Cazenovia Curmudgeon: Church, been there done that
First printed in Madison County Courier
A few friends, and my older daughter, bless her heart, are all the time telling me I should go to church, a Christian one, of course. No matter, I tell them; been there, done that, from Sunday school all the way to – and including – being dunked at the ripe old age of 12 by a preacher man into a tub of water in front of a congregation of Disciples of Christ, I think they called themselves.
It was a life-view-changing experience, but not, I think, in the way it was intended.
They tell me, too, I’ll find Jesus in church. They mean the Jesus of the Bible, I guess. But I figure I’ve already found the more-or-less real one in the Joshua of Talmudic times. As for a church: which one? Of
all the way too many denominations, sects, cults, splinter groups and spinoffs, which one is telling the truth…or anything approaching it?
Friends and daughter say they want to meet me in heaven, but as far as I know, it’s not there where it’s supposed to be. All of science’s space probes and space telescopes have sent back fascinating photographs, but so far none of pearly gates.
During a recent visit with daughter in North Carolina, she did manage to get me as far as just inside the front door, to the bookstore and coffee bar, of her church, called a chapel, looks like a large schoolroom, had enough of those.
A young man came forward to greet me…called himself an associate pastor, sounded like an “associate” in a retail store: “What color are you looking for…?” Actually, questions about what I believed. As is my custom, I answered with questions of my own: “If your god created the earth and man and woman, who created him?”
End of conversation.
That’s what happens when I ask churchly folk what seem to me to be reasonable questions. They don’t answer or won’t answer, or maybe they don’t have an answer. They don’t or won’t ask questions, either. My daughter doesn’t want my 15-year-old grandson to ask questions, but I did manage to slip him a reading list (see below).
From here on, it’s up to him, mother or no mother.
No wonder we read that church attendance and membership are falling, along with revenue from collection plates. What does it mean that churches are having to close doors, sell property, auction off stained-glass windows? Out-of-work preachers having to go on TV? Who is deserting the ship? Grownups of the Me Generation?
And here Tom Wolfe said the Me Decade was “the third great religious wave in American history.”
The first two “Great Awakenings” were big here in New York state. Look it up.
Or is today’s younger generation, despite churches trying to woo them with Rock the River concerts, hip-hop artists (?), youth communicators and Christian rock bands (all at a Billy Graham “crusade” at a U.S. Army post!)? Could it be our schools are teaching them to ask questions, think for themselves, to tell the difference of fact from fable?
Women, too. Are they finally becoming fed up with being told through scripture they must be subservient to men?
Maybe they – we – will find some answers in issues of the Madison County Courier to come. We can ask young Mr. T. Scott Burgess questions? He’s the Youth and Young Adult Leader at Hope Christian Fellowship in Canastota…says he’s “preparing to preach…in the near future, is writing a column here.” He calls it “A Fresh Perspective,” says “(W)e all need a fresh perspective to look at ourselves and our world differently…We need to see things not as they appear to be (or) as we feel they are.”
Does he put religion and the Bible in that world? I hope so.
He does say “from God’s perspective.” Good, if he means to read his Bible carefully where he’ll see how that perspective – and God’s character – changed from Genesis on into the Common Era. A help in reading can be had from Jack Miles’s “God, a Biography,” and Karen Armstrong’s “A History of God” and “The Bible, a Biography.”
Mr. Burgess may find it helpful, too, before he begins his preaching to reach (Episcopal Bishop) John Shelby Spong’s “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism,” as well as most anything by Bart D. Ehrman, including “Misquoting Jesus: The Story of Who Changed the Bible and Why,” and “God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Questions.”
These writers declare themselves to be believers, but they do have fresh perspectives.
We’ll look forward to your columns, Mr. Burgess. And I hope we can meet someday…and have a conversation.
Donald W. Krueger of Cazenovia is a retired professor and active contrarian. Readers can email him at madnews@m3pmedia.com.
