Experts project an estimated 100,000 churches in the US will close or be repurposed over the next decade.
Many churches will be unable to escape this “tsunami” of closings — a grim trajectory one pastor described as, “Every year the pews are getting emptier and the collection plates getting lighter.”
I’ve suspected it was just propaganda the whole time, though maybe that was more wishful thinking. Like there was a shift that I noticed on reddit after the API change, as I just stopped logging in and contributing anything but continued lurking some of the drama subs like AITAH.
Before, religious references were either very overt (like people telling someone they are going to hell or need Jesus or something, using their religion to either attack or virtue signal) or habitual (common sayings with religious roots, like “omg” or anything about blessings, which doesn’t really indicate religiousness so much as being raised around religious everyday references).
After, I’d see these random bursts of people casually dropping references to their religion, more subtle than the previous overt references but also more overt than the previous habitual references. They just didn’t feel organic to me and I suspected that they were attempts to bring back Christianity as the default in group. No idea if it was that or if the change was just coincidental, but I worried that there might be a real trend back towards religiousness.