I am just agonizing a lot lately about church.
I miss being in worship, and I miss being part of that community.
At the same time, I don’t know where I could fit in easily, or where to go, or if I’d even feel at home anymore.
One issue is simply that the churches I feel more comfortable in (ones with some sort of substantial theology) are the same ones who tend to be more judgmental or more inclined to treat me like a curiosity or second-class citizen, restricting my public ministry. People have suggested very open churches like the Unitarians or the B’hai faith, but I simply do not really identify with that sort of Christian schema.
So I’ve been examining Emerging Church – style groups and wondering what to do… and now just feel more befuddled than ever. Reading people’s blogs just in Central PA just bring back a lot of bad memories about why i did not like the church environment.
The one church I was considering attending… in Lancaster… just had its pastor driven out by the BIC board, partly because he was talking openly about his disagreement on “violent salvific” theology but partly because his openness towards homosexuality — he basically suggests that the Good Samaritan philosophy should be the applicable mentality instead of the debates over Bible interpretation and relevance that usually accompany that topic.
Reading the comments on his blog and the arguments people were having just really wore me out and wore me down — I was quickly reminded of how tedious it can be to live within a body of people who adhere to some particular reading of Scripture and tediously will go through argument after argument explaining why they are right and other positions wrong. Regardless of what cases can be made, it seems like a complete waste of energy and resources that could be used to really impact people where they need to be helped.
And also having to live with people are genuinely good-natured but are extremely earnest and solemn about their specific beliefs and can become very dogged and intense in the pursuit of them. I remember feeling like I just wanted to enjoy being around people I liked, enjoying each other’s company, but every conversation, dialog, and action would result in some sort of tedious scrutiny of the actions and conversation to make sure it was perfectly aligned with one’s doctrinal statement. Such relationships ceased being fun, free, or engaging; isn’t life supposed to be more intuitive? I had just wanted to shake people and ask them to lighten up, laugh, and relax… but since I am a non-imposing person, the stronger feeling I had was just to leave so they could practice their way of life in peace but so that I could be free of it.
So now I’m reminded why I left the first time… aside from feeling like I would be condemned by some and otherwise the centerpiece of a rift in my family’s congregation. I love interacting with other believers one-on-one, but as soon as people get in a group, things get weird, and everyone puts on the “Christian” costume, and makes sure they are saying and doing the right stuff and conforming to checklist rather than letting any ambiguity exist, to give off the right religious cues.
I wish my beliefs were different. I wish I was more conventional. I wish I could just fit in and I did not struggle so much. I wish I didn’t have so much ambiguity in my thinking and perceptions. I wish I didn’t have to be so exacting about declaring exactly how ambiguous I feel everything is. I wish I hadn’t been trans so I didn’t have to feel shame or rejection or different from everyone else.
I’m a woman who is not yet physically complete, who was socialized in religious circles as a man, and yet I’m forty, so I should already know “the script.” And frankly I often do not like the script for women in the church, the script that is forced on them and the script they buy into. Not the gist of it necessarily (I think women in general have an accommodating nature, a supportive nature, and this naturally leads to casting themselves in a supportive and nurturing role), but just the rigidity of it and how it’s been set in stone about how you have to be, and if you don’t, you stick out.
I’m just rambling now… but I’m just sad.
I thought I could go back and fit into this world, I’ve been away from it for so long, but you just can’t do that — as soon as you go back, there is someone always looking to undermine you, differentiate you from them and explain why their beliefs are correct and yours aren’t, criticize your own values and choices in life.
They don’t even necessarily due this to be mean and selfish, it is just inherent in a mindset where people think they have a handle on spiritual truth and they want to defend it against those who might “muddy” their beliefs or tarnish the values they prize so highly.
I don’t know whether I want to subject myself to that sort of needless torture. Maybe it is better to just let it all be between me and God, and involve myself with people one on one, and serve however I can on the individual level, and just not put myself out there to be targeted, publicly shamed/rejected, and hurt.
Why can’t you just get together, love God, and take care of each other — instead of complaining about specific theological doctrines all the time? What matters is the Word embodies in our actions. It’s what we do that reveals our hearts, and the heart is where the Word is written and what makes one person a child of God and the other a child of the devil.
I know it’s not a much fun place to be. I’ve tried the UU’s too and found that though I agree with much of what they are about, as a church, it didn’t connect with me. I’ve been fortunate to find a very left-of-center pastor at a UCC. She, by the way, is very interested in beginning an Emergent worship service. She also got kicked out of a church where she performed a holy union ceremony. I don’t get there much, though, since I play so much at a large Catholic church. But there are plenty of more middle-of-the-road churches, well between the extremes. I had good luck theologywise in an ELCA for a while. And there are all the various open groups of more mainline Protestant churches – More Light Presby, Lutherans Concerned, etc. etc. etc…
Oddly, I’ve found that in the Catholic church I’m in, being selective in being out, I’ve done well and have lots of support. To some, I’m only “halfway out,” meaning they know I have a wife, but not the T stuff. To others, I’m fully out and they know the whole story. So far, I’ve had nothing but acceptance and support. I’m well aware that someone important and intolerant might find out the whole story and I’d no longer be welcome there. But until then, I have a place to be useful.
I think my biggest success in being in churches comes from, oddly, not being there for the theology. I’m there primarily for the people. It probably helps that my own theology is pretty simple – be nice to everybody. It means I don’t get into big theological discussions, which simplifies relationships too. Those that require I get into deep theological discussions, or that I don’t like, I avoid. They probably don’t like me either. They avoid me. That’s fine. If the whole church were to get their hackles up over me, I’d just shake the dust from my sandals.
