familiar<\/em>. I haven\u2019t read these particular iterations before, but I\u2019ve read so many general iterations of them that they all begin to blur together.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2023\/09\/Spotlight.jpg\")
Another set of authors have written another book about \u201cwhy millions of Americans left church \u2014 and what might bring them back.\u201d This isn\u2019t the first such story about such a book. Nor is it the second, or even the tenth or the 20th. Maybe these new authors have found something new to say about this subject, but that seems unlikely. And the cautious verb in the headline \u2014 \u201cexplores\u201d \u2014 isn\u2019t particularly promising.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica\u2019s religious exodus\u201d is a big story, but other than reminding us of that fact, I\u2019m not sure this article tells us much beyond the \u201cnews\u201d that the pile of books exploring that story has just gotten a bit taller.<\/p>\n
The second story is also a very big story. Or, rather, it is one local facet of that very big story \u2014 one that confirms that larger story while adding more specific detail. It is the latest in a long, long list of similar stories limning the massive, global scope of the scandal of sexual abuse by clergy and the failures and struggles of churches all over the world to protect parishioners from these predatory pastors.<\/p>\n
That second story reminds me of the ending of the Academy Award-winning film Spotlight,<\/em> about the Boston Globe\u2019s investigation of clergy sex abuse and the cover-up of it in that one city. The final moments of the film present a grim title card listing Catholic dioceses all across America where scandals like the one in Boston were subsequently revealed. It\u2019s a long list, in two columns of small type, quickly replaced by a second<\/em> page listing dozens more. And then comes the third page, and the fourth, listing dioceses from all over the world.<\/p>\nI don\u2019t know if Switzerland was on that list back in 2015, but it belongs on that list now. And based on what has been investigated and uncovered in all of those other dioceses, I\u2019d guess that 1,000 cases found in this recent \u201csweeping study\u201d aren\u2019t the half of it.<\/p>\n
Again, both of these RNS stories are newsworthy and each is worth your time to click through and read. But I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve also already read these stories before, or stories so similar that these new variations of them will hardly seem like variations at all.<\/p>\n
In every variation and iteration, of course, these two stories are related. \u201cAmerica\u2019s religious exodus\u201d is obviously and inextricably tied up with the massive, global, transdenominational scandal of clergy sex abuse and cover-up. How could it not<\/em> be?<\/p>\nThe trio behind The Great Dechurching<\/em> acknowledge this, but also seem to minimize it by reducing this to a single category of former church-goer:<\/p>\nThe researchers also sorted dechurched Americans into two major categories: the \u201ccasually dechurched,\u201d who lost the habit of attending services because they moved or had scheduling conflicts; and \u201cchurch casualties,\u201d who stopped attending because of conflict or because they\u2019d experienced harm.<\/p>\n
Each of the five profiles had a wide range of reasons for leaving their churches and why they might be open to returning. For so-called cultural Christians, they left in part because their friends weren\u2019t there (18%) and because attending was not convenient (18%) but also because of gender identity (16%) or church scandal (16%).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This research model suggests that only some of those departing churches are \u201ccasualties\u201d who have experienced harm, and that \u201cchurch scandal\u201d was only a factor for 16% of those leaving, most of whom seem to have more \u201ccasual\u201d reasons for their exit \u2014 matters of convenience or of \u201cother priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
One gets the sense that the authors regard these \u201ccasual\u201d reasons as less legitimate and more shallow. That\u2019s understandable. After all, those who stop attending church because they have been the direct victims of clergy abuse have an unassailable reason for their departure. But I have a hard time believing that this direct harm directly experienced by hundreds of thousands of former church-members is not also a factor in the choices being made by others who were not themselves directly harmed.<\/p>\n
Ask someone if they left the church because they were personally a casualty of abuse or for some other reason and they\u2019ll suppose they should tell you it\u2019s because of some other reason. Present them with survey questions instructing them to \u201cpick one\u201d reason for their departure and they\u2019re gonna pick just one. But the rape of thousands of children and women, silenced and covered up for years by church officials at the highest levels, is not something that determines the response of victims while having no influence on everyone else hearing about it. It\u2019s too horrifying to be treated as a discrete category that stands apart from all the others.<\/p>\n
Someone may \u201ccasually\u201d tell researchers that they stopped going to church because they realized they preferred sleeping in on Sundays, and that may even be true. But it\u2019s not the whole truth. And that person\u2019s decision is almost never unrelated to or unaffected by the gargantuan, horrifying fact of that other very big story.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly 16% of the bank\u2019s former customers said they left because they\u2019d personally been the victims of life-altering fraud and embezzlement by the bank. The other 84% left for more casual reasons of convenience and personal preference.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly 16% of the airline\u2019s former passengers said they left because they\u2019d personally experienced a crash due to negligence. The other 84% of former passengers simply drifted away for more casual reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah, not buying that.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Both of these stories are newsworthy, yet tediously familiar. They’re also not really two separate stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":64394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-64391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-abuse"],"yoast_head":"\n
These two stories are the same story<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Both of these stories are newsworthy, yet tediously familiar. They're also not really two separate stories.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"These two stories are the same story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Both of these stories are newsworthy, yet tediously familiar. They're also not really two separate stories.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-09-18T21:46:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2023\/09\/Spotlight.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"444\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/\",\"name\":\"These two stories are the same story\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-09-18T21:46:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-09-18T21:46:16+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Both of these stories are newsworthy, yet tediously familiar. They're also not really two separate stories.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"These two stories are the same story\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"These two stories are the same story","description":"Both of these stories are newsworthy, yet tediously familiar. They're also not really two separate stories.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"These two stories are the same story","og_description":"Both of these stories are newsworthy, yet tediously familiar. They're also not really two separate stories.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2023-09-18T21:46:16+00:00","og_image":[{"width":300,"height":444,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2023\/09\/Spotlight.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/","name":"These two stories are the same story","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-09-18T21:46:16+00:00","dateModified":"2023-09-18T21:46:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"Both of these stories are newsworthy, yet tediously familiar. They're also not really two separate stories.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/09\/18\/these-two-stories-are-the-same-story\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"These two stories are the same story"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}