The virtues of church

I recently wrote three long-ish letters (not e-mails) to three old men at my church in Southern California. All of them are suffering from health problems of varying degrees. If you are so inclined, I'm sure that Jack, Kenji, and Jim would appreciate your prayers. This post is a product of the fond memories and thinking those notes catalyzed.

Sometimes I wish I could say that I'm a Christian because I felt that the Bible was the revealed word of God, or because, after a careful study of all religions and philosophies of life, that I found that this religion most closely aligned to my understanding of morality and justice. In all honesty, I was a Christian because I was born into a family that attended a Christian church - specifically, a United Church of Christ congregation.


But that's not why, in spite of everything, I remain a Christian. I'd have to say that I remain a Christian (in my current incarnation, a United Methodist) because of the people I met along the way.

I can't adequately express, in words or anything else, how much it meant to be around such a loving, warm, and welcoming environment as a child. It's a plus for everyone - for my mother and me, following a complicated and painful divorce from my bipolar father, it was probably critical. Like many only children, I learned to speak with adults; but the specific people in my life at that church made it just like any other group of friends. To me, Jack wasn't an octagenarian who grew up in the (First?) Great Depression - he was simply, undeniably, Jack, a funny, optimistic guy who laughed at my jokes.

Whenever I get tempted to write off previous generations as hopelessly out of touch, ideologically ossified, or otherwise too "different" from me, I remember men like Kenji, a cheerful man who once told me he served in Unit 544 during World War II. I'd told him I'd never head of such a unit. He then pronounced it in Japanese: "go shi shi" (translated, roughly, "go piss").

I remember my uncle, who in spite of (or because) his being a somewhat cranky engineer, found the humor in a bumper sticker I gave him. It read: "Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you're an asshole." As I recall, he immediately replied, "Only the good die young. Us assholes live forever."

And I remember Jim, my golf mentor and buddy, who remains one of the greatest examples to me of the possibilities of both quiet dignity and open kindness coexisting in a single man.

I remember the brunch crowd at St. Paul's United Methodist Church roasting me by, among other things, deliberately giving me horrible dating advice.

Close friends know that I've struggled with defining my relationship with my father. But I consider myself tremendously fortunate that I have had so many wonderful male role models. And the majority of them came from church.

It is entirely possible that I would've met such individuals in Japanese school, or a secular volunteer organization. And I have, in many areas - volunteering, school, Toastmasters, at bars and over the internet. The possibilities for meeting good people are great, greater than my faux-cynicism will permit me to admit. It just so happens that I found mine in a religious setting.

I think humans need a special context to remind us to be kind and humane to each other - and a good church does all this. It provides a safe space. Maybe it's a shame that it takes a special place to remind us of that. Then again, if regular doses of common sense morality mingled with hilarious anecdotes can vaccinate me against asshole-itis for at least half the week, the world is probably better off. (Heaven help us all if it wears out before next Sunday.)

Does judgment happen at church? You bet. If it didn't, we wouldn't spend so much time primping for Sunday service. (Full disclosure: I grew up in a Californian UCC church with a heavy Hawai'ian contingent. Consequently, there were a lot of shorts and Hawai'ian shirts worn at church.) My experience indicates that the Presbyterians and Episcopalians are the most formally dressed, with the United Methodists somewhere inbetween. (Also, naturally, East Coasters are a bit more formal than those of us used to more temperate climes.)

And I've sat in enough church council meetings to know that there are often heated arguments about issues ranging from finance to the role of music.

But there's also a sense of humor that is unknown and unappreciated by people who only see the worst of religion, and only know it secondhand through that particular lens.

At its best, church celebrates curiosity, about your faith and others, about other people, about our place in the world. It's a curiosity that, interestingly enough, is the mark of a good scientist.

Did Ryan just say that going to church will make you a better scientist? The horror.

No - all I'm saying is that when we stop being curious about the world around us, and the people who share it, then we start causing trouble. That's the point where ignorance sets in like quick-drying concrete. That's the point where habit substitutes for commitment. That is the point where prejudice substitutes for understanding, ideology substitutes for judgment, and evil of the most pernicious sort substitutes for compassion. Curiosity is, always has been, and always will be, one of the core principles of both faith and science.

My time in church, with wonderful people I miss dearly, helps informs my views on justice, Christianity in America, and the potential for so many constructed divides and false choices - science/religion, Christianity/homosexuality, Asian/American, morality/relativism - to be shown as simply that. Like life in general, I regard faith, at least my journey, as a series of conversations - with the self, with God, and with others in this world.

And like all conversations, it helps to listen. Now it's my turn - looking forward to your comments.