These are in interesting series of changes. What can we learn from this (if anything)?
There's been some interesting church changes in Casper, some of which deserve note, or additional note, here.
Here's the first.
The church it is using, when we first published a photograph of it, is here:
This is the First Baptist Church in Casper, Wyoming. It's one of the Downtown churches in Casper, in an area that sees approximately one church per block for a several block area.
This particular church was built in 1949, and sits on the same block as Our Savior's Lutheran Church.
I wonder if that's correct and I actually took that photograph with 35mm film?
Anyhow, it was a Baptist Church at the time, and then became a wedding chapel. Now, however, it belongs to Luther Classical College. Apparently changes will be made to something. “If you come back in a year from now, this will look very different,” according to the school's Professor of Theology. The church itself is being called a chapel, and will bear the name Wilhelm Löhe Chapel. Next to it is a school building, where the classes will take place. According to Oil City:
The school’s curriculum includes a heavy focus on Christian culture, mixed with classic liberal arts academic teachings similar to Hillsdale College. The four programs include a pre-seminary for future pastors, a classical school teacher program, a music major and a general Bachelor of Arts, he said. The school is also working with Casper College for two-year trade programs.
There's a lot of interesting things at work here, but they probably deserve comment in a different venue.
Another change occurred here:
Another one of the many Casper churches I hadn't gotten around to photographing, Christ United Methodist Church as photographed out my Jeep windshield.
I don't know the history of this church but it likely dates to the 1950s. It hasn't always been a Methodist church and in fact was part of a swap by this congregation for another building they had to another denomination as each of their respective buildings worked better for the other.
It's closed.
In both cases, I wonder what happened to the congregations of the churches that closed down.
In another change, the Ukrainian Catholic Mission to Casper now holds its services in the Anglican Church of the Resurrection.
This church is of a very unusual style for this area, with the only church comparable to it, that I am aware of, being a Methodist church in Wheatland Wyoming.
I do not know the history of this building, but based upon its location, the church must have been built sometime between World War One and 1950. My guess is that it was built in the 1920s, but I do not know for sure.
Currently, this building is occupied by an Anglican Mission church, but it has not always been. Up until relatively recently the church was, I think, a Christian Scientist church. Christian Scientist structures seem to favor this Greek Revival style, as evidenced by the large
First Christian Scientist church in Denver.
This is a really interesting decision on its part, and I'd like to know more of the background to it.
The Ukrainian Catholic Church is fully part of the Catholic Church, which makes me wonder why the Ukrainian mission doesn't hold its services in one of Casper's three Catholic Churches. It might simply be because those parishes are so busy already. The Ukrainian Mission seems to hold Divine Liturgy mid afternoon on Saturday's (which at least for the Latin Rite, wouldn't serve a vigil mass) and that would definitely conflict with the Reconciliation schedules for all three Latin Rite churches.
The choice of an Anglican Church, however, is interesting as Anglicans tend to believe that they're part of the Catholic Church as well, which they are not. It's not surprising that they'd offer their structure accordingly, and the architecture of this church would somewhat lend to an Eastern Rite service.
Let's start with, maybe, the easy one, the closure of the Baptist Church.
There are other Baptist Churches in Casper, so it's not as if the Baptist have disappeared, but to have the first Baptist Church go away, particularly a downtown Church, is fairly phenomenal. Looking at the number in Casper, however, I doubt that this reflects any major demographic change. The church is fairly small inside and being located downtown, it was likely not the first choice for a lot of Casper's Baptists. It is also an old structure, and those are hard to keep up.
It's 1949 construction made sense, but frankly, it's closure a few years ago does as well. I've actually been a bit surprised that a nearby Lutheran Church hasn't closed, but it seems to be doing well. That would be this church here:
Our Savior's Lutheran Church is on the same block as the First Baptist Church, also pictured on this blog. This is the smallest of the downtown churches, with an interior area that is relatively small in this traditionally styled church.
The church was built in 1950, one year after the First Baptist Church on the same block. This construction is late compared to other downtown Casper churches.
In 2014 this church added a sculpture, as part of a Boy Scout Eagle Scout project which is a Maltese Cross if viewed from the side, but is the Ichthys symbol if viewed straight on. Very nice addition.
Many years ago I defended a lawsuit in which a bicyclist was injured when the cap came off of his mountain bike shocks while riding down the stairs that are on the back of this church. The defendant was a bicycle shop, not the church.
Updated: December 7, 2014.
Maybe the fact that this Lutheran Church seems to be doing well and the Baptist structure and school were available explains the new Lutheran college opening up on that location.
