the top of my head.

These are very valuable resources, but it's hard to see how they could have existed before the internet. They support dissent, broadcasting a clear message that it's normal for things to be complicated, but mostly, they make the complicated cases more visible. There have always been restless dissenters, but they generally ended up being squeezed into conformity or having to take (ironically) a leap of faith and leave the church. Being able to form a virtual church of like-minded awkward types or plan a graceful exit from ordained ministry is completely new.

This makes it possible and even necessary for the church to be far more fragmented. Never mind the sheer number of different churches and denominations or the issue of church shopping - I think the easy availability of dissent and subversion online is far more of a threat to organised religion, because it creates support networks outside the traditional power structures, challenging religion's claims and encouraging dissenters that even if everyone nods along in the church/temple/mosque, not everyone really agrees.

tl;dr When there's a huge range of alternative views laid out for you, and the opportunity for genuine discussion and exploration of ideas, "organised religion" loses much of its power.

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
To many people, organised religion has a top-down, hierarchical structure, with God talking to a select priesthood, either directly or through holy texts, and those priests then telling the ordinary man in the street what to do. That might sound fairly foreign to us, but for all the talk of a priesthood of all believers, it's a pretty fair description of Christianity for most of its existence. If that's what organised religion is, it's more or less dead already.

An interesting way to spin it; the alternative is to argue that religion should be expected to have experts who are able to exercise some authority about the limits beyond which a person can no longer claim to be 'X'. Given that Christianity is 'the faith once for all given to the saints', and that most of the epistles are about challenging certain beliefs as WRONG, at some point we must reject the 'anything goes' approach to theology; otherwise we are endorsing idolatry. Whilst it's more subtly dressed than the form that led to God sending the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem in the 6th century, it is the same logic underlying it. We all have limits to what we believe is acceptable to call 'Christian': child sacrifice and orgies do not make the cut. The only issue is how and when we draw the line, not that there is a line. And if that line is to be meaningful, then it will be expressed in an institution. That the modern 'church' is allergic to such constraint is, to me, a sign that they've lost the plot badly.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Never mind the sheer number of different churches and denominations or the issue of church shopping - I think the easy availability of dissent and subversion online is far more of a threat to organised religion, because it creates support networks outside the traditional power structures, challenging religion's claims and encouraging dissenters that even if everyone nods along in the church/temple/mosque, not everyone really agrees.

tl;dr When there's a huge range of alternative views laid out for you, and the opportunity for genuine discussion and exploration of ideas, "organised religion" loses much of its power.

That was an interesting post. It's true that the Ship allows people who are somehow disaffected with church to express their thoughts emotions and to 'hang on in there'. This is the case for me. (I came to the Ship after the forums I used to use closed down.)

However, for this very reason, I'd have to disagree with the above paragraphs, which imply that the internet is a threat to 'organised religion'. It could be said that by enabling people to let off steam a website like this is actually helping to maintain the authority of the church. After all, if people who would otherwise walk away are now able to stay because they can vent steam elsewhere, then that works to the advantage of organised religion because it keeps bums on pews, to put it bluntly.

On the other hand, of course, there are those people who find on the internet encouragement to listen to their theological doubts, and who finally give up on faith altogether and remove themselves from the orbit of organised religion. Conversely, other people are encouraged to explore religion, or are even radicalised into extremism by the internet.

So the net has led to various outcomes for organised religion, I'd say.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
The Clergy Project is thriving, and helping many clergy who find they no longer believe.

Thriving? Are you sure about that, because I've seen all this before. They, no doubt boast that they are thriving, but in reality the 365+ members would more likely mostly be miserable intellectual secularist busy-bodies with too much time on their hands, with just a handful of real clergy who have lost their faith.

Posted by Deep Fried Catholic (# 17328) on :

Just from my viewpoint in my little corner of the American southeast, the "organization" part of the question is not terribly strong. Just in my town of 50,000 people, there are 28 different denominations of churches. Some of them big, some of them not so much.

