Ebbert Memorial UMC

Recently I posted the question “Why don’t you go to church?” on a listserve of writers.  The following are the replies as I received them, except names and other identifiers have been deleted.  I have also corrected a few misspellings and so forth.  Each author is given a letter identifier; these are assigned as I received the e-mail. 

Please note:  This is about listening to people, honoring their experience, and learning from them; not judging whether they’re “right” or “wrong.” 

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A. says: 

Hi Dave,

Funny you should ask! The children across the street recently asked me that very question: “Why don’t you go to church?”

“I do, every day, in my garden.” I said.

I nurture plants. I harvest weeds, I compost and fertilize and water. This is prayer. The fruits and medicines I grow are divine gifts, symbols of the eternal and beautiful work of creation; I am co-creator of God’s world.

“We all worship in our own ways,” I said. “Church is beautiful. So is my garden. In my garden, I find fulfillment and connection to the Divine. Isn’t that the whole point of worship?”

Yep, it’s a true story. Happened about a month ago or so, I think. You can use it if you’d like. I hope you get some valuable responses to your request.

Blessings and Joy. 

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B. says:  Hey Dave,Interesting! Well, if it’s useful, then here’s my best shot:I don’t attend church regularly because I often hear statements there that demean or trivialize people and beliefs which lie outside the church’s ideals. As a panspiritualist, respect for all people and traditions is important to me, and I haven’t found that level of respect in many churches.Alternate, super-short version: I don’t go to church because when I go, I feel very harshly judged.Will your sermon be available online somehow? I would be very interested to see the results of your survey and your commentary on your findings!***C. says: 

Interesting! Well…

There are really two reasons I don’t go to church. The first, more surface

reason is that I’m not Christian and not religious. While my family history

includes Judaism on one side and Catholicism on the other, neither appealed to

my parents’ generation of the family, and neither appeal to me.

But there’s a deeper reason. I may not be religious, but in certain ways I

consider myself spiritual. The great mystery of the universe and its origins

strikes me as far too big to stuff into such a small container as a building and

the words of a book. Let’s assume for a moment that there is a God, and that

God’s name is Yahweh. Humans wrote a book filled with words about Yahweh.

Yahweh Himself wrote the Earth, the Sun, the other planets, the stars, humans,

alien life, subatomic physics, dinosaurs, free will, waterfalls, black holes,

the Big Bang, happiness, rutabagas, and so on.

So to me, even if every word of the Bible is correct, no man-made church or

human preacher’s words can possibly compare to God’s church and God’s words, the

universe itself.

***

D. says: 

Hi Dave,

A point near and dear to my heart so yes.  Happy to write (feel free to paraphrase)

Truth is, while my faith is strong, and I love the theology, I find many elements of the modern church make me feel alienated from my faith.  Intolerant views, emphasis of social importance over personal importance of church, and the over playing of concepts of guilt rather than forgiveness make me feel little tie to the church or its community.  It is not that I feel that I am beyond guilt, nor even that the moral laws of modern Christianity is wrong, but surely judgment lies with God and not with man?  If God, who knows a person’s sins better than they do themselves can forgive all, why is it that so much time is spent condemning others for their actions?

I used to go to church for a sense of community, but I for a time I found myself leaving services irritated with holy-than-though attitudes (often not by the priest).  That being the case, I felt that in my heart I was becoming part of the problem (because of my own hypocrisy) and so felt it was moving me away from God, rather than towards him. 

In a nutshell…

Good luck, and hope that helps!

***

E says: 

Dave,

Well, I sometimes go to church (probably only 3 or 4 times a year), so maybe I don’t count.  But I’ll write you something anyway.  You know, the first thought that popped into my head when you asked the question was something like, well, I love the experience of sharing worship with others, and of what’s created when I’m being with God in a group as opposed to by myself, but what I really miss is not having people “like me.”  The social aspect.  When I go to church it is mostly retired people and families with children, and  I am not either one of those things, and I feel lonely.  Where are the young, spiritual, single (I’m married, but I often like hanging out with single people better, because they seem more spontaneous and less busy), don’t-want-children crowd hanging out?  Are they at another church?  Are they all atheists?  If I met more people at church social functions that I could hang out with in other social circumstances, I’d probably go more.

I’ll be curious to hear the different answers you get, some week at Turtles.

***

F. says: 

Dave,

I tend to go to church every Sunday, but the reasons why [my wife] and I

miss it from time to time are:

- too tired, just came off a trip and want to sleep in.

- don’t care for the style of sermon from the person who is schedule to

be giving the sermon when the Pastor is not present.

- Nothing is a big draw that says “I have to be there or else I will be

missing out on something.”

