A situation where the church might actually be the answer

And the greater Holland area has at least 140 of them

Here’s my March column for the Holland Sentinel…

My parents gave me some extraordinary gifts when I was growing up, but as with most children I did not recognize the value of those gifts at the time. Playing the piano? I hated to practice. Reading books on Sunday afternoons? I wanted to watch the Detroit Lions play football. Memorizing the Heidelberg Catechism? Even now I wonder (a little) about that one.

But perhaps the most extraordinary gift I received was the habit of going to church every Sunday. In childhood, if you can believe this, I went twice each Sunday (morning and evening). I chafed at that and wouldn’t think of it as a gift until years (maybe decades) later.

As soon as I left for college, I discovered Sunday morning like an explorer might discover a lost continent. I remember feeling free. But then, some months later, I remember washing my car one Sunday morning and thinking that doing chores was not exactly living on the edge. I realized that I was lonely. I missed being part of something larger than myself.

In retirement, I no longer have to go to church. I was a Presbyterian pastor for more than 40 years, so it was kind of expected that I would show up. Church members (most of them) would have been disappointed if I hadn’t been there. But now I don’t have to go if I don’t want to. I could sleep in. Or wash the car. But I don’t. I get up and go pretty much every week. Why? Because of the deeply ingrained habit? Maybe. But mostly I long for the human connection.

During Covid lockdowns, I remember craving this connection more than anything. I was lost without it. I began to feel depressed. I missed being with people, participating in activities.

Turns out that I was not the only one. Even before the pandemic, a Kaiser Family Foundation study found that one in five Americans said they always or often felt lonely or socially isolated. And then the pandemic only exacerbated these feelings. In a recent city-wide survey by New York’s health department, 57 percent of people said they felt lonely some or most of the time.

People who are 60 and older are particularly at risk, mostly because isolation affects their health. My 96-year-old mother was still driving her car regularly before the pandemic, but something about the sudden isolation, especially not going to church (and her hair stylist), took its toll. As a result, she experienced a noticeable decline in her health and cognitive function.

Before the pandemic, the United States surgeon general Vivek Murthy, stated that the country was experiencing an “epidemic of loneliness.” As he put it, efficiency and convenience have “edged out” the time-consuming messiness of real relationship. Our technological advances have not served us well, at least not in the area of mental health.

Here’s a curious paradox: People are more connected now than ever – through phones, social media, Zoom, and more. Yet the loneliness crisis continues to grow. Among the most digitally connected – teenagers and young adults – loneliness nearly doubled in prevalence between 2012 and 2018, coinciding with the explosion in social media use.

Four years ago, the British government appointed a minister of loneliness to address growing concerns among the public. One town set up “Happy to Chat” benches, with signs reading “Sit here if you don’t mind someone stopping to say hello.” The model proved popular and spread around England and to Canada and Poland.

In 2000 Harvard professor Robert Putnam wrote the best-selling book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. He argued there that the United States has undergone an unprecedented collapse in civic, social, associational, and political life since the 1960s leading to the polarized country that most of us experience today.

Twenty years later, in a new book, he argues something that my parents seemed to understand all those years ago – namely, that religion can heal the division in this country. Not through excellent preaching or good music, but through connections, community, and social bonds. Putnam is not a Christian (he converted to Judaism when he married in 1963), so I find it intriguing that he urges Americans to consider the importance of religious participation.

The Holland area is home to at least 140 churches – not to mention dozens of other clubs, cultural organizations, volunteer groups, professional associations, and more. My parents would have been shocked to know that one day I would write this, but I think we have the resources in this community to address one of the most serious mental health crises of my lifetime. Time to go to church.

Photos: (above) That’s the pulpit at the Pieterskerk in Leiden, the Netherlands. (below) That’s the signboard outside the church I served 2022-2023 in the Hague. I think the message on the signboard nicely captured what I found inside.