Church is a cult.
I’m a Christian, but I’m embarrassed to say so.
Church is pretty worthless.
I’m not so sure about Jesus anymore.
Church is why I have PTSD.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had at least half a dozen conversations that began something like this. I can certainly understand, but I just want to scream: My church is not like that!!
It’s a hard sell, we know.
Anyone getting their impressions of church from media would assume that there is no other church except the one falling off the right edge, working to control the private lives of people in ever new creative ways. They do it externally and politically; they do it internally and theologically.
They are christian extremists, and they have succeeded in reshaping school boards, state legislatures and voting offices, and the Supreme Court, which now seems eager to turn the U.S. into a theocracy. They are well on their way to a takeover of Congress.
Because of these so-called christians, hospitals can refuse care, pharmacists can refuse medications, employers can refuse to provide insurance that covers any kind of care its “christian” owner may find objectionable. Coaches can bully players into praying. Books and curricula are banned that would help students understand one another. States are required to underwrite religious schools. Pregnant people are forced to give birth. Parents of transgender youth lose their right to make decisions for the well-being of their children. Same sex couples fear our right to marriage will be taken away; folks desiring responsible use of birth control have the same fear, since SCOTUS has gone full-on fundamentalist.
All of this, presumably, in the name of Jesus.
That’s the “external and political” part. The other part is perhaps even more insidious:
Those same fundamentalist churches are hanging onto a backward orthodoxy that is antithetical to human wholeness and well-being: A fixation on sex that rises to the level of religious fetish, in my opinion. Outright ostracism of queer teens and neurotic control of straight ones. Hard and fast answers to so many aspects of faith, and a refusal to allow questions, doubts or fears. Pastors teaching hate while carrying guns in worship, pretending Jesus would understand — or join in. Celebrating as immigrants are put on planes to god-knows-where and insurrectionists storm the halls on Congress.
This is the “church” that gets attention in the media. This is the “church” that works very hard to get attention in the media. This is the church that can’t keep its mouth shut, no matter how wrong or harmful it is.
But while the extremists are being extreme, we have to ask: What are the rest of us doing?
The naked truth is that we are simply silent much of the time. Our silence lets people draw their own conclusions: that we also are a cult, that we are worthless, irrelevant. That we aren’t any more welcoming than the extremists. That we have nothing to offer. That, as one life-long church member said to me last week, church just feels like a bunch of social clubs.
It’s true. Clergy are afraid to preach boldly — or don’t know what they believe — so they say the same bland things week after week. Congregation members are averse to being uncomfortable or reexamining old beliefs and traditions, so we end up debating to death the things that don’t matter and trying to make everyone feel good. “Time makes ancient good uncouth” wrote James Russell Lowell in 1845, in a poem protesting the Mexican American War. God, was he ever right. He is right still.
Plus we all get sucked into the false narrative that standing against discrimination and oppression is not inclusive. Which is ridiculous. But there we are.
We get stuck.
So folks quit going and never look back. And who could blame them.
Church is awful. To people my age, but more often to younger people, church is awful. The young Millennials whom churches crave so badly are the most likely ones to see church as irrelevant, harmful, boring, cultish.
So my congregation has a new message on the sign this week:
Parkview United Church of Christ
because Church doesn’t have to be awful.
or worthless. or harmful. or irrelevant. or embarrassing.
The progressive church has to up its game. There is awfulness all around us in the guise of “christianity,” with people pretending to know the mind of Jesus and causing all kinds of pain in his name.
How do we know we aren’t that? We know when we claim an ethic of love and welcome, just like Jesus. We know when we are more attuned to justice than control, just like Jesus. We know when we see the deficiencies of our world and try to call leaders to account, just like Jesus. We know when we’re willing to toss over the tables of capitalism and defend those who help themselves to resources, just like Jesus.
Whatever we think about Jesus as the divine one (and you and I may have different perspectives on that), we do best when we strive to follow Jesus the organizer, the prophet, the window into the imagination of God.
Some folks are gone forever from church. But others may be willing to try just once more. It’s a hard sell, but maybe we can still be a welcome place for them.
The especially cool thing is that we don’t have to have gimmicks or innovative “programs.” We just have to be like Jesus — the Palestinian day laborer from a poor family living under occupation, riling up people in the streets and religious spaces, calling for a new kind of economics, ever aware of the machinations of the “criminal justice system” looking over his shoulder.
If we aren’t doing that, we cannot be surprised when folks lump us with the awful ones. If we aren’t doing that, I don’t blame people for never wanting to be around us. If we aren’t doing that, I wonder why we’re taking up space.