But the "religion" part is just fine, thank you, if by "religion" you mean attendance at a church. People do seem to find meaning in their religion, but it does not absolutely dictate everything in their lives. Just because there are all these fracture lines, doesn't seem to mean that doctrine makes a big difference in the life of an average church-goer. As long as the Bible is proclaimed in some way at their church, they're okay with it. People bounce from Baptist to Methodist to Church of Christ to the non-denominational free-for-all place with the cool band and the big screen TV at the front of the auditorium - with nary a need to announce any sort of conversion from one to the other.

You may have heard that the majority of Americans identify as "spiritual", and this is the practical application of it (again, as seen from my corner of the planet).

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
To many people, organised religion has a top-down, hierarchical structure, with God talking to a select priesthood, either directly or through holy texts, and those priests then telling the ordinary man in the street what to do.

I'd agree with this, and also your further point about talk of the priesthood of all believers often being just talk. If all Christians are priests in some sense, we should all experience and engage with God directly for ourselves, instead of it being mediated through a hierarchy.

quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
An interesting way to spin it; the alternative is to argue that religion should be expected to have experts who are able to exercise some authority about the limits beyond which a person can no longer claim to be 'X'. Given that Christianity is 'the faith once for all given to the saints', and that most of the epistles are about challenging certain beliefs as WRONG, at some point we must reject the 'anything goes' approach to theology; otherwise we are endorsing idolatry.

I think authority can be exercised without there being what TGG described as a top-down, hierarchical structure, so for me ES' point doesn't really follow from what TGG said.

And I wish we had more of an 'anything goes' approach to theology, to be honest! I'd rather characterise such an approach as a sincere and open-minded exploration of the Christian faith, not an endorsement of idolatry. Too often, radical thinking is curbed by cries of 'heretic' and 'idolatry', in my view...

Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :

With specific reference to the Ship:

Here there's a wonderful mix of people of all sorts of views about religion, and all shades of belief and non-belief.

But above all, in an age when so many media outlets etc seem to shunt religion and matters of the spirit aside or, worse, imply that "only an idiot could believe that stuff", the Ship proves that many people of great intelligence, life experience, etc etc do indeed believe "that stuff" and that they think it matters.

What this means for "organised religion" I'm not sure, though many Shipmates are active parishioners in centres of organised religion, so it's certainly not "dead" here.

For me, the Ship is a celebration of and meeting-place for the many thoughtful people who are profoundly interested in matters of faith and the spirit. A place where you'll find people more than ready to discuss all sorts of dogmatic and ritualistic arcana, and also the most profound questions of life and death.

It has made me think much more about many issues of faith and religion.

It also includes an inspiring and supportive prayer community, the Prayers of the Faithful. Is the prayer thread "organised religion?" --you could say so, it is moderated and sort of organised! Whatever it is, it's religion in practice, and it is far from dead.

Cara

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
I think authority can be exercised without there being what TGG described as a top-down, hierarchical structure, so for me ES' point doesn't really follow from what TGG said.

Sorry - I really don't understand what that means. Authority MEANS someone is in charge and enforcing the rules. That's what 'top down' ultimately boils down to. It might be terribly nice if it didn't, but I don't have the imagination to conceive of what that would look like.

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

And I wish we had more of an 'anything goes' approach to theology, to be honest! I'd rather characterise such an approach as a sincere and open-minded exploration of the Christian faith, not an endorsement of idolatry. Too often, radical thinking is curbed by cries of 'heretic' and 'idolatry', in my view...

Unfortunately in my experience 'a sincere and open-minded exploration of the Christian faith' is code for 'let's alter the faith so that it conforms to what the world thinks is reasonable'. YMMV. In the 19th century that focused on avoiding the miraculous. In the 20th it seems to have focused on relaxing the rules on divorce and remarriage and gay relationships. Oh and it's always good to have the church lining up on the latest political trend (as long as it's leftist these days, jingoism and the prohibition of alcohol were such a mistake) [Projectile]

Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
An interesting way to spin it; the alternative is to argue that religion should be expected to have experts who are able to exercise some authority about the limits beyond which a person can no longer claim to be 'X'. Given that Christianity is 'the faith once for all given to the saints', and that most of the epistles are about challenging certain beliefs as WRONG, at some point we must reject the 'anything goes' approach to theology; otherwise we are endorsing idolatry.
I think authority can be exercised without there being what TGG described as a top-down, hierarchical structure, so for me ES' point doesn't really follow from what TGG said.

