Why I Still Go to Church

I would make a fabulous hypocrite. It would, in fact, be easier than finding my way among the carnivorous heathen. Growing up saturated in the language of Anabaptism, I know about the Articles of Faith, have listened carefully to the necessity of obedience, and can even share a devotional now and then. (People will always say they appreciated your devotional, even if it made no sense. I’ve done it.) The art of mediocrity is almost natural, but with a bit of fine tuning, one can be a genius of the bourgeois. Relax; assume the properties of water, follow where gravity takes you, do just enough to stay looking good but not too much to be elected to the Big Offices.

And it’s economical. Where I’m from, we can legally withhold Social Security taxes. The churches with wealthy people are numerous, and finding a church with members having hearts as big as their wallets is the best insurance ever; there is hardly even a deductible. There are also the brotherhood aids that pass for auto insurance for personal vehicles, which can cost less annually than secular agencies cost monthly. Want cheap labor to build a shop or a house? Have a frolic. Attending other peoples’ frolics is optional.

I don’t know though. As paved as the path to mediocrity is, you still must deal with all the red-blooded humanity swirling around you, who are probably not intentionally mediocre or satisfied with mediocrity and are bound to toy with your sweet state of laxness. You still must go to church and hear the trivial talk, listen to them sniffle and chew hard candies as though they were unaware of you at their elbow.

You must be indulgent to the scripture wrangling, quibbling over where or if the comma should be in today, thou shalt be with Me in paradise and debating the eschatological differences that comma would make. There are the shallow practices formalized into bogus doctrines, such as health and wealth doctrines—claiming that material excess is an indicator of spiritual vitality. How Polycarp would have roared at this!

And you have to deal with the gossip, even if you’re a glad participant. It can come and catch you unawares. Twice now, the grapevine was saying we were pregnant before we knew anything of it. Another time, one of my friends was dead about two days before he was released from the hospital, and he is doing pretty well today, despite having weathered his Tom Sawyer-like demise. But these are the ones we can laugh at.

And watch those ministers of the Word worn to a nub, handing out Hershey’s bars when they could be serving bread and wine (not many people like the taste of bread and wine), applying Scooby-Doo bandages for little woes that could only come from a people who have waxed fat and kicked.

You’ll see people who supposedly have the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind refusing confrontation. They will rub along as enemies because of a misunderstanding, simply because the threshold for offense is so low, and also for the pleasure of an enemy to feel superior to. Piety is confused with spirituality, hate euphemized as love without tolerance, and works grandstanded while faith takes a back pew.

The problem is I sort of like these people; they are my people. We toss around the phrase the masses, of which “everyone else except me and my peers” seems to be a basic part of the definition. What I forget is that the lumpen is aggregated of individuals like me, who stand alone, pointing outward, probably saying them, them. I am one of my people, they cannot escape me, and neither can I escape them. These are humanity problems, not problems unique to churchgoers; they are my problem. What sets the church apart, whether in theory or reality, is the presence of divinity in the midst of humanity. To this glorious phenomenon I bear witness.

There are hypocrites in the church of course; that’s the only place they can be. Once outside they cease to be hypocrites. Even if the ratio of sinners to saints is disproportionate, you have to be careful how you measure success with results; it is possible to argue your way right out of faithfulness with a few statistics. At any rate, leaving the church on account of hypocrites is like leaving the hospital for the sick people.

I have seen young people with wounds from immorality find healing, in the most adult way, and become adults themselves, willing and desiring to heal others. I have watched people suffer rejection and loss and emerge, against all odds, with more hope. People have found relief from economic, mental, and spiritual depression. They have found meaning, friendship, and purpose; they have discovered the hands and feet of Jesus.

I don’t know what the Bride of Christ looks like precisely, if it has humans in it who so often get it wrong. I suppose it does. Perhaps we confuse the pure Bride of Christ with a modern definition of pure, such as pure Maple Syrup; sanitized, sterile, homogenized. But I am not certain this is right. Many couples have married when one or the other is physically compromised, having an auto-immune disease, cancer, or perhaps even a venereal disease. But by overwhelming, mutual love, physical defects become irrelevant. There is beauty in whole allegiance, pure desire, loyalty; these are what redeem the church and make for purity. It is less about perfection than affection.

This is not to minimize the need to strive for wholeness, but only to get our definitions right. It matters how we view the church.

Like the children of Israel, who were led into the promised land even after the leader disobeyed and the people grumbled and rebelled, they were still given their land of milk and honey. A generation or two passed meanwhile, but so what. Perhaps here is the church; we grope along, doing our best to follow a cloud through the desert, so often getting it wrong, but by overwhelming grace and hope, divinity stirs, comes, touches the broken heart of man and heals their land.

Historically, the church is more resilient than any organization with mere humans in it, and I want to be a part of this sacred, messy, painful, glorious thing. It has more failure in it than it should, but failure is human, and to overcome it and grow stronger is divine. This is why I still go to church. I cannot leave, not after I have seen what it can do.