An essay for people who left church but still need meaning, rhythm, and moral seriousness. Learn how to identify what church gave you and still matters.
This essay arrived at exactly the right moment for me, as I am also reading Separation of Church and Hate by John Fugelsang, and the resonance is striking. Both engage the work of disentangling moral seriousness from institutional authority without flattening either.
What resonates most here is the permission to pause. Clarity is treated as care, not avoidance, and the reminder that a partial life is not a failed one cuts through both religious and therapeutic pressure. This is steady, serious writing that trusts the reader to choose with integrity rather than reflex or fear.
Gosh. Thanks Wendy. My thoughts are mostly experiential. I suppose to be of best service I should do more reading. Perhaps after I finish the twenty some-odd Puritan related books. 😋
Thanks W.A. (Wendy) Lawrence for that book title & author. Adding to my many and my reading list. Thank you for sharing what resonates with you, too - that "permission to pause" and clarity. Integrity seems to be lacking more and more in our nation. Glad to see that you and Dino are both writers of integrity. {I'm a new reader to your Substack via Dino}
Thank you so much Dino ... although I probably should not write this here (it's better here than with a restack) ... I think I hear my dear Sam speaking through the grave in some of your points in this one. He spoke so often on church being an organization - although you wrote:
"Institutions don’t create human needs. They organize them."
I was agreeing with the previous paragraph, pondering what I think Church provided for me and as I raised our two adopted children in Church, while Sam stayed at home except in the beginning when we adopted them and he went (I think for approval or appearance sake, though I should not speak for him). I, on the other hand was always involved with whichever church I attended, quite often in the teaching of the children, extension of my career as one. Yet we are trained that we need to be in church for the assembling together. The most prominent Bible verse about assembling in church is Hebrews 10:24-25, which urges believers not to neglect meeting together but to encourage one another. Even now after years not attending a church building, when I read those passages in the Bible, I struggle with guilt and want to justify my not being in attendance. And oh my, Catholic Church has those holy days of obligations (please - I never want to be in a church feeling like it's an obligation). So for me, it was community, raising two kids in a church for their spiritual background, with others helping me, and for sharing our common beliefs and studies of the bible until the compassionate pastor at that church began making a political party seem prominent to be supporting; and I could not believe that, nor that it was happening in church, much less from the senior pastor that seemed to be so compassionate and reaching out to others in the community.
So my church journey started branching out after I finished college & married, I transitioned through 3 different denominations, believing I was spiritually progressing. My foundation through college (except high school) was through the Catholic Church (parochial school & college) but then when I was teaching in a Catholic Church, I was told that at the Church masses, I was not allowed to receive Communion (because of my marriage to a divorced person). That created my first exodus. The next one was a Covenant Evangelical for 7 years, until I was told by that pastor that I could not straddle between churches - that I needed to choose. So I did, and became an involved participant as a VBS summer school teacher at an Assembly of God church, which I knew very little about as a denomination and remained there except for my 20 years serving various denominations of churches in Mexico, that were Bible believing, and returning to that same church when home until I felt that uncomfortable switch of church family members and no longer saw a separation between church and state, then Covid gave me the reason to stay away and not return.
Anyways, so I know that you didn't intend (nor did I) for me to explain or justify my no longing being in attendance in a church building and community, but that was the driving force. And the division that I quickly learned about that was happening in our country and in the church(es) and people I once knew. No longer did I feel like I belonged or could connect with that community & I had other priorities to handle at home, caregiving - and trying to be more like Jesus Christ, to the ones closest to me, who did not believe that Jesus was the son of God (and another one, who does not believe in God at all). As for our 2 adult children (& their families): 1 does, 1 does not. Makes sense after growing up in a family of one sold out for Jesus & the other seeing it as just another institution that organizes people, but does not seem to care about justice, the poor, or human rights. So for me now, those 3 principles govern the Jesus/God that I know and love.
My morning and evening time with God have not changed, so I accept the one hour challenge to think on those practical ideas but I pretty much think I've answered them indirectly in my lengthy comment. Taking a long deep breath and continuing my own Sunday ritual online (also my annual search for a One Word from God for the year during a time of prayer & fasting - many churches do a 21 day stretch, mine is for January, or until I hear or get a direction some years I don't land on a One Word until much later, but I only set aside January because part of my fasting includes Internet, social media - I think Substack counts as one for me because I don't really do the others). So if I am not around, you'll know why. Blessings and keep fighting and standing for justice and our democracy. Thanks!
