Coronavirus

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Old enough? Faith, family and America's falling marriage statistics (Part I)

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Old enough? Faith, family and America's falling marriage statistics (Part I)

For decades, viewers have enjoyed the Japanese reality-TV series "Old Enough!" in which preschool children venture into the streets alone to run errands for their parents.

What if American women asked their live-in boyfriends to stop playing videogames, leave their couches and run errands? In the Saturday Night Life sketch "Old Enough! Longterm Boyfriends!" guest host Selena Gomez asked her helpless boyfriend of three years, played by cast member Mikey Day, to buy her eyeliner and two shallots.

This man-baby ends up in tears with a big bag of onions and "a blush palette for African-American women." The frustrated girlfriend says she may need a mid-morning glass of wine.

There was wisdom in that comedy, for pastors willing to see it, said sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

"There's a whole class of young men who are not flourishing personally and professionally. … The systems have broken down that help raise up attractive, successful men. Churches used to be one of those support systems," he said, reached by telephone.

"The future of the church runs through solid marriages and happy families. The churches that find ways to help men and women prepare for marriage and then encourage them to start families are the churches that will have a future."

The crisis is larger than lonely, under-employed and Internet-addicted men. Rising numbers of young women are anxious, depressed and even choosing self-harm and suicide.

The coronavirus pandemic made things worse, but researchers were already seeing danger signs, noted San Diego State psychology professor Jean Twenge, in a recent Institute for Family Studies essay. She is the author of the book "iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy -- and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood -- and What That Means for the Rest of Us."

"Something began to go wrong in the lives of teens about 10 years ago," she noted.

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Ties that bind: Elizabeth II symbolically linked her final rites to those of her husband

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Ties that bind: Elizabeth II symbolically linked her final rites to those of her husband

During the private funeral of her husband, Queen Elizabeth II sat alone near the St. George's Chapel altar, socially distanced from her family and wearing a black pandemic mask.

This searing portrait of grief moved viewers worldwide. And as Prince Philip's casket was lowered into the Windsor Castle vault, singers chanted the Kontakion of the Departed, a tie to his Orthodox roots in Greece.

“Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints," they sang, "where sorrow and pain are no more; neither sighing but life everlasting. … All we go down to the dust; and weeping o'er the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia."

Only 18 months later, Queen Elizabeth requested the same chant, in the same chapel. This time it marked the start of the committal liturgy which closed a 10-day wave of statecraft, vigils, memorials and processions preceding the majestic state funeral.

The queen's final, intimate Windsor Castle service began where her husband's had ended, as if one rite was flowing into another.

"Queen Elizabeth was one of those people in this mortal life who always thought ahead," said David Lyle Jeffrey, distinguished senior fellow at the Institute for Studies in Religion at Baylor University. When preparing these rites, the queen was "clearly looking for prayers, scriptures and hymns that made connections she wanted to make for her family, her people and the world. … I think she succeeded brilliantly."

An Anglican from Canada, Jeffrey said the events closing the queen's historic 70-year reign were an appropriate time to explore the "essence of her admirable Christian character." Thus, the retired literature professor wrote a poem after her death -- "Regina Exemplaris (An exemplary queen)" -- saluting her steady, consistent faith. It ended with:

"… She who longest wore the heavy crown / Knew but to kneel before the unseen throne / And plead her people's cause as for her own, / And there to praise the Lord of All, bowed down, / More conscious of his glory than her high acclaim, / Exemplar thus in worship, in praise more worthy of the Name."

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'Climate change' in pews: Can Anglicans adapt, after decades of declining numbers?

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'Climate change' in pews: Can Anglicans adapt, after decades of declining numbers?

Journalist Michael Kinsley famously added a twist to American politics when he redefined a "gaffe" as when "a politician tells the truth -- some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say."

As the Rev. Neil Elliot of the Anglican Church of Canada discovered, this term also applies to religious leaders.

After seeing 2018 General Synod reports, the denomination's research and statistics expert produced an analysis that included this: "Projections from our data indicate that there will be no members, attenders or givers in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040."

Reactions to his candor varied, to say the least.

"I think of it very much like … people's responses to climate change," said Elliot, updating his earlier remarks in a video posted by Global News in Canada.

