Loneliness may be a First World Problem. This thought occurred to me as I discussed loneliness with my podcast co-host, Barry Cooper for the latest episode of Cooper and Cary Have Words.
Loneliness is an epidemic which has been getting worse for decades. A survey recently featured in The Weekreveals the number of both men and women who claim to have "no close friends" has risen five-fold over the past 30 years. 15% of men claim to have no friends, compared with only 3% in 1990. For women it’s 10%, up from 2% in 1990.
There is a similar pattern at the other end of the scale. Men who say they have 10 or more friends has dropped from 40 to 15 percent. For women, it’s fallen from 28 to 11 percent.
I’ve heard it joked that one of Jesus’s greatest miracles is not walking on water, or raising the dead, but getting into his 30s with twelve close male friends. It’s a decent joke, but only because we assume loneliness was a common problem throughout history. But I don’t think that’s the case.
Living Together
For thousands of years in Britain, at least, most people lived in large extended families, in one or two rooms, either with or above their animals. Sure, they smelled but they generated heat. And as for the animals…
Even during the Industrial Revolution, those same families migrated to towns to live in a few small rooms. At a time when there was no prospect of privacy, loneliness seemed like a nice problem to have.
House in the Country
Even the super-rich had very limited privacy. Even kings and queens needed servants – people – to enter their rooms to do things for them. And look at the layout of those grand country houses. One room leads to another, and to another. No-one had imagined the need for a corridor. And then, in 1597, according to Wikipedia, John Thorpe became the first recorded architect to replace multiple connected rooms with rooms along a corridor each accessed by a separate door. And so it began. The beginning of privacy. And loneliness.
For me, this explains the appeal of cults which have become particularly prevalent in the last 150 years, as we’ve become more private, fragmented and lonely. Before then, who would be part of a cult if you were already living as part of a close-knit family and a regular worshipping community? This was my main critique of Everyone Else Burns, a sitcom about a Christian sect on Channel 4, that I wrote about a few weeks ago. The appeal of any fanatical sect, Christian, Islamic, political or environmental, is the camaraderie in the common purpose.
The common goal of a household used to be making enough food to get through the winter. But since the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the financial Big Bang and the advent of the Internet, that problem has been solved. So now what? Well, now you can enjoy a luxury flat, all to yourself, where your groceries are delivered and your entertainment is pumped in through the copper wires. Even the poor can get by alone on housing benefit and unemployment benefit so that social interaction is not really necessary. Loneliness is now a problem for rich and poor.
Here's the Church’s Chance
This is where churches come in. The modern church consistently underestimates the attractiveness of fellowship. We don’t seek to replace families ties, or dominate every aspect of life – like a cult. But the church brings together all people, from all walks of life, from every age, under one head, Jesus Christ.
For decades, my conservative evangelical part of the church has been preaching an individualistic gospel, telling individuals that they can be saved through Christ. This is true. We are all saved by Christ through faith. Saved from hell.
But saved for what? Heaven? Yes. The new heavens and the new earth? Yes. But also saved for the church now. The gospel of Jesus Christ is an invitation to a meal, the eucharist in which we break bread together. We share one cup together. The antidote to 21st Century loneliness is the church. Why aren’t we making the most of this? Because, to quote Monty Python’s Life of Brian, we are all individuals. But through Christ, we are the body.
There’s more to be said. And we say quite a lot of it on the Cooper and Cary Have Words podcast over here.
Meanwhile on YouTube
The Popcorn Parenting podcast back catalogue is migrating to The Reformed Mythologist’s YouTube Channel. It was a podcast about family movies, trying to give parent some ways of thinking about them so you could have good conversations with your kids.
The episodes have been given some sparkly visuals and the first ep, on Toy Story, has just dropped. Go on over and you’ll find loads of other video’s made by Nate Morgan Locke, who finally explains his major beef with Toy Story 4.
“Here’s the churches chance” - yes! In response to the ‘energy price rise situation’ our church began a Warm Welcome Cafe on Thursday afternoons and its been a great success - people making a variety of cakes, school children coming in with their mums to have some fun with craft activities (we have a retired school head cum artist heading this up - who previously was not a regular at church). The spin offs are heartening. Locals getting into conversation with folk from the village they possibly hadn’t known before. And so
And so on. (Not sure what happened there!).