OPINION:
On the heels of hundreds of church closings in Europe comes a new trend for these now-abandoned buildings: turn them into bars and dance halls and luxury hotels. That’s Europe, not America? No. America should take note. On matters of faith and worship, as Europe has gone, America is now heading.
Without speedy intervention — without a determined line drawn in the sand — America churches, too, already emptying of parishioners, will be soon repurposed, en masse, into something for the secularists.
The stats are alarming.
“American churches closing faster than new ones can open,” Fox News wrote in a headline from June, 2022.
“Churches Are Closing At An Alarming Rate In The United States,” Kreately wrote in January, 2023.
In 2019, about 4,500 Protestant churches closed in America, versus 3,000 opening. The significance of the number is that it represents the first time in America since Lifeway Research started tracking the trend that church closings outweighed church openings; it was the first time in America that the number of church openings did not increase.
Blame it on the pandemic? Perhaps.
But post-pandemic, the faithful weren’t showing as so faithful after all; and the not-so-faithful — less so. Prior to COVID, and government-ordered shutdowns that even churches — egregiously! — obeyed, 75% of Americans said they attended church at least once a year. By the time spring of 2022 rolled around, only 67% of Americans reported attending church at least once a year, according to the Survey Center on American Life and the University of Chicago.
But it’s not just church attendance that’s declining in America.
It’s self-identification as a Christian that’s falling, too.
In 1972, Pew Research found, 92% of Americans identified as Christian. By 2020, Pew found that number had dropped to 64%. And by 2070, Pew predicts it will stand at less than 50%.
That’s the year Pew says the number of “religiously unaffiliated” or “nones” will outnumber the number of those who identify as Christian.
My, how the religious landscape will shift then.
“Losing their religion,” The Guardian wrote on America’s churches in January, 2023. “Why US churches are on the decline.”
Well, broadly speaking, U.S. churches are on the decline because people aren’t attending church, and people aren’t attending church because they don’t see why church matters in the modern world, and people don’t see why church matters in modern times for a variety of reasons. Name some? Okay. Christians have grown more secular and materialistic in their thinking and pursuits, i.e. turned to false gods.
Pastors and preachers have grown more socialist and social justice in their gospel teachings, i.e. spewed false and watered-down versions of the Bible.
Technology has provided a multitude of convenient options to listen and watch sermons from a home setting, i.e. removed the fellowship and accountability aspects from the faith so that it’s much easier for individuals to turn God into whatever they want God to be. Love is love; sin is in the eye of the beholder; there is no judgment because God is love.
That’s but a few.
Hypocrisy in the church; abuses at the hands of church leaders; even the rise of a pill-popping, drug-ingesting people — all exacerbating factors.
It’s not a flight of fancy to see neighborhood churches turn into neighborhood bars. What’s happening in Europe will not stay in Europe.
In 2015, The Wall Street Journal wrote, in piece titled, “Europe’s Empty Churches Go on Sale,” and asking, “What to Do With Unused Buildings?”
Fast-forward to 2023.
Europeans found their answer.
“In Europe’s empty churches, prayer and confessions make way for drinking and dancing,” The Associated Press reported this week.
From confessional to cafe; from house of worship to house of quasi-ill repute. Now look at America. The same questions are already being asked. The same dilemma is already being mulled.
“What Should America Do With Its Empty Church Buildings?” The Atlantic wrote in 2018.
“Empty churches in America: A new solution,” CNN wrote in 2020.
“Thousands of churches close every year. What will happen to their buildings?” Religion News wrote in 2022, of California’s dwindling congregations.
Europe thinks it’s found its answer.
America must not follow that suit.
There’s something very sad about a place of worship turning into a place of drinking. It’s one thing for congregations to shrink; it’s one thing for churches to close. It’s another thing entirely for these gathering places for God’s children to turn into gathering places for the drunk and bawdy. Better to let them stand empty and idle than give them into the hands of the ungodly and unholy.
America’s trend toward secularism is already a warning of the loss of American Exceptionalism to come. After all, you can’t have God-given liberties if God is removed. But what’s taking place with European churches is an even louder warning for America. Turning churches into bars doesn’t just repurpose a building; it repurposes a pillar of society — it prioritizes flesh over faith.
Didn’t we just see that with the hanging of the pride flag from the White House?
America is a nation of limited government, where individual rights are inherent, bestowed by God at birth. And churches are the places, in large part, where that concept is formed.
Let’s not turn those into drinking establishments. The symbolism alone would destroy what makes America different from all other nations — what makes America, what keeps America, free.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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