From Religion and Ethics-Many of those concerned about our increasing global interconnectedness think it important that our religious and moral convictions not depend on the particularities of place and/or history. A universal ethic, they say, is required if we are to negotiate a mode of survival for the future. Philosophers are working overtime to develop the conceptual tools necessary to sustain an account of rationality that is free of contingency.
This, of course, has profound consequences for the future of the local parish. The very phrase "local parish," I assume, is redundant because by its very nature a parish is local. The parish is the ecclesial form that has tied the church to place. Yet it seems that form of the church may not have the resources to respond to an increasingly mobile population that is no longer tied to place. American developments beckon because the church in America, with few exceptions, has not been tied to place. In America you do not belong to a parish, but you can be a member of a church.
In an insightful article, Grace Davie notes that the dominant mode of religious and political organization and power in Europe was territorial. Populations lived and many continue to live in "parishes." Parishes were not only ecclesial structures, but they were also a mode of administration for civil purposes. You were born in a parish, Davie observes, whether you liked it or not. That mode of administration worked well for pre-modern Europe, which was constituted by relatively stable social orders. The church was accordingly embedded physically and culturally in the everyday.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/08/02/3817124.htm
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