So what is church for anyway?

What should church look like? Should you stay or should you go?

A while ago, just a short while after I posted my very first post on this page, I got my first response from a fellow writer, Lily Chili, who I met through the Thursday Office Hours at Substack. If you’ve never visited, be sure to look in! Anyways, her response led to a conversation about institutionalized religion in general, and Lily pretty much said it all when she offered this at the end:

“I find institutional religion to be mostly a corpse. The shorthand for the theology I landed upon is “Jesus died for your karma.” I think my ideal situation would be an outdoor meditation/dance party with a potluck from people’s gardens in a field with flowers and people playing their instruments for a little while and then some nice silence to watch the fireflies and do a cartwheel before heading to bed.”

What do you think about that?

What would your ideal church situation look like?

If you were to describe the theology you subscribe to in one sentence, how would you go about it?

(We’ll definitely come back to that last question. Doctrinal minimalism is something this newsletter will actively engage with).

But for now, while you’re thinking about your ideal church, let me tell you, I love the event described by Lily.

I have some reservations, of course—as an introvert, I’m not all that comfortable with large gatherings of people in general. That’s just the way I’m wired. (Large gatherings of books, though—now you’re speaking my love language).

The food or the creative dance jam could do a lot to change my mind, however. Especially if hot chili is involved.

But getting out of the city, camping in a field of flowers, watching the fireflies, and listening to frogs croak—that’s always a good idea.

To me, most churches, with their noise, their logistics, and even their architecture, are civilization par excellence. The very civilization whose presence I do my best to curtail in my private life. (Church buildings: proudly shutting you out from the sun and the sky since 296 A.D.)

There’s the overkill of a sound system, the dusty interiors that block out the sunlight lest the fascinating content on the screen should fade away, the artificial lights, the flashy powerpoints, the technical glitches recurring like bad running jokes.

Yeah, yeah, I know these inventions are there for a reason. Still, for me, the thought of going to church on a Sunday is often the antithesis of everything I would like my Sunday to represent—a day of rest, of tuning in to my body, of finding balance, of basking in gratitude.

Make sure the Spirit can always fill you, says Paul. Believe me, Paul, I’m trying, but the noise is getting in the way.

As a pastor’s kid, my earliest memories from the church are of being hurried, harried, handled, and preened (what is UP with dressing kids up for church so scrupulously? I mean, I spent less time preparing for my wedding).

Then again, my first circle of friends was in church. That counts for something. But as we were growing up, ever so slowly, it started to dawn on me that they only kinda sorta accepted me. They were right, of course. I was, after all, my father’s daughter. A mole of some sort. You really had to watch yourself around me. And why shouldn’t you? I’ve always had a good relationship with my Dad, and people knew. Looking back, I have to wonder if some of the connections that have cooled off inexplicably haven’t done so because of my proximity to him.

Again, it’s natural enough. Friendships are all but impossible if you feel you can’t really be yourself around the other person, and perception is everything. It didn’t matter if I could keep a secret when nobody believed I could.

Then there was the world outside of the church. For a long time, it was not an option either, what with the idea harped on and on about in church about how rotten and terrifying it was out there. Eventually, I got over that rhetoric and ventured out to see for myself. I couldn’t find my gang in church, I reasoned, so it must be elsewhere, right? My hopes were high!

But to my dismay, for all the hoopla, the terrifying world turned out to be its own brand of just-shoot-me-now boring. The people were sad and needy, and they swore a lot. Worse still, many dealt in fundamentals just like people in church did, just of a different kind. They mostly just let me be. But I wasn’t kidding myself that it was a sign of some higher maturity. It was simply indifference.

The only development that could be called positive was that I was more likely to hear slightly better music.

Why am I telling you all this in an article where ask about the church’s premise? Because my experience is an example of the irreducible complication inherently attached to that question: your story is not like mine. When you go to church, this is what you encounter—a juxtaposition of irreconcilable stories.

You might have been raised in a traditional church, so now you might actually—dare I say it?—enjoy the praise & worship.

You might have been raised with little religion, so the whole church experience is new and thrilling. (“People are so nice there! They actually say they’re going to pray for me when I have a problem!” is what I sometimes hear from my nominal Catholic friends who stumble into a born-again Evangelical church.)

You might have found your tribe outside the church—lucky you!—so you never think of going back.

The church is like a jigsaw puzzle in which every element comes from a different set. How on earth are you supposed to make it stick long-term if the elements are incompatible?

(You can see that puzzler in the New Testament, too. From Luke’s serene assertions in the opening chapters of Acts that the first believers were “one in heart and mind” and “shared everything,” you get to squabbling over meat & headscarves and hogging the Communion elements in the Corinth church. You might say, well this escalated quickly.)

So, very early on in the history of the Christian church, you can see the trend towards reclusion and mysticism. This movement is observed in many religions, and its characteristic is commonly given as “renouncing the world.”

But in reality, the mystics and monks were also renouncing the church in all its haphazard, ragtag glory. The church whose ethos of “going to the ends of the earth” meant that the nitpicky debates, the painful schisms, the exasperating questions would always be a part of its DNA.

An all-too-familiar goal, I’m sure: getting rid of that insufferable tiny whining in your ear—the mosquito buzz of a fellow believer whose experience of the Divine is so similar yet so different from the right one, that is, mine.

