RELIGION - Where do Churches Come From?

[neonlyte]

I ask, as a non-practicing Agnostic, as so many new ones are appearing in my neigbourhood.

Are we in crisis?

Are we 'rich enough' to endow more churches?

I was quite happy with the church were everyone marries at one end of town, and the church where they lay you to rest near the centre, opposite the police station (worries over grave-robbers no doubt). Not sure where the young go for confirmation. I hadn't really thought beyond the need for the two, they are there if I need them, even just to go and think.

Now we have one in an old cinema, one in a office building, one in a disused railway station not to mention half a dozen smaller 'temples' dotting the city fabric in unchurchly buildings. I was hoping my American Cousins might elucidate - What gives?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Well, first a mommy church and a daddy church love each other very much ...

 

[sr71plt]

The first two responses that sprang to my mind won't fly well . . .

(1. Shit happens.

2. In Sim City, a church building crops up wherever a balance weakness occurs on a commercial/residential/industrial block)

. . . but I'll keep thinking on that one.

 

[neonlyte]

Well... you two have been a fat lot of y'se

See... ever since I saw The Church of the INSTANT Jesus just outside Niagra Falls, I've had this idea that's where the mommy church and daddy church get together - stop it - Is it the election? Is that's what'd driving them away from the US of A?

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Well, first a mommy church and a daddy church love each other very much ...

*snerk*

That's just what I was thinking...

 

[neonlyte]

*snerk*

That's just what I was thinking...

One-track minds - the pair of you... it's the organs isn't it.

 

[sr71plt]

One-track minds - the pair of you... it's the organs isn't it.

Good one.

 

[rgraham666]

Every time I hear the phrase 'church organs' I always think of this movie.

'In the future there will no longer be war. But there will be Rollerball.'

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor never sounded better.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Well, first a mommy church and a daddy church love each other very much ...

In certain instances, Shang's answer is kinda right, though the exact process is more like mitosis.

Some individual churches will sponsor new ones. These are often called "Missionary Churches" because they lack the money to stand alone.

Many denominations will establish churches were they feel a need exists, such as a growing area of a town.

Individuals can, and sometimes do, start a church. To save expensives, they'll sometimes begin meeting in homes, then if they grow, move to "store front" locations.

The Right Rev Rumple Foreskin http://bestsmileys.com/religous/1.gif

 

[neonlyte]

In certain instances, Shang's answer is kinda right, though the exact process is more like mitosis.

Some individual churches will sponsor new ones. These are often called "Missionary Churches" because they lack the money to stand alone.

Many denominations will establish churches were they feel a need exists, such as a growing area of a town.

Individuals can, and sometimes do, start a church. To save expensives, they'll sometimes begin meeting in homes, then if they grow, move to "store front" locations.

The Right Rev Rumple Foreskin http://bestsmileys.com/religous/1.gif

That's pretty much what I figured, Rev... It's part of the urban cycle, they've moved out of homes into low rent/buy properties to give themselves 'street presence' - marketing. I can go with that... but why now? Economics me thinks.

 

[sr71plt]

That's pretty much what I figured, Rev... It's part of the urban cycle, they've moved out of homes into low rent/buy properties to give themselves 'street presence' - marketing. I can go with that... but why now? Economics me thinks.

Do you live in the UK, Neonlyte? If so, you are experiencing late what has already happened in the States--the splintering of old church denominations and springing up of new, mostly evangelical, variations on or reactions to established denominations--and they all want their own church facilities (and, yes, this means much of whatever they collect goes to building construction and maintenance). You've just held the concept of a state church system for a while, whereas they threw that out in the States from the beginning. (I'm editing an interesting book dealing with that concept now--the Founding Fathers in the States and their dealing with religion in reweaving a national system.)

 

[neonlyte]

Do you live in the UK, Neonlyte? If so, you are experiencing late what has already happened in the States--the splintering of old church denominations and springing up of new, mostly evangelical, variations on or reactions to established denominations--and they all want their own church facilities (and, yes, this means much of whatever they collect goes to building construction and maintenance). You've just held the concept of a state church system for a while, whereas they threw that out in the States from the beginning. (I'm editing an interesting book dealing with that concept now--the Founding Fathers in the States and their dealing with religion in reweaving a national system.)

The book sounds most interesting, sr, if it's not too much trouble, drop me a note when it's published.

