Last week, as I was driving home from our Worship Committee meeting, I caught part of an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. Host Tanya Mosley was speaking with Atlantic journalist Derek Thompson about a cover story he wrote recently called “The Anti-Social Century.” While it wasn’t a conversation about the power of church, I got home feeling like we offer a very particular gift in this difficult time.
In his article, Thompson looked at the growth in the concept of loneliness and solitude in American life over the last 125 years to try to understand the forces that have shaped our current societal moment. We are living in a time when people are drawn to leaders who put us in a constant struggle of “us versus them,” of in-groups versus out-groups, and dangerous exclusion and scapegoating. How did we get that way, and how can we reverse it?
Thompson pointed out that in the first part of the 20th century, social interactions were incredibly important to people, who were more likely to join unions and social clubs and organizations. He didn’t point it out, but they were also more likely to go to church on Sunday and spend a lot of time there the rest of the week. Then, in the middle of the century, the mass use of the television and the car began to drive us farther and farther away from one another, into private, more individualized spheres. This is detailed in Robert Putnam’s 2000 book, "Bowling Alone".
Even before the smartphone hit the scene, people were gradually losing the ability to be face-to-face. We’ve seen this in our faith community when, even before COVID sent us to our collective rooms, liturgy attendance was dropping, youth groups declining, and attendance at events slipping.
Today, we are living in a society where many of us, especially our youth and young adults, prefer personal solitude and would rather stay home and engage with social media than go out and spend time with friends. Ironically, that same social media can actually foster a great deal of social intimacy, as people have almost non-stop contact with friends who aren’t physically proximate. It also promotes a strong sense of tribe, where people can curate a group of like-minded people over social media—people who might be scattered all over the country but are as near as a Twitter feed, text, or Facebook post.
This is what I found most interesting in Thompson’s conversation: If you think of intimacy as an inner ring and tribe as an outer ring—both very strong in today’s technologically enhanced society—there is a middle ring that has become very weak: the ring called the village. The village is made up of our neighbors, the people around us.
“…Getting along with and understanding people with whom we disagree is what a strong village is all about,” Thompson said. “Understanding someone who doesn’t share your politics but also sends their daughter to the same dance class, has an issue with the same math teacher that you have an issue with, has a problem with the same falling-down bridge in your community that you have a problem with. Finding ways to see people who disagree with us as full-blooded people who share some of our underlying values is a part of what living in a community is all about.”
As Thompson was speaking, it occurred to me that vibrant faith communities, especially when they are diverse, welcoming, curious, and committed to listening to one another’s stories, are particularly strong villages. And village is a powerful antidote to the cultural vibe that many of us are lamenting right now and wondering how to reverse.
The power of village is the power of people who don’t agree on everything and yet continue to engage with one another, work together, and find common ground and common cause. And that is also the power of St. Peter’s, and the power of church.
Our Common Prayer gives us a way to be together even when we don’t agree and maybe share wildly different worldviews. Our commitment to the Baptismal Covenant, our affinity for the Beatitudes, and our love of Fellowship Hour allow us to talk together in open-hearted, open-minded, and compassionate ways. They invite us to stand side by side making sandwiches for people in need or have conversations about gender identity, or stand together before portraits of people affected by gun violence. They invite us to talk about things that we don’t agree on without name-calling, otherizing, or condemning. Because we are face-to-face, and we know one another’s families and stories. We know one another’s prayers and heartbreaks, and one another’s genius, right alongside their political views and their prejudices.
While self-centered solitude may be a very popular practice in this “anti-social age,” I wonder if the reverse isn’t happening as well. Our parish membership is growing. We are welcoming people who are looking for places where difference is welcome, and where offering safety and love is valued.
Rather than a community where everyone agrees or is polite or has decided that religion and politics must never mix, I see us as a community that thrives on creative tension, and that is figuring out how to have conversations that are curious, compassionate, and kind, and also very honest. In a world that seems to be fueled by so much hate, the power of church to be such a village is a particular gift.
The antidote to an anti-social society is “to get out more,” Thompson said. He suggested dinner parties. I suggest Fellowship Hour.
Fellowship Hour, and funerals, and Sunday Eucharist, and Godly Play, and Worship Committee and Vestry meetings, and Trivia Nights and Pancake Suppers, and the LIFT Book group and Lunch Club, and visits to Beds for Kids and stocking the Food Cupboard and making sandwiches for our neighbors in Frankford. St. Peter’s is this kind of village.
It sounds small, given all that is falling apart around us of late. But I think it’s also very powerful, because at its core, it undoes the isolation that is making it so easy for people to choose hate over love. In being who we are—who Jesus called us to be—we make an inviting place for people to come home to, a beacon for those who are looking for a loving village rather than an angry tribe.
“I think that a different kind of future is possible and that future… built on these tiny little decisions,” Thompson said. “...My wish is that a few actions here and there could actually trigger a behavioral cascade.”
Interestingly, the power of church didn’t figure in his NPR interview. But it does figure in our story. And it just might be what the world needs now more than ever.
I made a few minor adjustments for clarity, punctuation, and consistency throughout the text. Let me know if you'd like me to tweak anything further!
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