Tag Archives: churches

Zoning, churches, and tax bases

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Zoning of land can become a contentious issue, particularly when a community sets limits that some community members find restrictive. An article quickly mentions one of these points of contention: when communities make it difficult for churches to be built.

“Churches do not realize the fight they’re in,” Baker said. “If you go into a commercial district, they say you’re wrecking their tax base. If you go into residential, they say you’re disturbing their peace.”

While the issue is not new, Baker said, “The objections to churches obtaining zoning do seem to be heating up under the [economy].”…

In Houston, churches recently raised objections over a proposed drainage fee by city officials. In Mission, Kansas, churches filed a lawsuit after being charged a “transportation utility fee” to help fix roads.

In the case of Burbank, Mayor Harry Klein told the Chicago Tribune, “It’s obvious—every city likes to see their tax base grow, that’s a given.”

An alderman in Evanston, Indiana, raised concerns last year about the impact of “storefront churches” on the tax base and proposed an ordinance requiring special-use permits for houses of worship to operate in all business or commercial districts.

While this article doesn’t give any insights into how common this is, it does suggest that these cases might be more common now in a time of economic crisis. This may be the case as many communities look to close budget shortfalls and churches also have some more purchasing power with reduced real estate prices. Is there any data to suggest these sorts of incidents are now more common?

This article does highlight the goals of local municipalities: generating tax revenue and expanding the tax base. To require fees to pay for roads or sewers are not unusual when commercial or residential property is involved as these fees help offset the infrastructure costs for local communities. Churches do not generate property or sales taxes for a community so they might be considered dead weight. And if a church wants a potentially lucrative property, then the aims of the church and the community are at odds. Zoning is a means by which local communities have some control over land use and therefore can attempt to use zoning rules to regulate everything from the placement of banks to churches to tattoo parlors.

It would also be interesting to compare these sorts of cases with churches to those of mosques (one example here).

Thinking about religion, education, and marriage

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A recent Pew study on marriage has been getting a lot of attention, particularly for the finding that an increased number of Americans think marriage is obsolete. Another study, this from the National Marriage Project, provides some more interesting findings about marriage: “Marriage is an emerging dividing line between America’s moderately educated middle and those with college degrees.”

Ross Douthat explains some of the implications of this study:

This decline is depressing, but it isn’t surprising. We’ve known for a while that America has a marriage gap: college graduates divorce infrequently and bear few children out of wedlock, while in the rest of the country unwed parenthood and family breakdown are becoming a new normal. This gap has been one of the paradoxes of the culture war: highly educated Americans live like Ozzie and Harriet despite being cultural liberals, while middle America hews to traditional values but has trouble living up to them.

But the Marriage Project’s data suggest that this paradox is fading. It’s no longer clear that middle America does hold more conservative views on marriage and family, or that educated Americans are still more likely to be secular and socially liberal…

There has been a similar change in religious practice. In the 1970s, college- educated Americans were slightly less likely to attend church than high school graduates. Today, piety increasingly correlates with education: college graduates are America’s most faithful churchgoers, while religious observance has dropped precipitously among the less-educated.

In part, these shifts may be a testament to the upward mobility of religious believers…

This means that a culture war that’s often seen as a clash between liberal elites and a conservative middle America looks more and more like a conflict within the educated class — pitting Wheaton and Baylor against Brown and Bard, Redeemer Presbyterian Church against the 92nd Street Y, C. S. Lewis devotees against the Philip Pullman fan club.

But as religious conservatives have climbed the educational ladder, American churches seem to be having trouble reaching the people left behind. This is bad news for both Christianity and the country.

This is interesting: marriage, and those who both defend it and practice it, may be within the purview of the educated but not others. Does this suggest marriage has become something of a luxury, something that those with education (and presumably more money) can afford but those without this capital don’t see as a necessity? And when and why exactly did this shift take place?

I would be curious to know what sociologists think is the link between these findings and what goes on in college. Is marriage simply part of the typical life aspiration for someone who goes to college where it isn’t for people who don’t get a college degree? Is there something that happens in college or during that time period or having a college degree that pushes people toward marriage? How exactly is having the college degree linked to this action?

And in the final part of what I cited, Douthat makes a point about the role of churches: how exactly can or should they promote marriage, particularly to the parts of the US population that aren’t as open to it? Do churches promote marriage by promoting families (activities and education for the kids, etc.) or is there more that should be done? Have more churches in recent years shifted their attention away from the working-class to the more educated?

Differences in political activism in mainline and evangelical pastors

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Christianity Today contrasts the political stances and activities of mainline and evangelical pastors. The data is summed up this way:

[A] new study from Calvin College’s Paul B. Henry Institute shows that for the past decade, evangelical pastors have been more likely to take public stances on political issues and candidates than have their mainline cohorts. Overall, some differences between evangelical and mainline clergy are shrinking as mainline pastors become more conservative and evangelical pastors become more socially active.

This is some interesting data: it suggests both mainline and evangelical congregations don’t hear much about politics even as pastors themselves took stands on particular public issues and a sizable minority supported a political candidate.

