Declining Average Church Attendance and Marketing Implications

Sam Harrelson on May 29, 2015

RIP, average attendance | Faith and Leadership: “Church attendance was once a key indicator of a virtuous cycle. If the church could get a new person in the pew regularly, offerings would go up, involvement in small groups and missions would climb, and the church would be healthy. If attendance was declining then everything else would eventually decline. The growing lack of dependability on attendance is a sign that the virtuous cycles that have sustained congregations since the end of World War II are collapsing. In order to sustain congregations over the long haul, new cycles need to be developed. Once that begins to happen, new measures can be identified.”

Interesting article that ends with a decisive call to parish leaders to move ahead in attempting to understand the changing nature of church attendance rather than keeping the status quo or firmly placing heads in sand to avoid the uncomfortable conversations that arise as a result.

As Pew Research etc have pointed out, the religious landscape of the United States is decidedly different than it was just 10 years ago, but especially 20-30 years ago when many of the models church leaders use for analysis, budget predictions etc were being formulated.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Churches being smart, nimble, and open to hearing the voice of God in the silence, in the whirlwinds, and even in the spreadsheets can mean the difference between keeping a historic sanctuary lit and being able to provide missions monies or having to sell the building to the YMCA.

Religious Slacktivism

Sam Harrelson on May 21, 2015

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Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with discussions of whether Jesus was a terrorist, the beatification process, Muslim responses to climate change, how to fix Genesis, and why changing your Facebook profile picture makes you feel better.

Source: Thinking Religion Podcast: Religious Slacktivism

 

Our weekly podcast episode on Religion and culture is live. I think it turned out pretty well!

Stop Drinking Bottled Water

Sam Harrelson on May 19, 2015

Clean, safe drinking water that flows freely out of our faucets is a feat of engineering that humans have been been perfecting for two millennia. It is a cornerstone of civilization. It is what our cities are built upon. And over the years the scientists and hydrologists and technicians who help get water to our houses have also become our environmental stewards, our infrastructural watchdogs, our urban visionaries. Drinking the water these people supply to our homes is the best possible way to protect future access to water worldwide. Companies that package water in a single-use bottle are not concerned with the future. They are not invested in the long-term effects of climate change on an endangered watershed, nor are they working to prepare a megacity for an inevitable natural disaster. What they are interested in is their bottom line: Marketing a “healthy” product to compensate for the fact that people are buying less of their other products that are known to case obesity and diabetes—and selling it for at prices that are 240 to 10,000 times higher than what you pay for tap water.

Source: Stop Drinking Bottled Water

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I’ll add this under my “Theological Eating” umbrella.

A Podcast About Walmart Caskets, Cynic Jesus, and Beards

Sam Harrelson on May 7, 2015

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Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with discussions of the physicality of resurrections, how to read the Bible in a short period of time while in D.C., pledging allegiance to the Christian Flag, and what Muhammad has to do with the First Amendment.

Source: Thinking Religion: Save Money, Die Better | Thinking.FM

Thomas and I do a podcast every Wednesday that I particularly enjoy. It goes back to our days in seminary together (2008 or so) and although we kept trying to make it a regular thing, it’s only become a standard weekly part of my life in earnest over the past few months.

I wouldn’t think of putting off the recording of an episode now. It’s my weekly chance to nerd out about religion, politics, history, and have a civilized conversation that is “deeper” and more reflective than my usual fare. We certainly don’t always agree (this episode is a good example of that), but we do always end up learning a bit from each other… well, I learn from Thomas mostly.

The other thing that I’m beginning to really appreciate are the show notes. We spend a good deal of time pulling those links together and then curating them down into something that can be reasonably thought of as a standard podcast length show. Every week, we come up with dozens of links, so the selection process before the show has also become a highlight of my week.

It’s become a good show. It’s only getting better. Hope you enjoy.

Is the Original New Testament Lost?

