How many churches do we really need? All we can get, might be one very appropriate answer. However, do more churches mean more churchgoers? Probably not. Churches, like any other organizations, compete for market share, so some pull in many worshipers while others end up with empty pews.
Our earliest settlers built churches, lots of them. It seems as if every little dinky hamlet had a church. I used to attribute this activity to a social need for a communal center. But then I read the 1950 book by Whitney R. Cross, “The Burned-over District. The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850.”
The photo shows what I previously thought of as a burned-over district, a huge grass fire. This one occurred in the Town of Smithville on April 23. Once started, it spreads rapidly in all directions. This photo was snapped a week later and already new grass was sprouting.
Cross picked up on the analogy of a wildfire and applied it to religious fervor. The Burnt-over District is that part of New York State west of the Catskills and the Adirondacks (page 4). This broad area of enthusiastic religion occurred during the period 1800 through 1850 (page ix). He then goes on to describe how “the fires of the spirit swept over the area again and again”. The competition to save souls was remarkable as one denomination tried to out do the other. I would describe it in modern terms as an industrial strength feeding frenzy.
The biggest players in the pulsating evangelistic waves were the Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, and Presbyterians. Joining in the struggle for souls were many lesser known groups. The most notable startups were the Mormons, the Oneida Community, and the Spiritualists. The field competition was similar to the scramble among companies during the early 1900s with automobiles and the 1980s with personal computers and the 1990s with the internet. The big got bigger and many small ones fell by the wayside. A good, mercifully brief, current synopsis of the Burned-over District is the four page article by Keith J. Hardman in the 2005 “Encyclopedia of New York State”, page 242.
This subject of religion has fascinated me since my earliest youth. I attended Catholic grade and high schools run by Dominican friars and nuns. We were steeped in the three As: Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. In college I took a two semester course in comparative world religions and delved deeply into as many different kinds of philosophy as I could squeeze in. I now believe in the one true God, and all the others. The more I look at religion, the more complex, and baffling, it becomes.
The core beliefs of all religions are, at face value, preposterous. They could all be dismissed as quaint mythology except for the fact that millions of people profess to hold these beliefs. Consequently, there must be more to it. Religion is an attractive way for people to band together. The core beliefs are often irrelevant and even inconsequential to most adherents. Religion is a uniting force and can serve as a military uniform. It identifies who belongs and who does not. Religion was probably invented by kings to convince their subjects to undergo great pain, suffering, and death for their realms.
Religion is a lot like race, it unifies and it separates. Religion pits us versus them and causes more wars and inflicts more misery than any other human frailty. While the guys running the religions may preach ecumenicity, the vast hordes under them continue fighting. If you could somehow call a time out in the midst of a brutal religious war and give all the combatants a written exam on the basic tenets of their religion, they would probably all flunk. So what are they fighting about? Certainly not religion. They are using religion to justify their own murderous urges. Religion is constantly being high jacked for nefarious purposes.
The most extreme religious warriors are the suicide bombers, who consider themselves to be martyrs. I wish I could reach into the hereafter and ask them whether it was worth it, and whether the promise of 72 virgins (not 71 nor 73, but exactly 72) was fulfilled. The more important interrogation, of course, would be to ask God why all these diabolical terrorists are allowed to exist at all. I have actually asked God many different questions, but receive no clear answers. I like to go directly to the top and bypass all these middlemen, a separation of theology from religion.
When I try to imagine myself living here in Chenango County 200 years ago, the puzzlement of religion gets even more perplexing. Here I would be, working to scratch out a living for my family. Some dude comes along and tries to convert me to his particular religion. Do I sign up? Do I tell him to go to the place other than heaven? What? But it is not necessary to venture back in time. Here in Norwich we sometimes still get preachers coming door to door attempting to convert us. Well, we are in the Burnt-over District and perhaps these zealous folks are in a time warp. Perhaps the Burnt-over District never ended. Perhaps the fires of the spirit are still sweeping over the area again and again. God save us!