The other side of leaving church

I’ve been out of church for about four years. As I’ve said before, I spent a lot of time for a lot of years in church, and I eventually walked away with a bad taste in my mouth. I haven’t been back since.

This morning my best friend asked me why I never said anything positive about the church on this blog. Surely it couldn’t have been all bad. I told him that I had no intention of stroking the ego of an institution that has tooted its own horn for the past two millennia instead of doing the job it was given.

But he’s right too. It wasn’t all bad. Some of my most cherished memories involve church in some capacity.

The church became a family to me. My parents split up my sophomore year of high school and my dad started taking us to church. He became the staff janitor there and my brother and I were up there with him almost daily. He chose his hours, so he built his schedule around our activities. It didn’t happen over night, but at some point it became my haven. I wanted answers and comfort for my hurt, and the church offered me that.

I miss the camaraderie too. There’s just something about having something in common with others. It links you, even if very loosely. You put two fans of the same team in the same room and, unless there is bad blood between them, they’ll talk. In church you have an entire value system in common, which builds very close bonds. That’s part of why I left – my own value system was changing, and I felt that I didn’t have much in common with everyone else anymore.

I miss the optimism. I’m all for being a realist, and I see the appeal in being a pessimist, but thousands of years of observation tell us that optimism makes for happier groups. Besides, it just feels good to be around happy people. The world is mostly pessimistic. Someone at work is always complaining about something, the news doesn’t have enough puppy stories, and it turns out that the desire for money actually causes more stress than pleasure. So being happy with a bunch of other happy people rocks.

Fair warning – this last one is just my pride, but I feel if I’m going to act like I’m being candid on this blog, I might as well be. I miss being ‘the scholar.’ Pastors used to stop in the middle of their sermons to ask me what a certain Hebrew word was, or where a paraphrased passage was found because they couldn’t remember. Again, it felt good. Absolutely prideful, and I don’t miss it often, but sometimes I still miss it.

Part of me understands the pride too. I spent  lot of time learning Hebrew and memorizing scripture back then. I put the effort into it. I never was a fan of watching someone work for sixteen years to perfect their guitar playing only to have them say “oh, it’s all God man,” when you complimented on their playing. Dude, you’ve played your fingers bloody. I think you get some of the credit.

Don’t worry. It’s the very least of the things I sometimes miss about church. I just wanted to be honest.

So, there you are Peter. Thanks for making me think. Those are some of the things I miss about the church. I’m sure others will come to me. Perhaps I’ll periodically update this.

NOTE: I’m glad I proofread this post. A few lines up where I say “I just wanted to be honest,” it said “I just wanted to be awesome.” Freudian slip much?

7 reasons I left church (and 1 reason I’m thinking of going back)

This is the most diverse church in the world.

I got this idea when I saw Rachel Held Evans’ post 15 Reasons I Left Church. I stopped making an effort to attend church at least somewhat regularly in 2008, but I really left church somewhere around 2005 or 2006. I was tired. In a big church you can get swallowed up and escape from most forms of drama, but you miss out on true fellowship and community, which I craved. So we attended small churches, but that level of community often comes with its own baggage. Not just the family-type drama, but expectations and prying. And to be honest with you, for the first part of my Christian life, I was the one pressing expectations on others and prying into their lives. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.

Except for a few special occasions, I haven’t walked into a church in four years.

