The Church Service

I went to church not long ago. I’m not a regular attendee, nor am I am member of the church that I attend when I go. My wife is a member, and she now sings in the choir and is chair of the church finance committee. My involvement is mostly musical. I perform when they put on a cantata at Easter and Christmas, my wife and I play in the hand bell choir, and I attend a service a few times a year. For the Mothers Day lunch, I made a sour cream apple pie to be served to the mothers. They had a contest for the best dish. I didn’t win. That’s the extent of my involvement with organized religion.

This particular Sunday was the last for the minister who had been there for a few years. He’s a nice guy with a good heart. He’s done well at this church, and even though I’m not a member of the church, I’ll miss him, and I think the community will be poorer for his having left. Sitting there in that church full of nice, caring people that morning brought to mind the utter disdain and contempt in which these good people are held by many on America’s political Left.

I am continually amazed at the high level of hate and vitriol contained in the criticism of “the church” and of Christians by secularists and such. To listen to and read the comments of these people you’d think that everyone who goes to church and/or believes in God is a Bible-thumping, proselytizing, hypocritical creep. But that is not my experience with churchgoers, and I say that as someone who does not regularly go to church.

The people that I know who go to church are almost to a person 180 degrees opposite from the picture painted of them by their critics. They are good people who have a genuine concern for others and do good works. Maybe they aren’t perfect. Maybe they slip once in a while. But who doesn’t?

The church itself is a small community. It has its own needs, its own problems, and its own government. It does good things, not only for its members and attendees, but also in the community.

I don’t think the most ardent anti-religion, anti-church critic—if they could be objective—could remain as coldly critical of churches and churchgoers if they ever got close enough to see what goes on in most of America’s churches. But you get the feeling that the critics think more of murderers, rapists and pedophiles than they do of religious folk, especially Christians. Perhaps it’s just an extension of the pitifully abysmal level of political debate today, where cogent arguments have been replaced with name calling and demonizing those on the other side.

But I think it is fear that drives these folks, and it’s not the fear that Christians will take over the country and impose their beliefs on an unwilling populace. It’s the fear that hides deep within the soul that tells them that a meaningful life is not attained by hedonism, pleasure seeking, self-indulgence and self-gratification. The inner conflict that exists—between what they want to do and what they know (deep inside) is the right thing to do—forces them to focus their frustration on people who, more or less, do what those secularist hedonists themselves don’t want to do.