Sam Harrelson on March 7, 2015

House of Cards is fun, but take a few mins to watch something a little more substantive this weekend (like this):

As you might expect, I argue that even though we have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament,  we do not have many *early* ones — and hardly any *really* early ones.  That is why we can not (always? ever?) know with absolute certainty what the authors of the New Testament originally said.   That matters for lots of reasons, one of which is that fundamentalist Christians but their faith in the very words of the Bible.  But what if, in some passages, we don’t know what those words were?   Dan, also as expected, argued that we have such extensive evidence for the New Testament — more than for any other book from the ancient world — we can trust that we have what the authors originally wrote.

via My Debate with Dan Wallace: Is the Original NT Lost? – Christianity in Antiquity (CIA): The Bart Ehrman Blog.

Why We Should Care About Archaeological Destruction

Sam Harrelson on February 26, 2015

This is terrible…

The Islamic State group released a video on Thursday showing militants using sledgehammers to smash ancient artifacts in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, describing them as idols that must be removed, according to the Associated Press.

The destructions are part of a campaign by Islamic State, who have destroyed a number of shrines — including Muslim holy sites — in order to eliminate what they view as heresy.

via Islamic State Video Shows Militants Destroying Museum Artifacts in Iraq – Dispatch – WSJ.

While the world was watching the Academy Awards ceremony, the people of Mosul were watching a different show. They were horrified to see ISIS members burn the Mosul public library. Among the many thousands of books it housed, more than 8,000 rare old books and manuscripts were burned.

via ISIS Burns 8000 Rare Books and Manuscripts in Mosul – Yahoo! Finance

Let’s not forget that people of many faiths (ancient and modern) have used the defacement or destruction of art or cultural items as a way to “wipe the slate clean” of previous heresies. From Hatsheput to Josiah pulling down the high places in Israel to the burning of books, these tactics are power plays designed to show that the deity or deities are on one’s side in a presumed theo-political battle.

Lost in the fear that ISIS / ISIL / IS is imminently planning to attack the US is the cultural damage this collection of people are doing to museums and sites in Syria (Damascus, Antioch, Palmyra, Dura Europos) and northern Iraq (Mosul / Nineveh).

Specifically for the stories linked above, the modern city of Mosul sites very near Nineveh, the historical capital of the Assyrian Empire, at its height in the 9th-7th centuries BCE. Believe it or not, Assyrian artifacts caused quite a rage in the late 1800’s after Sir Henry Austen Layard’s discovery of Assyrian palaces in the 1850’s.

These artifacts directly impacted the development of the missionary movement as northeastern universities used these impressive pieces of art as proof of God’s providence (as the folks in Jerusalem were saved from Sennacherib’s invasion by God’s hand according to the book of Kings… the folks in the Northern Kingdom of Israel as well as Lachish were less fortunate).

While doing graduate studies at Yale, I somehow lucked into a dream job at the Yale Art Gallery. I was so fascinated by the Assyrian antiquities there and the story of why Yale, Harvard, Amherst, Williams etc were so passionate about securing Assyrian pieces for their own collections in the 1800’s that I wrote a book about it:

This accompanying text to the Yale University Art Gallery’s famed Assyrian reliefs details the 19th-century American frenzy for reliefs taken from Assurnasirpal II’s magnificent palace in Kalhu near the Tigris River. The discovery of the palace by the British in 1845 captured the Victorian public’s imagination, leading to the discovery of other architectural sites and the deciphering of the Assyrian language. Soon, American missionaries sought to procure artifacts for their alma maters, most often coveting reliefs that were religious in content. William Frederic Williams was one such missionary and former Yale faculty member. He, along with Yale Medical School graduate Henry Lobel, secured six slabs from Assurnasirpal’s palace, which were divided up between Yale, Amherst, and Union Seminary in Utica. Harrelson analyzes at length the two reliefs obtained by Yale. He touches on the technical aspects of the materials as well as the reliefs’ religious iconography, situating them within the palace as a whole.

via Asia Has Claims Upon New England by Sam Harrelson, Yale University Art Gallery

Along with the atrocities being done by groups such as IS to other humans, we should care about the destruction of irreplaceable pieces of world history whenever it happens. For those of us with a more jingoist mindset, we should especially care when these cultural pieces are directly tied to our own history and majority religion.

