Why don’t my family members go to church anymore?
Ah, the holidays have arrived! If Catholic means “here comes everybody” (ala James Joyce) than the holidays must mean “here comes all the crazy relatives!” I’m not claiming any special exemption here – I know Kip and I, no doubt, are raising our girls with their own “special brand” of crazy. But, the conversations at our extended family gatherings! Wowza! Especially those around religion or politics - O…M….G. Memorable to say the least. Downright baffling at worst.
It used to be, when I was a child, everyone was Catholic, or at least Christian, around our family holiday table and - for the most part – everyone agreed on what that meant. But in these days of the likes of Roy Moore among others, this is not the case anymore. There seems to be some very serious confusion about what it means to call oneself a Christian.
I have no idea why your family members are not attending church any more, but these are the reasons I hear most from mine. Let me know if these resonate with what you have heard and experienced…
First off, our tradition’s proclamations about people who are homosexual are a major stumbling block, especially for our young people who quite simply will not hear of it. Period.
Secondly, the inability of dull and uninspiring liturgy to draw us away from St. Mattress on Sunday mornings. We don’t have this problem here at CTR, so we will just say a quick and sincere “thanks be to God” for Fr. Joe & Mari’s leadership and move along.
Third is the rigor and busyness of the culture we have created. The pace of our lives is simply not conducive to spiritual knowing. And as a result, our values do not match our choices. We are spiritually starved – but dang if we aren’t moving really, really fast! As Thomas Merton once said “Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not demanded of me.”
But I think our biggest culprit is a misconception about what it actually means to be a Christian; what belief in Christ actually entails. Theologian Tomas Halik writes “When we hear the word Christianity, our minds immediately assign the concept to the handy cultural compartment of religion or faith…but faith in God in the biblical context doesn’t mean “believing in the existence of God” but rather “believing that God is love.” One doesn’t become a Christian by believing that “God IS” but by believing that “God is LOVE.”
When we say we believe in Jesus, it means we believe his teaching about God is valid. We believe that love (agape) is the only force in the world with the power to bring about lasting change. We listen to Jesus’ theology of radical love, inclusion, forgiveness and look at the way he lived his life – and we believe in Him and try to live out all that he advised (admittedly, sometimes in rather wonky ways. I’m always convicted when I hear the Rahner quote “The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim Him with their mouths and deny Him with their actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.”)
As our Holy Thursday hymn goes Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est – where there is real love, God is present. This is what we believe as Christians. Not exactly what I would deem fighting words, but yet we manage. But despite evidence to the contrary, I still hold great hope that this love is going to save us from our own destruction. Real, tangible, active love is an essential step in our evolutionary growth; the stuff of God, beckoning us. Merton goes on to pray “Give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace… possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love.”
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