EXTRA: The Church is Not a Sugar Daddy
My Newest Column at RNS
I had the chance to write about something I’ve been mulling for a long time. I’ve already gotten some great feedback and friendly pushback over on my Facebook page that is helping to refine the point even further, I think. I’m always grateful for those kinds of constructive conversations. (By the way, I never read the comments on the actual news sites.)
Take this essay as a true essay in the original meaning of the French word: an attempt, a test, a trying out of an idea. Here’s a snippet and you can read the rest here:
We should expect the Christian church to be a community that faithfully preaches and teaches the word of God, a place where people are safe from predators and fraudsters (or where predators and fraudsters are dealt with swiftly, justly and openly when they are discovered). It should be a place that upholds Christian teaching not only in word but also in deed.
But should the church also be our social club, our finance guru, our accountability group, our sex therapist, our voter guide, our income stream, our sugar daddy, our self-help source? Ought it be the place where our deepest longings for significance and self-fulfillment are satisfied?
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(Funny fact: I really love what my husband calls “little kid candy” (just got a big carton of SweeTARTS, in fact). But honest to goodness, I have always hated Sugar Daddies. Terrible in both taste and texture!
Love this piece. You really are onto something here. Back in the early 2000s, church really was our family’s life. I worked as a family physician, but my husband stayed at home to homeschool the kids and was an elder in the church. Everything else revolved around church. It really was our entire life. Looking back I wish we had done a better job of being part of our community. I don’t regret homeschooling, just how much we were church-focused. I don’t regret going to church, just how often and how much it dominated our lives. I wish our kids knew other kids in the community besides their church friends. I wish I had had friends outside of church and work. Our church did good things in the community, but so did lots of other organizations. Our church was siloed off; we did our own food pantry and our own ministries instead of working with the rest of the town. I’m pretty sure that Jesus would have wanted us (our family and probably our church) to be more outward focused than we were. Twenty-five years later, we’re no longer evangelical because of theological and social (i.e. Trump and politics) reasons, so we’re part of a tiny little PCUSA church that couldn’t dominate our lives if it tried. My parents are worried about our salvation, but I’m pretty sure Jesus is OK with us not being enmeshed in a church. We can and should be part of the larger village/town/community/city. And not because we need those other people to be our “projects,” but because God put us in society. That’s where we are to live and love. (Sorry to write a book. Kind of hit a nerve here.)
This must make it incredibly difficult to leave a toxic church , if you are losing all your friends, potential dates, financial advisor , exercise group etc all at the same time