This is a hard question: one I need to grapple with and, ultimately, answer if I'm going to continue with this endeavor. Because, you see, I don't know if I really believe in "church" anymore. Maybe a better way of putting it is that I don't know if I have faith in today's church.
I could put this diplomatically, try to carefully turn a phrase about how I feel about church that won't offend anyone. But I'm just going to lay it out there with honesty. I think church is pretty awful. Not going to church, although that can be, but the church as an institution. Organized religion is an atrocious mess. Historically speaking (do I even need to bring this up?) the church has used God to perpetuate great violence through war and the subverting of numerous cultures throughout the world, something which continues today. But on a smaller scale the church has also been a disaster. We fight amongst ourselves, we fight with those we see as on the "outside," we try to establish righteous superiority making ourselves a group that is more concerned about excluding those that aren't worthy rather than a place that gathers all to the arms of a loving god. And frankly many people are tired of it and want nothing more to do with the church.
I hear so many stories from people who have been wounded by the church. Most of these people have simply written off the church, having no desire to ever step foot into a church again. And frankly, when I hear their accounts I don't blame them. Life is difficult and when the place that is supposed to be a sanctuary, a safe haven, becomes an added source of anguish and stress, why place yourself there? When the space that you should be accepted more readily than any other becomes the place that you are judged more harshly, why would you bother? So the church has alienated many.
And the church continues to alienate people of my generation, though not through specific incidents but through a lack of, well, relevance. The church has lost all relevance. I have experienced the embarrassment of admitting to people that I go to church because I know that they will think that I am somehow less evolved than them, less intelligent. The book "unChristian" sums it up better than I can. According to the book, people in their teens to early thirties think of the church as being: antihomosexual, judgmental, hypocritical, old-fashioned, too political, out of touch with reality, insensitive to others, boring, anti-intellectual, self-righteous, and bigoted. I would have to agree with all of those. And there is a feeling that the church doesn't care or do anything about the issues we in my generation actually feel would make the world a better place. So people of my generation feel that they might as well simply do all the things they feel they should be doing without all the baggage of organized religion behind them. And again, I don't blame them.
Yet, with all of that being said, I still find myself holding on. I still haven't given up on "church." Because I believe that we (followers of Christ) can do more good in this world together than we can individually. And I believe the message of Jesus is true, is important, and is relevant to our culture. I believe his message of love and justice rings as true today as it did in his day. I believe Christians have perverted this message, but humans are imperfect beings. I have seen the amazing and liberating work that followers of Christ have done: the good that has been accomplished, the love that has been shown. I believe that if we fully understood and embodied the message of Jesus, we as a group would be an amazing and brilliant light in this world. And I'm still foolish enough to believe it might happen - and I'd like to do my part to help us arrive there if we can.
