Why Go to Church?

John Pritchard

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780281074419
• eBook ISBN: 9780281074457
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

John Pritchard takes an honest look at what the church is really for and how it works. A book for all who wonder what it must be like to be part of a community of people who are trying to follow the life and teaching of Jesus.

1

Reasons for not going to church

Until a few years ago, Christians could be a bit smug about people who didn’t go to church. They could say it was a bit like not having a wash – the excuses for not doing so were pretty feeble. ‘I was made to wash as a child.’ ‘I just don’t have time to wash these days.’ ‘I used to wash but it got boring so I stopped.’ ‘I still wash on special occasions like Christmas and Easter.’ ‘None of my friends wash.’ ‘People who make soap are only after your money.’ ‘The bathroom’s never warm enough’ (I have sympathy with that one).

Now, however, this self-satisfied approach seems outdated and simplistic. There are lots of good reasons for not going to church. Indeed, the boot is on the other foot. Why would ordinary, decent, reasonable people disrupt family life on a Sunday morning to attend church? Let’s look at the problems. I won’t spare the critique – we have to face popular misgivings squarely and honestly. But I don’t accept that this is all that can be said, of course; that’s what the rest of the book is about!

‘I don’t believe in God’

Not believing in God seems pretty rock solid as a reason for staying in bed on Sunday morning. Worshipping a God you don’t believe in would seem to be a curious use of time, on a par with leaving messages in the fireplace for Father Christmas, or looking out for low-flying storks when a baby is due. On the other hand, this reason for not going to church has to be used with care because you just never know . . . There are very good intellectual reasons for believing in God, and it’s worth having an honest look. In any case, the passing years have a strange way of reversing your youthful convictions (as in ‘It’s all downhill after 40’ or ‘My parents don’t understand a thing’). Sometimes these about-turns are of major proportions. The world-famous philosopher Antony Flew had made quite a name for himself as an outspoken atheist until, in later life, he became convinced of the reality and necessity of God. He came to believe that the only good explanation of the origin of life and the complexity of nature is a Supreme Intelligence. It’s a ‘conversion’ that can leave no atheist untroubled.¹

‘The Church is a hierarchical, controlling institution in an age of freedom and choice’

In other words, the Church as a whole is one of those oppressive institutions we began to throw off in the 1960s and whose agonizing demise we’ve been watching ever since. It’s simply not fit for purpose in handling our spiritual needs. Bono of the band U2 once said: ‘I’m not into religion. I’m completely anti-religious. Religion is a term for a collection, a denomination. I am interested in personal experience of God.’ (Interestingly, Bono has since found churches to be essential partners in his humanitarian campaigns and says, sheepishly: ‘I’m starting to like these church people.’) To many people the Church controls and restricts human freedom. Its rigidity, both in doctrine and morality, means that it takes up conservative stances on ethical issues and seeks to impose those views on society at large. The Church is out of touch, out of time and out of favour. Why would I join it?

‘I used to go, but . . .’

How often does a priest or pastor hear that line? There are still huge numbers of people in our society who used to go to church but stopped when they got to secondary school because nobody else went any more; or they moved house and somehow never got linked up with a new church; or they got caught up in a church row and said they’d never darken the doors again; or they fell out with the vicar; or they were overworked in church and swore never to get involved again; or they got divorced and felt misunderstood. The reasons are legion.

Family life got too complex with all the demands on those precious weekends which turn out to be the only family space left – this is a genuine dilemma. Or maybe the church was too conservative/became too charismatic/gave me no help with my depression, bereavement, unemployment – it goes on. Saddest of all, perhaps, is the charge that someone had honest questions and doubts and couldn’t find any way of raising them or having them dealt with in an adult fashion, so that belief became less and less persuasive and he or she drifted into agnosticism.

‘I just don’t see the point’

Ah! Tricky. Without some touch of the Divine Magician, some intimation of immortality, some whisper from a strange land, it’s hard to see what going to church has got, that going out for the day, having a long pub lunch or dozing in the garden hasn’t got. You can’t manufacture divine longing. In any case, many people find that their spiritual needs are met through climbing mountains or listening to music. On the other hand, a Christian is entitled to wonder whether people always listen closely enough to that whisper in the night, that desire to say ‘Thank you’, that disturbing shift in the internal landscape. There may be an alternative narrative after all . . .

‘The services are dire’

This reason for not going to church is a humdinger. It takes any number of forms, all of which, on a bad day, I have experienced. Hymns are squeezed out of a terminally ill organ or brutally murdered by what used to be called a choir. A contemporary variation is the music group singing fervently but with an Olympian disregard for the embarrassment of the congregation, particularly the men. The readings are utterly obscure, and the prayers are alternately tedious and off the wall. The sermon is naïve to the point of parody and shows no awareness of the contemporary world, the subtlety of biblical interpretation, or the fact that Edna Bucket is snoring loudly. Follow this up with what is fondly called ‘fellowship over coffee’ but which, for the newcomer, is more like an exercise in exclusion, and you have to wonder why people are surprised that their church doesn’t grow.

A young woman went to church for the first time since her baptism 20 years before. She said afterwards that she wouldn’t be going again, and handed her churchgoing friend a list which read:

You are asking me to change the way I speak, the sort of music I enjoy, the length of time I usually listen to a speaker, the type of people I mix with, my body temperature, the type of chair I sit on, the type of clothes I’m used to seeing people wear, my sense of humour. You expect me to know when to stand, sit and kneel. I am prepared to change, but there was nowhere I could connect any part of my life with that service.

Ouch! But speak of change and the atmosphere can get distinctly chilly. A verger once observed to a visiting bishop: ‘It’s only inertia that keeps this place going!’

Sunday worship is still the shop window of the Church. It has...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• About the author
• Series titles
• Title page
• Imprint
• Table of contents
• Introduction
• 1. Reasons for not going to church
• 2. Why is it worth going to church?
• 3. What is the Church for?
• 4. So you’re going (back) to church
• 5. Making the most of the service
• 6. Mind the gap
• Notes
• Further reading