'Hub City' earned its moniker from railroad days, but it's still a place where people from all walks of life come together

‘All Are Welcome’ banner on Bethlehem’s 
exterior. (Photo by Betsy Froiland, The Yonder)

Like spokes on a wheel, nine railroad lines used to converge in Aberdeen, South Dakota —a small rural town that railroads transformed into "Hub City." And while Aberdeen's moniker was earned in the early 1900s, much of the town's reputation as a physical and social hub remains. Betsy Froiland for The Daily Yonder writes, "Many of those railways are gone. But the nickname and the identity endure."

Today's Aberdeen is different in many ways, but it's still a "place where people with different backgrounds, political leanings, and personal identities come together," Froiland writes. Hub City still offers community spaces where its residents and visitors can feel welcome, no matter their differences.

"One such space is Bethlehem Lutheran Church," Froiland writes. "The church itself is a hub of activity, discussion, and community for people from all walks of life. . . . It's politically diverse. While the majority [of members] supported Donald Trump in 2024, 37.5% of its electorate voted for other candidates. People of all political leanings share pews in worship."

The Rev. Jeff Whillock is Bethlehem's lead pastor, who takes an open view to discussing things that can divide people. Froiland writes, "Instead of shying away from political topics at church. . . Whillock takes these conversations on, thoughtfully and methodically." He told Froiland, "I’m continually committed to being a pastor with people that I disagree with."

Like a track that keeps a train moving, part of what has kept Bethlehem alive and growing is "the congregation’s shared understandings of faith and nature to relay a powerful message: all are welcome at Bethlehem," Froiland explains. "Perhaps in part due to the church’s work to connect across differences, Bethlehem is thriving."

Some evenings at Bethlehem include a meal before the religious service. Members and visitors share a meal, with some staying for the service, but some head home after the meal. "In many ways, Bethlehem is a hub of its own. A hub where people from all walks of life can share a meal together," Froiland adds. "A hub where people with different political views can speak a common language."

Rural people aren't more Christian than urban folks, a new survey shows what influences church attendance

The idea that rural Americans are more devout Christians than their urban counterparts might be popularly accepted, "but the numbers just don't support that stereotype," reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. "Factors like income, race, partisanship, age, and education influence religious attendance more than geography does."

That doesn't mean religious people don't live in rural areas, but the picture of pious, rural residents vs. secular urbanites isn't accurate. Melotte reports: "Only 54% of rural Americans identify as Christian, according to the Cooperative Election Study , a 50,000-respondent national annual survey. That's about the same share of the metropolitan population that identifies as such. About 51% of respondents who live in metro counties said they were Christian, while 36% of both rural and metro people said they were atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular."

Even when residents identify with a faith, it "does not directly equate to religious-service attendance," Melotte writes. "Fifty-seven percent of rural respondents said they either never or seldom attend church or another type of religious service, while only a quarter attend at least once a week. Attendance among metropolitan respondents isn't much different."

"Despite stereotypes, geography doesn't do a good job of telling us who participates in organized worship each week," Melotte explains. "Religious attendance instead falls along other demographic lines." Click on graphics to enlarge.

Partisanship: "The biggest differences in attendance are between Democrats and Republicans, not rural and urban," Melotte writes. "Forty-one percent of rural Democrats and 40% of urban Democrats say they never go, while never-attenders among Republicans only comprise about 21% of both rural and urban respondents.

Income also plays a substantial role. "Unemployed and lower income people go to religious services less often," Melotte reports. "Only about 15% of both rural and urban unemployed respondents said they go at least once a week, compared to the quarter of total rural and urban respondents who said they go that often."

Race is also a factor. "White respondents go to religious services less often than people of color," Melotte adds. "Only 24% of white rural respondents and 21% of white urban respondents attend at least once a week, while almost 30% rural people of color and 26% urban people of color go that often. In rural and urban areas, 28% of non-white respondents never attend, compared to the 35% of rural white and 37% of urban white people who never attend.

Church attender age is mixed. Melotte reports, "People who attend religious services at least once a week are slightly older than other respondents, especially in rural areas. The median age of people who attend at least once a week is 57 years old in rural areas, and 55 years old in urban areas. . . . People who attend once or twice a month, on the other hand, are younger than the other groups. In rural areas, the median age of people who attend once or twice a month is 49 years old. In urban areas, the median age is 46 years old." 