So I guess I do what you do naturally – interact mostly one-on-one. And it can work in a group setting.
I don’t know that being conventional would be a plus or a minus. We’re just not “fit in with most of the crowd” people. That’s okay. I tend to gravitate toward other non-FIWMOTC people, wherever I may find them. And no, I don’t feel shame even in the midst of rejection. Their loss. With transition ten years ago and the fact that the majority of my interactions are fine, the people that might have a problem, honestly, are the ones with the problem.
In some ways, no, you can’t go back. But in other ways, you can. You can be you now. Churchwise, you may be searching for a while, but you will eventually settle in somewhere, for some length of time. I’ve also found that by being involved in others’ lives, I’ve gotten support from those I would not have expected. And they have come to my support when I’ve needed them to, just as I have for them.
By: Ang on October 28, 2009
at 4:37 pm
And there are all the various open groups of more mainline Protestant churches – More Light Presby, Lutherans Concerned, etc. etc. etc…
yeah, I know I could do okay with many of them.
You know what, though? It’s about the music and the feel of the service.
I’ve so far attended a Presbyterian and a UCC denom church and… they’re just dead to me. I’m bored to tears. There’s no connection I can feel for myself there. It’s the music and the worship style, I don’t connect with it.
I’m an evocative person. Many of those denoms are just too structured/intellectualized for me and thus detached from the in-the-moment experience of the divine, they’re more reflective and mental in their approach. It’s hilarious to me that, while I am primarily intellectual, my aesthetic and emotional self is looking for something that is typically only offered at a pentecostal or [some branches of] evangelical-style or potentially the Emergent church. I think I gave up on theology a long time ago at church, even the church I was at for the 9-10 years before transition was a place where I ministered but where the sermons bored me to tears despite my appreciation of the pastor’s intellect. My spiritual growth in terms of theology has pretty much always had to be self-directed.
“It probably helps that my own theology is pretty simple – be nice to everybody.”
Lol, isn’t that weird? That is probably how I would sum up my beliefs too: Love God, love others as you would love yourself. I’m so intellectually complex… but I’ve progressed from an overcomplicated and detached theology to one that is very simple and very personal. That’s why all these theological arguments over my life have really upset me and just turned me off… In the end, the “proof in the pudding” is a changed life, not necessarily whether you feel you got 100% on your theology essay question, all of that stuff seems divorced from the actual reality of a divorced redeemed human being. While people argue about Bible interpretation, they often end up treating others in ways that I think are antithetical to the very doctrines they claim to have so exquisitely parsed.
Sigh. I just don’t even know where to start. And now, despite so many changes and ‘being on the right side of the fence’ in many ways, I still feel “apart and different” than others. The transition experience alone, while integrating me fully into being myself, is such a unique experience that it both integrates AND makes the gulf even wider.
*hug*
By: Jennifer on October 28, 2009
at 5:32 pm
There’s always the route, then, of finding a church that needs a musician, whether director or keyboardist and applying. So long as they let you have some artistic license, you’ll have the flexibility to shape the music to be what you need. Even in the Catholic church I play in, if we do something like “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” I get to break out all my altered chords and tritone substitutions and have a ball. I’ve also found that most churches appreciate improvisation to some degree or another, so I rarely have to play what’s on the page. That, again, gives me the chance to make the music what I want the music to be.
Sermons, yes, are boring. Listening to lectures was never my favorite learning input mode. I zone out. I don’t have the attention span.
As far as “apart and different” goes, yeah, you’re right. Even after ten years of being mostly-stealth, I STILL have to, once in a blue moon, come out or worry about being outed. I think it was on Andrea James’ website where I first read, “Transition is never easy. And it is never, ever, over.” And there is truth to that, far more than I often wish were the case.
Though it’s exhausting and exasperating, do continue your search. You will, eventually, find a church that accepts you where you are and meets the needs you need to have met. I think you’ll find that within most denominations, there will be plenty of diversity, in worship style and music, from church to church, and you can find something appropriate for you.
By: Ang on November 3, 2009
at 8:44 am
I wonder at this point if I’d do better focus on finding people I connect with spiritually — either inside or outside congregations — and musically and just building something with them… and then the right church will find me if one is out there.
I’m looking to “plug into” something but I have never been more positioned than to just go into the world and be myself and create my own life rather than just plugging into standardized groups. Maybe I really need to trust the process that has shaped and is shaping me and continue to walk the road rather than rushing back into a “safe” spot.
… just thinking out loud, sigh.
By: Jennifer on November 9, 2009
at 1:34 pm
You may be on to something. Too bad we’re so far apart; I’d love to collaborate with you. In this http://www.onderful http://www.orld, there is probably a way to make something happen if you’re interested.
By: Ang on November 17, 2009
at 6:52 am
I’m not sure if this is what you were looking for, but you could check out Gnostic churches. They’re sort of like Catholicism on the outside, Buddhist on the inside. But they are very big into personal spiritual experiences rather than *just* philosophy.
I can send you to J if you want some more info
(she’s big into Gnosticism)
By: Aylwen on November 15, 2009
at 7:50 pm
It’s not a faulty idea, it seems reasonable… the issues are this:
The problem is that these can easily be the churches where I will have the most trouble being accepted in totality. What a bummer.
By: Jennifer on November 18, 2009
at 2:46 pm