William F. Williams wrote back to his benefactors at Yale from the city of Mosul in the 1850’s that, “Asia has claims upon New England.” Perhaps that has never been more true in the modern context.

Thomas and I will definitely discuss this on the next Thinking Religion, so give that a listen if you’re interested.

I pray for peace.

Theological Eating

Sam Harrelson on February 13, 2015

At the beginning of the year, I decided to stop eating meat and meat products. I have some experience with this from my days in graduate school (it was more of an economic decision then!), but I was still going into this new year / new eating pattern with the full understanding that it’s very hard to change patterns even if it is 1/1 on the calendar.

Yes, we are humans and we are organic animal beings that are meant to include meat and animals in our diet (and yes, I consider fish, shellfish, etc as part of the animal kingdom).

I want to explain why, as I’ve gotten a good number of questions about my decision. As an aside, the most contentious conversations I’ve had about my “theological eating” has been with more conservative Christians who, at first blush, deny the reality of concepts such as evolution, but are quick to point out that our species became who we are because of meat consumption…but that’s for another post).

I call this whole eating style “theological eating” for me. That’s corny and pretentious and a little ostentatious. But it reminds me of why I’m doing it. Merianna and I (and MH and Laura) are big “animal people” in that we are outnumbered by our animal co-habitators in our home (including a recently acquired tortoise that will outlive me and costs more to maintain than I do every month). I’ve always been very empathetic with animals going back to childhood.

I’ve also been very compelled to examine my own use of resources and materials. I’ve been terrible at the follow through, but I always had a huge amount of guilt when I ordered a Big Mac or a steak at Outback or bought a discounted slab of chicken breasts at Ingles or Bi-Lo. Part of that guilt was because of the animals themselves and my far-removed connection between their probably not-so-great life and death and my own plate. Part of that also has to do with the economic system that we perpetuate by exchanging our dollars for meat “grown” in such a manner. Part of this has to do with the realization of the advertising machine that corporations put into marketing their products to children, adults, and the elderly. Theologically, I can’t be honest with my own faith if I don’t address a very core issue of both the suffering of probably cognizant beings as well as my own participation in an economic system that I don’t support because of a story about a man who lived a long time ago.

I’m also using one small bowl (a bowl I “borrowed” from Wofford College in 2000… promise I’ll return) and one utensil (an awesome titanium spork… yep!) for most of my food intake at home.

This isn’t just about meat, either (but oh boy is it difficult to find good kosher vegan cheese…whew). I’ve also started heavily examining products such as cereals, grains, sugar, water…even beer that I put into my body and pay with my money. I’m extending this to areas such as how I buy tech gadgets (people that know me know that I spend a good deal of time, money, and attention on those), books, music, appliances etc. For the past year, I’ve pretty much worn the same “outfit” (as Merianna calls it) everyday of an awesome black shirt with a pair of slacks and brown shoes. When one cannot be mended anymore, I buy a new one (happened just this week and I had to get a replacement). Thoughtful and deliberate consumption, if you will. I’ll call it “theological eating.”

The unexamined life might not be worth living, but the examined life is not a walk in hippy park, either. I’m not making this lifestyle choice in order to make you feel bad about ordering a #2 at McDonald’s or plopping down $12 for a steak at Applebees, either. This isn’t out of disdain or judgement. We all walk our own path and mine is not for anyone else or better than yours (probably worse).

We live in an amazing period of our species’ existence. It probably won’t continue on some progressive curve upwards, and we should realize and enjoy our fortune of being born in such a time. That involves enjoying the resources around us.

Nevertheless, I feel like I need to be more deliberate about my choices, and that’s why I am hopeful this is the right path for me.