There are indications that
as 2000 nears, more people in
Hawaii and nationwide are
turning to GodReaching out: The World Wisdom Project and other religious groups are spreading words of wisdom on the Internet
By Christine Donnelly
Star-BulletinWHEN California Webmaster Georgia Bell created an Internet site devoted to all things millennial, she started with the obvious: links to New Year's Eve party plans and the so-called Y2K computer bug.
But it soon became apparent that visitors to the site were looking for something more meaningful.
"It had to be significant, something to improve themselves. They weren't waiting until the end of the year to make resolutions. They wanted to change their lives today," recalled Bell, who expanded her site to include more spiritual links.
Those hits on Bell's Web site are just one indication of a growing trend toward increased personal introspection and religious thought as 2000 nears, demographic experts say.Paul Saffo, a director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif., long ago predicted such an upswing, saying the aging U.S. population, the ending of the century and other factors made it a pretty easy call.
"There's a long history of religious spikes at the end of centuries," said Saffo, whose job includes forecasting trends for Silicon Valley clients. "And this time you have the baby boomers turning 50 at the same time as the year 2000. Those kind of round numbers just naturally cause people to reflect on their lives, and that reflection very often leads to spiritual and religious awakenings."
"Just like turning 40 or 50
or 60, the year 2000 ... is sort of our
built-in system in humanity to get us
to stop and think about the profound
questions like living and dying
and the meaning of life."Reynold Feldman
FOUNDER, WORLD WISDOM PROJECTHe predicts interest will remain high for years because the "unprecedented mobility in religion today in the United States" means people try church after church until they find one they like. Judy Dancer, a real estate broker who has lived in Hawaii for 25 years, seems to epitomize the trends cited by Saffo. Raised a Christian Scientist by a strict father, Dancer felt "forced into religion" as a child and spurned it as an adult.
Dancer, who is divorced with no children, achieved financial success in her career but felt something missing in her life, a feeling that intensified as she reached 50. She ventured to a few churches the past few years, but never felt at home until attending Hope Chapel Foursquare Church in Kaneohe last May.
"What I experienced was most unusual. When they (the congregation) started to sing, I looked around and I started to cry," Dancer recalled. "It's brought me a great deal of peace. Every time I go to this church, it's a comfort to me. The fellowship and the love, the people are so kind. It's just total acceptance."
Although Dancer said her own conversion had nothing to do with the millennium, she and Ralph Moore, senior pastor at Hope Chapel-Kaneohe, agreed that 2000 does prompt some people to think more about God.
'Hungry for God'
But Moore, who has seen his congregation gain some 400 members since April, said the growth has been so steady for so long that deeper issues also must be at work. The evangelical Christian church, which he started in 1983, has 2,300 members now, including 1,600 who attend on any given Sunday.When the congregation gets to overflowing, members branch out to form new Hope Chapels elsewhere. Moore said that's happened 40 times in the past 16 years.
"People are hungry for something that they can count on and they're hungry for God," Moore said. "Churches all over Oahu that tend to be a little bit less traditional, very open and very loving, are growing by leaps and bounds, including ours."
Other pastors echoed Moore. New Hope Christian Fellowship, for example, is only 4 years old but already has 8,000 members, including 6,000 who attend on an average Sunday, said Pastor Wayne Cordeiro. Calvary Chapel of Honolulu attracts 1,500 every Sunday and has spun off four new churches since 1989, said assistant pastor Ed Arcalas."Living life is an inside-out sort of job. People are tired of looking good on the outside, feeling bad on the inside," said Cordeiro. "The millennium is bringing many people to this realization."
"Every time I go to this church,
it's a comfort to me. The fellowship
and the love, the people are so kind.
It's just total acceptance."Judy Dancer
MEMBER OF HOPE CHAPEL-KANEOHEMichael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of the new book "How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science," said U.S. churches are marketing themselves like never before and Y2K has been a deft promotional tool. "America is a free market for churches. Religions in America are allegedly nonprofit and humanitarian but they're as competitive and voracious as Microsoft and basically they've gotten really good at marketing their beliefs and services," Shermer, an atheist, said in a phone interview from Colorado, where he was promoting his book. "You could call it www.god.com."
Contrasting figures
Shermer's research shows that although more than 90 percent of Americans profess belief in God, the number drops to about 50 percent when pollsters gauge the depth of the religious commitment by asking questions such as how often someone attends church.But the Rev. Randy Roche, director of campus ministry for the Honolulu Roman Catholic Diocese and pastor of the Newman Center Holy Spirit parish at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, says religious faith cannot be measured solely by how often a person attends Mass.
"I'm finding it's the opposite, in fact. Our numbers are about the same, but the people who are here are getting much deeper into their faith ... and really living it."
And Roche looks not to 2000 or to the baby boomers or to any other demographic factor for the increased intensity. For him the answer is much simpler, and more profound: "It's God. It's his spirit at work."
Sending words of
wisdom on InternetA group from Hawaii is one of many
By Christine Donnelly
with sites that explore religion
Star-Bulletin"One head cannot hold all wisdom." -- East African proverb.
Among the countless sites on the Internet devoted to religion and spirituality, the World Wisdom Project (http://www.worldwisdomproject.org) stands out for its inclusiveness and idealism.
Founded in 1997 by Reynold Feldman, a Kaneohe resident who cherishes his Jewish roots but converted to Lutheranism more than 30 years ago, the group aims to improve humanity by tapping into the wisdom of all cultures around the world.
"Wisdom is the God-given capacity to make good decisions. Good for ourselves, good for other people and good for the future of the planet. It's not something only one culture has or can achieve," said Feldman, the group's executive director and author of "Wisdom: Daily Reflections for a New Era," a book to be published this March.
The end of the century has proved a fertile time for the group, which is organizing a variety of activities to culminate in a conference in Honolulu in January 2001, the more accurate start of the third millennium.
The group promotes no single religious theory, just the belief that tapping the wisdom of all cultures, ethnicities and generations can help people lead more meaningful, happier lives.
"Just like turning 40 or 50 or 60, the year 2000 ... is sort of our built-in system in humanity to get us to stop and think about the profound questions like living and dying and the meaning of life," said Feldman. "Let's really use it as a time of reflection."
Here are a few Web sites that discuss religion and spirituality: WHERE TO SEARCH FOR
SPIRITUAL ANSWERS
http://www.millenniumsite901.com
http://www.iftf.org
http://www.hopechapel.com
http://www.skeptic.com
http://www.lava.net/newman
http://www.worldwisdomproject.org
