Why I don’t Attend Church

Why I don't attend church after a life time as a Christian. My personal, nuanced faith, with influences from Stoicism, Buddhism, and psychological understanding. Conclusion that I prioritize the pursuit of truth, beauty, and authentic connections over tra

In this Post: I explain why I don't attend church, with answers to common questions on this topic, followed by a summary of my spiritual journey and an in-depth section on my current beliefs.

Are you a Christian?

I am. I was baptized and confirmed in the Anglican Church and born again at a Terry Winters Crusade a few years later, I attended Bible School and worked for over 15 years in Christian Bookstores. For the last 23 years I have worked for Island Crisis Care Society, an organization governed by and lead by Christians with a strong Christian culture.  In addition I have attended or visited many different denominations over the years including Anglican and Roman Catholic, Pentecostal and Charismatic, Reformed, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and United. I attended church regularly on Sundays for many years but I stopped attending 5 years ago, except on special occasions.

Why don’t you attend Church Anymore?

I’m an introvert in a stage of life where I choose to do other things on a Sunday morning. On most Sunday mornings I’m up at 5:30 to see sunrise, take photos in the early morning light, and de-stress on a beach or in a forest. Then I return home to enjoy an unhurried time with my wife making brunch together while we listen to our favorite songs, and then eating while we listen to an audio book. These activities meet my need for solitude, contentment, connection, and a quiet life.

Common Questions

What about Hebrews 10:25 that says to not forsake meeting together?

I have 7 close friends who I spend time with. All have been church goers at one time in their life and 3 of them attend regularly still. 1 has renounced his faith, and the other 3 attend church occasionally. When we get together we talk about ideas, what we believe, world events, and our personal lives. The second half of that verse says to instead encourage one another. Do you find that I encourage or discourage you? Most people I ask say they find me to be an encourager. So, I would say I don't forsake meeting with those who encourage me, and I in return, encourage them.

What about, "Together we stand, divided we fall?"

Throughout my life I have considered and examined one challenge to my faith after another. I’ve looked at most of the fundamental doctrines about God and the human condition, and without fail I find, as the philosophers say, that “truth is in the nuance.”

Christians often deflect my deep questions with comments like, "you think too much" or "we may never know," or "the Bible says x, y, and z." Finding these answers insufficient, I am left to read and think through the challenges on my own. This has not been a bad thing, because it helped me experience how thesis and antithesis can lead to synthesist, and how many apparent contradictions are actually paradoxes, if they are considered thoughtfully enough. As a result of this, what I now believe is different from what is taught and preached in most churches I have attended. When I tell people what I believe they look concerned, or angry, or shocked. I've been told that I rely too much on reason and not enough on faith. I have been told that I have been deceived by secular forces and science. This is very sad, because integrating the truths of science with the truths of religion has been deeply meaningful to me, and I believe I have grown to have a deeper understanding of life, despite the trauma involved.

You can't learn about spiritual things with intellect alone!

I have had many hours of listening to sermons and sharing in conversations at Bible studies. I have also practiced a variety of spiritual practices to have spiritual experiences in a non-intellectual way. Practices like group singing and group prayer do not have significant effects on my mental health, charitable work, or sense of community. I also have not found labyrinth walking or tai chi to effect me like they do others. I affirm the idea that rituals and rites can "get through" intellectual barriers and have an impact, but the only rituals I continue to practice are the Welcoming Prayer, meditation, and prayer with beads.

What about worship?

I worship best in silence and solitude. I often go to a forest and sit is silence opening my mind and heart to God. I have had experiences similar to "the still small voice" while doing this. As mentioned above, "meeting for worship" does not appeal to my introverted soul and most churches do not focus on quietude, contemplation, or group meditation. In my experience evangelical church worship involves a "worship leader" who guides a chant-like session of singing and prayer. In mainline, Anglican, and Catholic churches liturgical readings, hymns, and prayers serve a similar role. In both traditions there is a sermon, homily or similar time for a message or presentation. Churches also like to get people together for large group social events and activities. I am not at all critical of any of these practices and have had moments of insight, impact, and being moved at such events. If you find these practices to be meaningful or to give you a sense of community, or if they make you feel closer to God, that is great. Even if you don't experience that but feel you are being obedient and attempting to give praise and express gratitude to God, then that is all very positive and good. For me, silence and solitude are the best.

