By Mark A. Taylor
My wife and I discovered something wonderful when we returned to our church after three vacation Sundays away: people there missed us.
Amid all the friendly pats and hearty greetings”””Welcome back!” “We loved your pictures on Facebook!” “Was your trip wonderful?”””I thought about this column I promised to write when we returned.
This continues a discussion begun in last week”s issue. There I reported on and reacted to author Anne Rice”s public announcement of her decision to walk away from Christianity. She said her faith in Christ is “central” to her life, but “following Christ does not mean following his followers.” She loves Jesus but no longer can identify with the “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious” group called the church.
But none of those adjectives described the happy conversations in the hallway when I came back to church. None fit how I felt when the worship songs washed over me and I lifted my eyes to join the praise. None of those negative feelings came to me when I pondered the preacher”s words and how they should guide my after-vacation lists of responsibilities.
As I wrote last week, Rice”s decision makes me sad””sad because most of us have been disappointed by the church, but also sad because Rice apparently has not experienced the community most of us have found there.
She told a National Public Radio interviewer that her decision has given her a “new freedom to confess my fears, my doubts, my pain, my conflicts, my alienation.” And that makes me sad, too. I”ve experienced and witnessed remarkable grace inside the church. I”m sorry Rice hasn”t.
We might be inclined to argue with her. We could point out, as others did immediately after her announcement, that it”s impossible to be in Christ without also being in the church. We cannot remain connected to him, the head, if we”re removed from the church, his body.
But her words sparked in me an instinct to ponder more than defend. How many with me in the worship auditorium each week are more disillusioned than encouraged? How can I help make the church a place of mercy as well as judgment? What steps can I take within the church to create authentic community beyond tight, polite appearances? How can I extend the help and hope I regularly find among fellow Christians?
Together we are the church. I”m sorry Anne Rice will not work with us to fill the gaps we are finding and has not experienced the blessings we”re celebrating as members of the body of Christ.
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