And in addition, I'm saying nothing about the rights and wrongs of this. Just pointing out that there's already been a huge move from people being told what to believe and accepting it because The Man In Charge says it.

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
However, for this very reason, I'd have to disagree with the above paragraphs, which imply that the internet is a threat to 'organised religion'. It could be said that by enabling people to let off steam a website like this is actually helping to maintain the authority of the church. After all, if people who would otherwise walk away are now able to stay because they can vent steam elsewhere, then that works to the advantage of organised religion because it keeps bums on pews, to put it bluntly.

I think that depends. It might help individual people to remain within the church, but it only does that by legitimising (and, in a sense, institutionalising) dissent. Keeping someone attending on Sundays by this route is a Pyrrhic victory for the church, because it's already lost its authority. People like this might carry on attending because of friends or family or other reasons, but they'll challenge doctrine, pick and choose what they believe, and ultimately leave if they don't like what they hear.

I don't think teh ebil intarwebz are luring people away from the church, but they're making it possible to have all sorts of communities and engagement on the fringes, and that fragmentation poses the real threat to organised religion, because people will now be happy making up their own minds, even if they're still nominally "on the inside". If the church has no automatic authority and there are as many different views voiced as there are members of the congregation, is it still organised religion?

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
The Clergy Project is thriving, and helping many clergy who find they no longer believe.
Thriving? Are you sure about that, because I've seen all this before. They, no doubt boast that they are thriving, but in reality the 365+ members would more likely mostly be miserable intellectual secularist busy-bodies with too much time on their hands, with just a handful of real clergy who have lost their faith.

Its members are all current or former clergy who no longer believe. Feel free to claim that the church is infested with "miserable intellectual secularist busybodies", or that this is only a small fraction of the full count of non-believing clergy, or whatever makes you happy. It really doesn't matter to me.

The point, as I think you know very well, is that this is a resource that allows those clergy to work through their situation and in many cases to plan and develop an alternative career, something that would have been all but impossible not so long ago. This is just one example of how a greater exchange of information and ideas is allowing people more freedom in their beliefs and weakening religion's authority.

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Authority MEANS someone is in charge and enforcing the rules.

Not at all! Authority can be relational, by which I mean a respect for someone's wisdom and (in the Christian context) holiness such that they are seen as someone to emulate and follow. I see much more of this kind of authority in the New Testament than the hierarchical authority that says 'Do what I command because I am in charge'.

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
If the church has no automatic authority and there are as many different views voiced as there are members of the congregation, is it still organised religion?

Hmm, interesting question. I suppose I'd think of 'organised religion' simply as a bunch of people meeting together to praise God and encourage one another in their faith. As opposed to people believing and practising their faith in a solely private way.

Posted by moron (# 206) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
With specific reference to the Ship:

Here there's a wonderful mix of people of all sorts of views about religion, and all shades of belief and non-belief.

But above all, in an age when so many media outlets etc seem to shunt religion and matters of the spirit aside or, worse, imply that "only an idiot could believe that stuff", the Ship proves that many people of great intelligence, life experience, etc etc do indeed believe "that stuff" and that they think it matters.

What this means for "organised religion" I'm not sure, though many Shipmates are active parishioners in centres of organised religion, so it's certainly not "dead" here.

For me, the Ship is a celebration of and meeting-place for the many thoughtful people who are profoundly interested in matters of faith and the spirit. A place where you'll find people more than ready to discuss all sorts of dogmatic and ritualistic arcana, and also the most profound questions of life and death.

It has made me think much more about many issues of faith and religion.

It also includes an inspiring and supportive prayer community, the Prayers of the Faithful. Is the prayer thread "organised religion?" --you could say so, it is moderated and sort of organised! Whatever it is, it's religion in practice, and it is far from dead.

