Did you hear about the recent U.S. Religious Landscape Study? The people at the Pew Research Center have been busy bees, publishing the results of their new survey just as—around our homes— the flowers are blooming, the vegetable plants are taking hold, and of course all the beds need tending. I suppose there are literal little domestic landscapes, and then there are Large Landscapes in the Abstract.
In this space, I try not to succumb to the power of metaphors all the time. But really, it can be hard when a topic like this presents itself, especially because I just participated in a survey– having to do with botany and not theology–right around the perimeter of our yard.
First, let’s consider what Pew (fun to imagine a family with that name claiming their regular seats on Sunday) has to say about what is happening across the great land of ours when it comes to religious life. I must confess, since I love panoramas of any kind, I’m also partial to well-drawn landscapes; there’s the same sense of vastness, of plentitude, even if they’re often not quite as sweeping.
This isn’t really news to those of us who know what’s going on in this particular field, or who are married to people who know what’s going on. Numbers and graphs don’t tell an entire story, but they tell some part of the story.
You can read a summary of the long report here. I’ll just give you a little slice. They took an impressive sample of people from all over the country— 35,000 Americans—and found that
….the percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated—describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” has jumped more than six points, from 16.1% to 22.8%. And the share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths also has inched up, rising 1.2 percentage points, from 4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014. Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus, albeit from a very low base.
Clearly, the view has changed significantly. The familiar buildings with steeples still dot the landscape all over the
country, yes, but it’s not business as usual anymore in houses of worship. There was a time when churches used to rely on the regular stream of people coming in; now they need to head out, encountering more of the “nothing in particular” folks. In education circles nowadays, teachers are learning about the “flipped classroom.” From what I can tell, there’s some flipping going on in the world of mainline Christian denominations, too. It’s a little bit like things are under construction.
Far be it from me to delve into this territory here— I need to get to the plants in my yard, where I’m on somewhat firmer ground. In his new blog on the NH Episcopal website called “Tending the Vine” my husband writes regularly about how the Episcopal Church, as he sees it, is going through this time — rooted in ancient traditions and yet also actively re-creating itself so as to nourish Life over Death.
And then, of course, there’s also the matter of connection, of Community. Here is, in part, how he describes the reason for choosing the image of the vine to represent the church as a whole:
As parts of the vine we are, to borrow the image of the 12th century mystic and abbess St. Hildegaard von Bingen, ever-greening, and growing to the extent that we see ourselves abiding, hanging in there, remaining in the almost vascular presence of God.
This sounds good, and no doubt is good.
Arriving finally to our own yard, however, I must say that the vines around here definitely do plenty of “abiding,” but sometimes they are really interfering with the plants they’re abiding in. They poke themselves up and out of everything, honestly.
I guess it depends what kinds of vines we’re talking about. In our case, the wisteria really is better off staying around the shed and not gallivanting all over the juniper bushes (which in fact themselves need plenty of work). If it ever decides to produce grapes, or any other fruit for that matter, then maybe we’ll re-consider.
While the Religious Landscape Study indicates, let’s face it, challenges on a pretty broad scale for churches everywhere, generally the Around-Your-Home Landscape Study is just a tad bit easier to absorb.
In fact, for me it was downright exhilarating a couple of weeks ago to walk all around our home with someone who is pretty expert in the ways and needs of plants. I knew there was a lot to do, and her visit sure did confirm that, but it was also wonderful just to pay close attention to everything: to take stock of what is clearly alive, what’s dead, what’s growing, what could soon be growing. Sometimes life and death are right in the same tree:
Here’s a very partial list of things for me to do now: choose some hollyhocks to go with the perfect lupine in the new perennial bed; get rid of the mugwort that insists on creating an unwanted carpet; rake out the evergreen needles that are making the soil too acidic around the hostas, simply appreciate the glorious Japanese Maple by the front door every single day. Oh, and then of course there’s the pruning of the larger canopy trees.
I’m not kidding myself that all of this will get done anytime soon, but at least I have a game plan. Around our place, studying the landscape, and trying to improve it, isn’t much about numbers or graphs, either. For the most part, I think the plants will respond to the right tending. Well, maybe they will. In any case, I –the gardener– will definitely need to do some serious abiding of my own…outside.