In terms of the importance of worship in the grand scheme of things, a touchstone for me is Micah 6:8, “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

What about loving and serving others?

Learning to love others is a lifelong effort for me, because I am easily hurt and triggered by people's harsh words, selfish behavior, psychological manipulation, and judgement. I accept the argument that community is a good place to practice loving kindness, and can see that church could fill this role. I think I get plenty of practice managing my reactions and maintaining positive regard to people in my work, family, and neighborhood. Church or other groups might become an option if I were becoming too retiring or reclusive. That is not the case, however, I remain very engaged with work, my strata, friends, and family.

What about rights of passage, marriage, funerals, etc.?

These are important cultural practices that were the cement of community for thousands of years. This is no longer the case for most people. When I married Wanda, we hired an officiant who crafted a deeply meaningful ceremony to which we invited close family and friends. The people who attended were from a variety of backgrounds, faiths, and non-faith perspectives. The ceremony was not very traditional but tailored to our relationship and values. If you prefer your local pastor and church, great, I fully support and affirm that.

What about the United Church, the last place you attended regularly?

I shared a time with the authentic, warm, and thoughtful people there, doing good things together. Nothing to criticize or complain about. However, ultimately, I’m not a United Church person, and am focusing my spiritual life more around quiet practices that sustain and support my goals and priorities.

Isn’t it arrogant to suggest you don’t need to attend church?

Church feels a little threatening to me. I don’t feel at home. I don’t want to be there, and I haven’t for years. It taxes my sensitive nervous system and I generally feel stressed after attending. For years I went out of a sense of duty and a belief that it was “the right thing to do.”

Instead of celebrating my quiet open curiosity, my sensitivity and intelligence, I more often hear at church that I need to do more, think less, and be different. Be-ing is what I’m all about now, and that starts with being myself - spectacularly introverted and authentic me.

With regard to arrogance, most Christians believe they have THE truth, as in “the way, the truth, and the life.” That is one of the foundational assumptions I examined and let go of, so I really can’t affirm that in the way most people mean it.

Wait, you don’t think Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life?

I wrestled with that one for years. The way I see it Jesus was identifying himself with the way the truth and the life. He was saying, “no one comes to the Father except by the way the truth and the life, and you can understand what that is by looking at me.” So, I follow Jesus to the best of my ability. The Jesus way is a profoundly good way to live and serve the world.

Is there any kind of Church that would make you reconsider?

For many years I thought an Integral church would work for me. See Reverent Irreverence by Tom Thresher, or Integral Christianity by Paul R. Smith. But there are no churches like this nearby for me to visit. Even if there were, I have enjoyed the freedom to study and grow on my own and the thought of attending services again, no matter how similar to my belief system, just isn’t very enticing.

The introverted aspect of my personality is very prominent. I have found real healing and insight in Stoicism, Buddhism, and Quakerism. These traditions are full of practices that resonate for an introvert. Things like philosophical inquiry, meditation, contemplation, sitting in silence, silent retreats, time in nature, peaceful resistance of evil, and quiet care of others. If a group focused on these things, I might consider joining in.

My Journey

To understand my journey through life as a Christian I created a summary of my church involvements, biggest challenges, and biggest experiences from birth to age 63. Below that is a detailed explanation of what I believe as of this writing. 

What I believe now

I affirm my Anglican heritage and my decision to be confirmed into the faith, and I equally affirm my decision to accept Jesus into my heart as my personal savior. These two experiences were formative in my growth as a Christian. My subsequent education at Bible School and leading Bible studies gave me a good understanding of the Bible and Christian theology. I was class president at Bible School and have taken a variety of leaderships roles in Christian groups over the years.