Educational level and attendance is a bit of an outlier. "In the previous examples, we saw that the gap between urban and rural attendance was insignificant compared to the gap between other demographic groups," Melotte reports. "But when it comes to education, we see a bigger divergence between rural and urban people and their rates of attendance.

"For rural respondents, the higher level of education, the more they attend religious services. But educational attainment among urban respondents doesn't have as big of an impact on attendance as it does on rural ones."

 All graphs by Sarah Melotte, The Daily Yonder, from CES national survey data collected by the Harvard Dataverse. 

Opinion: Millions of Americans have stopped going to church, but what they've lost is more than religion

Paul Wesslund
(Photo via USA Today)

As Americans leave church behind, many fail to see it's more than religion they're giving up. "Record numbers of Americans have quit going to church. Studies and personal stories describe people either leaving churches or just drifting away for reasons like being too busy or disagreeing on social issues," writes Paul Wesslund in his opinion for the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. "The odd thing is that these former churchgoers seem to be searching for some kind of community. . . . And those pulling away from religion don't take into account what a church can offer that addresses what people say they're searching for: Friends, and being part of something larger than themselves.

"I attended the Kentucky United Methodist Annual Conference this year, where disaffiliations were approved for the last wave of the more than 300 churches that left our conference. At the meeting, I sensed the hundreds of remaining delegates going through the classic stages of grief, including depression and acceptance. It's a denomination figuring out how to navigate a new world, working hard at keeping hope alive.

"Much of the current commentary on church attendance refers to the new book, The Great Dechurching, by Jim Davis and Michael Graham. It takes a deep dive into surveys about why so many have stopped going to church. The studies found plenty of reasons, from wanting to sleep in after being kept awake by a new baby to attending brunch with friends. . . . Other widely reported reasons cut even deeper – the widespread child abuse in the Catholic church, the use of the Bible to score political points and the too-frequent requests for money.

"The U.S. Surgeon General issued a report this year on loneliness and isolation, comparing its health effects to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. He created the report, he says, after Americans repeatedly told him they felt invisible and insignificant. That's a condition every church seeks to address, however imperfectly. . . . We overlook defects in other parts of our lives. Who hasn't had a less-than-perfect experience at what is still their favorite restaurant? Or stayed loyal to their team despite a series of boneheaded plays?

"My disagreement with one of the church's policies didn't drive me away – I helped organize a group of church members to hold forums on the [LGBTQ+] issues, to let people know that at next year's United Methodist General Conference, there could be a vote to change those policies. . . . I choose to stay because no person – or institution – is perfect. Because leaving a more diverse group of thinkers and believers for people who are closer to being exactly like me seems sad – and even wrong – because it would just contribute to today's tendency to listen only to ourselves.

"A church's hold on people doesn't come with the drama of watching a sport or offer a dinner menu. It's bigger than that. I can't help but feel that both the church and its former members are wandering around looking for each other. . . . Maybe they'll meet again."

Higher religious participation linked to fewer deaths of despair; research suggests it's the social ties that matter

National Bureau of Economic Research working-paper graph
shows underlying cultural trends that preceded the opioid edpidemic

In 2000, the label "death of despair" did not exist. The phrase is now common and often attached to the opioid epidemic, but a deeper understanding of its root causes is still being explored. "A new paper by Tyler Giles of Wellesley, Daniel Hungerman of Notre Dame and Tamar Oostrom of Ohio State bolsters the case that deaths of despair stem in part from weakening social ties. It shows that mortality from these causes among middle-aged whites stopped falling around 1990—well before the rise in opioid use," The Economist reports. "What changed at that time? The authors studied attendance at religious services. They found that states with more participation had fewer deaths of despair and that the faster religious attendance fell in a state, the more such deaths rose. A paper in the Journal of American Medical Association in 2020 also showed that of 110,000 health workers, those who went to services were less likely to die from these causes."

