Religious Education - Part 2

Part 2 - Our Next Step

So we left St. James, feeling kind of burnt from our whole experience.  We wrote a letter to our priest explaining our departure and continued to remain close with the friends we had made there, but we were left without a church.

Then my dad got sick.  I suppose the absence of church during this painful time would have been felt more if I had more of a relationship with God, but one less thing off my plate was probably a good thing for me.  When he died, our family decided on a funeral at the funeral home rather than in a church.  He wasn't a religious man so this arrangement suited him well.  In the end, I think he probably would have thought there was too much religion mentioned during the service we had.

Shortly after my father's death, we moved to Purcellville.  Once we had settled in, which happened to be after our twins were born, we decided to try the local Episcopalian church.  Steve had called the priest before this decision and told him of our concerns based on our last experience at St. James.  The priest said that our new church was very open and seemed to mesh with our morals and ideas.  We made the decision to go to St. Peter's, celebrated the twins' christening, and volunteered at coffee hour and Children's Chapel.  It seemed like this was a good place for our family.

I continued to have the same hesitations about God, but wanted to keep an open mind.  I enjoyed meeting new people, especially the ladies who would come up to me to tell me what a lovely family I have.  Our family participated in church celebrations, family picnics and Vacation Bible School.  The babies liked going to the nursery and the older kids seemed to be making some friends.

Last summer there was a national convention of Bishops and other leaders of the Episcopal church who discussed, among other things, whether or not priests could be openly gay and if they had the right to marry homosexual couples.  This sent shockwaves through the Episcopalian church and sparked our priest to write a letter to the congregation informing us that if (paraphrasing) "the Episcopalian church is going to go off a cliff, we don't need to join them."

We never went to St. Peter's again.

Now, I should say here that we didn't just make this decision lightly.  Steve wrote a letter to our priest asking for clarification and there was a bit of dialogue back and forth...we're judging the church...they are judging others...  It became more confrontational because of the word "judge", but the fact is Steve and I just don't agree with our priest on this matter.

Let me say here that I would hate for one of my children to be gay, not because I think it is immoral or a sin to be a homosexual.  Heck, I certainly don't know the Bible very well and certainly not as well as our priest and honestly I don't really care what the Bible says about homosexuality.  I don't want my children to have to face more adversary than necessary in this world and the world isn't necessarily an equal place for people who are openly gay.  If my child was to tell me he/she was gay, I would love them just as much as I did the moment before I was told.  Unconditionally.

What I wonder is if my child would ever "come out" to me if I continued to attend a church which does not believe in equal rights for all?  While I don't think a priest speaks for all of his congregation, the fact we attend a church which would like to leave the Episcopal church and join the more conservative Anglican church may make my children afraid to bring it up to me.  It goes deeper than that for me, but I think I'll just leave it at that.

Again, we were without a church.  Again, I felt burnt and very disenchanted with organized religion.

Again.

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