The End of Church ☮️

Note:
I spent 2009-2010 converting to Judaism. I became angry and confused about what it meant to be Jewish. It wasn't Judaism's fault. Saying anything beyond that is inappropriate.

I started going back to church in 2012, and during my divorce St John's Episcopal Church took us in, cared for our needs, and never judged us for our differences. Later, St Martin's Episcopal Church did. These communities are full of open, kind people. I learned a lot about how to be a better person from them, even though it was a hard time for me. I can never thank my friends from those years enough. I'm sorry if my silence hurt.

The essay below describes why I stopped believing in Christianity and left church. It doesn't describe the guilt and agony I felt the entire time I was there, I wasn't myself. I used to worry about offending people when I say why I believe Christianity is untrue without being offensive. With time and reflection, now I know: Belief is what it is.

• When the twins started attending Charlotte Jewish Day School in 2017, I remembered what it meant to be Jewish and recognized that I had a responsibility to raise them un-divided. I had stopped believing in Christianity by this point. Going to church started to make me feel ill.
• In May 2018 I built a minecraft Fortress of Solitude. I think I was telling myself something. 
• I returned to Judaism in June 2018. I wrote this letter, but I knew the time wasn't right to share it yet. Except for getting rid of the word "woke" because it is obnoxious and silly, the piece is unchanged.
• In July 2018 I quit facebook and stopped returning calls.
• I wanted to rediscover and reclaim the self.
• In December 2017 I weighed over 260 pounds. I dropped down to 170 by getting rid of fat. Now I hover around 190.

GG July 2020

The End of Church
It would be nice to talk about this in person, but this is easier. I think better with my fingers than with my lips. And I’m only courageous up to a point. And I need to talk to a few people at once.

In the past few years, I've taught your kids Sunday school. I've played bass and sung in worship services. I've done comedy routines to lighten things up. I put together an ecumenical hymn party at a bar to try bring folks around the city together. I've helped (sort of) with Game Night. I helped organize a group of amazing guys. So I'm writing this because you deserve to hear it directly if you want.

Our friendship developed because we were Christians. I'm not a Christian anymore. I hope that we will still be friends without Jesus.

You probably know my story since I am direct and unguarded: I was a Christian for over 30 years. I was an atheist--out of anger more than conviction--for a year or two. I studied and converted to Judaism. After a college reunion, I missed the Christian friends of my youth. I felt torn between the religion of my upbringing and the religion that I had chosen. I started going back to church, trying to recapture the magic.

What I've told few people is this: I couldn't make it work, at least not once I started taking church seriously instead of quietly coming and going.

I tried to claim dual citizenship: Jewish and Episcopalian. I couldn't. I tried to believe the things that I had believed when I was young. I couldn’t. I moved from one church to another, hoping that a more progressive house of worship would allow me to hold humanism and Judaism and Christianity together, in my mind and heart, at the same time. I couldn’t. I clutched to find bits and pieces, scraps of something to hold onto, a reason to stick around. I couldn’t.

I came to that realization that I was trying to believe things I didn't believe and forcing myself and (more importantly) my kids to fit into a community of believers where we did not belong.

Only one path made sense: Move on. Grieve the loss. Direct my attention where it should have been all along: providing an emotionally healthy home for my children and giving them the tools that will help them live well. That includes setting a good example across the board. So I'm getting physically fit and spending time at home instead of being socially active. They need me every day. No one else does. That's the way it should be.

If belief is the price of admission to church, the wallet is empty. I could keep up appearances, but instead, I'll keep it real.

The reason I reject Christianity is pretty simple: If a murder 2000 years ago leads to salvation in a supernatural sense, then the man behind the curtain is the monster under the bed.

In a movie, there’s a storytelling device called a maguffin. The Maltese Falcon is a maguffin. The Death Star plans are one. Rosebud. The Ark of the Covenant. Nathan Jr. The maguffin gets the action started, and it's what the movie is about in the description on IMDb.

Movies aren’t actually about maguffins though. They’re about the relationships that play out between characters, the changes that occur in those relationships, the changes within individuals. If a movie isn’t about those things—if it is actually about the maguffin and not the relationships and change caused by the search for the maguffin—it probably isn’t worth watching.

Religion is one of society’s most potent maguffins. It brings people together around something, and that’s what those individuals focus on. In the meantime, relationships are created by the search for the maguffin, the quest for God or truth or social justice or whatever that group is into.

Those relationships are the good part. What people do together is what matters, even if the maguffin falls away. I think that most relationships work this way. Hopefully those forged in religion are less fragile than those where you work together or where meet and enjoy the same things and just hang out because it's fun. I know that that kind lasts.

The maguffin that we used to talk about and pray about and worship is no longer a thing that we share, but every conversation we had is a thing that we always will. The important parts of what we talked about—at least to me—were always about life and kids and stories and music and art, not the maguffin itself.

Some of my values have changed in the last few years. I’m more liberal than I used to be. I’m more conscious of others' differences and needs. I want my kids to be themselves and live good lives. I don't care whether and what they believe about things that are invisible and intangible as long as it's not crazy talk.

The rest of my values haven’t changed. They're just not compatible with Christianity. I can be a disbeliever in church, but I can't be a disbelieving Christian, and if I'm not a Christian, it doesn't make sense to go to church.

Hopefully this helps to explain why you haven’t seen me there and won’t anymore. And I hope that our friendship will continue if there's more to it than the maguffin. I value my friends regardless of their metaphysical opinions. I hope it goes both ways. Just keep it real. I'm trying to.

Peace.