Signs of church "climate" change? In the early 1960s, Anglican parishes in Canada had nearly 1.4 million members. But that 2018 report found 357,123 members, with an average Sunday attendance of 97,421. The church had 1,997 new members that year, while holding 9,074 burials or funerals.

Canada's national statistics agency reported that 10.4% of all Canadians were Anglicans in 1996, but that number fell to 3.8% in 2019.

People have one of three reactions when faced with these kinds of numbers. The first "is denial. People are saying, 'We're, we're … It's not happening,' " said Elliot, while counting the options on one hand. "Then there's people who say, 'We can stop it.' And then there's people who say, 'We can adapt.'

"The adapt language is much more rare and I'm only starting to hear it on the media in the last few months. … That's what I'm trying to get us to do within the Anglican church. It's, 'How do we adapt to it?' not, 'How do we stop it?' or … people burying their heads in the sand."

The decline is real and cannot be denied, said Elliot.

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When facing cultural chaos, priests need ancient symbols and truths, not more political talk

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When facing cultural chaos, priests need ancient symbols and truths, not more political talk

Chaos is coming, so get ready.

That was the warning that -- four years ago -- iconographer and YouTube maven Jonathan Pageau offered to leaders of the Orthodox Church in America's Diocese of the South.

The French-Canadian artist was reacting to cracks in "cultural cohesion" after Donald Trump's rise to power, with wild reactions on left and right. And corporate leaders, especially in Big Tech, were throwing their "woke" weight around in fights over gender, racism, schools, religious liberty and other topics. Fear and angst were bubbling up in media messages about zombies, fundamentalist handmaidens and angry demands for "safe spaces."

Pageau didn't predict a global pandemic that would lock church doors.

But that's what happened. Thus, he doubled down on his "chaos" message several weeks ago, while addressing the same body of OCA priests and parish leaders.

"If some of you didn't believe me back then, I imagine you are more willing to believe me now," he said.

Pageau focused, in part, on waves of online conspiracy theories that have shaken many flocks and the shepherds who lead them. Wild rumors and questions, he said, often reveal what people are thinking and feeling and, especially, whether they trust authority figures.

"Even the craziest conspiracy nuts, what they are saying is not arbitrary," he said, in Diocese of the South meetings in Miami, which I attended as a delegate from my parish in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

"It's like an alarm bell. It's like an alarm bell that you can hear, and you can understand that the person that's ringing the alarm maybe doesn't understand what is going on. ... They may think that they have an inside track based on what they've heard and think that they know what is going on. But the alarm is not a false alarm, necessarily."

The chaos is real, stressed Pageau. There is chaos in politics, science, schools, technology, economic systems, family structures and many issues linked to sex and gender. It's a time when conspiracy theories about vaccines containing tracking devices echo decades of science-fiction stories, while millions of people navigate daily life with smartphones in their pockets that allow Big Tech leaders to research their every move.

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul: 'God gave us the vaccine' and smart believers know that

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul: 'God gave us the vaccine' and smart believers know that

In an age in which satire and news often overlap, it was hard to know what to make of this headline: "New York Atheists Claim Religious Exemption From Vaccine After Governor Claims That It's From God."

This was satire, care of the Babylon Bee website. But the barbed humor focused on real quotes from the governor of New York that raised eyebrows on the cultural left and right.

"We are not through this pandemic," said Gov. Kathy Hochul, at a New York City megachurch. "I prayed a lot to God during this time and you know what -- God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers -- he made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us and we must say, thank you, God. ...

"All of you, yes, I know you're vaccinated, you're the smart ones. But you know there's people out there who aren't listening to God. ... I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other."

Clearly, the governor said, getting vaccinated was the best way to obey God in this crisis.

Writing at The Friendly Atheist website, Beth Stoneburner argued that this was not the kind of church-state sermonette that should trouble atheists and other secularists.

"Is it a speech that atheists will appreciate? Probably not," she noted. "But as far as a politician using the language of faith to reach an audience that desperately needs to get vaccinated -- but might not because other prominent Christians are feeding them lies -- it's arguably effective."

If this blast of God-talk from a Democrat "helps Christians get vaccinated when some of them might choose otherwise, then perhaps that outweighs any criticisms people may have of her speech," said Stoneburner.