Despite the advent of social networking platforms and people listing many ways in which they feel more connected to others than ever before, the number of U.S. citizens reporting loneliness has increased sharply in recent decades. This, of course, was further exacerbated in 2020 by the literal isolation of a global pandemic. As 40 percent of Americans are now vaccinated and we assess how life will look on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, are churches and other houses of worship the antidote to our social isolation?
The Trinity Forum recently hosted a conversation with Francie Broghammer and Ryan Streeter, two scholars who have extensive experience studying the phenomena of loneliness and social isolation, especially as they appear in the United States. Trinity Forum President Cherie Harder joined the two in conversation as moderator.
Harder described these phenomena as the “rather unsettling paradox of our time.”
“It’s the fact that we have never been more virtually connected, but we are deeply, painfully, even lethally lonely,” Harder expressed.
According to Broghammer, a psychiatrist, many people misunderstand what loneliness actually is and how it appears in our daily lives.
“Loneliness is not in and of itself social isolation… loneliness is the subjective feeling of feeling alone,” Broghammer asserted. In keeping with this definition, a person can feel loneliness while surrounded by hundreds of people.
Although Broghammer pointed out that this sharp increase in American loneliness strikingly appeared within the past twenty years, Streeter, director of domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, proclaimed that “this is something that every generation has sort of struggled with.”
“This is a perennial question that we wrestle with,” Streeter noted.
In diagnosing the causes of loneliness and social isolation, Streeter pointed to the role that the recent decline in house of worship membership among Americans might play. A recent Gallup poll shows U.S. church membership is below 50 percent for the first time in recent history.
“When people are embedded in networks of real relationships, both formal and informal, and particularly when those are rooted in a house of faith and in a family, you see really low levels of loneliness there,” stated Streeter.
He further described the “sort of magic equation of marriage, membership (usually within a religious organization, but it can be civic), and just sufficient time in the community,” which exists in the lives of people reporting low levels of loneliness.
Interestingly, Broghammer outlined that, despite often prevailing belief, social media isn’t always the main culprit in cultivating feelings of social isolation.
“It depends on how we use technology as a means of engagement,” she stated. “So, it’s not just social media ‘all bad,’ because it does depend on how we use it, and how often we use it, and in which ways we’re using it.”
Broghammer assessed that social media — when used correctly — can be like “baby bear’s porridge,” as in “supplementary and helpful.”
According to Streeter, in order to reach their full potential in alleviating loneliness and social isolation, churches must reassess their function and role in the community.
“I think we’re at a point in the United States where religious leaders across the country should really be asking a fundamental question about what the Church’s responsibility is to the public square,” he proclaimed. “What does it actually mean for a church to own some piece of the public square, rather than becoming vehicles to own the political opposition, which unfortunately has been happening I think all too often.”
If churches can rediscover their meaning and expand membership and engagement within communities, “you will see people sort of fully flourish,” Streeter concluded.
Broghammer concluded her remarks by highlighting the importance of meaning, not just for a community or house of worship, but also to the lives of individuals. We must “take that one step forward and find the meaning” in our lives, she asserted.
The conversation ended with Broghammer quoting Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist whose book Man’s Search for Meaning, written based on his experience in Nazi concentration camps, has informed generations on logotherapy.
“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionally waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’”
The full conversation can be viewed here on the Trinity Forum website.
Comment by Star Tripper on April 22, 2021 at 5:10 pm
Small groups are the key and always have been. Social media is an endorphin trap just like video games and porn. Any church that wants to grow will institute small groups and spinning off new groups when current ones grow to 20 or so. As for the church’s responsibility in the public square it is the same as 2000 years ago. Preach the Gospel.
Comment by David on April 22, 2021 at 6:13 pm
The 2000 book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” by Robert D. Putnam addressed the decline of social groups in the US. These included bowling leagues, fraternal and service organizations. Now churches are suffering similar fates. Various explanations have been offered for this including television and the internet. There have also been social changes in the US where men feel more obligated to be with their families than go to lodge night. Youth organizations such as scouting have also experienced a decline. Some of this might have to do with suburbanization where people can be more physically distanced than in earlier times.
Comment by Charles S. Oaxpatu on April 25, 2021 at 10:32 pm
People feel so lonely because the Internet put us in touch with our many neighbors in our own towns and our many neighbors around the world. The relative anonymity of people on the worldwide web allowed them to state precisely what they think and how they feel about various issues. We were horrified—-and I do mean horrified—-by what was going on inside our neighbors’ heads. We learned that many of our neighbors are nothing less that monsters masquerading as average human beings.
I learned these lessons a long time ago when I was just a very small child. Most of you out there did not begin learning these lessons about people until after the year 1994, when the Internet as we know it today, came into widespread use and started growing.
Yours truly has only a very few true friends, and there is a reason for that. People are scary—-really, really, really scary. People wear false masks to hide their scariness from other people because they feel sure that their true personality would scare the living daylights out of other people—-and they are correct—-they would scare the living daylights out of other people.
Church is an especially scary place. It is full of people. All kinds of people. They all wear their “Social Jesus Masks” to hide who they really are from the pastor and the rest of the congregation. I am not talking about a few bad people. I am talking about everyone at church.
Basically, I quit going to church simply because people are there. Please do not take me wrong on this. Jesus wants us to love our neighbors, and if a pedophile pastor needed a trip to the hospital, I would gladly take him in my Honda van with a smile on my face and joy in my heart. However, on the other side of that coin, it grieves my mind and heart to sit in church with Trump voters and all of that religio-political garbage swirling around in their minds. I do not like them. I do not want to be near them. I do not want any kind of relationship with them, their brainwashed wives, or their brainwashed children. Trumpites at church really and truly are scary people.
If there is one thing I have learned from interacting with people face-to-face and people on the Internet, it is this. People in general these days are angry all the time, mean-spirited, difficult to deal with, exceedingly selfish, and thoroughly self-absorbed—-and they eventually show it in dealing with people—-and they go out of their way to hurt people. I have been hurt by so many people—-so many times in life—-I just refuse to stand still and take the hurt anymore. That applies to both my fellow Christians and the nonChristians I know. These days I just avoid developing further relationships with people beyond:
“Just water. I will order the salisbury steak with green beans and squash casserole—–and yeah—–cherry pie for dessert. Thanks!!!”
So, what about it Kennedy Lee? You look so smiling and happy in that by-line photograph. I have lived long enough (68 years) to understand that that smile is just a clever mask to cover up all of the evil and pain that throbs in your heart day and night and screams out to be heard—-but no one is really listening—-you know that—-and no one really cares about you—-or what happens to you—-even those who are closest to you.
Comment by Jeffrey Walton on April 26, 2021 at 10:46 am
Charles, it turns out that church isn’t the place for “good” people — and the church has historically not taught that it is. It’s a hospital for sinners, and has its share of hypocrites. The key difference is that, within the church, we should be convicted that we are sinners and hypocrites, and model bringing that brokenness before the great physician for his healing care. Matthew 9:13:”But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Comment by Charles S. Oaxpatu on April 27, 2021 at 7:40 am
My comment above was addressed to Ms. Kennedy Lee—–not you Jeffrey Watson. I am most interested in her thoughts on what I had to say in that comment. Your college student interns need experience in dealing with such comments from fellow Christian writers around the country. Quit standing in for her and let her personally address the issues raised. She needs to learn how to do that. It is an important part of the intern learning experience. And we just know your organization is going to have a permanent job offer for her at the end of her three-month internship. Right Jeffrey?
And what you said Jeffrey: “I already knew that.”