***

G says: 

Daaaave. . . . !  What is this?  Your first tentative step into S&M?

I’ve taken a few days off from the lab to come out to the coast and write.

First it was the sunshine, and now this to distract me.  

Okay, a couple of quick thoughts.

1) When you do get down to the very last choices, it’s go to church or push a

thorny rose bush up the old wazoo, and it’s just so much nicer to stay out in

the garden?

2) The hours I’d allocated to anthropology this week were all used up reading an

article on cargo cults?

Okay, okay.  Seriously.  Maybe I can turn the question around.  Why go to

church?  Well, I think one reason might be community.  My community is

elsewhere, though, so that is not compelling.  I’ll think about it.  You’ll

probably get useful answers from others.

I may fire comments at you as they occur to me. 

***

G. says further: 

Another reason for going to church might be the music.

I’m always saying, “Thank God, for Bach.” 

But do many churches really pay that much attention to it as they did in his

day?

Is there new church music in the same sense?

It occurs to me that the subject “Why I don’t go to church” is a lot like the

term “atheist.”

In the same way you guys are making the claims, shouldn’t you be providing the

rational the enterprise?

***

G. says further: 

Dave

Okay, I think there might be one more reason to go.  And that would be gathering

info if you were curious about a particular religion.  This wouldn’t be an

initial reason to go since you could probably get more information from books

and the internet, but if you had read and searched and had zeroed in on

something, you might want to take a test drive. 

Here’s a possible reason not to go — getting into the spirit of your question,

and I think I’ve run out of reasons to go, so. . . .  One of the main activities

of church seems to be worship.  That whole idea makes no sense insofar as I can

see.  The idea of an omnipotent and omniscient creature, maker of everything,

master of time and space, requiring or even allowing worship just seems absurd.

Now if it were a psychopathic creature (satanic even?) doing the demanding and

enjoying, it might make some sense, but in that case, the right thing to do

would be to resist. Right?  So in either case, it seems better to skip not to

go.

***

H. says: 

Hi Dave,

I was raised Catholic, so that is a legitimate question to ask. There are lots of reasons I don’t go to church anymore. Here are a few off the top of my head:

1. Church was somewhat coerced on my siblings and me as children. My parents were perpetually tardy, plus my father preferred to sit in the front row (which was always empty) rather than at the back of the church. Therefore we kids were embarrassed in front of our friends, feeling like we were part of the geek parade, going down the central aisle while the congregation was seated, 15-minutes into the Mass.

2. By the time I was 16, I and my siblings had an aversion to church. I was the oldest and I was often put in charge of enforcing attendance with my younger siblings. Once I could drive, us four kids made a pact to go somewhere else for the hour of church and not tell the truth about our attendance. We stopped at the church first, to pick up a program to bring home so that we could “prove” we had been there.

3. As an adult, church didn’t provide any spiritual connection for me, and the rituals didn’t make up the difference.

4. Now, I get my spiritual connection through many things. I often attend “Church of the Woods,” which means I go for a hike. I also connect spiritually by studying astrology and tarot. The Catholic church frowns on these tools, even though Renaissance-era Popes used them. The modern church is probably against astrology and tarot because they know people can get a spiritual connection through them without going through a priest. This is also why the modern Catholic church frowns on meditation in the Buddhist sense, which is another way I make my spiritual connection. One more way I get my spiritual connection is by listening to audiobooks by authors such as Caroline Myss and Matthew Fox, both former Catholics.

5. Am I disappointed with my Catholic upbringing? Not at all! I think it is very important to bring up a child within some kind of church, as it instills the need for a spiritual connection, as well as delivering one way to get it. Ex-Catholics are some of the most spiritual people I know. The important thing for parents to realize is that once their child is grown, they can’t control the adult child’s way of making that spiritual connection. For peace of mind, parents should give up their need for their child to follow in their own spiritual or church footsteps, and just be happy if their adult child is finding a spiritual connection at all. And we will find a spiritual connection, if we need one.

***

I. says: 

Hey Dave —

Not sure if you meant to ask mostly lapsed Christians or true nonbelievers, but my best answer […] would be something like this:

I don’t go to church because I find everything I need in the purpose and glory of the universe in my own mind and the world around me.

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J. says: 

Boy, are is your inbox going to be full.

I personally don’t go to church because I find organized religion to be bossy, devoid of true spiritual meaning (for me personally) and to be honest, rather silly.

When I do go to church, it’s because I feel a certain power in a place where God hangs out, and where people gather to meditate upon God.  Also, organ music in a cathedral can’t be beat.

