Tough Times Draw Bigger Crowds to Church

History has taught us that elected officials are more likely to infuse religion into the public sphere during times of crisis. Without a public vote, the motto "In God We Trust" first appeared on coins during the Civil War. The action marked what many believe to be a dangerous trend — injecting religion into America’s national symbols.

Overcome by pre-World War II patriotic fervor, the US supreme Court ruled it was constitutional to require Jehovah's Witness students to violate their faith and pledge allegiance to the flag in public schools. You might be asking yourself, 'what's the big deal?' Well, a Witnesses' interpretation of the Bible is that saluting the flag would amount to placing another deity before God. Something they just don't do.

Witness missionaries were chased and beaten by vigilantes in Texas. Their literature was confiscated and even burned. Less than a week after the court decision, a Kingdom Hall was stormed and torched in Kennebunk, Maine. The ACLU reported to the Justice Department that nearly 1,500 Witnesses were physically attacked in more than 300 communities nationwide. Partly because of this violent reaction to its decision, the Court reversed itself with remarkable speed.

The Cold War was marked by Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s infamous anti-communist “witch-hunts” -- but also by a greater emphasis on religion. During this shameful period in American history Congress inserted the words “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance, and “In God We Trust” replaced E pluribus unum as the national motto.

We are in another crisis today.

The New York Times reports:

The sudden crush of worshipers packing the small evangelical Shelter Rock Church in Manhasset, N.Y. — a Long Island hamlet of yacht clubs and hedge fund managers — forced the pastor to set up an overflow room with closed-circuit TV and 100 folding chairs, which have been filled for six Sundays straight.

In Seattle, the Mars Hill Church, one of the fastest-growing evangelical churches in the country, grew to 7,000 members this fall, up 1,000 in a year. At the Life Christian Church in West Orange, N.J., prayer requests have doubled — almost all of them aimed at getting or keeping jobs.

Like evangelical churches around the country, the three churches have enjoyed steady growth over the last decade. But since September, pastors nationwide say they have seen such a burst of new interest that they find themselves contending with powerful conflicting emotions — deep empathy and quiet excitement — as they re-encounter an old piece of religious lore:

Bad times are good for evangelical churches.

“It’s a wonderful time, a great evangelistic opportunity for us,” said the Rev. A. R. Bernard, founder and senior pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York’s largest evangelical congregation, where regulars are arriving earlier to get a seat. “When people are shaken to the core, it can open doors.” [...]

Many ministers have for the moment jettisoned standard sermons on marriage and the Beatitudes to preach instead about the theological meaning of the downturn. [...]

Part of the evangelicals’ new excitement is rooted in a communal belief that the big Christian revivals of the 19th century, known as the second and third Great Awakenings, were touched off by economic panics. Historians of religion do not buy it, but the notion “has always lived in the lore of evangelism,” said Tony Carnes, a sociologist who studies religion.

A study last year may lend some credence to the legend. In ”Praying for Recession: The Business Cycle and Protestant Religiosity in the United States,” David Beckworth, an assistant professor of economics at Texas State University, looked at long-established trend lines showing the growth of evangelical congregations and the decline of mainline churches and found a more telling detail: During each recession cycle between 1968 and 2004, the rate of growth in evangelical churches jumped by 50 percent. By comparison, mainline Protestant churches continued their decline during recessions, though a bit more slowly.

Many Americans do turn to their faith during times of crisis, but there are other citizens who hold a different view. And among the faithful there are differences about how their faith is expressed. For this reason we must be vigilant in safeguarding separation of church and state.

It's important that government not sponsor religious messages or activities that may be divisive and make some feel like second-class citizens. We enjoy more individual freedom, religious diversity, and interfaith peace than any nation in history. We enjoy this precisely because we have a wall of separation between church and state.

At this time of crisis we must not hesitate to protect that wall from attack.

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