Leaving Church

I know I'm ripping off the title of a book by Barbara Brown Taylor, which I understand is a good read. But I have been thinking a good bit about leaving church. No question my reading of Will Campbell is influencing my thoughts in this regard, but my discontent with church predates my exposure to Campbell by several years.

I should note that when I say "church," I am using that word as it is commonly understood in 21st century America. In post-modern America, "church" is an institution, which, like all other institutions, is inherently self-seeking. When I say church, I am thinking of an organization that looks remarkably like a business that peddles religious wares to consumers. "Church" as an institution consists of endless committees, real estate holdings, meetings, budgets, events, hiring of professional "ministers," etc. This is the "church" I have thought of leaving.

I have not, on the other hand, considered leaving what I will refer to as the "true church," which is the body of Christ in all of its many manifestations. I would not know how to leave the true church. To whom or to what would I go?

But I am having thoughts about leaving the steeples, as Campbell calls them. For some time, my frustration with the institutional church has been superficial and subjective. I would take issue, for example, with what I perceived to be the emptiness of the worship service, the exaltation of form over substance, the abundance of words and the absence of wisdom. Mine was a proud discontent.

More recently, I have struggled with the self-serving nature of the institutional church. When so much money is paid to well-educated, well-off professional ministers to keep us entertained for, at the most one hour per week, and to pay for our lavish buildings in exclusive parts of town, so little is left to pass on to the poor. When so much time is devoted to planning retreats and pot-lucks and trunk-or-treat and the mother-of-all-church-events, camp, so little time is left for visiting the sick and imprisoned. Thus, my discontent centered on the church's failure to heed her calling.

Out of this flows my current dilemma, in which I am closer than ever to walking away from the church as an institution. Campbell seems to believe that the church's vocation is to incarnate reconciliation, between both humankind and God and among all humanity. Nowhere in the life of the true church is this call to reconciliation more beautifully portrayed than in the Eucharist. God was in Christ reconciling all people to Himself, and now we are all reconciled to each other. What God accomplished in Christ was for the benefit of all people, who were all equally in need. Now, because of the reconciling work of Christ, there is no longer Jew, Greek, male, female, slave, free. We no longer regard anyone based on human categories because we, in fact, are reconciled. There is no longer such a thing as a prisoner. That is a human category. There is no liberal or conservative. Human categories. No denominations or political parties. Human categories. Rich, poor. Boss. Smart. President. Lawyer. High school dropout. Enemy. Terrorist. All human categories, all irrelevant, because we no longer regard people in these ways.

For Campbell, the purpose of the church is to incarnate, to embody this radical reconciliation between God and humans and among all humankind. If there is not reconciliation occurring, then true church is not happening. When I look at my faith community, I do not see reconciliation. It is a homogenous group of white, upper-middle class, educated, young professional families. We have no poor. We have no African-Americans. We have no homeless, no drug-addicted, no criminals. I realize these are human categories according to which we no longer regard anyone thanks to the reconciling work of God in Christ. But when we all look the same, it leads me to believe that these human categories still matter to us a great deal, and there are certain categories of people that we do not want in our community. After all, this is why we, members of what we call the church, live in a part of town with zoning ordinances and even gated neighborhoods - to keep out people of lesser human categories. I see not reconciliation, but division and discrimination based on income, race, gender (only in the institutional church can a woman not lead), political affiliation, and sexual orientation. Blasphemy!

When we make distinctions such as these, we deny the reconciling work of God, we fail in our vocation to embody the good news of reconciliation, we betray Christ as Lord, and we cease to be the church. If reconciliation is absent, no matter what else is going on, no matter how good or useful, it isn't church.

So I contemplate leaving the institutional church in order to find the true church. I've been to church, whatever that means, and I found not the reconciling work of God, but a stronger emphasis on human categories than I've seen virtually anywhere else in my life. I'm not leaving yet, though. As Campbell noted, God seems to call people to the steeples, so He can just as easily call people away from them. I'm not sure where I and my family are being called right now. Perhaps we will visit prisons, where I have encountered God in profound ways, or a nursing home or hospital. Perhaps we will continue attending our steeple. After all, there are plenty of folks there with whom I am called to be reconciled as well. And that may be the most difficult work of all.