I could write a novella, but I’ll spare you the saga of my journey from Catholic to atheist to spiritual seeker.  Your parishioners might be interested to know that it was a twelve step program (Al-Anon) that helped me to find a way back to spirituality and the acceptance of a higher power.

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K. says: 

Hi, Dave.

It’s so good to hear from you. I’d be happy to provide you with fodder for your sermon. I can provide two perspectives: mine and my husband’s.

I haven’t been attending church regularly because I’m still shopping. […]  In fact, I’m really glad that you brought this topic up because once I get my health back, I’d like to continue my search.

When I lived in Portland, there was a church just a block down the street and I kept telling myself that I would attend it at least once. Well, after five years, I ended up moving and not ever visiting. It wasn’t because I didn’t think I would be welcome or that I am shy; I just never made it a priority.

For those who have a church and a connected, spiritual community, I hope that the common reasons of “there’s never enough time” or “I made other plans” or “I just don’t feel like going” don’t become impediments to sharing a true blessing. Having gone spiritually solo for so long, I truly miss sharing the love of Christ with others. But I need to find a place with people I connect with and can ultimately accept my (admittedly) different views and internal perspective of what the Bible says to me and how I live my life as a Christian.

My husband, on the other hand, doesn’t like church because all he thinks about are the injustices that have been committed by Christians over the years. There’s a lot more to that, but suffice it to say that he doesn’t believe in God although he’s not ruled out the possibility that God exists. […]

Again, wonderful to hear from you. Feel free to edit as you see fit. I hope to see you at Wordos soon!

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L. says: 

Why I don’t go to church (when I don’t go).

I’ve looked ahead at the sermon topic and decided that it falls

outside of the boundaries of “too challenging” and “not challenging

enough.”  Or I have child-care duties that morning and the

three-year-old isn’t in the right mood to come to church.  Or my

non-religious-participant husband is giving me signs that my husband

is a jealous husband and that church is a false (and silly) idol.  And

sometimes I think, “I think I’ll skip singing ‘Spirit of Life’ one

more time and the obligatory holding hands with people I see about

once a month and its following expectation to feel like it is a

Shining Moment of Deep Spiritual Communion.”

And sometimes I think, why go to church when I can find spiritual

communion on a hike in the woods.

***

M says: 

I was never raised with church, so why I don’t go is because I was never in the habit. I will go with family at the reunion and such, but it means nothing to me. But I can tell you why my mother stopped going to church, because that’s quite a bit more poignant.

Joanne was raised Catholic, and rather seriously. Went to Sunday School, still has all the catechism memorized. (I’m probably misspelling such things.) She grew up thinking that the priests and nuns around her were truly holy, transcended mere human beings. She wanted to be a veterinarian, so she became very knowledgeable about biology. When she was fourteen, however, she saw her teacher, (the sister) teaching about the ascendance of Christ, and as she watched she noticed that the sister just seemed really excited, but what she was doing in her excitement was rubbing her genitalia against the corner of the desk, masturbating in her excitement about Christ. Joanne was highly disillusioned about the transcendence of her religion. She went home and cried for six hours, and then got over it. The actual reason she left came several years later.

My mother’s first marriage was to a Vietnam veteran, an ex-con, whose father had been a four digit Nazi. (This meant he was one of the first 10,000 to join the party.) When she first met him, he was only two of those things, and then he went off to the war. When he came back and they married, he had of course changed. He was frighteningly violent, and suffered flashbacks. She remembers stopping him from killing another man in a bar fight with a broken bottle. The last straw was when she came home and found her dog dead, shot in the front yard. He said nothing, but three days later he gave her a gun, telling her to keep it safe for him. It took her several more days to put the two instances together in her head. (She was raised an innocent.)

When she realized that this man was degenerating into violent madness, she knew she could not stay married to him any more without risk to her very life. No, he had not hit her (or if he did, she won’t tell me) but she could not remain his wife.

When it became clear that the Catholic church would not forgive her for divorcing a violent maniac, and still considered it a mortal sin, she abandoned it, and organized religion, entirely. If the church cared so much for her soul, or rather their doctrine, that they cared nothing for her life, it wasn’t worth the exchange.

So, I was raised with a Menorah under the Christmas tree, a Buddha on the mantelpiece, and told the history of Samhain on Halloween. Our God needs no church, and no Man’s doctrine.

Is that the sort of thing you’re looking for?

I hope I helped.

***

N. says: 

Here’s my reply to your question “Why I don’t go to church.”  Feel free to use

it or not, depending on whether you think it will be useful.  I have no desire

to challenge anyone’s faith or belittle anyone who does go to church, but this

is as honest an answer to your question as I can come up with:

I don’t go to church because I don’t believe in God.  I am interested in

spiritual matters, but in a personal rather than an institutional sort of way.