I spend my time divided between UK and Portugal, where this current church proliferation is in full swing - and it is exactly as you describe. In some ways, Portugal dumped its strict adherence to Catholicism in the 1974 revolution; not immediately of course, it wasn't as easy as losing a dictator. I suspect this surge in church building is connected with the events of 1974 but is largely inspired by the one million immigrants who fled the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique to settle in this western outpost of Europe. They had a tough time, shanty towns ringed Lisbon, eventually social housing was built and over three decades these new Portuguese they've reached a economic level from which they are able to contribute to the conversion of disused buildings to churches. The building pattern follows the conventional 'ripple effect' of economic development - a model most clearly seen in early USA cities - where the economic decline of the urban fabric begins at the centre as prosperity enables citizens to move to the cleaner suburbs. The run down centre is later renewed but for the interim period substantial properties in the centre are adapted to new uses. I think that's exactly what I'm seeing, and fits nicely with Shang's, Selena's and the Right Rev's church mating theory - which personally I think is a little far fetched.

 

[Katyusha]

I ask, as a non-practicing Agnostic, as so many new ones are appearing in my neigbourhood.

Are we in crisis?

Are we 'rich enough' to endow more churches?

I was quite happy with the church were everyone marries at one end of town, and the church where they lay you to rest near the centre, opposite the police station (worries over grave-robbers no doubt). Not sure where the young go for confirmation. I hadn't really thought beyond the need for the two, they are there if I need them, even just to go and think.

Now we have one in an old cinema, one in a office building, one in a disused railway station not to mention half a dozen smaller 'temples' dotting the city fabric in unchurchly buildings. I was hoping my American Cousins might elucidate - What gives?

I don't know. I often wonder about the need for a chapel at O'Hare (yes there is a chapel inside O'Hare International Airport). It's mainly there for employees...but that doesn't mean I understand why said employees can't attend services/confession/prayer/whatever on their own time in churches in their own neighborhoods.

It's supposedly there for the traveling public as well, but it's mostly used by employees.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Those businesses are going belly-up. They donate space to churches to have someone in there because they can't rent the space to anyone else, and there's always some weird splinter denomination meeting in someone's garage who's looking to move into an abandoned cinema or grocery store and keep an eye on the building.

Watch for the churches to move out in less than a year and the buildings to mysteriously burn down for the insurance money. In Chicago, those kinds of fires are called "Greek Lightning" because so many of them happen in small restaurants which in these parts are traditionally Greek-run.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

I don't know. I often wonder about the need for a chapel at O'Hare (yes there is a chapel inside O'Hare International Airport). It's mainly there for employees...but that doesn't mean I understand why said employees can't attend services/confession/prayer/whatever on their own time in churches in their own neighborhoods.

It's supposedly there for the traveling public as well, but it's mostly used by employees.

Most major airports (at least in the States) have a small chapel and a minister on staff. A lot of life goes on in an airport. In addition of staff, I suppose stressed travelers and possibly concerned family members might find it handy.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Norway had the right idea. Burn them down.

 

[sr71plt]

Most major airports (at least in the States) have a small chapel and a minister on staff. A lot of life goes on in an airport. In addition of staff, I suppose stressed travelers and possibly concerned family members might find it handy.

Rumple Foreskin

One of my sisters once was a chaplain at a major beer brewery. It was surprising how many of those people needed some immediate counseling and consoling that needed to be done before they could get home and to their own church (even for the good of the brewery's business).

 

[sr71plt]

Watch for the churches to move out in less than a year and the buildings to mysteriously burn down for the insurance money. In Chicago, those kinds of fires are called "Greek Lightning" because so many of them happen in small restaurants which in these parts are traditionally Greek-run.

Or Chinese new year.

 

[Katyusha]

The building pattern follows the conventional 'ripple effect' of economic development - a model most clearly seen in early USA cities - where the economic decline of the urban fabric begins at the centre as prosperity enables citizens to move to the cleaner suburbs. The run down centre is later renewed but for the interim period substantial properties in the centre are adapted to new uses.

Many of our cities still have the run-down center...the "inner city" if you will. Chicago is a good example of what happens when nobody but the poor are left in the inner city, and what that part of the city begins to look like as new laws are passed that the government and real-estate investors must adhere to in rehabbing properties. There are neighborhoods in Chicago that used to be run-down and crime-ridden that are now up-and-coming both economically and socially.

