It’s true. Anybody who favorably compares the religiosity of a former Soviet bloc country with that of the US is sadly ignorant and confused. And also doesn’t understand how religion works.
Maybe in 200 years the former Warsaw Pact countries will develop real religious feeling again. But religion isn’t a toy that you can put down and then take back again.
Even Rod who has written powerfully about totalitarianism doesn’t understand what it is. He thinks you can push a button and erase it. But you can’t.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Maybe in 200 years the former Warsaw Pact countries will develop real religious feeling again”
Define “real”…. there certainly was real religious feeling in Poland throughout the 1970s and 80s and well into the post-communist period. During the 70s and 80s was tied up with politics (as far as I can tell that’s always been the case here) but it wasn’t just politics.
I still say the relatively soft landing Poland had after communism (very tough economically but without the violent and/or traumatic social disruptions found further east or south) was in no small part due to the religious heritage.
A lot of that has kind of collapsed in the last 15 or so years as the church badly overstepped and began actively pushing people away (esp younger people) but that’s a different story.
But also, I think, the public aesthetics of the drone cross wouldn’t have played well here at any time as people aren’t that much into ostentatious public display…
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The US is undergoing a fascinating religious re-shuffling right now. But you’d only see it if you belong to one of the churches involved. Mainline protestant denominations are still hemorrhaging members. But Orthodox and trad Catholic parishes are growing like wildfire, and I am hearing patchy reports of growth in some Anglican parishes as well. Given the relative numbers, I’d guess more people are leaving Christianity in American than are entering it (through conversion or just being born to religious parents). But the select parishes and denominations that are growing are very very different from what “Christianity” has historically looked like here.
In our archdiocese, as of a few months ago, one third of parishes were either in the process of building a bigger building, or purchasing a bigger building, and we were on track for anywhere from 1-4 new missions this year. There’s a shortage of priests to go around– the new crop of seminarians should cover it, but that’s going to take another 2-3 years– and the bishop is calling them out of retirement.
The thing going on with Christianity here is completely fascinating. I don’t think it relates much to whatever is happening in eastern Europe.
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All true. Our parish is very tiny and located in an area where there are no traditionally Orthodox communities. But we’ve been having an influx of new parishioners. Almost without exception these are people who are leaving Protestant denominations. And many of them are very young. It’s either young couples or very young single men. It’s fascinating and I don’t see anybody talking about it or analyzing it in a meaningful way.
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Similar at our parish– mostly young couples and single men, with also a few middle-aged couples with young kids, and some older single women.
The priest says that with the single young men at least, there’s some connection with Jordan Peterson– he’d never heard of the guy until 2 years ago, and suddenly all the young guys in the catechumenate were mentioning JP as one of the reasons they’d showed up to check out our church.
No clue about the rest of them, though.
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…and I’m hearing the same from people at our old church back in the northeast– which is a different archdiocese from ours. So at the very least, the Antiochians are doing brisk business, and maybe the OCA as well. I doubt the GOA is seeing much of that action, but I’d lay money the ROCOR churches are.
I am chomping at the bit, for the next church census numbers. This all started AFTER the last census was taken.
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