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Our Man in America sees low church attendance, senses moral vacuum
December 29, 2009, Tuesday
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EDITOR'S note: Shanghai Daily writer Wan Lixin is now on a three-month study tour in Virginia, the United States. This is the eighth of his impressions about the nation.
SINCE we arrived here in early November, we have been witnessing a prolonged, make-or-break shopping period, which, miraculously, is still gaining momentum after the Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I remember one paper observed sarcastically recently: If Jesus lived today, what would he buy for Christmas? Is there more to Christmas than discounts?
To find an answer, on the 24th after the supper, I went to a nearby Calvary United Methodist Church, in time for the 8-9pm service. There were a lot of handshakes, embraces, and exchange of "Merry Christmas," probably among old neighbors, but when the service began, the seats were only half taken, and the congregation and the choir consisted mainly of elderly people.
I was told a couple of weeks ago at another church nearby that there were fewer and fewer children in the community, because young people could not afford to live there. As a result, that church now shared some of its space with other denominations.
But in these small neighborhood churches you still get more of a human touch. Here people still show interest in and kindness to a stranger.
A couple of weeks ago we visited the enormous Washington National Cathedral, and in addition to its scale, I was rather impressed by the many big flat-panel TV screens installed on the columns in the nave, and the supermodern elevator conveying us to the huge underground parking lot.
But apparently all the modern amenities - air-conditioning, motorized access, and other measures - can do little to stem the decline in church attendance.
Citing a poll, the Washington Post reported on Saturday that 59 percent of Virginians said religion was "very important" in their lives. But is their faith observed by pastors?
More reliable is the survey concluding that this region, like elsewhere, saw a big leap in the number people who identify themselves as having "no religion," reflecting the decline in Americans holding strong denominational identity.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), writer, reporter and social commentator, deplored in his "A Preface to Morals" that those who rejected orthodox religion found "a vacancy in their lives," that they missed the conviction that there was "an order in the universe that justified their lives because they were part of it."
But what are the religious moorings on which America's forefathers were believed to have founded their republic?
Most of our lectures here started with the glorification of the First Amendment, which can be traced back to the 132 Protestants on the Mayflower. These pilgrims were fleeing persecution and were instrumental in founding the Plymouth colony in 1620 in Massachusetts.
But the inconvenient truth is that British settlement in America was earlier, at least by 13 years, in Jamestown, a semi-island on the southern fringe of the Chesapeake Bay where on May 14, 1607, about one hundred colonists disembarked.
Both the above-mentioned adventures were financed by a group of venture capitalists called the Virginia Company which wanted a quick return on their investment.
They arrived in Jamestown in the belief that the Chesapeake Bay was laden with gold and silver.
Today Jamestown is more known for inaugurating the great American struggles over democracy (the colony established English America's first representative government).
Upon investigation, this turned out to be a euphemism for a tragic encounter between several civilizations in which British settlers brought with them diseases, tobacco, weapons, and slavery (both captured Africans and the American Indians), to a land of breathtaking beauty, and in a very short time virtually wiped out the native inhabitants.
SINCE we arrived here in early November, we have been witnessing a prolonged, make-or-break shopping period, which, miraculously, is still gaining momentum after the Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I remember one paper observed sarcastically recently: If Jesus lived today, what would he buy for Christmas? Is there more to Christmas than discounts?
To find an answer, on the 24th after the supper, I went to a nearby Calvary United Methodist Church, in time for the 8-9pm service. There were a lot of handshakes, embraces, and exchange of "Merry Christmas," probably among old neighbors, but when the service began, the seats were only half taken, and the congregation and the choir consisted mainly of elderly people.
I was told a couple of weeks ago at another church nearby that there were fewer and fewer children in the community, because young people could not afford to live there. As a result, that church now shared some of its space with other denominations.
But in these small neighborhood churches you still get more of a human touch. Here people still show interest in and kindness to a stranger.
A couple of weeks ago we visited the enormous Washington National Cathedral, and in addition to its scale, I was rather impressed by the many big flat-panel TV screens installed on the columns in the nave, and the supermodern elevator conveying us to the huge underground parking lot.
But apparently all the modern amenities - air-conditioning, motorized access, and other measures - can do little to stem the decline in church attendance.
Citing a poll, the Washington Post reported on Saturday that 59 percent of Virginians said religion was "very important" in their lives. But is their faith observed by pastors?
More reliable is the survey concluding that this region, like elsewhere, saw a big leap in the number people who identify themselves as having "no religion," reflecting the decline in Americans holding strong denominational identity.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), writer, reporter and social commentator, deplored in his "A Preface to Morals" that those who rejected orthodox religion found "a vacancy in their lives," that they missed the conviction that there was "an order in the universe that justified their lives because they were part of it."
But what are the religious moorings on which America's forefathers were believed to have founded their republic?
Most of our lectures here started with the glorification of the First Amendment, which can be traced back to the 132 Protestants on the Mayflower. These pilgrims were fleeing persecution and were instrumental in founding the Plymouth colony in 1620 in Massachusetts.
But the inconvenient truth is that British settlement in America was earlier, at least by 13 years, in Jamestown, a semi-island on the southern fringe of the Chesapeake Bay where on May 14, 1607, about one hundred colonists disembarked.
Both the above-mentioned adventures were financed by a group of venture capitalists called the Virginia Company which wanted a quick return on their investment.
They arrived in Jamestown in the belief that the Chesapeake Bay was laden with gold and silver.
Today Jamestown is more known for inaugurating the great American struggles over democracy (the colony established English America's first representative government).
Upon investigation, this turned out to be a euphemism for a tragic encounter between several civilizations in which British settlers brought with them diseases, tobacco, weapons, and slavery (both captured Africans and the American Indians), to a land of breathtaking beauty, and in a very short time virtually wiped out the native inhabitants.
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