Why I Still Talk to Jesus -- In Spite of Everything
Some of my secular (or lapsed ex-religious) friends don’t get why I “still” go to church. When they say, “Frank, God’s only in your head!” my answer is, “Yeah, whatever. What isn’t?”
Or as the poet Yehuda Amichai writes in Gods Come and Go, Prayers Remain Forever:
I say with perfect faith
that prayers precede God.
Prayers created God.
God created man,
And man creates prayers
that create God who creates man.
My question isn’t, “Did I create God who creates me?” but, “Do I need God, however he, she or it came to be?” My question isn’t “Can I find a church, mosque, synagogue, a gathering of atheists or some other temple that’s perfect to stroke me?” but “Where can I find spiritual beauty that feeds my soul?”
I’ve been lucky. My experience of going to a small Greek Orthodox church has been good. I found myself in a community that is welcoming. I say “lucky” because my wife Genie’s and my experience is not always the norm. The last thing I’m doing here is trying to get anyone to convert to anything.
I’ve been going to the same church for twenty-five years and can tell you that although our denomination is full of problems, I still love to attend, at least most of the time. I choose to go not because I think I’m closer to the truth in church, but because of my very personal religion-infested background.
Put it this way: church may be a son-of-a-bitch, but it’s my son-of-a-bitch! I also choose to try my best to be honest about problems in the church of my choice. Jesus did that too. He criticized everything religious around him yet still participated in the traditional liturgical formal worship of his day even though it was led by hypocrites he denounced.
In the Greek Orthodox Church women can’t serve at the altar, let alone be priests or bishops. A woman may “eat Jesus’ flesh” and “drink his blood,” but, heaven forfend, she may not walk into the altar area reserved for males only and dust the icons or the sky will fall! And if she’s in a North American Orthodox community she is more than likely to find herself in some sort of Hellenistic or Russian or Arab ethnic club. Her local congregation may well include converts from rightwing evangelical churches bent on making the Orthodox as intolerant and hell-bent as themselves.
She also risks being coerced into spiritual bondage by perverts acting the part of holy men and women who like to be in control of others. There are some Orthodox priests and monks who brilliantly play the part of holy men. They use long beards and quiet voices as props while seeking to control gullible people by demanding that they become their “spiritual children.” Some Orthodox seeking certainty and direction latch on to these gurus. (The phenomena of some religious leaders trying to control people through religion is not unknown in Protestant and Roman Catholic circles either.) This allows a few power-hungry priests, monks and nuns who are no more than high functioning sociopaths claiming to speak for God, to sniff around every area of their followers’ lives, especially their sex lives.
Over the years, I’ve had good experiences with the priests in my local church and have also enjoyed some wonderful times of retreat in several great Orthodox monastic communities. That said, my presence in our lovely local church could be construed as a kind of condoning of my not-so-lovely denomination’s overall problems. We’re sexist, we’re nationalistic and there are fundamentalist manipulators in our midst! And I go to a local church that belongs to a denomination like that! Shame on me!
Then again, if I only wanted to attend a church that was good, true and without error—according to my transitory ego-stoked beliefs—I’d have to invent my own religion. But wait a moment. There’d be a problem. I’d have to excommunicate the priest and his entire congregation! You see, I know that particular bishop/priest/congregation too well. With apologies to Groucho Marx: I’d never want to join a church that had someone like me for their founding bishop, especially if I was the only member!
I go to church as my means of trying to encounter God, not as a way to look for perfection on earth. I don’t go because I think my church is a better church, let alone the one true church. It’s just where I go. It’s just my means of establishing relationships with people who share my commitment to a liturgical tradition that I am fed by aesthetically and spiritually. … You’ve just read an excerpt from my book. WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace please buy a copy and keep reading…
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace
Available now on Amazon
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