I seek my spiritual understanding in nature, by surrounding myself with it and

studying how the natural world works.  I’ve seen no evidence for the

supernatural in my 50 years of life, so supernatural explanations for how things

work don’t fit my experience.  The religions I’ve been exposed to dwell too much

on the supernatural for me to accept their basic tenets as real, even though I

agree with many of the social values taught through religion.  I just feel that

for me, understanding how the universe works will come through studying the

universe itself rather than studying people’s beliefs about the universe.

***

O. says: 

 

Hey, Dave. I’d like to respond to your query about why I (and other

readers) don’t go to church.

 

I grew up in an agnostic household, where church wasn’t a focus in our

lives, and I was actually the odd one out for trying to make it to

church whenever I could. I had no idea about denominations or any of

that. I liked the message: that Jesus loves me. I wanted to hear about

that, and so I went to church whenever I got the chance, even though

it wasn’t something my family did. My father was a rather adamant

atheist. I didn’t learn until after his death that his family came

from Baptists, and there was a lot of disillusionment there. It put

his anger in perspective after the fact, but growing up, all I knew

was that ‘that stuff was a bunch of bull****’. But I liked church. I

found the message to be very comforting, so I went when time allowed.

 

What made me stop is a culmination of a lot of things. I think the

first death knell was when, as a teenager, I fell in with the

Assemblies of God. Not knowing one denomination from another, I had no

idea what I was getting myself into, but the hellfire and brimstone

message of how people who ‘weren’t right with God’ (i.e. gays,

liberals, etc. etc.) were going to be punished forever, and how this

was a GOOD thing. It was something to celebrate! That didn’t set well

with me. I’m a bisexual feminist. At the time I wouldn’t have known to

call it what it is, but I knew the way I felt. Needless to say, there

was no place for me there.

 

Even so, I stayed for the good stuff, and because, let’s face it: I

believed. I believed in Hell and Heaven and salvation and damnation. I

believed in Jesus, and his message. That last was the most important

thing, and it’s what I clung to when all the damnation and brimstone

was raining down in those sermons. The bit about loving one’s

neighbor, and turning the other cheek, it meant a lot to me, and it

still does. However, to even get to that message, I had to wade

through so much spite, and hate, and hellfire. For what purpose? So a

bunch of people can tell me I’m going to Hell because of the way God

made me? The message I needed was all around me, in the Bible, in my

life, inside myself. All the church did was make me feel bad about

existing in the first place while taking steps to micromanage my life.

Forget my existential questions, they had to get me a husband!

 

In the end, I was kicked out. They never found out I was one of those

filthy queers or I’m sure I would have gotten the boot a lot sooner.

Rather, it was in youth group, and the youth pastor was teaching a

sermon to the younger kids about how the correct way to deal with

someone mocking one for being a Christian was to call down the wrath

of God on them in prayer, and pray for their damnation. If your faith

was true, God would strike them down. I didn’t want these kids to go

around thinking that was okay, and I kept saying, “What about Jesus’

message of forgiveness? What about loving your enemy and turning the

other cheek?” I got told to quiet down or I’d be kicked out. I

wouldn’t quiet down, and, well… On my way out, the youth pastor said

he would call down the wrath of God on me. I was seventeen.

 

I tried to continue with church at one time or another into my adult

life, and eventually fell out with Christianity altogether. I simply

never felt welcome, not really. They were nice to me, but the

underlying assumption was that so long as I wasn’t one of ‘them’…

Well, I am one of ‘them’, and I’m not going to stop being one of

‘them’. It wasn’t until years later I rediscovered my faith, and even

that I’m not terribly sure about. It wasn’t because of church though.

It was because I was so certain I had felt God’s presence, shortly

after a friend had died and I was in such desperate need of comfort.

Maybe it was my imagination, but it was enough to get me interested

again. There have been instances in my life where I felt that

presence, and while on one hand I want to chalk it up to chemical

imbalance or even mental instability, on the other hand, I really want

to believe.

 

However, I run into the same problem with most churches. If you’re not

‘right with God’ you’re going to Hell. Maybe God loves all his

children, but his followers most certainly do not. I’m sad to say that

a lot of trust was broken, and it may take awhile to return, if it

ever does.

