Algae, insects, and Bengal tigers are not the only things threatened with extinction.
You may have heard already that Canada’s premier newsmagazine, Macleans, will become a monthly publication in January. Its owner, Rogers Media, has decided to scale down its print offerings. Chatelaine and Today’s Parent are cut back to six times a year. Flare, Sportsnet, MoneySense and Canadian Business will be available only as digital versions. 
Newspapers have already experienced massive extinctions. Wikipedia lists 399 U.S. metropolitan dailies that have closed or shifted entirely to digital distribution. Even the influential Christian Science Monitor abandoned print in 2008.
So many American papers have closed since 2007 that an organization called NewspaperDeathWatch has come into being.
Macleans will continue a weekly online version, but don’t tell me that online content is the same as print. Online attention spans are shorter. Also, online technology enables, even encourages, biased readers to select only the news they want to read. 
On paper, you at least have to see the page as you turn it; increasingly, the digital media filter content before you even see it. Click on one porn site, and more porn sites will magically show up to tempt you. If your diet rarely ventures beyond bangers and mash, you’ll never be offered escargot. Or poutine, for that matter.
In today’s media world, Trump fanatics need never read a rebuttal. In that context, the democratic process itself may be threatened with extinction. 

Another magazine gone
This last weekend, I got news of another magazine folding. The Presbyterian Record, national publication of the Presbyterian Church in Canada for 140 years, will cease publication after its December issue. 
In the 1980s, the Presbyterian Church’s membership topped 170,000; the magazine had over 70,000 subscribers. This year, church membership will fall below 90,000; magazine circulation, below 10,000. Despite donations of $1.5 million over the last 12 years, the Record posted a loss last year of $141,425, with a further quarter-million deficit projected for this year. 
All churches are suffering massive decline. Yes, including the megachurches. The mainline denominations experienced it first, starting in the 1960s. But now even the mighty Southern Baptists, the world’s largest Protestant denomination, have had to cut staff and programs as money and membership have shrunk. 
As a correspondent and retired minister wrote about his late-life religious crisis: “I am coming to the conclusion that I no longer fit in with the Lutheran Church. Its liturgy is a sea of words washing over the people without anyone getting wet.”
His metaphor hooks me: “A sea of words washing over people without anyone getting wet.”
So why are they there? Is religious attendance becoming a communal hot tub into whose comforting warmth we can sink, and close our minds? Has Sunday worship become a spiritual spa where a shrinking few go to have yesterday’s assumptions gently massaged?

Imperilled institutions
The best sermons, my friend Ralph Milton once quipped, “go right over my head and hit the guy in the pew behind me.”
The Record made a brave attempt to prod its readers into the 21st century. But subscribers satisfied with yesterday didn’t buy it. 
And nobody’s replacing them as they die off.
Extinction, it seems, is not limited to living creatures. Cherished institutions are equally vulnerable.
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Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN

Am I doing something wrong? I only received one letter in response to last week’s column, suggesting that “trusting” might be a more effective word to use for religious life than “having faith.”

That one letter came from Robert Caughell. My reference to turning left, instead of going straight on, prompted him to write, “Didn't Robert Frost have a poem entitled ‘The Road Less Traveled’ or something like that? Now I have to go through my book of RF poems and find it.”
The poem was, in fact, called “The Road Not Taken,” and it has long been a favourite of mine. It begins, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…” and ends, 
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

However, I have to admit I can only quote those lines because Robert sent me a .jpg of his page. The only missing page from my 650-page anthology of modern poetry was the one with that poem on it!

PSALM PARAPHRASES

In any race, only one person can come first. Which means that failure is a more universal human experience than winning. Here’s a paraphrase of eight verses from Psalm 119.

137   It is hard to serve you, God.
I cannot live up to your level of perfection.
138   Your standards are too high for me.
141a   I am only a frail and fallible human.
139   I do my best--but often I feel like an outcast, an oddball;
Few of my fellow humans recognize what I hope to measure up to.
140   I'm not asking for lower standards;
I know you are right.
Generations and generations have proved your rightness.
141b   I cannot ignore their insights.
142   For you do not waver with the winds;
Popularity polls have no impact upon you.
Your values are eternal.
143   Although troubles swirl around me like autumn leaves,
your wisdom still shows me the way.
144   Your example is as dependable as a lighthouse in the darkness--
I can safely set my course by it.

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” – ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

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