Most excellent rebuttal!
Dude. Bro. I didn’t say anything about anything being the same as going to church.
Gyms are closed. Some people would consider a gym work-out to be superior to whatever the workout they can get in their homes. I would not argue with them on that point. But if they argued that a gym workout was essential–one that cannot be approximated anywhere else–I would push back on that. And if they said it was “bullshit” to suggest that a person in need of a work-out avail themselves of workout videos, workout TV shows, and online exercise services in lieu of a gym, you better believe I would lecture them. Because that’s crazy bananas.
Analogies are not your strong suit, I see.
None of us know TubaDiva. She isn’t our spiritual leader. We don’t sit in front of her week after week, listening to her sage words. She doesn’t know our (real) names. She knows little about us personally. We don’t pay her salary, so she isn’t duty-bound to address our emotional and spiritual needs.
How is it that millions of people are still able to participate in their workplaces from their living rooms, but churchgoers aren’t able to do this? They can’t hold bible study through Zoom? They can’t hold prayer circles through conference calls? Pastor can’t deliver his sermons through live streaming on the church website? Parisioners can’t call or IM other and fellowship via electrons? They have to be in the same physical room to be able to participate in their communities? Give me a break! That’s nuts.
Just to reiterate: I’m not saying that these alternatives are just as good as church. I’m not saying they are better than church. But they enable millions of people who can’t go to church still feel connected to their communities. If it works for these people, then there’s no reason it can’t work for everyone.
You keep saying “Whatever” but you keep posting stuff.
I don’t know what bug crawled up your ass, but I wish you’d pull it out. I never discounted the value of church, so I’m not understanding the point you think you’ve made here. My point was that someone looking for church can get plenty of church without physically going to a church. And you think that’s bullshit? I know I’ve made some controversial statements on the board in the past, but come the fuck on.
I posted before seeing this. You will find that my tone is still harsh, but I will do better going forward. Sorry.
Thanks. Yeah, your last post wasn’t acceptable either. Keep it more civil going forward.
Could you then please clarify what you meant by a “Good ole churching-up,” as in “At any given moment, a person in need of a good ole churching-up can find what they’re looking for by turning a dial, clicking the clicker, or hitting a button.”
Maybe it’s me, but it was hard for me to read that any other way than, ‘if they need what they usually get from attending church,’ they “can find what they’re looking for by turning a dial, clicking the clicker, or hitting a button.”
Well, so would I. The important thing about the gym is the exercise. Many forms of gym exercise can easily be duplicated at home: one can go for a run, or get on one’s bike, in lieu of a treadmill or stationary bike. Exercise around the house may not fully replace the machines at the gym, but it can certainly do so at least in part.
The important thing about church isn’t “doing something religious-like,” it’s participation in a faith community. I was making the point that watching the 700 Club or calling Dial-A-Prayer is the former, not the latter, and doesn’t replace a faith community at all. Calling your pastor is somewhere in between: your pastor may be the leader of your faith community, but s/he can’t be the whole durn thing for you. These are not meaningful substitutes. I’ve got a bookshelf across the room with books by Thomas Merton, Madeleine L’Engle, C.S. Lewis, Rowan Williams, and even a few Bibles. Reading them is spiritually uplifting, but they don’t in any way substitute for a faith community either.
This doesn’t mean that the congregants must physically be present at the church building. In this day and age, there are innumerable substitutes for that that allow for personal interaction and building of bonds between believers. I gave the example of small group Bible studies on Zoom, but there are others of various online generations, going all the way back to antique 
community discussion fora like this one.
The important thing is that being in the same room is not the essence of community, just like being at the gym is not the essence of exercise, and there are abundant ways of maintaining a community nowadays that don’t involve being in a room together, just like there have always been abundant ways to exercise without going to a gym.
Um, see post #36.
See post #26.
I was disagreeing with your original set of examples of things that you regarded substitutes for church. I was not claiming that none existed, and I was not suggesting that they should be allowed to physically meet in numbers that others aren’t allowed to. Those examples were a mismatch, like substituting a strand of spaghetti for an electrical wire because they look sort of the same: the spaghetti isn’t just a poor substitute for the wire, offering it as a substitute misses the whole point of what the electrical wire does. It’s not just a poor substitute; it can’t substitute at all. Your latest set of examples is all about people being able to communicate and share with each other. Whether they’re good or bad substitutes, they are substitutes for physically worshiping together; it’s just a matter of degree. The 700 Club is not a substitute at all for faith community, any more than my bookshelf with Merton et al on it can be.
