Contemplating the Institutionalized Church After the Crisis

None of us knows the future, but we can look at the past and see if it tells us anything. Big variables in the future of the institutionalized church have always been, and we can assume always will be, discretionary money people have available to give and the birth rate.

There are people today predicting the virus will lead the public to another revival. Others, that it will lead to more rapid decline in the institutional church. 

The link author believes that the recession in 2008 was a dividing point between growth and decline of the church in the U.S. Because of uncertainty, people had fewer children. The result of fewer births is now resulting in fewer church members. We have discussed often here also the lower percentages of young people staying with religion as they move into adulthood.

Another demographic trend that is thought to reduce church participation is the drop in percentages of marriage. For whatever reason, couples that live together and do not marry are much less likely to attend church. One can guess some feel they will be frowned upon.

Every time there is a crisis various religious pundits proclaim now is the time people will return to the faith. In the past few decades they have not. Similarly today with economic and health uncertainties there are articles on the internet claiming people will need to faith now more than ever.

There have been times in the past where uncertainty brought people to church. In recent decades it has not.