I grew up in a South Carolina town where it was jokingly said that even roosters should be prohibited from crowing on Sunday. Typically, I spent five hours at church every Sunday! It was a sharply different day from the rest of the week. Nearly all businesses were closed and many weekday activities were deemed inappropriate for the Seventh Day.
When newcomers moved into town or when in the company of visitors, one of the first questions asked in the conversation was, "What is your church?" (Which reminds me of that story of the Southern lady who had a large check cashed at the bank, and when the cashier asked, "In what denomination?" she replied, "Baptist.")
There was a time when church news made the front page of newspapers, but now coverage of religious activities does well to be included at all. There was a time when you expected children to be in Sunday school, but now I see large groups of boys and girls on soccer fields on Sunday morning. This makes me anxious lest we have a new generation of biblical illiterates.
Another dramatic change has occurred in funeral customs. In the Old South funerals were considered worship services and a time for affirmations of faith, but today it is quite common for them to be a "celebration of the life" of the deceased. Sometimes praise of the one who has died upstages the One we worship.
In Chapel Hill we have lost a worship event that used to attract major community participation. I have recalled it on every recent Thanksgiving since it has been discontinued.
When I arrived here in the late '50s, we had a wonderful ecumenical Thanksgiving service on Thanksgiving morning. It was an inter-faith occasion that always included leaders from many different faith groups: Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians. Crowds filled the largest sanctuaries in town. In those years prior to legal integration, the congregation also included black residents of Chapel Hill. Music was provided by singers from multiple church choirs.
A Thanksgiving service might best be described as an observance of a kind of civic holy day. In Chapel Hill the mayor was always present to read the president's Thanksgiving Proclamation. What a pity that in a time when Muslims are feeling anxious about their security in America we no longer have an event to bring adherents of all the world's great religions together!
Unquestionably, the most blatant secularization of Southern culture occurs at Christmas. Our economy depends upon Christmas shopping and has made the holiday more of a marketing festival than a religious one. I recall a cartoon that appeared last year showing two women looking at a window display of possible gifts. Down in a small corner of the merchandise was a cr