Casper, it might be noted, already had a Lutheran K through 12 school, Mt. Hope. Somehow, I have failed to photograph that church, which I'll need to correct.
I don't think of Casper being a big Lutheran town, but there are in fact several. I've known various individuals who are Lutherans here, so maybe they were just sort of flying under the wire, or not very noisy, so to speak. But they are here, and are represented by two synods.
Of those I've known who are Lutherans here, if I know them well, most of them had roots in the prairie states. Nebraska, North Dakota, etc. That makes sense as well. I think of those states as having sizable Lutheran populations due to German and Scandinavian immigrant populations of prior decades.
The new Lutheran college here notes that it has a Hillsdale related program. Hillsdale has become a force in really conservative education. It's centered on programs developed by Hillsdale College in Michigan, that being a Baptist college, but like the Boy Scouts of America in its day, Hillsdale programs seem to be capable of being adapted to any conservative religious group.
Casper's Wyoming Classical Academy, a charter school in Casper (state funded) is a Hillsdale elementary school. The school district here already had Casper Classical Academy as a middle school, and one of the elementary schools in our school of choice system has a reputation as being so socially conservative that you'll frequently here people refer to it as the "public private religious school".
No religious education can take place in a public school, of course, but when you look at the backers of these schools, there's a strong religious element to it, although the students aren't the members of any one religion, and some probably aren't members of any religion in particular. The new charter school had a pretty strong Mormon backing and its interesting to note that the LDS do not seem to have grade schools of their own. Lots of religions do, and as noted the Lutherans have one in Casper, K-12. The Catholic Tri Parish has a large K-9 school, probably the biggest Christian school in town. A non denominational Christian school, Paradise Valley (named for the subdivision, and the Paradise Valley Christian Church which sponsors it, has been in existence since 1978.
Anyhow, Hillsdale has a "great books" theme to it, and that makes me a bit nervous. I'm odd, as a social conservative, that while I think the great books are important, I fear such educations may be limiting, and intentionally so.
I'd note that Wyoming Catholic College in Lander also has a great books, or classical education, focus.
Stepping away from the religious aspect of this, for a second, part of this fits into the warp and woof of the times. Lots of populist who think they're conservatives are only cultural American Christians, in reality. Indeed, at least one couple I know that are sending their children to the WCC never darkened the door of a church while I knew them. I'm sure they regard themselves as Christian, but in the American sense where your Christianity really doesn't have to burden you. A lot of American Christians fit into that category.
Looked at this way, the outright religious schools may be a very positive trend. The problem with secular schools taking the Hillsdale route is that without a religious element to the education, it really makes no sense. You can't instill values based on values. A philosophy that lacks the existential is just a bunch of opinions, in other words.
Conversely, I worry about the education at the k-12 level being much to narrow, and perhaps even a bit propagandistic. I don't worry about that with schools sponsored by the Apostolic Faiths, as its demonstratively not that way. But this isn't necessarily the case with every religion backed school either.
Anyhow, all this fits into the same trend that home schooling does. Starting as a reaction to educational environments in the 1970s, in part due to a decay in schools in some places, and in part due to the advancement of science which was reflected in science teaching in schools, this movement really spread in recent years. Wyoming's schools have always been excellent, but even here there was a reaction and an underlying feeling in some quarters that teachers had "liberal" or "progressive" views they were foisting on children. There's really no evidence of this in the state, but it's even reached up in some quarters into the state's sole university where you have a few student activists that are convinced all of their teachers are Karl Marx.
Well, what about the Methodist Church closing?
Methodist in general don't get much notice here.
There's a really big Methodist church in downtown Casper and I think its the only Methodist Church in Casper now.
This church is located completely downtown, across from the Natrona County Public Library. It's exterior is deceptive in that the church is not as large as it might appear, as the church building includes interior rooms used by the church. The church itself is joined to a new meeting area off to the right.
Two tones of brick featured on the church suggest that it might have been built in two stages, or perhaps three, but I do not know this to be the case. The corner stone gives three dates, with the first being 1907, the second 1927, and the third 1951, so presumably this was the case.
That church was built as early as 1907 and then expanded twice more, the last time in the 1950s, so it must have been doing fairly well, but Methodist could never have had the sort of numbers that the Lutherans obviously have or had, or that the Episcopalians have or had. And that makes sense, really, as the Methodists are, originally, an offshoot of the Anglican Communion. That they ever had a second church is a little surprising, and it probably reflects population expansion.
I've known just a handful of Methodists over the years. Some are people that I'm related to, and they weren't really practicing Methodists. I think in their case, although I don't know for sure, that was due to the matriarch of the family who had moved in from Nebraska. Living a very rural life, like a lot of Wyoming ranch families, religious observation was sparse.