 

There is a meeting hall for Friends in town (I’m a Quaker now) but

I’ve never been. I tried contacting the person organizing it and never

heard back. Frankly, I’m too used to feeling unwelcome to go, and the

lack of response made me realize I’m not ready to put myself through

that again. I have gay friends who are out of the closet and

practicing Christians, and I’ve seen them welcomed with open arms, but

I still have such a hard time working up the nerve. The church I know

is the fire and brimstone variety, and even my brother’s church, which

is much more mainstream than the AoG, carries the underlying message

that who I am is wrong, and that if I did what they say, they could

‘fix’ me. I don’t want fixed. I don’t need fixed. I don’t want to

belong to a community that says that, in order to be okay, I have to

be someone I’m not.

 

It’s not just about the labels, either. I’m not a well-behaved,

orderly person who blindly does as she’s told. I ask questions. I make

noise. My obedience hinges on my agreement that the thing I’m being

told to do is a good idea, and you’d better believe I’m going to want

to know why. When something matters — and if God doesn’t matter, what

does — I can’t sit by and be quiet if I feel like there is something

that needs to be said. Most churches don’t like that in a member. They

want to be surrounded by people who agree with what they agree with

and do the things they do. I always felt like I had to be fake to fit

in. Mind you, I recognize the importance of discretion and

orderliness. I didn’t disrupt services. The youth group incident that

got me kicked out was a round table, not a sermon. However, in

private, in small groups, I still felt like the underlying message

was: be silent and do as you’re told. Yeah, right. If my mother

couldn’t get me to, what makes this guy behind the pulpit think he’s

got a chance?

 

I’m in the process of trying to work out where I stand in terms of

faith and religion. To be honest, the idea of attending church hasn’t

occurred to me because I don’t know how church can help me develop my

personal relationship with God. In the past, church has done so much

to get in the way of that relationship, it just seems safer and saner

to go it alone.

 

While I still carry a lot of bitterness and distrust, I do recognize

that church can be a very positive thing for a lot of people. I don’t

begrudge churches for existing, nor do I think they are all bad. I

just haven’t found one where I fit in, and the learning curve has been

painful enough I’m too scared to try.

 

I sincerely hope this helps answer your question, and that it doesn’t

read like an essay about why churches are bad. That isn’t what I mean

at all. One bad apple doesn’t even ruin the whole bunch. It’s just

that it might put someone off apples for awhile after biting into one

that tastes rotten, even though apples are generally very nice things.

 

***

P. says: 

 

Hello Dave,

Why I don’t go to church:

1. I live on a small subsistence farm and I can’t lose all those good daylight hours, maybe if church were in the evening, but …

2. Although one of the main reasons for many people to go to church is for community and social interaction - or at least that was a reason at one time - I am usually on the outside of any organized group I find myself among. I feel like an alien enough of the time without putting myself in situations that will emphasize this.

3. If I accept that there is a God who can interfere in my life if He chooses for good or for ill based up MY goodness (as perceived by God), then I must categorically accept that all good that happens to people is because they deserve it and all evil that happens to people is because they deserve it or somehow need the lesson. I do not believe that all those thousands of school children  in China or all the 50,000 - 100,000 people of Myamar, all the dead of Rwanda and Uganda, Sudan, every devout child born into an abusive household, etc., etc., somehow needed what they got. Or that all those lottery winners or Donald Trump are wonderful people deserving of their rewards. If I don’t accept this logic then the only other conclusion that can be obtained is that God is capricious and often uncaring.

4. If a God who, in the Bible, is territorial and fond of micromanaging his subjects in every other regard really created the world, then why didn’t he make even one little blasted rule to say “I made this really beautiful planet, thou shalt not muck it up”.

5. Original sin: What sort of loving entity punishes billions of children over the course of 6000 or more years for one wrong done by two ancestors? Our own human penal system is bad enough as it is, but this is mindboggling.

I hope this helps you with your sermon. Good luck.

 

***

Q. says: 

 

Dave, I am writing this after I have returned from church, and thus this is probably too late for you to use.  But I generally haven’t gone to church when I have lived in a place where I already felt that I had a strong sense of community.When my wife and I moved to Illinois from Colorado for her to pursue her PhD, I knew that she would have colleagues, while I would know no one at first.  I suggested that we go to church.  [My wife] said, “I’ll go, as long as I don’t have to pretend to be a Christian.”  We were active members of the Green Street Unitarian Church in Urbana.

When we moved to Eugene, we went to church just once and mostly felt that church was superfluous.  We knew lots of people.

During a sabbatical year in Toronto, we joined a church to have a community.  When we returned to Eugene, we didn’t attend.  Now, during our second year in London, we attend the Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel every week.

Church feeds my need for community if I don’t have such a community already.  If I do have a community, I seem to feel that my spirit is fed by having friends with whom I can speak about matters of heart, spirit, and soul without a formal place of worship.

That may change when we return to Eugene.  I may go to church.  But it’s possible that I won’t!