The problem with this is that as these neighborhoods' standards of living are brought up, the poor are driven out, and other parts of the city and near suburbs are brought down. Chicago has been in the slow and arduous process of razing its big government housing projects in favor of smaller, more sustainable types of low-income housing. It's been a difficult process and dirty crime-ridden buildings like Cabrini-Green, which was supposed to be torn down six years ago, are still standing and still inhabited because the new low-income housing is too expensive for a lot of people, and too far away from work and transportation for them (a lot of it is not in the city itself, but in the near south suburbs).

It's a cycle, and the problem is not bringing up the standards in these neighborhoods so that they are more economically and socially stable but rather what happens to the poor when investors move into a new area. Englewood is considered one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago, but within the last few years investors have begun buying houses there and rehabbing them, then selling them or renting them out. There are always problems with this at first because when an investor buys an old, boarded up house and fixes it up, making it livable again, he must deal with the fact that there are five or six other houses on that quarter-mile stretch of street that are also boarded up, which keeps property values low. But he might decide to buy those board-ups too, and if not other investors surely will. In ten years, Englewood might be like the Austin neighborhood is now. And who knows where Austin will be...Austin could go in either direction in the next ten years.

You do see some of the oddest businesses in some of the oddest buildings, buildings you can tell were once flats or auto repair shops or gas stations or churches or whatever in some of these areas, but now house a small law office or liquor store or church or what-have-you. Sometimes, as the neighborhood continues to flourish that changes, and sometimes it doesn't. Some of Chicago's more decent areas still have some strange things in buildings that just don't seem to fit them, but the proprietors make them work somehow.

 

[Katyusha]

Most major airports (at least in the States) have a small chapel and a minister on staff. A lot of life goes on in an airport. In addition of staff, I suppose stressed travelers and possibly concerned family members might find it handy.

Rumple Foreskin

Yes I know...my husband works at O'Hare and when World Sport Chicago needs me for an event, I usually do arrivals and departures there as well as whatever they need at the actual event. I've spent FAR too much time there.

A lot of couples have gotten married in that little chapel. Sometimes I wonder, though, if O'Hare might do better to have a little one inside the sterile area as well so stressed travelers don't have to go in and out of security to get to it. That chapel is up by the USO...outside security.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

From Econ 310 - "Churches are the perfect marketing plan: The offer nothing more than an empty promise and collect 10% of your income."

Look at the crappy economy. Suddenly there are a lot more churches? What does that tell you?

 

[Misty_Morning]

Well, gonna take stab in the dark.

A church is any place where one or more persons can praise God.

It can be high cathedral or a vacant lot.

It can be anywhere that one chooses.





It exsists in your heart.


Any person can be a church, if they are willing.

 

[neonlyte]

Norway had the right idea. Burn them down.

Read 'Lords of Chaos'?

 

[neonlyte]

<snip>Many of our cities still have the run-down center...the "inner city" if you will. Chicago is a good example of what happens when nobody but the poor are left in the inner city, and what that part of the city begins to look like as new laws are passed that the government and real-estate investors must adhere to in rehabbing properties. There are neighborhoods in Chicago that used to be run-down and crime-ridden that are now up-and-coming both economically and socially.</snip>

Chicago is the model all architecture/planning students learn when studying urban renewal, the effect magnified by the boundary of the lake. It is interesting to hear that the cycle continues.

 

[ishtat]

I ask, as a non-practicing Agnostic, as so many new ones are appearing in my neigbourhood.

Are we in crisis?

Are we 'rich enough' to endow more churches?

I was quite happy with the church were everyone marries at one end of town, and the church where they lay you to rest near the centre, opposite the police station (worries over grave-robbers no doubt). Not sure where the young go for confirmation. I hadn't really thought beyond the need for the two, they are there if I need them, even just to go and think.

Now we have one in an old cinema, one in a office building, one in a disused railway station not to mention half a dozen smaller 'temples' dotting the city fabric in unchurchly buildings. I was hoping my American Cousins might elucidate - What gives?

What is particularly interesting is to see the exponential growth of churches/temples etc mainly fundamentalistl in nature in the third world especialy latin America, Africa and East Asia. I travel a lot and the fracturing of the traditional christian churches (Catholic and Protestant) is interesting.