Why I left church

• Pride – I want to jump on this one first, because no matter what other valid reasons I may have, this is the root of it. I was prideful, both actively and passively. I’m a smart guy, and there’s nothing worse than a smart guy who knows he’s smart. I’ve been a pain in the ass for  a lot of my life because of this. And church was a great place to flaunt my intelligence. “Oh Carlton, you know Hebrew? Please teach us…” There was a time where I could quote huge chunks of scripture, and I knew at least the basic points of almost every theological issue out there. Then there was the passive pride that made me feel as if I was better than others, or fear that they thought they were better than me.
• I wasn’t with the program – Churches have methods, and structure, and programs. I don’t like that sort of stuff. It’s always felt artificial to me to fellowship on a schedule. I was finally just done with it, so I left.
• Pretext – People aren’t themselves in church, and it annoys me. Smiles are bigger, hair is shinier, and vocal pitch is higher. People who laughed at my fart jokes on Saturday wouldn’t laugh at them on Sunday. I’ve been to churches where most of the adults were drinkers (not alcoholics, just social drinkers…nothing wrong with that), but no one would talk about it on Sunday.
• Questions – In a religion that claims to have the truth, Christianity seems to cringe at questions. The typical response to really tough questions is “God’s ways are not our own,” and that’s not an appropriate response to me. I have full faith that God’s intention for us is to progress and learn about ourselves and our sphere of existence. We were made for intelligence.
  Once a person starts having honest questions about their faith, those questions don’t stop, and eventually people start accusing you of trolling (purposefully being annoying) instead of being earnest.
  “How could a loving God command his people to kill women and children?”
  “They were idol worshipers.”
  “So that makes them any less deserving of God’s mercy?”
  “That’s why Jesus came, so that we didn’t have to die for our sins.”
  “Wow.”
  Or
  “How is it right that God condoned rape in certain situations or that the woman be stoned as well in others?”
  “What? Where?!?” (Because they always ask where).
  “Deuteronomy 22:23-29 and Numbers 31:15-18″
  “Well, God’s ways aren’t our ways.” (The daring would say things like “well, it gave the women a better life because the man had to marry her.”)
  “Wow.”
  Honestly thinking about questions like these (and there are a lot) requires you to question everything you believe, and most Christians are afraid that they will fall away from the faith if they begin to question. Others believe that the questions are irrelevant and are happy in blissful ignorance. But they were important questions for me because I did not doubt my belief in God but I did start to ask myself is God was really the personality presented to me all of my life.
• Politics – I’m not a Republican. I don’t agree with most Republican values. And I definitely do not believe that Republican values represent the teachings of Jesus. I’m not a Democrat either, but I am socially liberal. I can handle all of that. I get along with both Republicans and Democrats. What I can’t handle is when Christians, typically Republican, turn militantly political. Patriotism and Jesus are not equal.
  After the towers fell a chain email started circulating around the Christian community. It went like this: “Praise God for his goodness. The destruction of the Muslim nations is prophesied in THEIR OWN KORAN. Koran 9:11 says ‘and the mighty eagle will swoop down on the people of the crescent moon and utterly destroy them.” That’s not the exact verbiage, but it’s a very close paraphrase. And it’s an utter fabrication. Surah 9:11 talks about redemption. “But (even so), if they repent, establish regular prayers, and practise regular charity,- they are your brethren in Faith: (thus) do We explain the Signs in detail, for those who understand.” How in the world can someone maintain their Christian integrity by acting in such a manner (and this is just of hundreds of such fabrications)?
  And the birther controversy, and the outright hatred for President Obama (whom you are told God placed there and that you should pray for him. You honestly cannot pray for someone with honesty when you hate them).
• Changes in beliefs – Once I was willing to take an honest look at what I believed, and why I believed it, things started changing in me. I realized that as I was trying to make God the focus of everything, he was making us the focus of everything. It’s all about humanity. Jesus was about humanity. Sin is about humanity. Could my sin really harm God, the Infinite Divine? No, but it could hurt me, and I’m the apple of his eye (and so are you). And when I realized that my sin was about me; that my sin was warned against not because of some cosmic, intrinsic wrongness but because it was harmful to me (and often others) and God did not want me to be harmed, everything changed.
  All of the sudden homosexuality was a non-issue, whereas poverty broke me. I stopped caring about the definition of marriage, and started seeing social injustice for what it was. And I realized it was what Jesus taught, and how he lived, and I liked that.
  The Bible became a narrative, not a rule book.
  The life of Jesus became paramount, and theology meant little.
• Flakiness – I went through a flakey period, but I eventually learned to despise it. I could no longer handle blowing shofars, acronyms, theology wrapped up on a bumper sticker (or tee shirt), anointing prayer clothes, televangelists, and other such malarkey. The charismatic church has its own little “spell book” of rituals, myths, and incantations, and they have nothing to do with becoming a better human being.

Those are the main reasons I left church. It just wasn’t who I was anymore. I caught a lot of flak for it, but I survived, and I didn’t burn any bridges (as far as I’m aware. If I did offend anyone, come to me with that offense and I’ll make it right).

Why I’m thinking of returning:

• Fellowship - I miss community. A lot. Not the churchy stuff, but the other stuff. The shared meals. The impromptu jam sessions. The serious group discussions about issues that matter, and even issues that don’t matter.

That’s it. That’s the only reason I’m thinking of going back. I can do without the sermons and conferences. I do enjoy Bible studies, as long as my views are welcome to the discussion (no one likes to feel ostracized). But it’s community that I miss the most.

I don’t know if I’ll go back. There are alternatives that will allow me the sense of community I desire, but we’ll see.