The Dechurched: A First Person Perspective

Today’s guest post comes from Janet Adams. I’m grateful for her sharing her perspective on church.

I was born into a devout Catholic family and was expected to adhere to the Christian way of life. Every Sunday my parents (with great difficulty) herded us three pranksters to church. We would most probably doze off during mass and had to be prodded at regular intervals to listen to the Reverend. To be very frank for an 8 year old like me it was absolute torture to remain still. To listen to an old man drone on an on was quite boring to say the least. But I remember glancing up at my mother and seeing her dabbing her teary cheeks with tissue and wondering what all the fuss was about anyway.

I finished school and joined college. My roommate was a Catholic and used to read the Bible regularly and we would have a few discussions. I usually took an agnostic position, while he used to be a believer throughout. I could never understand the concept of God and the transactional relationship that most people had with him. To me a God that had to be beseeched to and praised at the drop of a hat was no better than an egoistic man. My roommate was of the opinion that just because other people do something does not mean that I have to do the same thing. I noticed that he was very different in his approach. He rarely went to church and yet was religious. It piqued my interest in God.

One Sunday, I went with him to the church. The Reverend gave a sermon on ‘trust’. It was a rather enlightening sermon. He waxed eloquent on how people trust God and forget that trust in God is in fact trust in oneself. He also told a story of two tight rope walkers who walked across two cliffs without a stick to help him keep his balance. He believed that his trust in God would see him through. It did not. He fell to his death. On the other hand there was another tight rope walker. He had deep belief in God but he carried a long pole to help him with his balance. He prayed, got on the rope and reached the other side safe and sound. The second man was aware that trust in God need not be blind. It needed an amount of logic.

Logic, I had never heard a pastor talk about logic. I realized that there was more to religion that what I knew. The pastor was well versed in theology and it was with his knowledge that he had told this story. I realized that religion was not bereft of logic. I decided to embark on a journey of discovery of my own and started reading my roommate’s copy of the Bible. A few months later, I was back at the church and after the sermon we rose for the choir. As the solemn notes of the Navy hymn wafted into the chapel I felt something stir deep within me. My eyes welled up with tears and I hastily wiped them away. I realized that religion was a personal experience, the authenticity of which could never be measured with the same yardsticks that are reserved for science and role of the church was in accentuating the experience for everyone.

Author Bio:

Janet Adams is a skilled writer who is a specialist in dissertation writing for the graduate/PhD students. Janet, by her writings, is looking to be one of the best writers and she has gotten good criticisms for her works. Janet is pursuing a Masters Degree in educational science from a reputed university.