Will church survive the Trump pandemic?

While in university I used to have fun arguments with my atheist friend (at least I thought they were fun). In one of our discussions, she suggested churches in North America would eventually cease to exist.  

I scoffed at the thought. While I could agree church participation was declining, I had no conception of it disappearing. Certainly not anytime in my lifetime. 

It was the “liberal” churches, after all, that were losing members. Their pews tend to be filled with the elderly – those who've spent a lifetime involved in traditions and community within a religious institution. For various reasons, their children didn’t find the same fulfillment. 

Evangelical churches have had more success hanging on to their congregants. They offer programs (endless programs!) to keep people of all ages engaged and they offer community where it is often lacking in our individualistic society. 

But as one of our pastors confided in me a few years ago, even these churches aren’t growing. He went on to say that their only "success” has come through attracting “people who grew up in church, like you.” He was referring to me and my family, whom he had never talked to before – perhaps he perceived the pastor’s kid’s look on my face? (I didn't tell him his lack of interest in people could be part of the problem.) 

This pastor eventually left our church to start a new one – one where there were more pureblood converts, I presume, and less chaff from other churches. I'm not sure how he’s been doing, but he struck me as the type who could create a small congregation by sheer determination. 

Because that’s what it would take. Over the past year, I doubt it’s gotten any easier. 

The pandemic has disrupted everyone’s lives, and for many church-goers it will have been the first time they’ve stopped attending church for a lengthy period of time. When I grew up, the only time I didn’t go to church on Sunday was when I was gravely ill. It was then I realized there was something else waiting for me on Sunday morning – they were called The Smurfs. To this day, I cannot understand what TV programmers were thinking (11 am Sunday morning? Really?!). 

  Once you get hooked on The Smurfs, or other Sunday-morning activities, it can be hard to go back to church services. The pandemic may have given people the excuse they need to simply stop attending. 

But I think there's an even bigger issue that’s still playing out. It started four years ago, when the White evangelical church placed their faith in a man named Donald Trump.  

He was a means to an end. He was their King Cyrus, if you prefer justification from the Old Testament. He vowed to protect their interests: To create laws and appoint judges who would interpret laws in their favour. It didn’t matter that he was a racist, a misogynist, or prone to incite violence. As a rare anti-Trump, white evangelical columnist wrote just yesterday: “[Trump] exemplified a type of politics where cruelty is the evidence of commitment, brutality is the measure of loyalty and violence is equated with power.” All that mattered was that he protected the White (emphasis on White) evangelical church’s interests. 

I never had much respect for the Religious Right before Trump, but I’ve lost all of it now. Trump, an utterly irreligious man, has turned people off from Christianity in droves. People who didn’t need to be driven away, like those of colour who attend multi-racial communities of faith, and women, many who were already second-class congregants in patriarchal church structures, may not return. 

It’s important to note that the Black evangelical church (just as fervently evangelical/fundamentalist as the White church) did not support Trump. They supported the devil in Joe Biden (please permit me to be facetious). This alone demonstrates how much this is a political issue about power, not a religious or, heaven forbid, a spiritual one. 

But do most people differentiate?  

Trump did a number on the church, and the pandemic has given people the time to reflect on this. 

For many churches, it will be a difficult return to normal. 

Sometimes it's okay to give for wrong reasons

A few years ago, my wife and daughter suggested we donate to our municipal library. My response was viewed as cold: “You know we already pay library taxes, right? It’s right on our property tax bill. I can show you.”  

Surprisingly, they didn’t want to be shown. 

Seeing this was a battle I couldn’t win, I relented. I gave the institution twenty bucks.

A few days later, I received a rather lengthy message from someone at the library thanking me for my donation. They even asked if I wanted to go out for coffee sometime. 

Obviously, they don’t get many donations. But still, it was nice. 

It was also enough to make me a regular donor. Because every year, a few days after my donation, I get the customary phone call. 

This year I even upped my pledge. It felt so good... I mean to get that phone call. The message they left was even longer, even more effusive in their gratitude. I listened to it at least a couple times. 

As altruistic as I like to think I am, there’s an immense feeling of satisfaction in giving to organizations that put you on a pedestal for your ounce of generosity. (And let’s be clear, my donation likely only covered an hour’s wage of the person calling back donors to thank them for their donations.) 

