It should be said that I am an independent person. I don't like institutionalized anything. I don't like corporations. I am not saying institutions and corporations are wrong, or bad; I am only saying I don't like them. Some people don't like classical music, some people don't like pizza, I don't like institutions. My dislike might stem from a number of things, from the non-personal feel I get when I walk into a corporate office or the voice mail system I encounter when I call my bank. It might be the calls I receive in the middle of dinner asking me what long-distance carrier I use. The people never want to just talk; they always have an agenda.
My dislike for institutions is mostly a feeling, though, not something that can be explained. There are upsides to institutions, of course. Tradition, for example. The corridors at Harvard, rich with history, thick with thought, the availability of good, hot Starbucks coffee at roughly thirty locations withing five miles. And what about all those jobs? Without the corporate machine, where would people work? I supposed we need them. The institutions. The corporations. But mostly I don't like them. I don't have to like them either. It's my right.
I don't like church, either, for the same reason. Or I should say I didn't like church. I attended a Catholic service every once in a while, but I think that is because it feels different to me. I grew up Baptist. I like watching religious television every once in a while. It's better than Comedy Central. I want to study psychology so I can sit in front of religious television and figure out these people's problems. For a while I was very fascinated with televangelists. I couldn't afford a television ministry but I had a computer, so I would go into Christian chat rooms and try to heal people. It was funny at first, but it got boring.
Some of my friends have left their churches and gone Greek Orthodox. I think that sounds cool. Greek Orthodox. Unless you are Greek. Then it sounds like that is where you are supposed to go, as though you are a conformist. If I were Greek, I would never go to a Greek Orthodox church. If I were Greek, I would go to a Baptist church. Everybody there would think I was exotic and cool.
I felt like people were trying to sell me Jesus. I was a salesman for a while, and we were taught that you are supposed to point out all the benefits of a product when you are selling it. That is how I felt about some of the preachers I heard speak. They were always pointing out the benefits of Christian faith. That rubbed me wrong. It's not that there aren't benefits, there are, but did they have to talk about spirituality like it's a vacuum cleaner. I never felt like Jesus was a product. I wanted Him to be a person. Not only that, but they were always pointing out how great the specific church was. The bulletin read like a brochure for Amway. They were always sayng how life-changing some conference was going to be. Life-changing? What does that mean? It sounded very suspicious. I wish they would just tell it to me straight rather than trying to sell me on everything. I felt like I got bombarded with commercials all week and then went to church and got even more.
In the churches I used to go to, I felt like I didn't fit in. I always felt like the adopted kid, as if there was "room at the table for me." Do you know what I mean? I was accepted but not understood. There was room at the table for me, but I wasn't in the family.
I go to a church now that I love. I never thought I would say that about a church. I never thought I could love a church. But I love this one.
It doesn't do any good to bash churches, so I am not making blanket statements against the church as a whole. I have only been involved in a few churches, but I had the same tension with each of them; that's the only reason I bring it up.
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The previous sentiments were excerpts from "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. It is one of my favorite books. He writes like I think: unfiltered, in broken sentences, highly sporadic, brutally honest, too honest to say out loud without getting in trouble. Maybe that's why I identify with him so much (though I'm slightly more Republican than him). These quotes were from the first two pages of Chapter 12. I felt like he was writing my thoughts. I could read this aloud and not really have to make up or lie about it. I don't agree with 100% of his theology, but I enjoy being challenged to consider and be challenged in my own.
