http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/your-faith/2015-12-04/are-churches-losing-grip-south At one time, everything centered around church life in the south. Events were scheduled around church meetings, and many shops were closed on Sunday. In addition, alcohol was forbidden in many places, and other places banned it's sale on Sunday.
Well most people these ays on't describe themselves as religious so it is no surrpise that churches are losing power in the South and everywhere else. These ar ethte things that people need to be aware of. We are moving toward a Godless society. Look to see more of this in the coming years. Well maybe not so much Godless but without organized religion.
It is just a sign of the times. Things are changing and many people do not attend church like they use to. People.don't respect churches and religion like they once did. These are different times that we live in. There are many young people who have never stepped inside a church. There are many non believers. There was a time when almost everybody attended church on Sunday. Nobody worked Sunday. Now stores are all opened and it is just another day. Good or bad, it is what it is.
YAY! No but seriously why should a religious institute have any sort of power over anything? It makes absolutely no sense. Sure the Church should be there for the people who want to go but I'm a bit skeptical giving power to an organisation that has known to use that power for their own gain for the past couple thousand years. Ohh and I don't have too much confidence in the fact that adults with imaginary friends should decide how things go. So yeah, I see this as a completely positive thing.
It's not really power, but adjusting to how society has evolved. People may have to work at weekends, so they have no choice, stores have to open to compete with others. Few rural places still can remain traditional, but how people live has changed. Hence some churches do have evening services during the week. Besides that people take weekend breaks with the family too, so church attendance is lower down on the list. As long as there is a congregation the church will stay open, but when that generation goes, it often isn't replaced.
The church never was supposed to be powerful. I wouldn't mourn the death of organized religion but though the church is losing power it doesn't necessarily mean that the demise of organized religion is almost here. Could be we are replacing one bad thing for something that is worse? There'll come a time when devil-worship will be the one world religion.
Are the churches in that area really losing power (influence) over people or the rules have just been more liberal to be appropriate with the modern times? The Catholic church here in the Philippines have changed their style from a centralized into one that is autonomous. That means the parish priest of a town or city district has the sole power and they can dictate what they want. The usual every hour mass to serve the people have now changed to every 1-1/2 hours interval to give the priest time to rest. That's according to those priests.
I noticed that it's that way in more populated areas but rural areas are still dominated by church. I drove through some areas where every car in the town would be at church all day.
I'm not too surprised. There is an overall decline in the impact of religion in the United States. The mainline Protestants really hit the skids decades ago, the Roman Catholic Church has been decline and really took a hit over the scandals, and finally the evangelical churches seem to have hit their pinnacle during Dubya's first term and since then have been deflating. If this is a net positive or negative, I suppose, depends on one's perspective. As a skeptic and an agnostic, I may be one of those rare types that doesn't give much of a rip either way. The churches have done a lot of good in this country (e.g., charities, hospitals, schools, universities, community spirit, etc.), but also a heck of a lot of damage too (e.g., lack of critical thinking, exclusionary positions, etc.). Like any profound aspect of the human experience, religion cannot be reduce to a simple good or bad, but is rather many shades of gray.
With the rise of islam and a president who is probably an atheist, it is not that much of a shock that the American South is losing its identity. Once guns become illegal in the US - and it will happen - the South will be consigned to history.
