Six years ago I started writing a post titled Losing My Religion. The one I’m writing now is vastly different than the one I drafted back then.
I wrote about my many attempts to find a good church, one that made me feel like I was close to Jesus. I was born into the Evangelical church and lost my way during my teen years. In 2001, I rededicated my life to Jesus and found a great, local church. Over time, either it changed or I did, because I no longer saw Jesus there. I tried a couple other churches, landed on one that was “good enough” and stayed there for three years, but eventually, it was more of a burden than a blessing to attend. We all but stopped attending church, even though my husband was attending school at the Baptist Seminary. After I became a mother in 2008, I felt a strong desire to find a church we could call home. One we could plug into, where we could grow and serve.
Week after week, we got up early and trekked to churches around the city. We heard a variety of preaching styles from animated to charismatic to straight up annoying. You don’t mouth breathe when you have a headset, Pastor. With each new building we entered, we remained hopeful, prayerful that this would be our church. And each time, we couldn’t get passed the first couple weeks.
The evangelical church had turned inward (or maybe it had always been that way and I didn’t see it). I was subjected to sermon after sermon about how to be a good Christian, but to them, “good Christian” sounded a lot more like having the best doctrine or best spirituality, but nothing on how to build a community, how to show the love of Christ to our neighbors, how to help the poor. Don’t get me wrong, some churches were good about feeding the homeless and adopting children, but silent on issues that would systematically reduce homelessness and reduce the need for parents to choose adoption. We didn’t hear any talk of social justice from the churches we were visiting, and that had become much more important to us as we got older. After a year or so, we stopped trying altogether.
That was the point of the post I started in 2013. I had hopes of connecting with other local Christians who either couldn’t find a church or who could point me in the direction of one that wasn’t politically charged, but also wasn’t politically apathetic to the policies that keep fellow humans down.
Fast forward to now, and instead, I’m writing to say I no longer consider myself a Christian at all.
