Why I Still Go to Church—Even After the Death of Religion

The End of Religion and the Birth of Universal Love, Part 4

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I attend St Paul's Episcopal Church in Beloit Wisconsin on Sunday mornings. That may seem a little odd. After all, I’m a Presbyterian and there are Presbyterian churches in the area. So why go to an Episcopal church?

It’s because I resonate with what's going on there. The priest comes from a contemplative, mystical perspective and it shows in his sermons. The service is highly liturgical, and I love ritual that speaks to my soul. Plus, I really like this community. They're a wonderful group of people.

(If you’re in the area, I enourage you to drop in. If you’re a bit farther north, the priest and staff also serve at Trinity Episcopal in Janesville.)

It's not all roses, however. Sometimes I find certain aspects of the liturgy to be tedious. Sometimes the hymns grate on my nerves because of their theology. And sometimes the tunes are hard to wrap my musically-challenged mind around.

But I don't expect it to be a perfect match for me and where I am spiritually. After all, I'm not the only person in the room. And I assume others feel the same. I imagine they, too, love certain parts of the liturgy and cringe at others.

So as I critique Sunday morning church gatherings, I do so as someone who appreciates and values the experience. But, theologically speaking, I want these gatherings to be able to speak more fully to our day and age. Liturgically speaking, I want them to be more faithful to the God who, in Christ on the cross, killed off religion as an institution.

Sunday: The day of Resurrection, not religion

On the cross, the religious system died.

Through the resurrection, all creation (including humanity) is being reintegrated into a life-giving network, a reconciled whole.

If that’s true, attempts to gather on Sunday mornings for tribal worship services are arguably nothing less than attempts to reverse the work of God in Christ.

So, where does that leave us on Sundays mornings if we aren't going to be engaging in traditional Christian, cultic worship services?

Sunday gatherings as a corporate spiritual exercise

We need to reframe what we’re doing when we gather. Typically we think of what happens on Sunday mornings as a “Christian worship service”. I believe the mindset revealed in that language is at the heart of the problem.

If religion, with all its cultic worship, was made obsolete in Christ, then continuing to frame our gatherings as “worship services” misses the point. But once we are liberated from this language, we are free to rethink what our gatherings could mean within this newly emerging paradigm, a paradigm in which Love Itself is transforming within history.

We have before us the opportunity to turn Sunday morning gatherings into what I believe they were meant to be in the first place: corporate spiritual exercises intentionally designed to empower people to participate in the Spirit of Christ.

But what does that mean?

Think of it this way…

On the cross, Christ forgave his executioners. By doing so, he was identifying with his enemies as well as his tribe. Thus he was identifying with all of humanity, and through the fullness of humanity all of creation.

This act shattered any sense of tribal identity. So, for Christians—those called to participate in the Spirit of Christ—there is no such thing as a “Christian community”. There is only the fullness of the human community in which we are called to participate. For us, Christ is the Fully Human One, and we are all members of his body.

So, ironically, the main point of gathering as a Christian community on Sunday morning is to remind ourselves that there is no such thing as a Christian community who gathers on Sunday morning. For us there is only the human community that gathers everywhere all the time. We gather not to reinforce a tribal identity, but to remember our Call to participate in the wider human family as living conduits of Grace.

When you think about it, there are many levels of irony unfolding all at the same time here…

• Christians are part of a religion that rejects religion itself.

• Christians are part of a tribe that doesn't exist.

• Christians gather to worship after worship has been made obsolete by God.

The very thing that we are a part of and makes us who we are, isn't even really a thing at all. For what it's worth, I love paradox. I love stories with a good twist. And the Christian twist is a doozy.

So, then, how can we reframe and understand anew what we are doing on Sunday morning?

How about this?

In our intentional gatherings, we manifest the Spirit of Christ liturgically as we embody symbolically the fullness of a new humanity that is embraced by and embracing the primacy of Universal Love.

This vision invites us to rethink what our gatherings could become. If this is what we are to be all about, then our gatherings should perhaps take on new emphases. Or at the very least, they should bring new twists to old emphases.

Now, let’s take some time and explore some of the possibilities…

Postmodern culture is experiencing a meaning crisis.

Why have we lost sight of Meaning?
Is there any hope of getting it back?
Better yet, is the loss of Meaning really a bad thing?

If you long for a path forward, my theology book Drinking from an Empty Glass: Living Out of a Meaningless Spirituality is the book you’re looking for.