For the most part, our family’s donations come automatically out of our bank account. That’s all well and good. In fact, I prefer it because I miss the money less, and we know that non-profits depend on a steady stream of funds. 

But there are a few organizations we give to out of the blue, just because we want to. It’s those little gifts that can be the most rewarding. 

Giving to people on the street can have a similar, uplifting effect.  

Like the guy I met one morning walking to work. This young man looked a little down on his luck when he asked for change, so I gave him $20. He thanked me as I began walking away, telling me about all he could buy with the cash. That made me feel good. Which made me wonder, did I really do it for him? 

I realize doling out change (or bills) may not be the best way to alleviate poverty, at least that’s what I’ve been told; better to give to an organization that helps the needy rather than to complete strangers. But is this always true? 

Some research has shown that giving directly to the poorest of the poor can be more effective than giving to organizations that assist the poor. Why? Because the poorest of the poor (generally) put every dollar to good use. A gift of cash through GiveDirectly, for example, can be life-changing, enabling families to repair homes, buy livestock and medicine, and invest in education. 

Microloans don’t appear to have the same track record. Although these may feel more prudent to us Westerners – encouraging entrepreneurship, helping people become more self-sufficient, etc. – they aren't always that effective. Give a family a boost in cash, and the improvements to their lives are immediate and even longer lasting. 

With that all said, our family continues to give to larger non-profit organizations. They’ve been doing their work for years and seem to be pretty good at it.  

Like the library.... Yes, I know, it’s not even a charity – although technically, it has charitable status (an all-important factor when filling out your tax return). 

But in the end, it’s more than the charitable tax receipt or knowing I’ve helped an organization I value.  

It’s all about that phone call. 

Housing is the new toilet paper

Hard-wired in our human brains is the tendency to move in herds.  

This can explain a lot of trends, but also makes the future difficult to predict. The pandemic has illustrated that not everything we do all together is rational. 

Who, after all, could have predicted the great toilet paper run of 2020? Sociologists will grapple with this event for some time. Was it the soft comfort afforded to us in a collective moment of fear and dread? Or was it the need to horde something – anything – to give us a sense of control? 

Whatever the reasons, miraculously, we never ran out. We had an ample supply of old-growth timber to keep our bottoms clean. 

As covid-19 vaccines slowly roll out, I would have expected a similar rush to get inoculated, but we're not seeing quite the same urgency.  

In the drive-thru in Regina (a covid hotspot, in case you hadn’t heard), the wait times were often less than an hour. One day they had excess vaccines, so decided to open things up to emergency and other front-line workers (why they weren’t available to them in the first place is a mystery). 

Of course people have their reasons for not lining up. Some are more comfortable waiting for an appointment and some are vaccine hesitant. But so far, anyway, the toilet paper frenzy was bigger than the rush to get vaccines. One must deduce that we’re more concerned about keeping our bottoms clean than risking sickness and death. 

Another recent phenomenon is the pandemic housing boom. While unpredicted, now in hindsight, it makes complete sense. 

Lower interest rates, a need for more space, and more money in our pockets (for the middle/upper class, anyway), has led to yet another unprecedented spike in prices. 

 A quick glance of the headlines in The Globe and Mail on Friday reveal the extent of our obsession: 

The trouble with the bubble: Why Canada’s red-hot housing market is defying the burst. 

What does $700K buy across Canada: Properties priced at the national average, from coast to coast. 

Tax tips for buying, building, renovating or selling a home. 

Home of the Week: From a typical downtown Toronto ‘rental junk’ to joy. 

Notice the implicit condescension toward renting... In today’s society, you haven’t really made it until you own a home. Only then will you will reap the rewards of eternal home maintenance and renovations. 

The housing bust has been predicted so many times in Canada that we now call these people false prophets. Not even the great housing crash of 2009 – the one that decimated Europe and the U.S. – has left us undeterred. 

But it won’t last forever. 

A surprising trend demonstrating our unpredictability is the recent decline in car ownership. In Saskatchewan, car registrations declined 11% from 2014 to 2018, while the population continued to increase. 

The pandemic will surely accentuate this trend. We've driven our car so little this past year, cobwebs began growing under the wheel wells (well, almost). 

As with all things we think will never change – if ever there was a symbol of progress and status in the 20th century, it was the car – eventually they will. But good luck trying to predict when.