Too churched to be Christian?
Recently I’ve been pondering the notion that I might be a better ‘Christian’ if I stopped having any church involvement. This has come from thinking about The Ranter’s deconversion (which I don’t share) and a comment from a friend in the pub. The comment was about how they now avoid any church involvement because their past involvement with churches has shown them that all churches did to them was to ’suck out all their energy’. The Ranter has also made past comments about how the church actually takes from the local community, as opposed to giving to it, because the local people who might be inclined to be actively involved are involved in church paraphrenalia instead.
My idea also comes from the context of having limited energy to do activities outside of work. When you have involvement with churches or Christian groups (which may or may not be defined as ‘church’) there is an expectation of a certain level of commitment, even if this is not explicit. My worst experiences of this were in an Evangelical Charismatic church where the church ended up becoming my whole life. I didn’t really know anyone outside of the church and most evenings were taken up with prayer meetings etc. There was no time or space to have any involvement in anything unrelated to church. An illustration of this is that after the Ranter and I left this church, it was very difficult to meet with people from the church because they were tied up with so many meetings. They were supposedly very ‘concerned’ about the Ranter because going to an Anglican church was seen as losing her faith (at the time this didn’t actually reflect anything about her faith other than that she was pissed off at them and their worldview!) but they couldn’t even keep an invite we had planned around homegroups etc. They were too busy being Christian in a busy way to be Christian in a way that they themselves would see as Christian…
I see much the same thing happening in my present life – even though I have left that lifestyle and my current involvement with my Anglican and alt_worship groups involves a lot less commitment. The Ranter and I have moved to the nice side of a rough area, and our Anglican church is now no longer our local church. The community around here has a very active group to assist regeneration etc but the meetings always seem to clash with my Emmaus homegroup, so I have yet to go. I also feel too tired and busy to commit to any active responsibility in the local area. Is the Christian thing to do to give up church involvement so that I can actually make a difference to my local community?
You may answer that I should join the church that is for my present parish, but the problem with that is it is led by a homophobic vicar who would consider my blessed, permanent, legally binding relationship sinful. I don’t think this would solve the issue!
There could actually be a new Christian Movement to give up Church to be better Christians. We need to stop being too busy ‘doing’ Christian to be Christian!
John H said,
May 26, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Dear Sidekick,
I do know what you mean about this, and I share your disdain for groups that are so inwardly focussed that they have no time for anyone outside the group. However, I’m not sure that giving up on faith-based community is the answer. There are three reasons why I think faith-based community is still important.
Firstly, I don’t believe most people can maintain much of a spiritual life unless they are part of a community of like-minded people. Apart from a special few who are called to the eremitic life, spirituality is done in community. I think this is even more important today, when we are surrounded by an aggressively individualistic culture, and our lives are fragmented across a multitude of social networks.
Secondly, I’ve found that being part of a faith-based community can actually encourage people to be more involved in activism than they otherwise would be. When people in a faith-based community decide to do something together, or encourage each other to do things, it is often much easier than trying to do these things on your own.
Thirdly, activism is not the most important thing. Many spiritual traditions, including the Christian tradition, tell us that prayer and contemplation are the most important contribution we can make to the well-being of the world. To be honest, I find this one of the hardest parts of spirituality to get my head round, but there is no avoiding it.
So I think you have to ask yourself what community helps you to develop spiritually, what community encourages you to action, and what community encourages you in prayer. If you are part of a community that does these things, stick with it. If you are part of a community that is not doing these things, question its value to you.
sidekicked said,
May 26, 2007 at 4:54 pm
John, I do know what you mean too, but resisted reflecting on the ‘other side of the coin’ partly so that the post wouldn’t end up really long!
I think the main tension with the point-of-view that I was exploring is how to keep the benefits of being in spiritual community without this zapping you of any use in terms of the rest of the wider community. You do need people around you who share your faith journey and can encourage you through difficult times. I wonder how formal this needs to be though? Can informal contact with Christian friends be enough, or do we need to formally worship together to maintain authentic faith?
Perhaps the answer is something to do with balance. I think there is also room to explore radical alternatives to traditional church though. Something which somehow avoided the many-meetings-problem and many of the power politics would be good…
John H said,
May 27, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Dear Sidekick,
I agree with you that there is a balancing act to be done. It’s important to make sure you are getting refreshed and revitalised, and not just giving out all the time. At the end of the day you are the only one in a position to make the decision on what is the right balance for you.
So long as the the faith-based community is fulfilling the things I mentioned, is sustainable, and isn’t damaging you (or anyone else), then personally I’m not really that bothered whether it’s formal, informal, traditional, radical or whatever. I can see advantages and disadvantages in all of these things.