loneliness and faith

There was a report recently that indicated that people are more lonely than before, and that people who are members of a faith community are more lonely than others. I suspect that there are actually three reasons for this:

1. Lonely people will be attracted to faith communities. They present themselves as friendly, open groups, and so will attract people looking for friends.

2. People who become involved in church are likely to experience the problems of such a community, and therefore find that the surface community is not reflected right through. This means that many people within churches are still lonely, because they become alienated from others within the community.

3. There is a related aspect, that within most faith communities, the surface sense of community is so important, that from within admitting to being lonely is considered a failure, and so something that cannot be admitted to. So people don't admit within the community that they are struggling, so the community does nothing about it.

The truth is, I believe, that loneliness is a very serious problem in the West today (I cannot speak for other cultures), and yet one that is not talked about. I suspect that it is even more of a problem than this survey indicated - that people are, in truth, far more lonely than they are prepared to admit, even within communities, relationships, families.

So what is loneliness? It is not about having no friends. It is not about having no-one around you - it is quite possible to be lonely with a lot of people around, and with friends. There is something deeper than that. It is about not having people - someone - who accepts you, who can tease you and challenge you, but will accept your decisions whatever, and support you. It is about acceptance, not people. And acceptance is something that is, I think, less and less available. We all want to fit in, to be able to define ourselves by something.

Some people find the definition in a faith organisation, a church or similar. To be accepted in such places, it is necessary to conform to the standards and norms of that organisation. For some, this is fine, but for many people - maybe most people - fitting in is the contrary to true acceptance. If I want to fit in, I have to be the person that I am expected to be. Challenging the conformity means I do not get accepted.

Most critically, I have found, within any community, challenging the perception they have of themselves is always a way of putting yourself on the outside. Telling a community they they are not as accepting as they like to think they are is likely to be a good way to prove it. Telling a community that many people within it are still lonely is probably not going to win you friends.

Loneliness is at almost epidemic proportions. The faith communities, who are in a good place to address this issue, seem not to be. The disruption of other communities that we have experienced in the West over the last few decades does not give much hope for anything else to replace this. I cannot see an end to this epidemic. I cannot, therefore, see an end to the 14 people a day who take their own lives. This is a crisis, and we are not really addressing it.