I think we’re basically in agreement. I hope you understand now what I was disagreeing with you about, and why.
Note that the Pope goes along with social distancing, and no services in groups.
It’s always nice to have a religious leader that believes in Science, also.
Why are you so confused by this?!
If someone told me they need to work out but they can’t go to the gym, do you think it would be bullshit for me to say, “Hey, if you need a good ole work-out, you can do stuff at home with some basic props?” Because that’s all I was saying, except in the context of religion.
Now, if you want a gym experience, you will only find that at the gym. You aren’t going to be able to simulate a true gym experience in a tiny efficiency apartment, watching a Jane Fond aerobics tape. But if you just need to workout, you can do get that anywhere as long as you are resourceful enough. You don’t need a gym just to get in good physical shape. Plenty of people are physically fit and they don’t go to the gym.
Similarly, if you need a good ole churching up (praise and worship, sermon, praying), you can find what you are looking for on radio, TV, and internet. If you want the experience of sitting in a church pew, then yeah, you’re only going to be able to get that at a church. But most people would consider pew-sitting secondary to praise, worship, prayer, and wisdom. Praise, worship, prayer, and listening to wisdom are essential for churchgoers. Pew-sitting really isn’t. It’s a “want”, not a “need”.
Why is what I said so controversial? And why are you disagreeing so much with me when I’m only echoing what others have said? This post is going to be it for me. You came at me aggressively for no good reason, and it still has me feeling quite pissy. And I don’t want to get another warning.
I find it interesting that some people are using the idea of community as a reason for allowing these large in person church services.
Because communities are about something bigger than the individuals involved. And the idea of making personal sacrifices to protect the weakest and most vulnerable members of your group goes to the heart of the idea of community.
There is one thing that happens in large churches that can’t be duplicated online. And that’s the passing of the collection plate, the very public and visible donations. I imagine that goes to heart of the motivations of some of these houses of worship, especially the large mega churches.
I know what a workout is.
Not only have I never heard this ‘churching-up’ expression from my wife or Southern Baptist in-laws in the three decades we’ve been family, but Google doesn’t turn it up either, with or without the ‘good ole.’
That’s why I’m confused about this expression.
Here is what Urban Dictionary has to say about church it up:
Good ole churching-up = good ole praise/worship/sermon/praying. You know, the activities people commonly do at church.
I’m sorry that “churching-up” has negative connotations to you. But I didn’t mean anything offensive by it. Honest.
You may recall this scene from the Blues Brothers Movie. Jake just got out of prison and Elwood takes him to see “the Penguin.” Slightly NSFW for swearing.
Afterward, the brothers are talking to Curtis, with Jake complaining he doesn't see the point in going to church. (I can't find a clip for it, though.)Curtis : Well, the Sister was right. You boys could use a little churching up. Slide on down to the Triple Rock, and catch Rev. Cleophus. You boys listen to what he’s got to say.
Jake : Curtis, I don’t want to listen to no jive-ass preacher talking to me about Heaven and Hell.
So “you need churching up”=“you need to go to church.” But a bit more colorful or emphatic. That’s how I read the expression.
Um, I do. Met her in real life and everything. She’s something of a friend. Does that mean I win the thread?
Two more incidents of people getting sick from attending church services.
in Texas and Georgia where the release of lockdowns has been more aggressive than some other places.
If these affected only the people that attended the services, it would be one thing, but this increases the risk to everyone in those communities.
The idea that not going to church services harms the church community is silly, because the services are not where the community stuff happens. The services can very well be watched and participated in online, including the part where you talk aftrwards. And the community stuff can be replicated with online meetings. Sure, you lose some activities, but nothing of spiritual significance.
I find it hard to understand anyone who wants to go to the church building right now. It seems to me that they’ve put too much stock into the building, and forget that God is everywhere. You can pray together as long as you are agreeing in prayer at the same time. God is not restricted by distance.
This story shows that, even if they are maintaining the required distances, being together for an extended period increases the likelihood, as do sever church activities like communal singing. Better to stay at home. I will be showing this to my dad, so maybe hell stay home and not put my at risk mom at in necessarily more risk.
Sure, it’s all yours - you can take it home with you! (Gift wrapping not provided.)
So other than not pining for the fjords, how the hell are you doing? 
Bingo. Or should I say BINGO!
I will never understand religious people that feel they need to be shepherded by some guy in a building.
My church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) stopped services and any kind of in-person group meeting in mid-March.