This essay arrived at exactly the right moment for me, as I am also reading Separation of Church and Hate by John Fugelsang, and the resonance is striking. Both engage the work of disentangling moral seriousness from institutional authority without flattening either.
What resonates most here is the permission to pause. Clarity is treated as care, not avoidance, and the reminder that a partial life is not a failed one cuts through both religious and therapeutic pressure. This is steady, serious writing that trusts the reader to choose with integrity rather than reflex or fear.
Gosh. Thanks Wendy. My thoughts are mostly experiential. I suppose to be of best service I should do more reading. Perhaps after I finish the twenty some-odd Puritan related books. 😋
Thanks W.A. (Wendy) Lawrence for that book title & author. Adding to my many and my reading list. Thank you for sharing what resonates with you, too - that "permission to pause" and clarity. Integrity seems to be lacking more and more in our nation. Glad to see that you and Dino are both writers of integrity. {I'm a new reader to your Substack via Dino}
Thanks Dino
Thank you so much Dino ... although I probably should not write this here (it's better here than with a restack) ... I think I hear my dear Sam speaking through the grave in some of your points in this one. He spoke so often on church being an organization - although you wrote:
"Institutions don’t create human needs. They organize them."
I was agreeing with the previous paragraph, pondering what I think Church provided for me and as I raised our two adopted children in Church, while Sam stayed at home except in the beginning when we adopted them and he went (I think for approval or appearance sake, though I should not speak for him). I, on the other hand was always involved with whichever church I attended, quite often in the teaching of the children, extension of my career as one. Yet we are trained that we need to be in church for the assembling together. The most prominent Bible verse about assembling in church is Hebrews 10:24-25, which urges believers not to neglect meeting together but to encourage one another. Even now after years not attending a church building, when I read those passages in the Bible, I struggle with guilt and want to justify my not being in attendance. And oh my, Catholic Church has those holy days of obligations (please - I never want to be in a church feeling like it's an obligation). So for me, it was community, raising two kids in a church for their spiritual background, with others helping me, and for sharing our common beliefs and studies of the bible until the compassionate pastor at that church began making a political party seem prominent to be supporting; and I could not believe that, nor that it was happening in church, much less from the senior pastor that seemed to be so compassionate and reaching out to others in the community.
So my church journey started branching out after I finished college & married, I transitioned through 3 different denominations, believing I was spiritually progressing. My foundation through college (except high school) was through the Catholic Church (parochial school & college) but then when I was teaching in a Catholic Church, I was told that at the Church masses, I was not allowed to receive Communion (because of my marriage to a divorced person). That created my first exodus. The next one was a Covenant Evangelical for 7 years, until I was told by that pastor that I could not straddle between churches - that I needed to choose. So I did, and became an involved participant as a VBS summer school teacher at an Assembly of God church, which I knew very little about as a denomination and remained there except for my 20 years serving various denominations of churches in Mexico, that were Bible believing, and returning to that same church when home until I felt that uncomfortable switch of church family members and no longer saw a separation between church and state, then Covid gave me the reason to stay away and not return.
Anyways, so I know that you didn't intend (nor did I) for me to explain or justify my no longing being in attendance in a church building and community, but that was the driving force. And the division that I quickly learned about that was happening in our country and in the church(es) and people I once knew. No longer did I feel like I belonged or could connect with that community & I had other priorities to handle at home, caregiving - and trying to be more like Jesus Christ, to the ones closest to me, who did not believe that Jesus was the son of God (and another one, who does not believe in God at all). As for our 2 adult children (& their families): 1 does, 1 does not. Makes sense after growing up in a family of one sold out for Jesus & the other seeing it as just another institution that organizes people, but does not seem to care about justice, the poor, or human rights. So for me now, those 3 principles govern the Jesus/God that I know and love.
My morning and evening time with God have not changed, so I accept the one hour challenge to think on those practical ideas but I pretty much think I've answered them indirectly in my lengthy comment. Taking a long deep breath and continuing my own Sunday ritual online (also my annual search for a One Word from God for the year during a time of prayer & fasting - many churches do a 21 day stretch, mine is for January, or until I hear or get a direction some years I don't land on a One Word until much later, but I only set aside January because part of my fasting includes Internet, social media - I think Substack counts as one for me because I don't really do the others). So if I am not around, you'll know why. Blessings and keep fighting and standing for justice and our democracy. Thanks!
Thanks Dino. Susan