Life & Religion
15/10/09 21:07![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eredienHad a lovely dinner last night with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baaaaaaaaaah and meanfreepath. It was great to see S. again and catch up with her; it turns out that meanfreepath lives literally a block away and we are going to get together and play games.
I am currently in the process of making major life changes. Something that I suspect will be big and important, and sucks really hard, hit me upside the head about 20 minutes ago; no, I'm not ready to talk about it yet, if at all.
That's on top of trying to deal with religion. I don't know if I'm going to be living in the Boston area in the next few years--it depends on ifrax decides to go for a PhD around here or not--but I've decided that it's time to move on from being a queer who's scared to be Christian, just like I moved on from being a Christian who's scared to be queer. I need to deal with the lack of a faith community in my life, and there's one easy way that I can do that: get my ass to a faith community. There's two churches I've been to in the area which I liked:
First Church Somerville UCC - I felt comfortable here the few times I went. That might be a problem, as I think that too much comfortability can be a drawback in a church (comfortability is good; too much is bad, IMO). A lot of the population of this church seemed white and in their mid-20's to mid-50's when I went in the summer, though when I went for Advent last winter there were some more older people in greater evidence. They sent me a mug. Their main pastor is a woman, which is cool. Stuff I find problematic:
- I like their stance on gay rights, can't help but like it, but it's inherently political to fly a rainbow flag outside of a church. It's also inherently religious (at least in the USA). It's also my cause. But places of worship which play overt politics games bother me. (I'm well-aware that individual places of worship in specific, and organized religion in general, both play internal and external and overt and covert and intra-faith and intra-denominational politics games, and have for centuries; they're institutions run by people. Thanks.) Should faith inform political stances for people of faith? Yes--in fact, I think it would be dishonest not to have faith inform a political stance for people of faith. Should people of faith speak up about injustice and combat it where they see it? Yes. So why am I still so conflicted about a church making an overt inherently political statement, especially as it's in support of a cause I agree with and which my life is part of, and one which I think people need to be overt about? Probably becauase integrating faith and sexuality is hard in any case, and I personally am still angry at my faith for making my sexuality harder and my sexuality for making my faith harder. (But I have determined that whining about that is not helping either cause, so I am going to try to do something to strengthen my faith which will also strengthen the rest of my life, incl. sexuality).
- The UCC is a non-creedal church: there is nothing you have to believe in order to belong. Somewhat discouraging. I can not believe something at home and be able to sleep in. Why bother showing up if I don't have to believe anything?
St. James' Episcopalian Church - welcoming; I have friends I know who go there and are involved in church life & committees there (younger people involved in church life--always a good sign). Diverse in terms of race and age with a healthy mix of college students, families, old people, etc. Gorgeous building. Moravian star over baptismal font, which is kind of awesome. Seems to do interesting missionary work, though I want to research more into what it is they are actually doing and where they are going. Does not make me feel as comfortable as UCC though I think perhaps that is a good thing. Stuff I find problematic:
- I don't beieve in saints; sermons taking place on 'St. X's day' make my very protestant-tradition-steeped heart nervous. There are good people and were good people who are Christian and did some amazing stuff, but I don't want to pray to them. More research needs to be done in terms of theology impacting practice.
- Worried about hierarchial relationship structure of Episcopalian church.
- Episcopalian church in US currently going through protracted and sometimes nasty theological debate surrounding gay people in life of church, ordination for gays, gay marriage, etc., with possible schism in the near future. Don't really want to be a poster child, and don't want to join a church only to be told I can't get married in it.
Thoughts welcome, esp. from local folks and/or folks involved in churches.
baaaaaaaaaah and meanfreepath. It was great to see S. again and catch up with her; it turns out that meanfreepath lives literally a block away and we are going to get together and play games.I am currently in the process of making major life changes. Something that I suspect will be big and important, and sucks really hard, hit me upside the head about 20 minutes ago; no, I'm not ready to talk about it yet, if at all.
