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.