Clearly church was a common source of community for people, and the OP makes the point that maybe we haven't found a good replacement for it yet. I wouldn't just dismiss that out of hand, it's a reasonable hypothesis on the surface.

Sunday Assembly is getting popular and very much not religious: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businessclub/11175092/Br...

Wish it were more active in the BALTIMORE / DC area.

But how do you get from that to “we’re lonely because we’re not going to church”?

Church services require people to be in the same place at the same time, for the same purpose.

Few other activities gather the same people regularly. I can immediately think of narrow social networks (like obscure subreddits), and online games, though.

Although those activities lack the factor of physical presence. For a lot of people in modern society the only time they are around others is at work or in public places neither of which have a primary focus on community and fellowship like a church congregation. We desperately need to add more community gatherings that don't exclude people based on skill or ability.

>require people to be in the same place at the same time, for the same purpose.

Otherwise known as the most effective way to build friendships.

World of Warcraft raids are the only one

Isn't the potential connection obvious? If you remove the main source of community and making friendships outside school/college and your workplace, that could definitely lead to loneliness.

Can't speak for everyone, but I downvoted it for snarky disagreement that showed only a superficial engagement with the topic.

The edit really pushed it over the top as well.