For this reason, I think the litmus test for whether you stay in or leave any given congregation should be less about the contents of the doctrine and more about the community’s approach to that unavoidable characteristic of the Christian church, diversity.

Finding a fellowship (or even a circle of friends!) in which everyone will believe the same things we do is an impossible task. Worse still, if we find it, we may soon discover that its focus on uniformity makes it just as cliquey, culty, and oppressive as the church we have just escaped.

Is the community you’re in trigger-happy with the judgment gun? Is it easy to hear, “I don’t know, to be honest. I’m still figuring it out”?

Is it peaceable? Open to reason? Courteous? Kind?

Acknowledging the sovereignty of individual believers also means embracing the fact that the church, even in its more structured avatars, is essentially meant to be just a shifting, momentary phenomenon.

Think less like a powerful, prosperous institution and more like the first Passover meal: experienced in haste and excitement, in traveling gear, on the way to a redemption story.

I remember hearing exhortations, throughout the years, about “finding a church to do life with”. But shouldn’t church—any church—be less of a house you commit yourself to and more like a mountain lodge—a shelter that’s there, essentially, to help the people move on in their spiritual journey?

It doesn’t mean church shouldn’t be supported, even widely. It doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t have full-time staff. In fact, there should definitely be a sizeable team of people leaving the light on for the travelers who might come in. It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be active in other areas of social life.

But its role should primarily be that of a filling station—a place where wanderers can refuel and recharge, get first help and medication (and be referred to professionals if the hurt is serious), stock up on supplies, wash and mend their clothes, repair or upgrade their equipment, hear updates about the weather and the trails, exchange ideas about the routes, get inspired by other wanderers’ stories, find hiking buddies, set new goals.

Instead of a conclusion (it will be different for everyone), I’ll share a story without which I probably would have left the church a long time ago.

Mind you, this story is not an argument for staying in an abusive church or for staying in a church you know is bad for you or your loved ones, an impediment to your mental health or overall spiritual growth. If church hurts, you have the responsibility to take care of yourself (and your loved ones) and get out to safety. The sooner, the better.

Neither is this story an argument for always being a part of some church, no matter how misplaced and miserable you might feel there. In fact, it could be read outside of the Christian context entirely. It’s more about a principle that I find good to keep in mind, and the exceptions are plentiful.

Anyways, the story comes from the collection of Father Brown mystery stories by English philosopher G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936). I read him when I was still in college. If you’re not familiar with the series, I highly recommend it. It’s entertaining, good-naturedly repetitive, with lots of vocabulary you don’t hear used everyday anymore. All the books are now in the public domain, so it’s easy to get an e-book or an audiobook.

Basically, the series is about a Catholic priest who goes around solving mysteries thanks to his extraordinary observation skills and insight that he credits, of course, to the Christian faith. Word to the wise, the following paragraphs contain quasi-spoilers of one of the stories, “The hammer of God,” of the volume “The innocence of Father Brown.” But not to worry; there are plenty of other stories to enjoy in that collection.

In that particular story, Father Brown visits a small town and chances upon a murder scene. A village drunkard and a known troublemaker is lying in the square just outside the church, his skull smashed to bits by a hammer blow that appears to have come out of nowhere, as if wielded by a hand of God.

In one of the final scenes, Father Brown climbs the winding stairs that lead to a kind of stone gallery or balcony outside the church building. The view is splendid. You can see “the illimitable plain in which the small hill stood, wooded away to the purple horizon and dotted with villages and farms.”

“I think there is something rather dangerous about standing on these high places even to pray,” remarks Father Brown to his companion. “Heights were made to be looked at, not to be looked from… One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

Then he continues, “I knew a man… who began by worshipping with others before the altar, but who grew fond of high and lonely places to pray from, corners or niches in the belfry or the spire. And once in one of those dizzy places, where the whole world seemed to turn under him like a wheel, his brain turned also, and he fancied he was God. So that, though he was a good man, he committed a great crime… He thought it was given to him to judge the world and strike down the sinner. He would never have had such a thought if he had been kneeling with other men upon the floor. But he saw all men walking about like insects.”

It’s a simple story—just a little more than a dozen pages, really—but it shakes me now as much as it did back then, when I read it for the first time.

It reminds me that the people around me are not always there just to be a comforting, supportive, affirming presence.

In fact, if I’m surrounded by clapping yes-people, then I’d better get a boat and check if the horizon isn’t painted on.

Sometimes they’re just there to laugh at me when I fancy myself God. To tell me, “Go get some sleep, for crying out loud. When was the last time you ate?”

They’re there to ask me questions that I, in my “enlightenment,” think stupid.

They’re there to be that mosquito that keeps me up at night, makes it impossible to slip into complacency and delusion.

That irreducible piece of data I wish I could just neglect.

The reason to doubt.

A word of caution: I am not a religious trauma counselor. If you have been hurt by institutionalized religion to the point that it is seriously affecting your daily life (panic attacks, uncontrollable anger, loss of focus, constant triggering, numbness, and out-of-body experiences), I strongly urge you to stop reading and contact a health professional near you. Your pain is real and should be attended to.

For Portuguese or Polish version, please contact me directly.