"Re-engaging the faithful"?

[QContinuum]

It can happen that way. For me, my functional atheism made me realize that whether I believed or not, stuff happened. So if prayer and practice made no difference to the outcome, then practically speaking, neither was there any difference between a reality where God existed or didn’t exist.

A difference that makes no difference is no difference. So here I am, agnostic-atheist. Either a cautionary tale, or a testament to lived experience. Whichever you prefer.

 

[InThePew]

In almost any group there are the committed few at the centre, the more-or-less committed in the middle and the casual contacts around the periphery. THis is certainly true for parish life. Granted, a traditionalist community is likely to have more committed members; those who will commute 40 minutes to get there simply because they’re passionate about it. At the same time, this is still a small group even if it constitutes most of the community.

When you take something regular out of people’s lives and routines it can be very difficult to reintegrate it back in and this is the concern many dioceses and parishes have right now. The question then becomes - first, how to we stay connected with those members of the flock who aren’t super-engaged; and secondly, how to we bring them back once we can open the doors again. It’s all well and good to say that those who we’re concerned about have faith built on sand but those “wayward sheep” are the very one’s we’re called to be most concerned about.

 

[Jbrady]

There is such a thing as functional atheism. If you go long enough without praying or practicing religion, you stop thinking about it for longer and longer periods. Until you wake up one day and realize you haven’t needed religion to function in a very long time.

I wouldn’t go quite as far as to call it “atheism”. Rather. most people will likely remain religious, although for many, their practice will become more DIY, whenever they want to, and a lot less centralized and institutionalized. There was already a trend in that direction. This crisis will only accelerate it.

And it’s not only religion that will be affected. Sports, recreation, theater, concerts, retail shopping and many other sectors will be affected, too. Larger, robust, established, adaptable generalists with deep pockets will spring back, like Walmart and the Chicago Bulls. Smaller, struggling, specialist start-ups living off seed money are going to go belly up, like ma and pa boutiques and minor league teams.

The Catholic Church, like most other churches, may be large, but it was rapidly shrinking long before the virus appeared. It’s struggling with a shrinking revenue that cannot sustain the infrastructure it has in place. Adaptable is not a word I would use to describe it; change takes place far too slowly to adapt to a super-rapidly changing world. Pretty much the case for most religious groups nowadays, even the Mormons. As far as deep pockets, bishops were already unwilling to support ailing parishes that couldn’t pull their weight and were doomed no matter what. A lot of smaller, graying, shrinking and insolvent parishes will be closed or merged. Especially in the Northeast and Midwest.

This will, in turn, drive a greater trend toward DIY religion.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It can happen that way. For me, my functional atheism made me realize that whether I believed or not, stuff happened. So if prayer and practice made no difference to the outcome, then practically speaking, neither was there any difference between a reality where God existed or didn’t exist.

If you’re looking for God to come down and zap you because you didn’t go to church, or reward you here on earth because you did, you’re really misguided and looking up the wrong tree. Lesson #1 is that we don’t see the results of our behavior here.

“Functional atheism” is a dead end and there is no benefit to it. You’ll find that out someday.

 

[QContinuum]

I’m not looking for anything from God because I’m not looking for God or any god, period. As far as not expecting any results on Earth, I obviously agree with that. But you are contradicting Christian theology when you state that practicing faith has no results or rewards in this life. Your Church claims that faith changes lives.

I’m here to, I dunno, warn? Or advise? That the bishops’ concerns are valid. The biggest threat to people’s faith isn’t philosophical atheism, it’s the lived experience of it. This whole pandemic has been one practical lesson that spiritual welfare is a lesser priority than physical, and that science, not prayer or belief in God, is the key to solving the pandemic.

 

[stpurl]

Well the thing is that science can solve the pandemic in time because that is what science is for: it is a tool to solve physical or ‘natural’ issues.

God is supernatural.

For a Christian, while physical life is important —so important that we wish it protected from conception to natural death—it is a precursor to a supernatural and eternal life.

