Bell tolls for traditional churches?

WESTERN BUREAU:

Ralston Shakes recalls a time when St Alban’s Anglican Church in Ashton, Westmoreland, was vibrant, with a full congregation and a packed calendar of events. The church hosted an annual Harvest Thanksgiving Service, rallies, regular members’ meetings, and monthly communion. However, today, with fewer than eight people attending services regularly, St Alban’s has become a place for only a small Sunday gathering and monthly communion.

Shakes explained that the church no longer holds a Sunday school, as the youth of the community have stopped attending the weekly services. There are no longer any choirs, musical instruments, night services, or prayer meetings.

On the third Sunday of January, The Sunday Gleaner visited the church, just in time to witness its first Holy Communion of the year.

When the team arrived at 10 a.m., the churchyard gate was locked, and there was no sign of life. Shortly after, Shakes, one of only two communicants that day, arrived and unlocked the gate to allow the press vehicle to enter. He then went inside to prepare for the service. Shakes welcomed us into the church, explaining that the congregation of St Alban’s Anglican has significantly dwindled over the past decade.

“It (attendance) is very poor because most of the old people have died and the young people don’t want to attend this church. Sometimes it’s only five of us, sometimes two, and sometimes just me alone. When the elder doesn’t come, it’s just me alone,” Shakes revealed.

“If you keep a party up the road, it’s going to be very big. The amount of young people here can block the road, but they’re just not interested in the church,” he added.

Shakes pointed out that with roughly 1,000 residents, Ashton has four churches, but the Pentecostal church is the preferred place of worship for most locals. He also mentioned that the nearby Ashton Moravian Church is facing a similar decline, with only five members. He attributed the drop in membership to migration.

“The majority of the young people nuh like Anglican Church; they go to the Pentecostal. About five young people used to come here a couple of years ago, but they grew up and either got work in Montego Bay or went to foreign, so no Sunday school nuh deh here anymore,” he said.

According to Shakes, a “regular Sunday” at St Alban’s Anglican is rather straightforward: the congregation gathers to read the Bible, sing hymns, and share the message of God. Reverend Isaac Nugent, the church’s rector, visits once a month – every third Sunday – to administer the Holy Communion.

Despite the small turnout, Shakes and the other members remain hopeful. Shakes, who works as a gardener, maintains the church’s grounds, while the other members “pitch together to pay the light bill”.

Soon, Reverend Nugent and two members arrived to begin the service. Nugent greeted the Sunday Gleaner team with a warm smile and expressed appreciation for the unexpected visit. He opened the service with a brief praise and worship session, after which Shakes read the first lesson. Nugent’s sermon was short but impactful, emphasising the importance of using one’s gifts for God’s glory. He then administered the Holy Communion to Shakes and another communicant member before praying for the remaining three of us inside the church.

Following the service, the reverend explained that the decline in St Alban’s Anglican’s membership was due to the deaths of older members and the church’s remote location. He also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had changed how some people engage with church services.

“In the older days, people would walk miles to attend church, but they are not doing it anymore. Also, since COVID and people started to do services online, it would seem as if some people have gotten lazier and don’t want to leave home,” he reflected.

As the leader of five Anglican churches in Westmoreland, Nugent shared that St Alban’s is the smallest of his circuit. He noted that rural churches are particularly impacted by the migration of young people to urban areas in search of better opportunities.

“Another situation that we face in our rural churches is once a child reaches the stage to go to high school and migrate from that community, you will not get them back. In these rural communities, you don’t have a lot to attract young people, and most of the time when they go, they stay at the greener grass and you can hardly blame them,” said Nugent.

NO SERVICE SOME WEEKS

The nearby Ashton Moravian Church is experiencing a similar crisis. Etel Lawson, an older member, shared that their congregation has also declined, leading to the church being open only two Sundays each month.

“There are four of us and one young lad, a communicant member. Sometimes, some other people drop in, but they are not members, so it’s usually five people on a regular Sunday,” she said.

Lawson said that the church, which was closed during The Sunday Gleaner’s visit to the community, is seemingly no longer appealing to the younger generation due to its traditional style of worship. She emphasised that it isn’t a matter of churches losing their place in Jamaican society, but rather that young people are gravitating toward churches with “livelier” services.

“It is the young people – their relatives are Moravian, but from dem passed on, a just Pentecostal Church the young people go. You know dem always say the Moravian Church is not a ‘Holy Ghost church’; it is a ‘dead (boring) church’. The people are just moving away from traditional churches,” said Lawson.

Reverend Barnaba Nyrirenda oversees the Moravian churches of Goshen, Lacovia, New Eden, and Grace Hill in the adjacent parish of St Elizabeth. Both Lacovia and New Eden have experienced a reduction in membership throughout the years. However, Nyrirenda believes that Lacovia Moravian Church is particularly struggling due to the deteriorating condition of its building.

During a visit by The Sunday Gleaner on the fourth Sunday of January, the church was not in service, and a neighbour mentioned that it is used only “occasionally”.

“Bats have taken it over and finances are pretty difficult to come, in terms of getting it fixed, because there are just five members there at Lacovia Moravian Church,” Nyrirenda said.

“I have been in Lacovia for three years and it wasn’t like that when we started. I used to carry some of my young people to go there and a few community persons used to come. When it gets a good clean, we go in there and worship, but not everybody can manage, so sometimes we stay outside,” he explained.

Despite the challenges, Nyrirenda said that his other churches – Goshen and Grace Hill – are seeing more stability, with Grace Hill even experiencing growth “because it is the only church in the community”.

