Before I begin I want to preface with the following disclaimers: 

1. When I use the phrase “walking away from the church,” this does not mean abandoning “the faith” or becoming someone who is atheist. For me, this phrase simply means walking away from what has caused hurt, and perpetuated systems of oppression. 

2. “The church” here is in reference to the Americanized, corporate version of what the body of Christ has turned into, not the actual body of Christ – like how we as followers of Jesus are instructed to live. 

I grew up in a rather conservative, evangelical church, bathed in purity culture. I also grew up with a dad who wasn’t able to be fully present, a superhero of a mother, and a loving, generous, and kind community in that childhood, evangelical church. After years in youth group, attending summer church camps and spending time with CollegeLife, I moved out to the east coast.

Once there, I got more involved in children, youth, and prayer ministries. A few years later, I spent a year overseas serving with the Worldrace. After being heavily involved in church ministry and living overseas for a year, I came back with a lot of questions about my faith, and many more experiences that I was struggling to reconcile. “The church” that I returned to wasn’t a specific place, or congregation, it was more the traditions and ministries and worship and sermons I heard that left me feeling discouraged and disconnected from the Jesus I had come to know. I soon felt lonely and isolated, wondering if my faith was going to survive. It’s been nearly two years since I returned from serving and living overseas and I am glad to say my faith is still intact, but it looks different than I ever could have imagined. 

Church and community have been a difficult thing for me to engage with, let alone find a place I feel safe to ask hard questions, share real hurt, and wrestle through those experiences that need reconciling. I want to share four barriers I have run into (that I know others have experienced as well) as we contend with difficult church experiences. My deepest desire is to begin conversation, strive for unity, and ultimately glorify God through conversation by being both critical thinkers AND Christians.

(1) There doesn’t seem to be room for difficult or challenging questions.

We want to ask questions. We don’t necessarily want answers, but we want to test the robustness of what we say we believe. Something I have been wrestling with is some of the harsher narratives in the bible, like scenes of rape (2 Samual 13), incest (Genesis 12), and prostitution (Joshua 2) in the Old Testament. I want to know how to love my neighbor, honor leadership, create and hold space for difficult topics, all while given the freedom to ask questions and not simply accept the God is sovereign narrative. 

(2) It seems like we haven’t been introduced to the real person of Jesus, we have blindly inherited religious tradition.

Going to church feels predictable, we all know we are supposed to tithe 10%, serve at the local food pantry, or help out in children’s church – these are all good things. However, I have encountered Jesus in such significant ways, outside of the four walls we call the church, I have stepped out of these ideas of what I am “supposed to do,” as a Christian.

Instead, I have sought and prayed and learned what my gifts are and I have been able to use those gifts to serve and love others, in places that don’t fit within four walls. When I have taken the time to discover more of the life of Jesus – who he was, and what was important to him, I have seen him show up more and more. As Christians, we know God cares about all of our prayers – the ones where we are praying for sunshine after days of clouds and for a close parking spot when we are running late.

I would ask the question, however, what does it look like to de-center ourselves from our prayers? When we pray the small or bold prayers and remove ourselves from the equation, I think we will make more room for God to work. Let’s ask God and ourselves, what does it actually look like to set the captives free, instead of just singing about it on Sunday mornings? 

(3) There are pre-determined and decided ways about “how to” relate to God or participate in church.

We want to engage as the body of Christ with the whole of our humanity. This means the physical, emotional, spiritual, the struggles, heartache and celebration. Sometimes it feels like we are required to compartmentalize our experiences at church.

We can’t show up crying, a mess, or hurting. When we engage the gospel with the whole of our humanity, I believe we get a better chance to understand the life of Jesus, as He was also fully human. Often, when we’re told “the heart is deceitful,” or “don’t follow your feelings,” we aren’t given what we need to be doing instead. This creates quite a tension because people are left believing that what theythink/feel is bad/wrong.

Instead, what if in the church, we were better taught to honor ourselves, others, and God, given all the intricacies of being human? 

(4) The central tenants and values of Jesus do not seem to be at the forefront of our churches.

We would like to see the values of Jesus – unconditional love, service to our neighbors, sacrifice, and compassion – set as cornerstones in our churches. The experience my husband and I have had since moving, is that many churches have made it clear that these elements of Christianity are not what their congregations value. We’ve heard political agendas pushed from the pulpit, lists of do’s/don’ts as single/married people, or what church tradition says is “right.” I am not saying to throw out certain biblical commands. However, I think there are more sides to these concepts than simply right/wrong. 

As Scott McKnight discusses in his book The Blue Parakeet, Rethinking How You Read the Bible, he suggests we can read The Bible in one of two ways, either with tradition or through tradition. Reading The Bible through tradition implies that what we are reading should be taken literally, without a cultural context to back up what we are reading. Sort of like creating our own lenses that we use to read each part of The Bible. On the other hand, McKnight talks about reading The Bible with tradition, where the traditions during the time The Bible was written are utilized to provide context, before simply pulling out a command. A big reason McKnight highlights these contextual differences is because there are some words and cultural traditions that we don’t have experience with or enough information about to properly interpret in our present-day, western, worldview (McKnight, 2008). Ultimately, by further examining our views – what we learn and from whom – we are better equipped to ask hard questions and have meaningful conversations. 

The more I look around, the more hurt and pain I see being caused by the church. And I hope that this goes without mentioning, but I don’t think that the majority of churches intend to cause harm. I just think that tradition that is inherited and left unquestioned, leads to hurt and pain that could otherwise be avoided, if church goers were given the space to ask questions. I wonder if leadership in the church was willing/able to engage and hold space for difficult conversations, if together we could more accurately represent the body of Christ.