Houses Spiritual Tagteam match with Eternity: Thoughts on cosmic issues					NEW April 19 To church or not to church
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Wednesday, April 19, 2000

I woke up this morning thinking about maybe going to church. Maybe. Maybe not today, but maybe next week. If I can find a church I can deal with. It occurs to me that I’ve always discounted the role of the church as social contact. I know that one of the primary functions of a church, whether it knows it or not, is to provide people with a ready-made social circle of like minds, or like-enough minds. I’ve known that forever, even when people in my acquaintance - die-hard fundamentalists all - insisted that to think of a church as a social thing was sinful. Heathen. Only people who don’t truly believe in anything go to church just for a social thing. They look to church for comfort, these critics said, dripping with disdain. Gods know, any church service that leaves you comfortable or comforted has been nothing but a dismal failure and an abomination in the sight of god. So I was supposed to believe. Was raised to believe. Had pounded into my head. I guess it’s no wonder that I was nearly frantic in trying to escape that suffocating religion that insisted on my misery as a condition of my faith. I found a church once in my hometown that I liked. When I went to the services, I could feel stress and anxiety melt away. I could feel a cool warm wash of comfort in the elegant trappings and the thoughtful, challenging sermon. I left services feeling good - comforted and thoughtful. When I told my parents I’d found a church I really liked, and which one it was, what was my Dad's response? “I’d rather hear that you weren’t going to church at all than that you’re going to some place like that.” I hadn’t stopped trying desperately to please my dad at that point, but neither was I the frantically obedient child I’d been earlier, so I stopped going to church at all. Period. I haven’t been to church more than once or twice a year, at most, since then. So maybe it's time. Maybe. We'll see. Home