That's on top of trying to deal with religion. I don't know if I'm going to be living in the Boston area in the next few years--it depends on if
rax decides to go for a PhD around here or not--but I've decided that it's time to move on from being a queer who's scared to be Christian, just like I moved on from being a Christian who's scared to be queer. I need to deal with the lack of a faith community in my life, and there's one First Church Somerville UCC - I felt comfortable here the few times I went. That might be a problem, as I think that too much comfortability can be a drawback in a church (comfortability is good; too much is bad, IMO). A lot of the population of this church seemed white and in their mid-20's to mid-50's when I went in the summer, though when I went for Advent last winter there were some more older people in greater evidence. They sent me a mug. Their main pastor is a woman, which is cool. Stuff I find problematic:
- I like their stance on gay rights, can't help but like it, but it's inherently political to fly a rainbow flag outside of a church. It's also inherently religious (at least in the USA). It's also my cause. But places of worship which play overt politics games bother me. (I'm well-aware that individual places of worship in specific, and organized religion in general, both play internal and external and overt and covert and intra-faith and intra-denominational politics games, and have for centuries; they're institutions run by people. Thanks.) Should faith inform political stances for people of faith? Yes--in fact, I think it would be dishonest not to have faith inform a political stance for people of faith. Should people of faith speak up about injustice and combat it where they see it? Yes. So why am I still so conflicted about a church making an overt inherently political statement, especially as it's in support of a cause I agree with and which my life is part of, and one which I think people need to be overt about? Probably becauase integrating faith and sexuality is hard in any case, and I personally am still angry at my faith for making my sexuality harder and my sexuality for making my faith harder. (But I have determined that whining about that is not helping either cause, so I am going to try to do something to strengthen my faith which will also strengthen the rest of my life, incl. sexuality).
- The UCC is a non-creedal church: there is nothing you have to believe in order to belong. Somewhat discouraging. I can not believe something at home and be able to sleep in. Why bother showing up if I don't have to believe anything?
St. James' Episcopalian Church - welcoming; I have friends I know who go there and are involved in church life & committees there (younger people involved in church life--always a good sign). Diverse in terms of race and age with a healthy mix of college students, families, old people, etc. Gorgeous building. Moravian star over baptismal font, which is kind of awesome. Seems to do interesting missionary work, though I want to research more into what it is they are actually doing and where they are going. Does not make me feel as comfortable as UCC though I think perhaps that is a good thing. Stuff I find problematic:
- I don't beieve in saints; sermons taking place on 'St. X's day' make my very protestant-tradition-steeped heart nervous. There are good people and were good people who are Christian and did some amazing stuff, but I don't want to pray to them. More research needs to be done in terms of theology impacting practice.
- Worried about hierarchial relationship structure of Episcopalian church.
- Episcopalian church in US currently going through protracted and sometimes nasty theological debate surrounding gay people in life of church, ordination for gays, gay marriage, etc., with possible schism in the near future. Don't really want to be a poster child, and don't want to join a church only to be told I can't get married in it.
Thoughts welcome, esp. from local folks and/or folks involved in churches.
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(no subject)
16/10/09 04:30 (UTC)The issue you're struggling with is very foreign to me, but you very much have my sympathy; you're actually the second friend of mine who has basically had a running battle with their faith and their attempts to find a community of faith. Finding balance between individual conscience, the articles of faith of a church and its community, and, realistically, the baggage of history is a tough tattle. Even figuring out which is which is a tough tattle.
I've been to Unitarian services and left wondering if I'd been to church or not (or, being second-gen agnostic, whether I cared). That seemed to be a community but whether it was a community of faith was less clear to me -- not that I'm sure I'd know one if I saw it. It seemed closer to a bunch of people asking questions, which is not a bad thing, but perhaps not the same thing. On the other hand, I was also at a UCC service recently and it did seem like a community of faith, if a very liberal one. They had made that very political decision to hang the rainbow flags. Their literature said that everyone was welcome, regardless of belief, but they also seemed to feel that if you were really a part of what they were, then you definitely believed certain things. God and Jesus were very present in the language being used; there was a baptism and the litany contained the phrase "...declaring with one voice our faith in God and God's son Jesus." (I'm quoting verbatim from the handout, which I left in a pile of junk on my desk and just now rediscovered.) So... maybe "non-creedal" means different things to different churches?
As a tangent, I wonder if part of what "a community of faith" might mean to you is "a sacred space that you can feel you belong in'. The sacred is not an easy thing to find under any conditions these days,I suppose. It would be easy to say that people have to just create what is sacred for them out of whatever is around, but I don't feel that's entirely adequate. It was interesting to me that the UCC handout I got had the legend "creating sacred space together" on the front. A few decades back, a church describing itself as sacred space would be like a swimming pool advertising itself as wet.
Anyway, I have no real business sticking my nose in here, I guess this basically amounts to a long winded invitation to tell me more about this when I see you, if you're so moved. See you Saturday. :)