Cara

Just cause it oughta be said again.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
The point, as I think you know very well, is that this is a resource that allows those clergy to work through their situation and in many cases to plan and develop an alternative career, something that would have been all but impossible not so long ago. This is just one example of how a greater exchange of information and ideas is allowing people more freedom in their beliefs and weakening religion's authority.

Remembering this is a worldwide project (not just the UK), I think you are right about the membership.

However, I don't believe the agenda is purely to help these individuals sort out their lives - with Richard Dawkins heading it? Come on!

No, it is being used as a propoganda platform to attack the church and evangelise for atheism - that sounds more like the R. Dawkins I know about.

Posted by Ancient Mariner (# 4) on :

I am told the session will be streamed live on the internet, as is the rest of the conference.

You should be able to find a link from here tomorrow (Wed).

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ancient Mariner:
You should be able to find a link from here tomorrow (Wed).

Very nice. I'm not happy about the lead, though:

quote:
In a special festival edition of BBC One's The Big Questions, Nicky Campbell asks whether organised religion has had its day.

He should be asking "whether organised religion has had its day in Britain, despite the fact that it is thriving worldwide."

Otherwise it sounds as though they think that Britain is the only place that counts. [Disappointed]

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ancient Mariner:
I am told the session will be streamed live on the internet, as is the rest of the conference.

You should be able to find a link from here tomorrow (Wed).

I don't have time to listen to the debate live, but I'd be interested if "The Big Questions" is being shown on television - if it's Sunday morning, I can record it.

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

For me, in terms of the question 'is religion dead' and the Ship's impact on me: -

No, it's not dead. Some specific religions may be struggling. But religion, per se, lives on much as it ever has.

Like Porridge the challenge for me from the Ship is 'what value does the life of religion have'? Atheists, secularists, agnostics on board all contribute to this question. And there are certainly times I wonder what real and particular value religious philosophies do have that can't be addressed through secular and non-deistic philosophies. The Ship compels me to assess how deeply my own convictions go, whether I'm prepared to be truly challenged to seriously consider ideas which are effectually inimical to my faith. If not, why not? That kind of thing. And whether such considerations have a good or bad effect on my own faith.

Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on :

Just about every other aspect of organised life in Britain has has to be re organised.

Why not religion?

Yes people do still have belief.
And yes there is a conversation to be had about how our Organised Religion is well, ....ahem, sorry...."consumed"

But then again, these conversations are being had all over the place aren't they? Medicine, Social Services. Police. Legal System. Politics. Transport. Universities. Immigration. Dying. Communication.

It's all change, whichever way you look these days.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
Just about every other aspect of organised life in Britain has has to be re organised.

Why not religion?

Yes people do still have belief.
And yes there is a conversation to be had about how our Organised Religion is well, ....ahem, sorry...."consumed"

But then again, these conversations are being had all over the place aren't they? Medicine, Social Services. Police. Legal System. Politics. Transport. Universities. Immigration. Dying. Communication.

It's all change, whichever way you look these days.

This is why the word "reformation", particularly now it is used as a political euphemism, scares the crap out of me! It never used to.

Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Demas:

quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
what good things in our society are not dying?
The Internet?

Only if, pace some authorities, Facebook is not its future. [Razz]

Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
Just about every other aspect of organised life in Britain has has to be re organised.

Why not religion?

Perhaps the nature of Christianity requires it to be more organized than some religions are. A corollary of the Incarnation is that this world matters. There is a "Body of Christ" today, i.e. the church. "Is the church an organization or an organism?" some ask, as though the distinction were perfectly clear. My answer is yes.

Islam also looks formidably well organized, although I'm not sure how its organizations are financed. Do Muslims tithe? Who supports Hindu and Buddhist temples? I suppose paganism is an example of a proudly unorganized religion. But, as Ender's Shadow points out, who's to say how much they really have in common today with pagans 1500 years ago?

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

On one simple level, anything humans do tends to get organised. The old church joke, once is spontaneity, twice because we enjoyed it, three times and it is traditional!

