Has Anyone Else Experienced This?

[pmpope68Participant]

I don’t quite know how to word this, but I’ve come to a place where I’m pretty much turned off by celebrations of the various Christian holidays or rather the Christian observances of these holidays.  Like, while people got all into Lent, I did not.  I’ll go to church next weekend and I still love what the holidays themselves represent, but all the pageantry and the assumption that all Christians are into the holidays in the same way and will perform all the religious rituals accompanying holidays, is a real turnoff to me.  I’d rather spend a quiet day at home knowing what Christ means to me and appreciating His sacrifice.  I guess maybe it’s just me wanting more of the simplistic and pure rather than all the pomp and circumstance.  I used to like all that stuff, but I think I’ve just become jaded to all that.   Maybe I really have become that liberal heathen that David is going to talk about on his next hangout.  

[RenParticipant]

I have experienced it…

Growing up in the denomination I did, we never paid much attention to the calendar unless it was Christmas or Easter, and even then we made a point not to make a big fuss.

But they still run around saying “Keep Christ in Christmas” and getting upset if enough people don’t’ put out mangers…

In any case, I’ve been avoiding Christian holidays and even symbols and buildings… I don’t understand the point of having a big cross out anywhere… I sort of wonder why all of the trappings are necessary.

[AngParticipant]

Before I left the church, I had decided that christmas had turned into ‘which church can put on the biggest and gaudiest christmas program.’

[pmpope68Participant]

I think I’m just so disgusted with religious people that I just get turned off by what to me seems like sickeningly sweet observations.  I’m sure are sincere, but I’m just not feelin’ it.  It’s almost like anything religious turns me off.  I don’t know.  I’m sure it’ll pass, but right now, I just seem to have a visceral reaction to sentimentality.  Or maybe it’s the religious folk that I don’t want to be around.  I’m not against making observances, it’s just the seemingly hollow, holier-than-thou stuff that gets to me.

[AmyParticipant]

I’m not into making a big deal about the lead-up to the holidays, but I do like some of the liturgy & readings.  I mean, I don’t give stuff up for Lent, and the most we have ever done during Advent was light a candle every night.  But I do like that we follow the liturgical calendar now.  At our last church, the pastor was explicit about how terrible he thought all of that was–too “churchy,” too “religious.”  On and on about how it’s about relationship not religion.  Well, you know what?  This whole journey has taught me that for me, it IS about religion.  I actually feel more centered when I have that liturgy.  For me, it does what it’s supposed to–makes me feel whole again so I can go out in the world and do some good there.  Because it was hammered into me for so long that it was bad, bad, bad, it’s been like being on a diet and suddenly being allowed to have chocolate cake again.

But I totally get why others would feel very, very differently about it.

[pmpope68Participant]

Thanks, Amy.  I don’t condemn those who do observe the holidays; as with anything, I think it’s about the heart.  I’m tired of empty rituals and a lot of what I’ve seen over the years is a lot of empty ritualism with little fruit to show for it.  But for those who really take the holidays seriously and the observances help them draw close(r) to God, I’m all for it.  I think I’m just tired of all the minutiae and jut prefer to do my own thing.  I go to church now, but I’m pretty much in and out.  I don’t want to get too involved in anything; just give me a sermon and I’m good to go.  I do attend a mid-week class that is substantive and not the usual drivel.  It’s a class where we can have good, honest discussion and not just parrot back the party line to each other.  I’m not even sure I’ll go to any of the midweek services next week, but it also could be the time of life that I’m in.  I recently moved in with my mother after my father passed in November and I have more responsibility now and frankly, I’m just tired.  Whereas years ago I would go to various services and make sure I was definitely at midweek holiday observances, now I would rather just enjoy some downtime at home and I don’t feel guilty about it at all.  I’ve been active in church all my life and even held a senior leadership role in my last church, but when I left there I was jaded and then life came rushing in and now I’m taking care of what’s most important to me–family.

[Anonymous]

pmpope – yes, I have definitely experienced what you shared. I have no desire to ever set foot inside a church again. Not because there aren’t some good things that take place there occasionally, but because there are so many reminders of so much that is wrong with churchianity/Christianity. It has all pretty much become something I would rather distance myself from.  

 

[Peter StanleyParticipant]

In the 1960’s I had been a very active Anglican (parish treasurer for 8 years) but became very disillusioned.  One thing in particular always struck me – the number of people who attended at Christmas and Easter without ever attending at other times.  Then I found a Sabbath keeping church that positively ignored Christmas and Easter as Pagan festivals (and also rejected the teachings of the trinity). Some 20 years later the leadership of that church came to the conclusion that they had been misguided and were subsequently accepted as members of the National Association of Evangelicals.

With that background perhaps it’s no wonder that I see Christian observances as a crutch for those who need them. I believe they have their place – and that means that there need to be leaders who are happy to minister to those who need them.  But the problem that I see is that leaders can only take people as deep as their own traditions and denominational theology will allow. Some of us have been or are being drawn away from those environments – and that allows us to ‘go deeper’.

With fewer and fewer younger people attending the traditional churches, maybe we really are seeing a major change on the horizon!

[pmpope68Participant]

I think there is a major shift taking place and I believe it’s only the truly wise who take notice of it rather than scoff at it.

[WadeParticipant]

I’ve struggled most of my adult life to reconcile the secular celebrations of Christmas and Easter with the Christian remembrances. I’ve been part of numerous Christmas pageants in my church, many times wondering how we were going to top the previous year. Once we even planned and practiced it way back in August! My current church rather thankfully doesn’t do that.

But it was always a show, a performance.  The occasional attendees come for a performance, sadly. So the church puts one on. :-/

Wade.

 

[Author]

Posts