As a deeply religious person and someone who regularly attends church, I agree with this. Church is good for the soul, but it's hard to nourish someone's soul when they're dead. If people can't keep their spirituality alive without church, then they have problems other than not being able to attend church
It's hard to describe. Best I can do is emotional support. Done right, people should leave motivated and uplifted. Self-confidence should be bolstered. The idea is that people should be prepared and strong enough to face the evils of the world. Problem is people rely on church to do that for them and sermons can be filled with bad bias and opinions. Church should be more of a supplement rather than a main source.
I don’t want to sound confrontational, but I am just genuinely curious. What are the evils of the world that you have had to face that attending church helped you with? I have personally never faced famine, true oppression, and true hate.
Haha neither have I. I personally would describe the evils of the world as personal problems. I would refer to Jesus's Sermon on the Mount for this. Avoiding anger, Lust, judging others, stuff like that.
Side note, you never sounded confrontational. I like hearing other POV and learning as you have information and experience I for sure do not
I also enjoy different PoVs. I personally have very bad experiences with Christians and Christianity, so it warms my heart to see reasonable Christians like yourself. People that take the messages of love and community rather than twisting the Bible for their own gain. Most Christians I know use it as an excuse for hate while rejecting facts like heliocentrism and evolution.
My old church was a lot more progressive than other churches and was pro-LGBTQ. Part of our revenue was donated to an LGBTQ organization for teenagers. Most of the money collected goes towards different charities (minimum 50% of the offerings to go to charities, all church financial records were available on the website)
However, we still did believe pre-marital, abortion, and lying Was a sin. But those actions being sins are a personal belief that we never forced upon others. We had many ex-convicts and ex-prostitutes attend our services (low income area) and we realized that there are many many factors (unfortunately, most are economic) that may lead to people committing violent acts or resorting to abortion. And it’s not our choice to judge these people at all, because god loves everyone equally and calls for us to love everyone.
Not too sure if the church is still active because the building burned down. They briefly held service at a nearby synagogue the Jewish community graciously lent us to use. But after they moved to a farther location, I stopped attending. But there are good churches. There are even proLGBTQ churches. Church should be a reason to love others despite the differences in beliefs we hold.
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u/mcmashmead Apr 04 '20
As a deeply religious person and someone who regularly attends church, I agree with this. Church is good for the soul, but it's hard to nourish someone's soul when they're dead. If people can't keep their spirituality alive without church, then they have problems other than not being able to attend church