Church, Inc.

I grew up in a church-going family. Some would call it a fundamentalist upbringing, and technically, that might be correct. There is no doubt that the bible was very important in my family. In high school, I continued to attend church and youth group, and many of those friends continued into college. I met my future wife there and have some long standing friendships from those relationships. But after that came marriage, grad school and some changes in how I saw the world. Many of those changes, to be fair, were in the mix before I ever left the church. Early on, I had started challenging some of those assumptions--especially regarding gender roles and the literalism of the bible.

All of that is a long story and boring to most. But for many of my friends from that older life, my transformation into someone who is not only politically far more liberal than the young kid who voted for Reagan with his first vote (which puts me one up on Rush Limbaugh who wasn't even registered to vote), but who also turned far more liberal theologically. I became far more concerned with social justice aspects of Christianity. I became far less interested in the conversion efforts and more concerned about how the church dealt with poverty, the environment, gender issues, and yes, homosexuality.

One of my buddies (and we have been friends for a lot of years) has wondered for sometime why I am so angered at the church. He understands that I find the Pat Robertsons and the fundamentalist wing of the faith annoying, and he certainly doesn't identify with them either. He goes to a suburban church that is not intensely political--it has distanced itself from the SBC (most fundamentalist and conservative aspect of the Southern Baptists, and has avoided the heavy political preaching on the 10 commandments and gay marriage. Their church contributes undoubtedly to good charities and soup kitchens, to overseas missions, to local programs. So, he asks, why do I still have a problem with churches like his?

More on this later.