I believe God sent me a reminder today about why I stopped going to church.
Wait, let me explain.
Yes, I think God is okay with me not going to church. Yes, I think God “gets” why I stopped going, and I believe Jesus Christ himself also sees my point. No one knows my heart better than those two.
So here’s my reminder: I overheard two people discussing the importance of no premarital sex. The importance of “rising above the masses” and “being virtuous” and being “a godly woman.” One was a newlywed, the other is a twenty-year-old single woman. To my surprise, it was the newlywed who couldn’t/wouldn’t even say the word sex. She had to S-P-E-L-L it every time she said it. I almost asked her if she was Catholic, because anyone I’ve ever met who has to spell S-E-X is either Catholic or a sex abuse victim.
No, I’m not going to write a blog advocating premarital sex, nor am I going to write a blog saying everyone who has premarital sex is going to Hell.
I believe in Hell. Strongly. So strongly, in fact, that I don’t go around announcing to people that their acts (or lack thereof) will send them straight to Hell. I also believe that being judgmental is a sin. Well, and so does the Bible! So how is one sin worse than another? How come the people condemning premarital sex don’t see that they are committing a sin just as great by judging what goes on in the hearts (and beds) of complete strangers? How come these self-righteous Bible thumpers don’t get that having premarital sex doesn’t automatically mean you’re a whore with fifty sex partners a week? And finally, how come these judgmental “Christians” don’t see that they are the reason so many people stopped going to church? No one wants to be like them.
If you know me, you know I’m strong willed, strong minded, and strongly opinionated. But if you know me well, you also know I don’t take sides in matters of politics, religion, race, or sex. If you ask me if I believe in God and believe in Jesus Christ, I will stand and tell you yes. If you ask me if that person over there is going to Hell because he doesn’t, I will tell you to take it up with God. Why? Simply because I’m not God. I don’t know, and I don’t pretend to know what’s in the hearts and minds of billions of people, let alone what’s in the heart and mind of God about all those billions of people. Here’s what I do believe ...
- God is bigger than any of us can even fathom.
- He loves us more than we can even imagine.
- I am but a grain of sand that does not claim to know the eternity of other grains of sand.
I think if Jesus were to come down from Heaven this moment, He’d stand outside these churches, wipe his brow in exhaustion, and say with embarrassment, “Geez, look people, I appreciate it, really I do, but I think you completely missed My point ... LOVE each other. That was what I said. Stop hating each other. Stop judging each other. Be kind and forgiving to each other because that’s what I’ve done for you, and that’s the greatest thing I taught you.” (Well maybe the son of God wouldn’t speak in run-on sentences, but you get my point.)
And that’s why I stopped going to church every week. I can’t tolerate being around judgmental people. I can no longer make myself stand behind one line and chastise the people standing on the other side of the line. I’ve read the Bible many times, my mind is (almost) in constant prayer every moment of every day, I’ve been baptized, confirmed, AND saved, and I continue to speak to God daily. He has never told me to judge others. Yet the people who claim to be closest to God are all too often the most judgmental people I’ve ever met.
