Thoughts on Church and Christianity

July 4, 2006

Thoughts on Church and Christianity


I’m tired of church. It’s just a game to me. I don’t like pretending to be someone I’m not; and that’s all I do around here (at church, in my job). Who I am is someone who doesn’t give a fuck about the church right now. I am someone who believes in God, believes in the Christ of the Bible and everything else that makes me Christian. But I am a sinner like anyone else, I fall short, most of the time knowingly doing what is wrong.

And yet I’m not sure the last part of that is even true. Sure, there are things I do that I know are wrong and right now I just don’t care enough to not do them. But the majority of things I do, which are perceived as being traditionally “wrong”, I don’t believe to be biblically wrong; drinking, smoking, cussing. I can back that up biblically, but I’ll spare the theology because, quite frankly, I don’t actually believe that it matters all that much. My theology won’t save me. Or you for that matter.

I have found that my theology isn’t all too popular in many churches and although theology won’t save anyone, it is critical to (apparently) align with that of the church to stay in good standings. I have also found that my theology is usually taken as immaturity. Maybe if I stay in the church long enough I will begin to think as they think, do as they do, and that, in turn, will be the redemption of my immaturity. It is maturity to be like them.

Ironically, I’ve been in church all my life, twenty four years. And it is those collective years which has brought me to this very point, of what I fear to be some kind of spiritual break down.

I have had this wrestling in my soul since the beginning of the year and it just won’t go away. It would seem, from the upper church class Christian perspective that I am falling away, “backsliding”. But I don’t think I am. I think I’m just tired of faking it. I’m tired of pretending that things are good when they are not, because if things are good then I must be doing alright with God. I’m tired of pretending like I always WANT to follow God and his rules, because anything else would be blasphemy.

I’m tired of selling out to someone else’s vision, someone else’s dreams and ideals, what someone else thinks God’s plan is. I think the only solution to this rumbling in my heart is to break away; to wrestle with it on my own, to find what it is that disturbs me so deeply. It’s a quiet calling in the back of my mind that no matter how hard I try, I cannot ignore. Maybe it’s Satan, pulling me away. Maybe it’s the still, soft whisper of God, quietly calling me to him. Calling just me, as I am, to figure this out.