Another Year of NOT Being in the Church of Christ

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I was scrolling through old posts and realized that I've been doing this blog off and on for over 14 years. It does not seem that long, but so much of my life has changed since I first started. Back in 2006, my nephew and niece hadn't been born, my dad was still alive, and I hadn't been laid off twice in one year. I've also joined an Episcopal church and started singing in the choir since then, something that I never dreamed was even possible when I was growing up in the church of Christ. 

It has been over 20 years since I finally hit my breaking point and realized I needed to leave that church. The process was full of twists and turns and missteps, but I have absolutely no regrets except that I wish I had left sooner, but I probably wasn't ready before then. The important thing is that I finally got out. If I had stayed, I would have been miserable. There simply is no place in that church for a smart opinionated woman who asks difficult questions. I sometimes wonder if I would have been asked to leave the last conservative noninstitutional church I attended at some point. By the time I switched to a slightly less crazy mainline church of Christ, I was getting the stink-eye a lot during the Bible studies over some of my questions and comments. I think I was offending a lot of people and I don't think they would have tolerated me for much longer.

The mainline church was a good stopping point for a while. It felt familiar to me but it was different enough to be a positive change. I appreciated that there were church of Christ people who weren't quite so wedded to a literalist interpretation of the Bible being the only acceptable one. However, the fact that women were still shut out of leadership positions and the church's stance on homosexuality still bothered me. I have a lot of gay friends, and I started to feel ever more hypocritical about attending a church where they would not be welcomed. How could I say I loved them and support a religion that sees them as subhuman?

After I left the church of Christ altogether, I drifted around for a while, visiting Methodist, Presbyterian, and UCC churches. I remember going to St. James Episcopal Cathedral for a service once and being freaked out by all the kneeling and incense and crossing themselves. Despite all the reading I had done about the history of Christianity, I don't think I realized that some Protestants still followed those practices; we were told in the COC that only Catholics did those things. Anyway, it seemed a bridge too far for me at the time. 

I ended up going to an ecumenical service at a university chapel for 7 years, and it was a very positive experience overall. It was the first time I had ever attended a church that followed the liturgical calendar, and that was a huge revelation for me. Instead of the songs, scripture readings, and sermon being completely random from week to week, everything was planned out ahead of time around a central theme that progressed through the church calendar from Advent to Pentecost. I fell absolutely in love with the liturgy and I will never go back to a church that doesn't follow it. It's so beautiful.

After those 7 years, I was ready to take a break from church, but a friend invited me to come with her to an Episcopal church one Sunday and I went with her on a whim. I've been there for 8 1/2 years now and have no plans to move on. It suits me very well, including the incense and crossing myself, and I appreciate deeply all the good work they do in the community at large. Right now we're worshipping online only because of the pandemic, but I hope and pray we'll be back together in person by this time next year. 

So here's to 2021! Let's hope it's better than 2020 and that brighter days are ahead of us.

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