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Richard Flory on Why We Go to Church (and other stuff)  Date: March 5th, 2012
 A recent Barna Group survey found that roughly 60% of regular churchgoers could not remember any new religious insight from the last time they attended churc, and 50% could not remember any insight from the previous week’s service. So why bother gettin’ out of bed, gettin’ on your Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and trudging down to the local congregation? We take up this issue with Dr. Richard Flory, associate research professor of sociology at the University of Southern California and director of research at the USC Center for Religion & Civic Culture. Based upon a blog post he wrote on this topic, Richard speculates that it might not be the spiritual message that lures us to church service, but rather the communal aspect of worshiping together that draws us together every Sunday. We discuss some of the demographic possibilities for these research findings as well, contemplating whether age, gender or the clergy’s lack of dynamism may have something to do with why people report tuning out during the sermon. The second half of our discussion then looks at the role that churches play in the community and we talk about Richard’s research on church activism in Los Angeles following the 1992 riots, a topic near to the heart of your host since he was living in L.A. at the time. Prof. Flory details the various means that churches have tried to heal the city vis-a-vis charity, advocacy for social justice, community development, and interfaith dialogue. He provides several examples including work done by Rev. Mark Whitlock, Cecil Murray of the First AME, La Voice PICO, and other groups. He concludes by noting how churches must first be interested in developing the spiritual life of its congregants but then develop those interests in such a way that they entail community outreach. Recorded: February 17, 2012. RELATED LINKS Prof. Richard Flory’s website at USC’s Center for Religion & Civic Culture. “Why Even Go to Church?” Richard Flory’s blog post on the Barna Group survey. “Prof. Flory Goes to Chapel,” his follow up blog posting to the piece mentioned above. Growing up in America: The Power of Race in the Life of Teens, by Richard Flory, Korie Edwards, and Brad Christerson. Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation, by Richard Flory and Donald Miller. GenX Religion, edited by Richard Flory and Donald Miller. Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement, mentioned in the podcast. LA Voice PICO, a religiously-based community organization mentioned in the interview. RELATED PODCASTS Jay Hein on the Faith-Based Iniative. Margarita Mooney on Religion & Haitian Immigrants. Byron Johnson on Religion & Delinquency. Byron Johnson on More God, Less Crime. Scott Thompson on Youth Ministry.
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