It’s hard and Zoom meetings aren’t really a substitute. This is something that may be difficult for people who aren’t church-goers to understand (I certainly didn’t understand it before I started attending church regularly), but a big part of community is knowing the people in your community, being present in their lives, and the way that this is possible because of the way you interact at church – even if it’s only to exchange a couple of thoughts with the person you happen to pass in the hallway, it happens on a regular habit-forming basis, and so I know a lot about the people in my church community just from the little tidbits I get every week. And because of the way it’s set up so that we are all constantly serving each other, sometimes through extra-church service like offering to babysit for someone who really needs it, sometimes through intra-church service like how I put together musical numbers for services and other people teach my kiddos, etc.
Is it possible to do community-building things and community service in a church community in the absence of church meetings and when we can’t personally visit with each other? Sure! I run a scripture-reading email discussion group, the kiddos’ church teacher left Easter treats on our doorstep, there are dinners being delivered to a new mother… But it’s isolating and it’s hard. Phone and Zoom have an activation energy that means it doesn’t lead to natural sharing the way that it sort of falls out naturally out of having regular church every week. And I’ve kind of lost touch with a bunch of people… I keep in touch with my good friends, but before church ended I could have told you in broad strokes what was going on in the lives of probably at least tens of people (this woman just had surgery, that man just got remarried, etc.), and now I just have no idea about what may have happened in the last couple of months (unless it was something big; new babies and deaths get sent out on the ward mailing list).
And we’re not having church services and we are sheltering in place, because we do believe in protecting the weak and vulnerable. But there’s a very real deficit there that I’m not sure people understand who haven’t been part of a community like this. I know I wouldn’t have understood it if I weren’t part of one.
(Because I’m a weird heterodox person, I’m not even going to go into the Sacrament/communion and the meaningfulness it has that is very hard to replicate – if you want me to be totally honest I don’t care about it, but I know people who really really do.)
And we don’t pass a collection plate, either, so that’s not at all a thing.
Thank you for posting this – it’s congruent with some of the things that I had been considering posting to this thread.
Preface: I’m an uber-liberal Methodist, belonging to an uber-liberal UMC church. We have been doing online-only worship since March, and I do feel that in-person worship, even with precautions, is likely to be a really bad idea for many churches for some time to come. In addition, I have several friends who are ministers (in both liberal and conservative Christian churches), and I’ve been speaking with them about how they’re handling things, and what their congregations have been saying.
First of all, for many people of faith, it’s not just that they want and need “churchin’” in their lives, it’s that a key part of their faith is their connection with their particular church community. Watching some smarmy televangelist on TV isn’t really a replacement for that – he’s not their pastor, and that’s not their church.
Most of them are probably lifelong adherents to their faith, and many are still members of the same church that they grew up in. Going to worship service has been part of the rhythm of their lives for as long as they can remember. Those of you who have noted that you don’t ***need ***to gather together, in person, as a group to worship and pray aren’t wrong, but for the faithful, even if they rationally know this, to not be able to worship in person still can feel emotionally and spiritually hollow.
Many of the members of our congregation (and many congregations) are older, and may not be good at navigating their way online to a Zoom or Youtube gathering that’s been set up by their church (or may not be able to get online at all).
And, as **raspberry hunter **notes, what can still be missing, even if you’re able to join the Zoom worship for your church, is the social and community aspects of being part of a congregation. In the same way that it’s harder to feel connected right now with loved ones whom you can now only see on a computer screen, this situation makes worship as a community harder, too.
To add to all of the above, which are, IMO, reasonable and understandable reactions to the situation, there are also what I think are unreasonable opinions held by some people of faith, including:
- The belief that any goverment prohibition on gatherings is an infringement on the right to worship freely (and, by extension, the belief that churches should be exempt from those prohibitions)
- The belief that this is all a liberal/atheist plot to keep Christians from practicing their faith
There are three things that loom large in my life, Cons, Burning Man, and volunteering at the local natural history museum. All of them are a community, all of them have a large person-to-person contact component, all of them but one* are not happening. The latter two are making do with electronic communication, the Cons’ community is too diffuse for any action (so far) on that front.
The not-in-person meet-ups are in no way a substitute for the “real thing” but all three communities have sucked it up for now. That the faithful’s community is religious in no way makes their gathering any less of a bad idea. That they are putting not only themselves but the rest of us as well does not make the bad idea any better.
*TusCon 47 is scheduled for mid-November and the committee is monitoring the situation hopefully.