Now, he says, both baseball and religion are competing with a host of other options for the attention of Americans who have a dwindling amount of free time. They can no longer assume people will care or want to be involved.
Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford International University, said baseball and organized religion used to live by a saying made famous in the 1989 film “Field of Dreams”: “If you build it, they will come.”
Put up a new church or new baseball stadium and the crowds would follow.
That might have been true in the past, said Thumma, but neither baseball nor churches can expect people to show up on a regular basis. Instead, they have to work hard to connect with their audience and adapt to the changing world around them.
Otherwise, life will pass both baseball and religion by.
Baseball’s owners and players may eventually resolve their differences and get back to work. The same may happen in religious groups. But the damage has already been done.
When the fights are over — whether in church or in baseball — who will be left to care?
“People are going to move on,” Johnson said. “They are going to learn to live without the church. They are going to learn to live without baseball.”
This article originally appeared here.