How does the idea of organised religion fit with ship-of-fools?

Hmm!

Firstly I doubt for many that it is actually an alternative to going to their local church nor do I think it aspires to be that. If local church is organised religion then Ship-of-Fools is not a post-modern replacement.

Secondly I suspect most poster have some interest in religion and the Christian religion in particular although they may well not be Christian. Therefore people on here tend to be knowledgeable about Christianity and happy to discuss it. I would therefore tend to describe it as having a "Christian ethos" rather than being simply "Christian". If I am honest the boards make more use of Anglican world view of Christianity than any other, the rest of us are often having to turn lines into the way the Anglican church thinks not the way we naturally think. So not only do the boards have a Christian ethos but that ethos comes predominantly from a specific form of Christianity.

Thirdly the organisation of the boards seems to me to be a little like Topsy in that it just grew. There was no mastermind behind the boards. Nobody would set up a system with as many different approaches to communal governance as this boards have by design. There is the dual governance of host and grandees and the Hell Board. The existence of the Hell board permits host lite to work as shipmates have a place for working out their grievances with each other and hearing what others think. It fills a function that in many forms of modern religion is suppressed. These two sets of governance can have very different ideas about who people are. The Hell board or the social governance of the ship, tend to give lee way to long term shipmates with past history being counted in their favour, the formal system gives less space with it being quite clear that if we have been here that long we really should know the rules.

The ships boards are interesting sociologically because the fact is they have become more democratic over the time I have observed them. That is power has slowly but surely the centre has distributed power more widely. We do not think we have it right now and there will be changes to come as we adjust to new circumstances.

When the first boards became public Erin word was final, today she is not there to refer to and there are people exercising that authority without difficulty. If she'd gone a decade earlier the boards might well have imploded with the power vacuum it would have created at the centre. That she ceded control to such an extent shows what she was made of. The ability to give up power is a true test of character, those who can initiate it are rare!

Perhaps an important corrolary of this is that the boards have right from the beginning had a sense of community, that is people feel a notion of belonging. That people here will care through thick and thin for them. That is probably why having the plank as a deterrent works so well.

I suspect that organisation in religion can be deadly, especially if the religion becomes pre-occupied with it and with satisfying its requirements. If we did that on Ship-of-Fools then we'd be close within a very short time. So what are the lessons:

form is necessary, it is very easily without it for groups to sink simply because of the change.
adaptability - not change for its own sake, but the preparedness to changes when the seas changes
trusting people as culture is built up is possible and guards against control freakery
giving people space to air grievances in public does not necessarily harm an organisation

Jengie

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
I don't think teh ebil intarwebz are luring people away from the church, but they're making it possible to have all sorts of communities and engagement on the fringes, and that fragmentation poses the real threat to organised religion, because people will now be happy making up their own minds, even if they're still nominally "on the inside". If the church has no automatic authority and there are as many different views voiced as there are members of the congregation, is it still organised religion?

If your definition of 'organised religion' is complete organisational control over what lies within the heart and mind of each believer, I'm not convinced that such religion has ever existed. There has always been a space outside official church doctrine that ordinary people in (or out of) the pews have filled with self-devised religious beliefs or spirituality. Anyway, in many cases, the clergy don't often expect ordinary people to understand the theological emphases that are supposedly essential to orthodoxy; they're simply expected to be loyal and compliant, and to avoid spreading 'deviant' ideas that might cause a breakdown of loyalty and compliancy in the community in general. Clearly, this pressure for outward control sometimes breaks down, and schisms or new denominations are created. But inward 'deviation' can gather pace quietly, without anyone noticing anything for a long time.

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Authority MEANS someone is in charge and enforcing the rules.
Not at all! Authority can be relational, by which I mean a respect for someone's wisdom and (in the Christian context) holiness such that they are seen as someone to emulate and follow. I see much more of this kind of authority in the New Testament than the hierarchical authority that says 'Do what I command because I am in charge'.