God does not exist to make simply ‘physical’ natural changes. And we exist for Him, not He for us. We are supposed to use science and other natural tools so far as possible to do good in our natural lives as well as use the supernatural gifts of faith, hope, and charity (which includes simple natural altruism etc but goes beyond that to supernatural and spiritual goods) in order to best prepare ourself to accept the free gift of eternal salvation which is a supernatural offering.

So the fact that ‘science’ can help (or is a tool) to address various natural physical ills is like saying that the sky is blue or we should eat our veggies or get 8 hours of sleep at night. It is a natural ‘axiom’ based upon years of trial, error, and experience. But it is totally unrelated to the supernatural.

And the other thing is, there is no dichotomy where the supernatural is lived ‘without the natural’ or the natural lived without the supernatural (people just don’t want to either see or understand it). It isn’t a question of whether science is ‘better than’ faith or vice versa. And we don’t prioritize the supernatural by ignoring the natural, or pretending that if we ‘focus on God’ we can ‘ignore the natural stuff’ as beneath us. We are supposed to focus best on God by loving our neighbor as ourself, and that means attending to their spiritual AND physical health as much as possible.

 

[QContinuum]

We are supposed to focus best on God by loving our neighbor as ourself, and that means attending to their spiritual AND physical health as much as possible.

I’m trying to think of an inoffensive way to express my point. What you say may seem very reasonable and deep and all that. But I am talking about the lived experience of people who don’t give a plugged nickel about all those nice sounding, but frankly useless words.

So what if God is up there doing whatever spiritual stuff that he fills his time with? I don’t look to bishops or imams when I get strep throat or if I get Covid-19. I look to science and medical professionals. I don’t look to the heavens when I go through difficult times, because when I did before nothing happened. But when I looked to other people, friends and family, that’s where help came from.

All the nice sounding words and philosophical arguments fall flat in the face of pure, practical experience. And that experience has shown me that faith in God serves no practical use.

Heck, even most of your own bishops acknowledge that it isn’t God they take direction from but scientists. The fact that they shut down access to something they call the “source and summit of faith” tells me, an unbeliever, that they are more afraid of physical illness (and possibly being sued) than they are of depriving their sheep of their faith.

I agree that they are protecting people from death but by doing so they are tacitly acknowledging the superiority of science over theology. I think that is a very bitter pill for them to swallow.

And if I can understand that, as an outsider, what will the common believer think? After having gone weeks or months witnessing the passivity of the bishops, and seeing how little their prayers accomplish (nothing), what will their verdict be?

Again, it’s not about philosophical atheist arguments – it’s functional atheism, living as if there is no god because church is shut down and shut out of people’s lives in any meaningful way.

 

[jeannetherese]

It seems to me that your definition revolves around the words ‘as if’ but we have no reason to believe that the Catholics who cannot assist physically at mass are praying less than they were prior to the rise of Covid 19.
My own experience was that being forced from the Mass (other than accessing it on youtube or facebook streaming, led to a very emotional engagement when watching and an extraordinarily intense hunger for the Eucharist.
I was finally able to assist in person at Mass last week and it was a profoundly moving experience.
It left me with a feeling of solidarity and empathy with my Chinese brothers and sisters who, for years, lived their faith underground, dealing with intense persecution.
Adverse circumstances may lead one to question a deeper relationship with our Lord.

 

[Phemie]

Where I am located, several of the churches tend to be so full on Sundays that it’s a bigger issue to just get a seat at some of the Masses than it is to “renew” the parish, but perhaps it is needed elsewhere.

Wish we had that problem. The only time we have a full church is at the early Christmas Eve Mass and even that attendance no longer requires putting out extra chairs. In a parish of ~1500 we had 30 at the 2019 Easter Vigil. If it wasn’t for the influx of Filipinos we’ve seen in the past 10 years we’d be a very hurting parish.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’m sorry to hear that. I hope this situation makes more people see the importance of having a relationship with Jesus and attending church. Or that maybe you get more Filipinos moving into your area.
The area I am in is probably one of the most Catholic areas in the USA. The parishes I attend produce a lot of vocations for the diocese also. I know there are other parts of the USA where the churches are not so crowded.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

Why do you need a webinar, an “initiative”, and a lot of buzzwords about it?

