More on People who are Done

When I consider those who are "done with church," I wonder (in some cases anyhow) whether they actually started with church.

Of course, there are the injured people, those whose interaction with church folk (often with some member of the clergy) was so toxic that they simply cannot bring themselves to return. This has often been the case, for example, with gay people. A surprising number of America's LGBT folk have a religious background and a genuine desire to be part of God's community, but have been told, sometimes in this exact language, that "we don't want your kind around here."

Today, though, I'm thinking not of that group but of those who experienced "Christianity Lite" and decided that there's just not that much here. They're the ones who listened to years of sermons that essentially made the same point, 52 times every year. (Note: There are 23,145 verses in the Old Testament and 7,957 in the New. Preachers who are essentially a one-trick pony need to expand their reading list!) They're the ones who think that church music is all shallow and repetitive because their experience has been limited to songs by two of three composers, all composed after 1970. They're the ones who have been sold the idea that the Christian faith and the aims of one of our political parties are essentially the same. And some of them have rejected those political opinions, so they feel they must reject the church.

I think I would have been part of this latter group, except that by happy circumstance I had early contact with the Episcopal Church and remembered that there's a whole lot more going than "same old, same old." For starters, the reading schedule for Bible verses doesn't repeat until we have gone through three years, so we're about 36 months away from hearing the same old sermon again, no matter who is preaching. And there's the Internet Meme that says, "No matter what you think, at least two Episcopalians agree with you." (And at least two disagree too, I suppose—and we're not talking about the larger church, but a small congregation.)