What You Risk by Going to Church

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(Because there’s a lot at stake here. Namely, what people will think of you.)

Generally speaking, in worldly circles, church-going types are suspected of being vacuous oddballs. In addition, if you go to church it is assumed that you also believe things like homosexuality and abortion are sinful practices, ideas widely held to be to be severely old-fashioned and egregiously immoral.

So church-goers strike out on two levels: 1) they are regarded as ignoramuses who need to get an education (Darwin, duh, Science, duh), and 2) on the issues of homosexuality and abortion in particular, they are perceived to be both unfair, intolerant haters who think it is ok for society to discriminate against a person for his sexual orientation (civil rights, duh), and unfeeling, uncaring judgers for making poor women who exercise their right to choose what is best for their own health out to be murderers (it’s my body, duh).

And these are just a few of the kinds of things people will think of you if you go to church. Oh, there’s lots more. Not enough room in one blog post.

Regarding the first-level strike-out, I had to give up being mad that going to church is such an oddball thing to do. In my mind, church-going should be normal. But the world doesn’t happen in my mind, I realized. (That’s kind of a Church Lady thing, so I had to let that go. No Church Ladies here!)  Oddball isn’t so bad, anyway. As I get older, I realize that if you’re not fitting in, then you’re probably doing something right.

On the second-level strike-out: The “dumb” assumption is harder to take, because certainly intelligent people can believe that God exists, right? To say they cannot is straight up insidious prejudice-- an unfair untruth seemingly harmlessly operating in our present society, but with grave effect, as in people aren’t going to church because they don’t want people to think they’re stupid.

So, to review: You risk people believing you are simple-minded, weird, judgmental, intolerant, rejecting, old-fashioned, immoral, and generally mean. Did I leave anything out?

Sure I did. Lots. Every single one of us has our reasons for opting out of the whole church thing. Many of those reasons have nothing to do with the risks I mentioned here.   

But the question is, what do you risk by NOT going to church?

Hmmmm…




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