On the whole, however, it looks like there are not too many differences here between evangelical and mainline churches in these matters. Outside of more mainline pastors being more liberal on political and economic issues than their congregations, about half of evangelical and mainline pastors engaged in some form of political activity in church. Perhaps we would need some more data to find sharper differences (such as about the particular congregations and contexts where these sorts of activities took place – this could be found in the National Congregations Study) or more qualitative data that could provide insights into how politics is acted upon in particular congregations and through particular pastors.

Considering the portrayal of single women

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In the beginning of a film review, a British reviewer highlights a sociological study about how people treat and interact with single women:

Apparently, couples still shun the female singleton, fearful that she’ll wreck their marriages or at least their dinner-party numbers. One survey found that half of its sample never had single women as visitors, and 19% knew no single women at all. Casual disregard for this social group goes unremarked. Our prime minister insists that marriage must be prioritised and rewarded. The last government repeatedly identified “hard-working families” as its abiding concern. WAGs, meanwhile, are celebrated as much as manless Anistons are pitied.

In a world centred on cosily coupled units, leftover women labour under an enduring disadvantage. When they’re not ignored completely, they’re expected to provide tireless but unrecompensed support for people who matter more than them, as babysitters, carers or shoulders to cry on. When a mother is called upon to bunk off work to attend a nativity play, her unpartnered colleague is expected to take up the slack.

Cinema hasn’t done much for the benighted single woman.

The sociological study in question included 48 Australian married people. It is an interesting area of gender roles to consider; the norm in society is still to find a spouse or partner by a certain age. Cultural values and norms plus supportive public policies put pressure on people. This is particularly the case in many churches where singleness is frowned upon.

But hasn’t there been some pushback in the cultural realm on this front? Perhaps not in movies but television shows like “Cougar Town” have taken up this issue. Some of it may depend on the end goal: is the message of such films and TV shows (and books and music) that single women need to find men/husbands to be complete?

Having children = family

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New research from a University of Indiana sociologist suggests that Americans define a collection of people as a family if children are involved:

“Children provide this, quote, ‘guarantee’ that move you to family status,” Powell said. “Having children signals something. It signals that there really is a commitment and a sense of responsibility in a family.”

For instance, 39.6 percent in 2010 said that an unmarried man and woman living together were a family — but give that couple some kids and 83 percent say that’s a family.

Of course, the definition of family has changed over time. The “nuclear family” developed several hundred years ago as people moved away from a broader definition of family that included extended family members or other members of a community.

One can see this recent definition in action in many churches. Having children changes the status of couples from a social grouping not worthy of extra attention to a very important social grouping.

Passionate vs. “fake” faith among teenagers

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Kendra Creasy Dean, a professor at Princeton Theology Seminary and United Methodist minister,  has a new book, based on data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, regarding the faith of teenagers. While many American teenagers claim to be Christian, their faith can be termed “moral therapeutic deism” (defined roughly in the article as “It’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.”).

Dean says teenagers with passionate faith are marked by several characteristics:

No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.

This would certainly be of interest to parents and those who work with teenagers. At the same time, we could ask where these teenagers are getting their ideas about moral therapeutic deism.

For more on this topic (and also based on the same data set): read Soul Searching by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton and Souls In Transition by Christian Smith and Patricia Snell.

John Wilson responds to “Hipster Christianity”

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The other day, I linked to a piece from the Wall Street Journal written by Brett McCracken, author of a new book titled Hipster Christianity.

John Wilson, editor of Books & Culture, responds to McCracken’s piece. Part of his critique:

To write a book about would-be hipsters, you have to be hip yourself, even as you are criticizing those who aspire to hipness. It’s a tricky balancing act. In his role as hipster-scold, McCracken arches a brow…

Wilson suggests McCracken is creating shadowy figures when there aren’t any (“Evangelical Christian leadership”), doesn’t have figures to back up claims that such efforts are “increasing,” and reaches an untenable conclusion:

“We want real”: The combination of pretension and naïveté in this declaration is stunning, but it is par for the course, so to speak, in the McCrackenverse.

Would Wilson argue that such things are not going on in Evangelical churches? Is the issue the broad claims McCracken is making with limited data or that McCracken is critiquing attempts at being hip while still trying to remain hip?

Young evangelical says churches shouldn’t strive to be “cool”

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In the Wall Street Journal, 27-year old evangelical Brett McCracken suggests churches shouldn’t try so hard to be cool:

If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that “cool Christianity” is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don’t want cool as much as we want real.

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched—and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.

McCracken sounds like he is suggesting the church should be counter-cultural rather than go along with the culture. This seems fairly obvious given the radical message of Christianity – it is difficult to reconcile this with today’s American culture. But churches also want to attract members and the glitzy and glamorous ways to do this seem attractive.

Follow-up questions: does this approach from churches lead to long-lasting attendance or spiritual growth? Is “real” what most emerging adults are looking for in church and religion? And what is “real” anyway?

McCracken recently published a book titled Hipster Christianity that further examines this issue.