Challenges

Challenges to my faith helped me develop different ways of looking at the spiritual life. These challenges included:

Biblical Criticism – internal inconsistencies and extraordinary claims made by the Bible led me to conclude that the collection of documents we call the Bible is the product of human experience and thought, as well as revelation. A simplistic “God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” approach is disrespectful of the Bible itself which contains many levels of meaning for an open-minded reader.

The Soul – My bachelor’s degree in psychology exposed me to the biology of the brain, and the dilemma that has dogged generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, and psychiatrists attempting to understand the “certain something” that sets humans apart from other animals. Dualism (spirit and body are different in essence) and Physicalism (the physical world is all there is) were both insufficient explanations for me. The elements we call spirit, soul, mind, consciousness and so on have been the concern of our ancestors, going back at least 4 thousand years. How the brain functions is still not fully understood and an emergent view of consciousness is still my go-to explanation, while I also acknowledge the possibility that consciousness is primary, as proposed in Panpsychism and other theories of mind such as Integrated Information Theory. See Science is shattering our intuition about consciousness.

Evolution - The evidence for evolution is deep and extensive yet most evangelical and conservative Christians doubt or deny evolution. I spent years reading Christian attempts to counter the different kinds of evidence for evolution and in the end concluded that not only is it impossible to explain away or ignore evolution, it is vitally important to incorporate it as a part of our understanding of the meaning and purpose of human being. The fact that we have evolved suggests that we can evolve further.

My view is that during their development as a species humans succeeded at survival through a high degree of intelligence, social interdependence, dexterity, and emotional regulation. They achieved this because of high protein and high fat food sources and body structures that allowed for a large brain and the making of tools, technology, and culture. Religion is one of the mechanisms that helped create ingroup cohesion and make sense of the loss of loved ones and the general suffering and strife of life.

Nature - Anyone who looks at the many dangers present in nature, from parasitic worms to predator dominance, to the variety of procreation strategies that include wasps who lay eggs in living caterpillars to have their magots eat the caterpillars alive, can not easily dismiss what this says about the universe. God does not seem to see this as an issue. Life eats life and pain and suffering are everywhere, and this state has existed for millions of years.

Descartes Midlife Project – The philosopher best know for seeking certainty using doubt has been an inspiration for me as I consider all the truth claims made by so many.  In an attempt to avoid deception, including self deception, I have thoughtfully examined my beliefs one by one. This is hard work, as anyone who has attempted it can attest, because it leads to further questions and pretty soon you are in the world of complexity and nuance. Most Christians, believing they have The Truth, don’t attempt this. In this regard church is, I’m sad to say, an echo chamber for a certain spiritual perspective.  Polarized media ecosystems have amplified the echo chamber to the level of tribalism, creating feedback loops that reinforce ideological divisions. People are drawn to groups where their beliefs are validated, often rejecting information that challenges their worldview. I understand that this is a human tendency, and that it reinforces a group’s identity, but I try as much as possible to embrace “idea labs” instead. These are where people can discuss ideas and claims to truth that seem contrary to what we know as true. Many idea labs, however, are crass, rough, or competitive, so again I find myself pursuing the project on my own.

A Quiet Life

My focus now is on avoiding self-deception, achieving better alignment with reality, enjoying being present for beauty and truth, and crafting a quiet life as described by Susan Cain in her audio book “A Quiet Life in 7 Steps.” I regularly listen for errors in my own thinking and join with others on the pat to "learned ignorance," in the tradition of Nicolas of Cusa.

I see myself as having more or less reached the yellow stage of Spiral Dynamics, able to shift from perspective to perspective and am eager to gain new perspectives to broaden my range of “seeing”.

The Bible

I accept Jordan Peterson’s affirmation that the Bible is a significant and fundamental core document in the “western canon.” He sees it as a profound repository of archetypal stories that can guide human thought, morality, and societal structure and views the Bible as a "meta-story" by which he means a sequence of interconnected narratives that articulate the deepest principles guiding human optimization and meaning.