But ultimately someone is making the routine decisions about what will go on in this week's meeting. And someone will decide what it is acceptable to say. AFAICS, it is inevitable that that IS 'top down' authority, however much it derives from relationship, not external imposition.

Posted by Ancient Mariner (# 4) on :

Here is a link to the live stream of the conference.

Many thanks for some excellent comments. Very helpful.

[Cool]

Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
I don't think teh ebil intarwebz are luring people away from the church, but they're making it possible to have all sorts of communities and engagement on the fringes, and that fragmentation poses the real threat to organised religion, because people will now be happy making up their own minds, even if they're still nominally "on the inside". If the church has no automatic authority and there are as many different views voiced as there are members of the congregation, is it still organised religion?

If your definition of 'organised religion' is complete organisational control over what lies within the heart and mind of each believer, I'm not convinced that such religion has ever existed.

Nor am I. But the ability to believe different things has been growing ever since the reformation, and now it's possible to not only shop around for a church/denomination that fits what you're looking for (which also means that you can easily go elsewhere if you start to disagree), but to find open and vocal support online for any dissenting view you can imagine, like a religious version of Rule 34.

I keep saying "porous" because that's how I see the modern church. It can't make the demands and exercise the control that were once commonplace, because it's becoming easier to ignore or leave. It still has authority, at least for some, but it's a different sort of authority. It's now far more about persuading, rather than dictating, which puts it on a level with many other bodies and voices. It's becoming just another opinion.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
But the ability to believe different things has been growing ever since the reformation, and now it's possible to not only shop around for a church/denomination that fits what you're looking for (which also means that you can easily go elsewhere if you start to disagree), but to find open and vocal support online for any dissenting view you can imagine, like a religious version of Rule 34.

I keep saying "porous" because that's how I see the modern church. It can't make the demands and exercise the control that were once commonplace, because it's becoming easier to ignore or leave. It still has authority, at least for some, but it's a different sort of authority. It's now far more about persuading, rather than dictating, which puts it on a level with many other bodies and voices. It's becoming just another opinion.

This is true.

However, to me, the term 'organisational' is similar to 'institutional'. Religious institutions/organisations exist. They may have less influence, less public presence, less authority to demand attention from large groups of people than in the past. But they still exist. Whether they now persuade or dictate is another matter.

Certain evangelicals are critical of what they call the 'Christendom' church(es). You could say that this is a rather postmodern position for them to take, because they accept that Christianity is now about a personal faith decision, lived in a community of likeminded people, rather than being dictated by a hierarchy of overlords with the explicit or implicit encouragement of the state.

On the other hand, the longing that I detect on these messageboards is that Christians ought to belong to more official, more theologically regulated, more hierarchical (??) institutions that are inevitably more easily recognised by the state. This view seems to be held by a more theologically liberal constituency, which is paradoxical because it would impose greater organisational control upon the individual believer than the 'anti-Christendom' view. True, some of these small evangelical churches can be very strict, oppressive, etc. - but the fact is, they too exist in a pluralistic environment. Just like the CofE or the Lutherans, etc. they have to find their niche in western societies where it's easy to ignore religion.

Taking an evolutionary view, one might say that like the animal kingdom, different forms of faith arise to take advantage of different conditions, and different desires and requiements among different groups of people.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Is that correct, that there is a longing in these pages for an organized and hierarchical system?

I suppose there is partly, but also maybe a longing by others for the opposite?

Lots of longings, maybe. Pluralism ahoy!

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quetzalcoatl

There's lots of frustration here about the way that the historical churches do things (and I share in that), but there's also a suspicion of the unfettered spirituality and uncontrolled theology that's found among a myriad of independent Christian movements and churches. Especially if those movements and churches might be viewed as evangelical. (Noone seems too concerned about the Unitarians!)

Just my impression, of course.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

In all fairness I suspect that many Unitarian Churches tend to be Presbyterian/Congregational* mix in organisational terms and therefore really do not follow the free evangelical church patterns.

Jengie

*this means that there are strong non-cleric-leadership participation in the running of the congregation. That is there is a balance of power at the heart of the congregation government system and it is not a single person or tight knit clique who decide everything.

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