Maybe it's time to ditch the place I have called my religious home for the past twenty-one years. Oddly enough, I have seen some Facebook hand wringing of folks lamenting the power of the Christian Right.
How about the Christian Left? Because it exists in my church. Decidely.
It's taken me over a week or two to get over the aforementioned shock and put this into some sort of balanced prose. As it is, I am sure some venom will spew out. Trust me when I tell you that, while I have loved this building for over two decades, it has done me less good than you would expect. There have been moments where I have been extremely hurt and confused by the actions of some of the folks there, most notably the pastor. Indeed, I am not the only one who has been driven away over time.
When I started there in 1998, attendance was decent. In 2019, we can barely field a softball team on any given Sunday. The powers that be rationalize that membership has dropped because people move away or die. And that is the case. But, I also need more than two hands to tick off the number of folks who left for a very specific reason.
When politics creeps into the worship.
Okay, in our polarized America, I can tell you with assurance that my politics will counter with the views of 99% of you. I hate all politicians. This country has fallen down the rabbit hole, courtesy of Democrats and Republicans. It is why I did not vote in the last Presidential election. It is why I will likely not vote in the next Presidential election. That's just the way it is, with apologies to Walter Cronkite. Given that, I don't necessarily want to hear all the histrionics and latest talking points from Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow on a Sunday.
What I do want from worship is to hear some scriptures, a little music, and maybe a life lesson or two. If I pick up a friend or two in the process, glory hallelujah.
Luckily, I have made a good friend at this place. The rest are merely acquaintances. Most rarely inquire about what is going on in my life. I have never been to any of their homes nor socialize outside of the Sunday time together.
So, maybe what happened last week just kicked open an exit door that was already ajar.
It was the morning after the two latest mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. Now, while race really never enters into my consideration at this church, I must tell you that most of the folks there that morning were African-American. Our pastor, with a PhD from Berkeley, has always been known to me as an unabashed feminist and liberal. She opened the service by offering a prayer for the shooting victims. One of the congregation members then made an impassioned speech about the horrible course that America is on with Trump as President.
We were now off to the races and I turned around to see where the MSNBC cameras were. We were no longer there to worship.
Then, the inexplicable...
The pastor said that all of this is happening in America because of "the white men in America."
There were two of us villains there. The pianist and yours truly. Both of us, in my opinion, pretty nice guys. The only crime our pianist has ever committed is sometimes hitting the wrong note in a hymn. As for me, I've never shot anybody. I have friends of all sexes, races, and creeds. And viewpoints.
Of course, our pastor immediately looked at the two creeps she just signaled out and said, "no offense given."
Oddly, I verbalized my response and said that it was too late. A little offense had been taken.
Suddenly, one of the African-American women turned to scowl at me.
"Why are you offended??"
Hello? Okay, first off, you and I have always enjoyed friendly repartee. But, in reality, you know nothing about me. My life. My choice of friends. My viewpoints on anything. How fucking dare you assume to make a judgment about me???
I desperately wanted to get out of there at that very moment. To my discredit, I did not. I rolled over an exit line in my mind if they asked why I was leaving. In hindsight, I had a good one. I could have said that I was simply going to join (insert the list of names) all those who had left the church because things got too politically one-sided.
But I stayed. Much to my regret. Because worship never really started that day. White men were attacked for the plight of women, most races, and probably the cost of toothpaste at the local CVS.
At one point, the pastor ran into her office and brought back a prop. It was a photo of the church council circa sometime in the 1950s. It played into her business model. The entire council was White.
Oh, for the sake of God, that was over 60 years ago. We have come so far since then!! Hell, when I first walked into this building on Easter 1998, the first thing I saw was a female pastor. Well, I'm still here.
As I listened to the caterwauling on this Sunday, I realized that I could beat any one of these people in a discussion of American history. In some respects, they are all lemmings who have not advanced beyond the viewpoints of the 60s and 70s. The essence of balance was gone. Will any of these people even acknowledge there has been positive evolution and change??
I wanted to say to the African-American contingent that, with all the hand wringing about shootings from male White supremacists, there is not similar outrage to what goes on every weekend in Chicago. While not orchestrated by one lunatic, the body count is often mass shooting-like.
Virtually all of it...Black shooting Black.
After about 45 minutes, the pastor ended the discussion, citing that too much political conversation might impact our 501 status.
This comes from somebody who rented out our facilities in 2016 to a Hillary Clinton campaign phone bank, complete with a life-size stand-up cut-out of Hillary. The victory champagne is still in the pastor's office. Unopened.
For some reason, I took pictures of all this and kept them on my phone. When I think about it, I could cause a lot of problems for this church.
But I won't. After all, I'm just a stupid, mean White man.
Dinner last night: Smoked sausage and potato salad.
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