I share this general view but also recognize that the misinterpretation of the Bible has led to various forms of fundamentalism, extremism, and legalism that are dangerous to human thriving. It is these elements in Evangelical theology that caused me the most grief and suffering throughout my life.

Jesus

I follow Jesus to the best of my ability. I have not found anyone else historically or alive today with as profound a challenge to, or solution for, human evil. I believe, as René Girard outlined, that memetic desire is the main aspect of human disfunction that Jesus addressed. The parables and beatitudes reveal a way to counteract this tendency through a process of dying to self, practiced humility, and radical love for others. Jesus's death and resurrection show that the scapegoat mechanism and sacrificial redemption are not long term solutions to the problem of human sin. I believe people do, as Jesus said, need to be reborn and take on the Mind of Christ. That birth is into a new moral framework in which the spirit of the law takes priority over the letter of the law and the temptations of power and control are resisted. The mind of Christ is one illuminated by a radical submission to God, daily "letting go of desires and expectations" and aligning with one's unique calling. As Carl Jung outlined and as I have paraphrased, the spiritual life happens in two parts - the first half of life is about becoming a someone, and the second half of life is about becoming no-one. Jesus remains a role model for this process, and the Holy Spirit is that which inspires and sustains us in that journey, first to self, and then to selflessness. Two great books on how to live this way are, "Love Your Enemies" by Arthur C. Brooks, and Jesus' Alternative Plan by Richard Rohr.

The Buddha

I am not as familiar with the Buddha as I am with Jesus, but have a rudimentary understanding of his life and teachings. His assessment of the source of our suffering is a compliment to Christian teaching. The concept of dukkha, the four noble truths, and the eightfold path, are practical and helpful for spiritual growth. The idea that suffering can be eliminated by overcoming craving and attachment is challenging and thought provoking and I am working to integrate it into my thinking and practice.

More on Consciousness

Our large and technology-adapted brains give rise to, or allows expression of, consciousness which is like a meta level of software running o alongside lower brain functions. With this “highly developed awareness” we are able to consider our actions and act with some degree of free will, despite much that is determined by genetics, bodily drives and functions, and other sub-conscious motivators. I consider terms like soul, spirit, and mind, as essentially describing one phenomenon, namely that a human’s cognitive and emotional presence is larger, different, or more important than her biology alone would suggest.

I affirm the possibility that this “larger than biology” sense of a person and each person’s genetic and developmental uniqueness could be “remembered” by God after we die and that there could be some future state in which we are “resurrected” into some form of community.

I don’t, however, believe in heaven and hell as popularly understood and don’t believe a coherent narrative about the afterlife can be pieced together from scripture. See my extensive research here. I hold open the possibility that there are layers of existence we are not aware of, and that these may occasionally interact with the layers of existence we do perceive. We evolved in a specific set of circumstances that gave rise to sensory organs adapted to those circumstances, but this doesn’t mean that there are not realities beyond our ability to detect.

For example, most stories of angels, life after death, aliens, and so on, are real experiences filtered through our cultural narratives. What the actual reality is behind them, I do not yet know, but of course I am very curious about them. They could be mere cultural framing, or they could be experiences outside of our descriptive ability.

I share Nicholas of Cusa’s interest in the unity of being and how it relates to God. Today we might describe this unity as a “theory of everything,” but not just everything in the known physical universe, but everything both material, emergent, and “hidden” from our regular senses. I share the Cardinal’s conception of docta ignorantia ("learned ignorance"). Learned ignorance results in a kind of awe or reverence, what he called worship, which can only come once we acknowledge our limitations and work to see beyond the explanations we grew up with. He explored this in his Dialogus de deo abscondito (English Translation: A dialogue about a God who is hidden). If we are to grasp something of God and the unity of being, we must use something better than our current doctrines, types of reasoning, and ancient intuitions and we must have a deep humility about the process.

Instead of embracing ignorance and pursuing a better understanding of things, I see many Christians retreating into tribalism. This phenomenon is clearly outlined in a recent Lex Fridman interview with Tim Urban.

