Me and Churches

Let us face it. I am not a regular churchgoer. I have been lately, but only because I attend with my wife. On my own, I am not inclined to go on an ongoing basis.

Much of it is doctrinal. All churches have their own doctrine that is not dictated by scripture. In fact, it is often in conflict with scripture. The churches choose to ignore the conflicts or dismiss them. Most often, though, my problem does not lie there. My problem is when the doctrine becomes more important than scripture itself.

Because of this, I have found it difficult, if not impossible, to find a church that I want to join. This is despite the fact that I am deeply interested in Christianity and would find a great deal of solace if I could find such an institution.

But more than anything else has been the church members. Obviously not all church members fall into any category but enough of them do to scare me away.

These church members are nice, kind people who do good, want to do good, yet continually support really, really bad people and ideals simple because they are being told that they should. Often it is the leadership of their church and often it is because of their political bent and they do not look beyond the politics to see the issue. In any case, what happens is the church members, and often the church itself, become quite un-Christian.

I know that I may be suffering from a case of “I am right and everyone else is wrong!” Obviously, I do not think so. Even it that is true, I am right for myself.

If I may (and I may because this is my website), I will tell a story of something that happened in church last weekend:

• The pastor chose several people from the congregation and handed the first a handful of pennies and had the count them. They were to pass them to the next person who was to count them and pass them on.
• The first person was given 7 pennies. Somehow, between the first and second person, the number of pennies was changed from 7 to 6 pennies.
• When queried, the first person stuck to her guns and insisted that she had counted 7, even though the others disagreed.
• The pastor was using this as a parable to introduce a passage in the Bible regarding Paul standing by his principles in face of total opposition.

It is also a parable about life. Whey you are right, you are right. This section is dedicated to the problems I have with churches and churchgoers who, in my opinion, violate their own principals and beliefs for outside influences.