To study the relationship between deaths of despair and religious participation, "The authors tried to isolate the impact of religion by studying blue laws, which banned commerce on Sundays to encourage churchgoing," The Economist reports. "Whenever a state repealed a blue law, religious attendance tended to plummet, creating a natural experiment. And sure enough, deaths of despair rose unusually quickly in the few years following these repeals. Although legalizing alcohol sales on Sundays may account for some of this trend, the biggest increase in mortality came from suicides."

A Google search of "Why go to church if I can pray at home?" yields pages of responses. And yet, this study "strikingly found that private prayer was not linked to lower deaths of despair," The Economist notes. "This suggests that the risk reduction stems not from belief, but rather from the interpersonal connections that organized religion provides. Although secular groups like charities or labor unions also produce such 'social capital,' the JAMA authors say that faith-based networks provide unusually potent protection."

The phrase "death of despair" comes from a 2015 milestone paper published by Anne Case and Angus Deaton that analyzed death rates in America and found deaths of despair to be disproportionately rural. "The economists found that mortality had been rising among middle-aged whites, thanks to a surge in drug overdoses, alcohol-related illness, and suicides—causes they deemed 'deaths of despair,'" reports The Economist. Since 2015, academics have sought tease out the root cause of these deaths -- are they caused by mental anguish or opioid abuse -- the answer is yet to come.

Southern Baptist Convention publishes full sex-abuse report, including a database of alleged abusers

In a bid for greater transparency, the Southern Baptist Conference's Sexual Abuse Task Force has published online an independent report detailing how its leaders protected pastors and local church staff accused of sexual abuse while ignoring, pressuring and trying to discredit sexual-abuse survivors.

The report includes the database of alleged abusers, along with links to news articles and other details. However, a note at the top cautions that the list is incomplete, has not been proofed or adequately researched, and is not always specific to Southern Baptists. Some names and other details have been censored, possibly to preserve the privacy of minors.

In a press release accompanying the report, the task force called on other Southern Baptists to heed the report's findings and care for abuse victims as well as "provide a culture of accountability, transparency, and safety as we move forward."

The task force called for specific reforms:

• The next SBC president should create a task force to ensure reforms are implemented.
• The Executive Committee should hire experts to work with victims and train state conventions on how to respond to abuse allegations.
• All SBC boards and committees should undergo background checks as part of the selection process, and should and receive training on sexual abuse prevention and survivor care.
• All SBC-affiliated seminaries should teach staff and students about sexual abuse prevention and survivor care.
• The Executive Committee should budget for and hire a salaried staffer for the SBC's Credentials Committee, which assesses whether churches are operating within SBC standards of faith and practice.

Pandemic roundup: Long Covid explained; some Christians with weak immune systems worry about attending church

Here's a roundup of recent news stories about the pandemic and vaccination efforts:

Federal pandemic assistance will soon end, and some experts worry rural health care could suffer as a result. White House policymakers say they're taking that into account. Read more here.

As states, counties and municipalities increasingly lift pandemic restrictions, Americans with weakened immune systems say they feel left behind. Attending church during the pandemic has been a source of anxiety for many immuno-suppressed Christians, The Washington Post reports.

Millions of Americans have developed long Covid, which is an umbrella term for various long-term complications from the coronavirus infection. That's caused many to become homeless. The Post has a great explainer on long Covid, including current understanding of its risks, symptoms, and recovery.

Social workers are the unsung heroes of the pandemic, but many are feeling burned out and leaving their positions. Read more here.

Pandemic roundup: What happened when people gave up on Spanish flu pandemic measures a century ago

Here's a roundup of recent news about the pandemic and vaccination efforts.

Commentary: people gave up on Spanish flu pandemic measures a century ago when they grew tired of them, and paid the price. Read more here.

Commentary: How to build trust in the coronavirus vaccine among communities of color. Read more here.

In rural Louisiana, officials look for answers to improve lagging vaccination rates. Read more here.

Americans are becoming more confident in the safety of attending in-person religious studies, according to a recent poll. Read more here.

A research group is seeking responses from local government employees to help determine how the pandemic has changed their work. Read more here.

Community leaders in Alabama and Mississippi are trying to shrink the racial disparities in Black residents' access to coronavirus vaccination. Read more here.

Vaccine hesitancy among guards and inmates (as well as other first responders) could threaten state prisons and general public safety. Read more here.