The only other Methodist I can think of was the daughter of the pastor at the church depicted above. She was really nice, but sort of a wild kid, so it was a surprise to realize that her father was the pastor.
Anyhow, the closure of the noted Methodist church in this story here really probably is demographic. The Episcopal Church continent wide has been suffering parishioner loss, and that's likely what happened here.
Whatever the story is elsewhere, and some of it may have jumped the shark, that doesn't seem to be happening to the Lutherans or the unaffiliated Protestants here locally.
Nor to the Anglicans, whose numbers are small, but which are still large enough to support two churches. That's interesting.
Conservative by their very nature, the fact that one of the two Anglican Churches would host the Ukrainian Orthodox Church makes some sense in an odd way. Anglicans of this type generally believe that they are Catholic. Depending on the approach that they take, some believe themselves to be sort of a church in seperation, like the Orthodox Churches are, while some believe that they're fully Catholic. The Catholic Church, of course, does not so regard them. Where this church in particular fits in, I don't know. Sort of interestingly, I knew, sort of the Episcopal Priest who left St. Mark's downtown in order to form this congregation, which he could no longer reconcile his positions with the Episcopal Church, and therefore I know that he was raised as a Lutheran. Some Lutherans are not only very conservative, but they approach the views, but don't quite make them, of the Anglicans in their concept of where they fit in the overall "one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church", spectrum. Indeed, as I've noted somewhere, the most "Catholic" homily I've ever heard at a wedding was by a very blunt Lutheran minister.
This is the first church we've added from South Casper. There are several churches in this district, which border being outside of the city limits, and in one case actually are outside the city limits.
This is the Anglican Church of the Holy Family. It's a log structure, a not uncommon style in Wyoming but this one, from the exterior, lacks some of the features we'd normally expect on a church.
Generally, as this blog is limited to architecture, and not theology or doctrine, no comment has been made on those topics anywhere here on this blog. Here a slight exception will be made as while this church is officially called the Church of the Holy Family, the sign for the church points to "Holy Family Anglican Catholic Church". This is not a Roman Catholic Church, and is not claiming to be one, nor is it a Catholic Church featuring "Anglican Use". As those who have followed these topics are aware, some formally Episcopal or Anglican parishes have come into the Roman Catholic church with the "Anglican Use", i.e., preserving the Book of Common Prayer.
This is a bit of a confusing topic, but generally what this story reflects is the development of a centuries old dispute in the Episcopal Church about the degree to which the Episcopal Church claims to be Protestant, or Catholic. The dispute is an internal one, and the Episcopal Church is not regarded as Catholic by any of the Catholic Rites nor by the Catholic Church itself. The Episcopal dispute has become particularly acute in recent years, resulting in some formerly Episcopal churches separating themselves with the distinction of naming themselves Anglican or Anglican Catholic, thereby signalling that they view themselves as looking to the theology of the Catholic Church rather than to Protestant theologies and that they regard developments in the Episcopal Church in chief (or the Anglican Communion in chief) sufficient distressing that they are separating from what would otherwise be the local Bishops, and aligning themselves with Bishops who hold their views. In Casper, this has lead to the interesting situation in which there are now two Anglican churches, (the other being the
Church of the Resurrection) but they are not aligned with the same Bishops.
This note was added not to enter this dispute, but so as to make sure that this entry isn't confusing for Anglicans, should they stop by, nor for Catholics, should they stop by, as this Church is not regarded as a Catholic Church by Catholics, and it is one of two Anglican Churches in Casper.
Having said that, one thing I've never been able to quite grasp about the Anglicans is why they don't just become Catholic. Their services are very close to the Latin Rite's and they very clearly believe that being an Apostolic Church is not only a good thing, but necessary, just as the Catholics and Orthodox do. I guess the answer is that they firmly believe that they are, but you would think that they'd wish to resolve any doubt, particularly as there's now a way to do that and preserve those things uniquely Anglican, like the Common Book of Prayer, within the Catholic Church.
Anyhow, Casper has two Episcopal Churches as well as the Episcopal Diocesan headquarters, and then two Anglican Churches as well. It's interesting that there are more Lutheran churches than Episcopal ones, but one of the Episcopal churches is a very large church. The Episcopal Church, of course, has suffered from demographic attrition in recent decades which its split is part of, in that it was at one time the major Mainline Protestant church in the country, and the church in which monied people were most likely to be found. As it moved to the left culturally over the last couple of decades its parishioners have left it.
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