Church of St-Etienne-du-Mont, by Charles Maurice
I consider myself a reasonably spiritual dude. I read my Bible. I pray. I talk about faith and religion with folks. I write about spirituality — albeit indirectly sometimes — for a living. I love God, I love Christianity and I think religion is a beautiful, beneficial and downright nifty thing.
So I wonder why, sometimes, I drag my feet about going to church like a pouty 6-year-old. It’s all very weird: I love the Church. So why do I sometimes hate to go?
Which makes it strangely comforting to me to read folks like Anne Graham Lotz, the gifted daughter of the Rev. Billy Graham, say things like this:
Even in my own life, I’ve found that religion can be one of the greatest impediments to finding God. And by “religion,” I don’t mean “faith.” I mean rituals, creeds, traditions, and often leaders — all of our means of trying to connect with God. They can get in the way of developing a relationship with God.
Graham Lotz, in talking with Time magazine, wasn’t suggesting that church or religion runs counter to true faith. Rather, she’s simply saying something that, I think, we all know: Sometimes we Christians don’t run the most welcoming club.
“Christ is love” a pastor once told me. “It’s the Christians who are mean.” I think we all know people who have been hurt, or felt betrayed, within the confines of church. We also know people who reject faith on aesthetic grounds: There’s too much liturgy, or too little, or the hymns are too dull, or the worship music’s too trite. We know people who rail against hypocritical Christians who don’t seem to care about the world around them. We know people who complain that Christians seem to care far too much about the world, and they wish we Christians would just mind our own businesses.
Clearly, it’s impossible to make a church where everyone feels completely at home — which might explain why Christian faith in America is so varied, and so fractured.
St. Augustine once told us that, “The Church is a whore but she is my mother.” I love the Christian Church. She does some amazing things throughout the world and, without her, I’d likely not be writing this and you’d likely not be reading it.
But that said, what does the Church — and I’m speaking broadly here — sometimes get wrong? Have you been hurt by it, or those who populate it? Do you think, like Anne Graham Lotz, that sometimes religion makes it hard to connect with God? Tell me what you think. I’d love to hear what you have to say.
