No one brought casseroles when our baby was born, and we didn’t care. Sometimes I feel a little isolated living in the suburbs and long for more community-related activities, but it’s my preference for solitude that keeps me from seeking out other people most of the time, not a lack of non-church-based opportunities to connect.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Well, I wish her luck in her search. Perhaps she will find a satisfactory answer for her questions and her longings somewhere. I expect it will be difficult if she confines herself to the Abrahamic religions, or any others of the monotheistic ilk. A hierarchical, authoritarian structure is just baked into the cake in all of those.
As for the theological notion of “sin”, I find that to be an utterly useless premise for me. There are certainly plenty of much more reasonable approaches for understanding the history of humans doing bad things than instilling it into the whole “original sin of Adam” silliness.
I am sure that the vast majority of people she associates with in her church circles are wonderful and loving people. A large number who I know certainly are. As for myself, I found that trying to understand the world through the lens of the Christian religion was simply impossible. Perhaps Ms. Evans will have better luck.
Church is fine if that is how you want to roll.
But the idea that you’d cry when quitting your church for political reasons because no one will bring you casserole is submental.
Fair opinion but it reflects a lack of understanding of how many Christians view their identity. Belonging to a community is a large part of why people go to church.
Pondering the potential loss of that community feeling is probably one of the single largest reasons many people stick with their faith. In many ways it trumps even the perceived spiritual ramifications which people also fear. It’s been 30 years since I walked away from religious faith. But I still understand the deep-seated sense of belonging to that community. It has a tremendous power like few other things do.
Right, even in the mega-churches it’s common for people to form bonds with others through small groups. These people are often close friends that one would would hang out with during the week, celebrate with, and turn to or comfort in tough times.
There are communities that I belong to more or less loosely, some of which I miss because I don’t see them as much as I used to, but I don’t mourn the fact that my friends don’t do things for me, like bring me casseroles. I miss the whole relationship, including (probably especially) what I do for them.
Held-Evans is actually very reasonable for an Evangelical and is viewed as something of a heretic now in those circles. I think the casseroles aren’t the only thing she misses from having to leave her church.
Maybe they make a really mean casserole.
I do sort of envy people who get a sense of community from their churches. I never did (at heart, I’m more comfortable around animals and fields of corn than people), but I can imagine that the feeling could be very powerful.
Well, the writer did express an agreement with your conclusion there.
Stating that she found herself “…startled to tears by the selfishness of (her) own thoughts” suggests that her emotional upset was caused by self-awareness of this sub-mental portion of her psyche.
She may have been a bit fanciful with her frame there, though, dontchathink?
” but it’s my preference for solitude that keeps me from seeking out other people most of the time,”
My Perfect neighbor is one that I don’t know, and doesn’t know me. I don’t even realize I have a neighbor, AND neither do they!
Good fences make good neighbors?
I do want to be part of a loving community, but not one that just looks after itself, one that is also passionate about working in concrete ways for social justice outside the church walls. I have no use for the “darkness” of sin-haunted Christianity, which I regard as a seriously warped and catastrophically destructive legacy. And I have no time whatsoever for anybody who would try to insist that I should believe in any kind of supernatural nonsense (what others believe is up to them, though). All of the above are reasons why I’m a Unitarian Universalist.
Hi Steve,
I’m of the mind that whatever motivates someone to do good in the community, that is good. Everybody comes from a different place so there really isn’t a one-size fits all kind of faith that would ever work.
That said, I do appreciate and am fascinated with the parts of Christian faith that most people have no use for. Sin for one. I’ve read a lot of Marcus Borg and he comes at it differently while still relying on the bible for something to work from.
I think the darker side needn’t be something to wallow in and feel guilty about. To me, it’s an acknowledgement that human beings by themselves are never going to make a utopian community and that there is something beyond us that is connected to us which can provide a comfort and an aid to us as we strive nonetheless for that community we all are hoping for. Whether one calls it God or an unexplainable energy which comes out of people coming together – united in beautiful struggle – I believe there is almost a magical nature to our existence if we can be awake to it from time to time.
I speak only for myself. You’re not only 100% entitled to that view but I sincerely admire the many liberal Christians (within UUism itself and in a number of liberal Christian denominations), truly fine people, who share it. And I certainly have a great appreciation for the flaws in human nature, and the fact that we will always have to deal with them in the never-ending and incremental project of making an imperfect world a little better- but never perfect.
I didn’t read your comment before I put in a plug for Unitarianism below. IMAUU2. Since 1993 or so.
Glad you put in your $0.02 as well- UU needs to do a better job of advertising. 😉
Great casual observation, mostly because it led me to the article on Christianity in this country.
I could totally relate to this perspective:
“That’s why upbeat music and stylish services don’t do it for Evans: Hers is a Christianity that is fully aware of darkness. “So much of what Christianity produces as far as books and literature and even music in our worship–it’s all very rosy, when that’s not really life, and that’s not really church,” she said. “We carry the weight of many, many centuries of injustice, and that matters, and we can’t just ignore that.”
It’s why my wife and I liked our church community of All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena. It at least tried to deal with the darker side of life, offer comfort and challenge the congregants – even to the point of encouraging doubt in our faith.
Anyway, different strokes for folks when it comes to where we find our community. Booman, I can relate to the isolating nature of suburbs, having left Pasadena, CA several months ago for . . . .Sherwood, OR. Gonna be a challenge to pursue our activism here.
We are now fully in the period when community as a necessity to survival or ordinary, everyday helpful conveniences aren’t much evident. In an emergency, plenty of mostly stranger neighbors will appear to assist. But even that is less prevalent in the suburbs over time and as the number of children per household declined, the distance between houses increased, and families became more geographically disbursed. (Never knew the neighbor that appeared one wintry day with his snow blower, but greatly appreciated his assistance.)
Long ago, seemingly small matters commanded the attention of most members of small communities. Where a new road was to be built was important to most. That’s why voting participation rates for local and state elections were higher than presidential elections which weren’t direct (and formally still aren’t) anyway. But most of the important government stuff got done at the local level. Now little remains for locals to do independent of state and federal government. Where that new road is built may still matter to those in any one community, but it also has a more obvious and greater impact on surrounding communities. If not appropriately designed and sited in accordance with all the other agencies and political subdivisions with power — including purse strings — there will be no new road built within the community. Easier to shut up and defer to all TPTB, and either appreciate the new road when it’s built or complain endlessly about all its shortcomings.
Thus, we’ve come to live in houses and apartments that aren’t communities. Prefer housing in developments with CCRs to avoid neighbors that would use their front yards as parking lots for their fleet of cars or come home one day to find that the neighbor painted his house florescent purple. We’ve been isolated and homogenized. For better and worse.
If you are interested in exposing your children to a religious education, Boo, you may wish to consider unitarianism. Plenty of Unitarians are atheists. Most are very tolerant of sexual diversity. One very strong feature at most unitarian churches is the OWL program, which exposes junior high and high school kids to a very honest sex education course. Many Unitarians are pagans, buddhists, or interested in native spiritual notions. Few are believers in traditional god persons.
In too many churches and too many it is far easier to be religious than moral.