RURAL CHURCHES SHRINKING

Reverend Barrington Daley, head of the Moravian Church in Jamaica, acknowledged that rural churches are shrinking, but he remains hopeful about the church’s future. He noted that according to the church’s constitution, congregations with fewer than 30 members are categorised as fellowships, not full congregations. There are 12 such fellowships – five in Westmoreland, three in Manchester, two in St Elizabeth, one in St Ann, and another in Clarendon.

“My conviction is that the church will not die. There is hope because, as is now, we have a lot of young people in our church and the hope is that with the proper nurturing that we are doing, those persons will rise up and take their place in the church. Like any other organisation, the church has a life cycle that sometimes is up and gets to its peak, comes back down, and rises again. So I believe that it is one of the [down] phases that we are going through,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Reverend Dr Glenroy Lalor, former head of the Jamaica Baptist Union and pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in St Andrew, also commented on the declining membership in rural churches, telling The Sunday Gleaner that several have been forced to shut their doors due to the deaths of older members.

“What we have now is a number of small churches where the membership has declined to, in some cases, single digits, and in most of the cases, we are running under 50,” he said.

Lalor further pointed out that American trends have a major impact on Jamaican society, “so whatever trends you are seeing there, you can almost bet that you are going to see that trend occurring here, so I would strongly believe that is what they are experiencing”.

“Even committed Christians are using the ability to worship online to justify nonattendance, but they are not worshipping online. They turn on the device and cook, wash, and clean while the device is playing. I don’t want to discount those who would love to come but they can’t come because of their age or illness, but those who can come and generally choose not to, that, for me, is an indication of where their commitment is at this point,” he said.

Lalor also pointed out that Jamaica has approximately 1,600 churches, which is the highest number of churches per square mile in the world, and that this may contribute to the decline in rural church attendance.

“Is Jamaica over-churched? That is a question we have to answer. You are probably going to find eight or nine churches in an average community.”

SCARED BY SCANDALS, PIVOTING TO SURVIVE

Reverend Peter Espeut noted that since emancipation in 1838, support for traditional churches has steadily declined. The Roman Catholic deacon and sociologist pointed out that since then, there has been the rise of Rastafarianism, Seventh-Day Adventists, and other religious groups, which piqued the interest of many people.

However, Espeut suggested that some churches have seen a significant drop in their congregation due in part to past scandals. He explained that these controversies have also affected the public’s perception of religion.

“The Moravians have been in a little decline recently, I think, because of those unfortunate sex scandals a few years ago,” he said, noting that a few local Moravian ministers were accused of sexual misconduct involving minors with at least one convicted.

“Every church has had its sex scandals. The Anglican Church had its sex scandal; the Catholic Church had its sex scandal. Generally speaking, people say you always have a bad apple in the bunch, but nobody accepts that the church itself supports that sort of thing,” said Espeut.

The 2011 census reported that 69 per cent of the population said they were Christians. Twenty-six per cent belong to various branches of the Church of God; 12 per cent are Seventh-day Adventist; 11 per cent Pentecostal; seven per cent Baptist; three per cent Anglican; two per cent Roman Catholic; two percent United Church of Christ; two per cent Jehovah’s Witnesses; two per cent Methodist; one per cent Revivalist; and one per cent Rastafarian; two per cent maintain some other form of spiritual practice.

Members of other religious groups in total constitute eight per cent of the population, including approximately 23,000 members of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, 18,000 Moravians, 6,500 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1,800 Hindus, 1,500 Muslims (Muslim groups, however, estimate their numbers at 6,500), 500 Jews (Jews estimate their numbers at approximately 6,000), and 270 Baha’is. The census reports 21 per cent have no religious affiliation. Most denominations were also seeing huge declines in numbers at that point.

TRADITIONAL WORSHIP UNATTRACTIVE

Social anthropologist Dr Herbert Gayle told The Sunday Gleaner that his research indicates that Jamaicans are shifting away from “quiet European worship” and towards evangelical and Afrocentric forms of religious expression.

“There are different categories of churches in anthropology. You have the European, or eurocentric churches, which are the ones you see dwindling; you have the Evangelicals; and you have the African expressions-centric churches such as Pocomania, Mayal and Kumina.

“The Afrocentric churches are growing, but not the European churches and that’s what has been happening. It is right across the board [because] not only are they not growing or dwindling, but their population is older. The mean age of their churches is usually middle-aged people; the youth is absent, especially males,” Gayle said.

Gayle highlighted the success of Seventh-day Adventist churches in this cultural shift, emphasising that their appeal lies in their focus on social activities.

“Other churches are copying, but the Seventh-day Adventists have long operated in a way that fulfils this role for young people with a lot of social activities, meet and greet, trips and hikes, and Pathfinders. It’s a tremendously well-structured programme to attract young people, and that’s why it’s alive, compared to the other churches that have mass and very structured and European quiet worship. The quiet worship is dying,” said Gayle.

“I think a more important point is there is a change in the way religion and churches are perceived, and it’s, therefore, less symbolic, less structured, and less European,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Gayle added that despite an increase in secularisation in Jamaica, “the worship of God in the region is becoming more Afro, social, and, of course, more dramatic and lively.

“The churches that will change in that direction will survive,” he reasoned. “Once these communities replace the dying churches with other churches that are functional, then it is fine, the problem lies when a church dies in a community and there’s no replacement.”

rochelle.clayton@gleanerjm.com