I resist the retreat response and am trying to move to a better “acceptance of what is.”  This is, for sure, a difficult and painful task and I know that I will fail in my attempt to maintain a true view of what is.

Trauma

John Vervaeke and Jordan Peterson in the podcast episode called, “The Rebirth of the Sacred,”  talk about the deep trauma that can occur when we examine a core belief and find it untenable. Jordan quotes Ronnie Janoff-Bulman as saying that trauma is the result of shattered assumptions.

According to Janoff-Bulman, trauma occurs when individuals’ fundamental assumptions about the world and themselves are shattered. These “inherent assumptions,” provide a sense of safety and security, allowing people to navigate their daily lives. Janoff-Bulman, says there are three primary assumptions that can be shattered:

1. Overall Benevolence of the World - The assumption that the world is a benevolent and just place.

2. Meaningfulness of the World - The assumption that the world has inherent meaning and purpose.

3. Self-Worth - The assumption that one is worthy and valuable as a person.

When these assumptions are disrupted or shattered, we experience a profound sense of vulnerability, leading to feelings of terror, anxiety, and disorientation. Janoff-Bulman’s theory suggests that trauma symptoms like those as I have experienced much of my life, are a result of this disruption and the subsequent struggle to rebuild a more accurate world view.

In this view trauma is not just a response to a specific event, but rather a consequence of the catastrophic failure of one’s fundamental assumptions about reality. This perspective highlights the importance of understanding the psychological and emotional impact of traumatic events on individuals, rather than solely focusing on the event itself.

Having been raised in a Christian culture where God was in charge and gave meaning to our lives through following Jesus, and where the affirmation that we are made in God’s image and forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus provided a sense of safety and security, the challenges I have outlined above reveal that as I failed to find adequate defense of these beliefs, and therefore the vulnerability of existence caused deep anxiety and confusion.

Once your assumptions are disrupted, it is very difficult to attend a gathering of people who affirm those assumptions. In fact, the assumptions that Janoff-Bulman highlights can be reframed as: "The world in not safe, meaning isn't guaranteed, and an individual's worth is a measure within human culture. Pondering these framings provides great insight, like koans or parables do. How many Christians are able to even consider them?

For me, the world is dangerous and unjust, but safety and justice can be created. There is no meaning or purpose in our static existence, but we can find meaning and purpose as we engage with reality and develop as individuals. Worth allows us to measure and judge others and therefore must be resisted as a concept. Think of phrases like, "His net worth is sufficient, that criminal is not worth rescuing, she has worth because she is a mother." They are judgements about value to someone else or a group of people. We all want to be respected, but the concept of worth is imbedded in respect. Am I worthy of respect? Respectability is payment. We pay someone respect. We have do some work to get paid. The commerce of shame and honor support systems of culture and commerce. I am still wrestling with this because shame and guilt are key elements of society, motivating people to behave well. Taboos, traditions, rituals, narratives, ideals, ideas, memes, and many other mechanism do the same.

Jesus listed a strange set of qualities that result in blessings: poverty, hunger, meekness, mourning and weeping, mercy, a pure heart, peacemaking, receiving insults, being hated, being excluded, being rejected. Why these qualities? Generally they are the opposite of what culture says is good. They are vulnerable and lowly states. Not at all like what is touted as good now, strength, power, toughness, and so on. Most people think they want freedom from these states. They want to be rich, satisfied, confident, happy, righteous, bad asses who are looked up to and part of the "in group."

In contrast to this, followers of Jesus should be finding ways to love their enemies, bless the people who bad mouth them, do good to those who hate them, and pray for those who despise and persecute them. Nothing I know of is more challenging to do than these things. I'm definitely not there yet but see how counter-cultural it is to try to do these things. It is radical peacemaking, a topic seldom touched on at church.

With the limited time I have left in my life, I will spend it trusting the beauty, looking for the truth, and trying to love and live as Jesus said to.