If I could change one thing about the way the Catholic hierarchy communicates with the laity, it would be less marketing gibberish written by consultants.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If I could change one thing about the way the Catholic hierarchy communicates with the laity, it would be less marketing gibberish written by consultants.

I don’t even think they’re consultants, or they would realize that this stuff does not play very well to many segments of their end user base. Their end user base, who are the people in the pews including folks like you and me, is not the same as their customer base, who are the dioceses, bishops etc who pay for these types of canned programs. I suspect that those who develop the programs, whether they’re laypeople or religious, spend the vast majority of their time interacting with a) the clergy who are their customers and b) other Catholics who are more or less just like themselves and get jazzed over the same things. They do not actually seek out the opinions of people who might be negative on such a program, or worse yet they let us know that “negative Nancy” comments just mean you’re old fashioned (or just old aged) and have a bad attitude.

I wish them the best with it, in any event, but I agree with you it would be nice to stop with all the fancy marketing speak and just say straight out what they’re trying to do. If it’s to get people to go to Mass more and give more to the collection, just say so.

 

[QContinuum]

And again, that is you and others will have similar responses. What I am trying to explain is that for still others the effect of shutting off church attendance is like participating in an involuntary experiment. Sometimes people will experience a strong need to return. Others will find that going or not going has not really affected their lives either way. If the latter is the case, then the bishops’ concerns are quite valid.

 

[Neithan]

If not going to church doesn’t make a difference for someone, then what did they believe in? Did they or did they not believe in the gospel? In the means of grace? The purpose of life? Something essential is already functionally absent so it’s not surprising then if they finally realize it.

 

[VeryBlessed]

It can happen that way. For me, my functional atheism made me realize that whether I believed or not, stuff happened. So if prayer and practice made no difference to the outcome, then practically speaking, neither was there any difference between a reality where God existed or didn’t exist.

I’m glad you’re here reading and contributing. I would caution against embracing atheism just because faith doesn’t seem to make sense on a balance sheet. As much as I seek it, unfortunately I have found that my faith does not help me avoid hard times, but it does equip me to handle them better. And there is in the resurrection of Christ a hope held out to all of us, that there is redemption from suffering, if not in this life, in the next.

Absent in what you shared is any reference to the next life. In this sense you seem to agree with the following bible verse: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.” 1 Cor 15:19. I follow, not so much to get stuff from him in this life, but in order to take hold of the gift of heaven that he holds out to me. In fact you could argue from the Bible, that following Jesus makes your life harder in this world, not easier.

My faith came alive when I made a conscious decision to give my life to him, just as he had already done for me. In that sense, God has already outgiven all of us. In giving us an open door to heaven, there’s nothing more he needs to give me. If he were to give me just that and nothing more, I will be greatly in his debt forever.

Regarding the topic at hand, I think the crisis is exposing the depths of peoples commitment to God, rather than causing a drift away from God. Plus, the Bible tells us to be subject to earthly authorities over us. The church is caught in a tough place. Spurning the rule of law looks more like pride than holiness. There is no real good answer here.

 

[OraLabora]

When you take something regular out of people’s lives and routines it can be very difficult to reintegrate it back in and this is the concern many dioceses and parishes have right now.

It’s a valid concern. So to is the need to reach out those who won’t be able to come back right away. I think restrictions will selectively and only slowly removed. Those who are still in high-risk groups, those over 70 or with co-morbidities, will necessarily trickle back very slowly.

Since around here that is a very high proportion of Catholics, the pews will seem emptier for a while. We’ll effectively be “shut-ins” and advised to stay away from gatherings. I hope some way of accessing the sacraments will be figured out for high-risk parishioners.