I personally think our modern lack of community here in America is driven by two things:
1. The Suburban Experiment in America [0]
2. The decrease of church membership throughout America [1]
I can speak to my second point a bit more in depth. Churches historically were centers of communities and social places. And as time moves on we as a society are (rightly so) becoming very suspicious of religion and churches in our lives (I grew up _very_ religious but I no longer am).
In my eyes, modern 21st century Christianity is very very different than it was even before the 1960s. It seems the cultural ideologies have shifted from service oriented to worship oriented. In my evangelical church the focus was on putting Jesus (the symbol) higher than literally everything else in your life in order to achieve "eternal salvation" in heaven. The main focus was just believing that Jesus came back to life after being crucified was the only way to get to heaven. There was less focus on service, empathy, and equality. People are leaving in droves because of this. I can go on about more changes that I've noticed, but I'll spare details.
We need to build new in-person social centers that are not built on mythologies and symbolism but instead more focused on society itself like the churches of old were.
1. The Suburban Experiment in America [0]
2. The decrease of church membership throughout America [1]
I can speak to my second point a bit more in depth. Churches historically were centers of communities and social places. And as time moves on we as a society are (rightly so) becoming very suspicious of religion and churches in our lives (I grew up _very_ religious but I no longer am).
In my eyes, modern 21st century Christianity is very very different than it was even before the 1960s. It seems the cultural ideologies have shifted from service oriented to worship oriented. In my evangelical church the focus was on putting Jesus (the symbol) higher than literally everything else in your life in order to achieve "eternal salvation" in heaven. The main focus was just believing that Jesus came back to life after being crucified was the only way to get to heaven. There was less focus on service, empathy, and equality. People are leaving in droves because of this. I can go on about more changes that I've noticed, but I'll spare details.
We need to build new in-person social centers that are not built on mythologies and symbolism but instead more focused on society itself like the churches of old were.
[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/curbside-chat-1/2015/12/14/ameri...
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-s...