I am in a restaurant blogging after a failed visit to a Maundy Thursday service. (More about that later). And I am thinking about lonely Christians.
I would love to be in a functional church in the neighborhood of my own theology but even that seems a stretch. And after a while the communitarian appeals of liberal churches begin to pall. I know this is the part of the sermon where I say one should suck it up and discover the grace that comes from engaging deeply with other people. But I won’t.
The very premise sounds too much like a rationalization for liking the people you like, and I gave up my membership at St. Tautology years ago. James Martineau has a few words to solitary Christians who can’t put up with churches around them. I’ll dig them up and share.
It sounds more to me like it was about finding likability in those you don’t like, which admittedly isn’t easy, though I’ve managed it at times. But I don’t think grace is usually found in the easy part of a task.
My church community is a long way from perfect, and I’m enough of a misanthrope that a lot of them bug me. But after funerals where we all ached over the loss of the same person, and times on our retreats where we’ve all danced in a big goofy mob, I’ve come to peace with most of them.
And they people you aren’t at peace with sometimes leave anyway.
CC
I know that for me it is not so much the people in church that trouble me, but the larger phenomenons of group dynamics at church. And the small things church dynamics turn into large ordeals.