Church

It is almost Sunday and every Sunday the topic on my mind is church. I have not attended regularly for a little over six years, but I am a Christian. I feel bad about not going to church. Not because my salvation depends on it or anything (it doesn’t) or because pastors say I should go (they do), but because I genuinely want to be there. I used to enjoy going to church, but so much has happened in those six years that have left me bitter and even angry at the church. Note: The church and not God. The two entities are separate.

The primary reason for my anger and bitterness is, at the risk of sounding like Holden Caulfield, because the church is full of phonies. I use phony rather than hypocrite because in my mind they conjure up different images. Saying Christians are hypocrites has also become too cliché to mean anything to me. It seems like the go to excuse for everyone who wants to avoid church. We all say things and do the opposite. Everyone does this, not just Christians. We are all hypocrites. No one is perfect. However, a phony, to me, implies an almost conscious decision to be that way. They are aware of their weaknesses and they choose to lie or cover them rather than deal with them. Phonies always have a million excuses as to why they are doing the right thing even if it is wrong.

There are a countless things that the church does that make me think of them as phonies, but the one that is really on my mind is their lack of acceptance for the disabled. They don’t mind if the person is in a wheelchair. They love that in fact. They will put them on the bulletins and billboards just to show how accepting they are, but it’s a lie. I have a four year old autistic son and from my experience, people are not accepting at all.

For the first year or so of my son’s life I attended a church in a small town in Canada. It was a nice church full of nice people. In fact, the church even had a few great people. But it also had its fair share of phonies and they kind of ruin it for everyone. One such person told me that I needed to force my toddler to be quiet and sit down. The pastor had told me my son was okay running around in the back of the church. They had no nursery or place to take my son (it was a very small church) and so the only way I could attend was to have him play in the back. I eventually quit going to that church because of the many rude comments.

I then moved to Fargo, ND. I was excited to be moving to a larger city. It was no Orlando, FL where I used to live, but it was big enough to find a church— or so I thought. My son and I have tried about 4 different churches and each time they tell us that he cannot go to Sunday school with the other kids his age because he is too much work. They are always polite about it. They are always phony. They never kick us out. They never tell me to my face that my child is not good enough. They say that he is too loud and disruptive to be in Sunday school, but he is welcome to sit with me in the service and I am welcome to endure the angry glares of people who do not understand. People who will tell me that autism is an excuse for bad parenting and that my son would be better with stricter discipline. These ignorant phonies don’t care about the struggles I endure on a daily basis. Trust me; discipline is the least of worries.

My son has no visible disability, but it was evident that there was something different about him from a very young age. The churches could ask for an extra volunteer, but it is easier to simply have me leave. Like I said, I would rather them come out and say it. Don’t paint it with kindness. If my child cannot be in Sunday school, he cannot be at the church. They know it when they say it. A friend said I should hire a babysitter. In other words, I should pay to attend a church that tells me my child is not good enough. I don’t think so. And I can’t help but feel this is not the way Jesus intended church. It seems pretty on the outside, but that façade can change very quickly if you don’t fit into their cookie cutter mold.