Even though I’m now an atheist, what the United Methodist Church has become disappoints and saddens me. That was not the church of my childhood. They were always the moderate protestant church in southern towns, compared to the Southern Baptists. The only thing I hated about going to visit my grandparents when I was young was being taken to their Southern Baptist Church on Sunday. All I remember is this angry man yelling at the Congregation, telling everyone they were going to hell.
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From a business sense, this is hogwash. Losing moderate and progressive members by going extreme could make sense if there was a vacuum in the extremist niche. There isn’t. so instead of serving their existing members and making a compelling case for new members to join, they are trying to occupy the same space as the evangelicals - and the evangelicals have shown they can squeeze more money from their rubes and go more extreme than the Methodists could hope to.
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I agree with you, on that. But the methodists are going just as far right in the south as any evangelicals, and in some cases further right than that. But all that said, there’s also an unsaid thing going on. The evangelical, and, in fact, the southern church itself is dying. Christianity is fading away and it’s not even subtle. The church where I grew up had 30 kids my age when I grew up , and was a young church. Now, 30+ years later… I’m still amongst the youngest to attend when I go back home. The average age of the church is 71. The attendances are down to mid teens per service. There are no kids, no families. They don’t attend this even right leaning church. (which isn’t methodist) . Other churches where I grew up have seen the same decline. One of the vacationing pastors (the pastor who comes in when Mom’s church’s pastor is on vacation) , his main church is a 3 way church. Every week it rotates between Cumberland Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, and Methodist. Same membership gets counted for all three.
So, yeah, they’re losing customers, but all of them have been for awhile. At this point the only thing they have got is that they scream loudest.
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As a devout atheist, I don’t know how religious community works in any meaningful way - is it that religiosity is declining period, or is it that it’s shifting into online spaces? See: “Facebook sharing” etc.
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I assume they have some internal metrics on the ROI of each member type.
If moderate and progressive members bring in $10 more a month than it costs to keep them, a $10 gain each. While an extreme member brings in $50 net a month. Then, it makes sense to have one fifth the members, all extreme and net the same amount. At least it does if you only measure net per member.
If you measure member growth and think you can bring in more than five times the members with the moderates, then growing the total number of members would clearly be better. This assumes someone does the analysis this way. Of course, in this example, you only need to grow the extreme members at one fifth the rate to get the same growth rate.
If member growth has become impossible, then chasing the smaller number of more profitable members holds on for longer.
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Many years ago I read an online parody of Left Behind in which the Antichrist comes to Earth as an American politician, gets elected President and enacts all his Satanic, anti-American schemes for one world government with the enthusiastic support of Evangelicals.
I feel sure that somebody on this BB wil remember it, because it’s right up Boing Boing’s alley.
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If there’s one thing I’ll say about growing up Methodist, it’s that it helped me go and find a religion that more fits my actual beliefs. They managed to run a friend’s family out of the church for leading a “faith and doubt” discussion group with some of the teens. And that congregation found ways to bristle at the appointment of anyone who might have some connection to social justice. The last nail for me was back in '03 when the conference decided that one of my friends had no place in the ministry, and that nothing was going to change their minds about it. I drove past my former church last summer and saw a big sign for their Vacation Bible School with a theme from Ephesians about holy armor.
There’s no amount of casserole that’s worth that.
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You’d think that wouldn’t offer much protection, especially against piercing attacks.
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Great post. I wish more people opposing the religious right would try to understand this dynamic, it might make their opposition a lot more effective.
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My sister is part of a Methodist church in northern Vermont, and even with a decent person as pastor, the reality is their church is dying (off) as well. She’s the youngest regular attendee (50s) and Covid killed a couple, but old age is thinning the rest. They try to get their kids/grands to come, but people are busy just trying to cover rent in that area; nobody has the time and spare change to devote.
Their non-progressive values drove away some potential attendees a while back. I don’t think extremism would draw many in, because you can mainline fear for free.
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What about the ones from Scotland?
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No True Scotsman doesn’t apply when the original Scotsman defined what a Scotsman is, and the people now claiming to be Scotsmen don’t fit that definition.
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Last I checked, he’s dead and doesn’t have squat to say. The test is not much more than “they say they are”. There’s no central authority to say otherwise.
If it’s so plain what he said, why are there thousands of denominations? If they can even vaguely justify their position, they are. If they aren’t, there aren’t any.
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Only a little related, but I saw an interview with Stephen King where he was asked about the politician in “The Dead Zone,” and said something about how TFG could have been the template for him.
The only thing that reduces support for the politician is, during the assassination attempt, he grabs an infant from someone in the crowd and holds it in front of himself like a shield. It’s all caught on film and he’s ruined.
Sadly, I think Trumpers would make an excuse and keep supporting him. 
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At what point do we stop letting bigots and fascists define terms? The more we do that, the more they win.
A line needs to be drawn, and I’d like the mass media stop giving the fascists who claim the mantle of Jesus all the attention in order to create a white supremacist society where certain people are violently elimiated and instead give voice to the millions of Christians who actual try to emulate their lord and savior, and embrace the kind of love and forgiveness he advocated.
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