Bowling Alone 1
I think it was Mark Driscoll‘s The Radical Reformission which first pointed me to Robert Putnam‘s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. I’m now about halfway through it. It’s not the most exciting reading — analysis of statistics probably bores most people, in fact — but it is important reading (or at least skimming) for pastors.
Bowling Alone is about the decline in social capital in the past few decades. While physical capital includes things such as money and property, social capital has to do with networks, connections between people, bonds of reciprocity and trust.
In the first section of the book, Putnam examines political and civic involvement, religious participation, workplace relationships, informal social gatherings, volunteering and philanthropy and more. Time and again, he finds the same pattern: a gradual increase in the early part of the 20th century, with a dip around the time of the depression, followed by a steep increase after the war, but culminating in an increasingly rapid decrease beginning in the 70s and speeding up from about 1980 on.
And again and again, the changes don’t appear to be related to education or finances or ethnic background or geographic location. Rather, they are generational. The generation(s) that came of age more recently than the 70s have less interest in politics, church attendance, social gatherings, volunteering, and so forth than previous generations did.
There are, of course, lots of new organizations, but many have relatively few members and few have local chapters. Many “clubs” and “associations” and “organizations” are actually nothing more than mailing lists. You don’t attend meetings or discuss issues. You simply send in your donation and you join the organization which then mails you info about the group and the occasional demand for more money.
Interestingly, Putnam points out that “religious” people tend to be more involved, though they often get involved in their own circles and not so much in the society around them. But those who aren’t interested in being involved in the activities of the church and in its community are less and less likely to attend, so that there is an increasingly clear polarization between believers and unbelievers (p. 74).
I plan to write more about this book, but if this first taste interests you I’d recommend tracking the book down in a library and skimming it. I don’t think it’s worth your time for a detailed, leisurely read nor do I know if I’d want to own the book. But if you’re a pastor,you ought to read this one because part of your calling is to draw hurting isolated people into a warm, loving community and that involves understanding not only that people around you are isolated and withdrawn but also why they are that way and how that can change.
August 6th, 2006 at 1:10 am
I forget what it’s called, but Putnam has a sequel to his _Bowline Alone_, in which he points out evidence of the tide turning in favor of community, or something like that. FWIW.
August 6th, 2006 at 1:49 am
That must be Better Together. I suppose I should probably read (or better: skim) that one also to get a fuller picture.
August 6th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
I read The Radical Reformission a while back and now I am reading it again…this time with Bonita. We just read the part where Driscoll talks about, Parachurch, liberalism and fundamentalism.
Even though many in the Reformed camp don’t hold to the Fundamentalist thinking of no smoking, no drinking, and no movies, we still are very much Fundies in the fact that we don’t know how to build relationships with those outside of the faith. In the Reformed camp, our idea of evangelism is starting to reach out to churches outside of our doctrinal beliefs.
We need to learn how to love the lost, to have a heart for their souls. May we pray that God would ignite our hearts to reach out to those who don’t know Him.
August 19th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
In the last paragraph you said “But if you’re a pastor,you ought to read this one because part of your calling is to draw hurting isolated people into a warm, loving community and that involves understanding not only that people around you are isolated and withdrawn but also why they are that way and how that can change.”
Then in Dale Callahan’s comment his last two sentences say,”We need to learn how to love the lost, to have a heart for their souls. May we pray that God would ignite our hearts to reach out to those who don’t know Him.”
I don’t claim to have a plethora of experience in evangelism John, but the only successful experience I’ve participated in and seen (during the Jesus-deal in the early 70’s)is what I think you and Dale Callahan are suggesting. He said we need to “ask God for a heart for their souls, that God would ignite our hearts to reach those who don’t know Him.” And you (John) speaking from a pastor’s perspective of Putnam’s book, said, “your calling is to draw hurting isolated people into a warm, loving community and that involves understanding not only that people around you are isolated and withdrawn but also why they are that way and how that can change.”
So from my admitedly limited experience, the only thing evnagelically I’ve seen work is reaching out to the disinfranchised, taking them by the hand and walking them, haltingly to be sure, right into the body of Christ and “franchising” them in His Love; accomplished by folks who will work for the love of God and nothing more. I have seen “success” in numbers in several churches in the last 20 years with seeker friendly music and envionment in general. But I would not deign to call that evangelism. And last but not least, are we not all called to have that “pastor’s heart” for the lost you refer to?