Issue 26
July 16, 2007

I’ve taken a break from God recently. After thirty some years of being in God’s constant company, I decided to put a little space between us these past few weeks. I honestly can’t say I’ve missed God much, which may come as a surprise to some, but I have missed the church, which may come as a surprise to others.

Truth to tell, I find I get along quite well without God. Gone are the late night struggles trying to make sense of a god of compassion in a world of hurt. No more grappling with the timeless conundrum of Job via Archibald MacLeish: “If God is God, He is not good. If God is good, He is not God…”

It’s the church I’m missing…that eclectic mix of saintly sinners that can motivate, educate, contemplate and postulate in innumerable ways, igniting imaginations, focusing energies, finding solutions. In the church I’ve seen lives changed and compassion incarnated. I’ve witnessed disparate political views honored, apathy condemned and loving action accomplished. I’ve experienced conflicts resolved and tensions continued. It is that dynamic process of religious discernment and communal struggle I’m missing now.

Oh, yes. The problems, petty and not, that drain the spirit abound in the church but a healthy congregation finds ways to diminish their influence, a process that is often discomforting but almost always empowering. Shaped by the life and teachings of Jesus, a healthy congregation can take comfort and gain strength by focusing its energy on service to others. Doctrinal disputes or housekeeping chores seem petty when feeding the hungry or welcoming the stranger.

While wintering in Southern California, my wife and I discovered the joy of being in just such a congregation. All Saints Church in Pasadena, a parish of the Episcopal Church, has a long tradition of community service combined with a progressive theology. Each Sunday both the pews in the sanctuary and the chairs in the educational wing are packed with folk who, like us, were drawn by inspiring worship and critical thinking. I know congregations that provide similar stimulating resources exist but I can tell you from experience they are difficult to find.

As I was saying, God’s absence seems no great loss but being apart from the community of Christ is profoundly sad to me. So, during this recess, I am wondering if the experience of a dynamic church can replace faith in a theistic image of God? Can engaging in a community founded on compassion and social action rather than archaic theologies and ancient worldviews, be a legitimate expression of Christianity? Does following Jesus mean we must believe in God?

An initial argument would point to non-religious organizations that do good works (e.g. Rotary, Optimists, etc.) and suggest that such clubs might be an adequate substitute for those of us who seem to be looking for a Godless church. But is not godlessness we are after, rather a reinterpretation of what is divine. For a growing number of us, God is moving from being noun to becoming verb. The numinous is known in acts of compassion, service, hospitality and grace rather than through semi-comprehendible creeds or Augustinian doctrine. Hymns, liturgies, sermons and more that continue to point to a God up there, out there, over there, fail to reach those of us who are discovering quite the opposite. One of the great disappointments of the new Lutheran worship book is its failure to recognize those of us who find little inspiring in liturgies that continue to be shaped by an ancient theory of atonement that makes no modern sense at all.

Hillary Clinton was recently pilloried for her pronouncements on her Christian faith. One conservative commentator dismissed her religious reflections by saying that Democrats could win over religious voters who were…“religious in the way that Hillary Clinton is religious, which is to say a very liberal Protestant sort of view, in which they believe in everything but God.” Given my recent experience, I found myself thinking: “What’s so bad about that?”