Filtering Out the Nonsense

I’m an Episcopalian with a Seventh-day Adventist background. Most of the time, I attend a Lutheran church because it’s closer to my home. Occasionally I am a guest preacher at the Presbyterian Church in town when their pastor is away.

I teach world religions at a Roman Catholic college, and recently I was invited to make a presentation on Islam for the local Unitarian Universalist Church. Next year, in early spring, I will be doing a series of three meetings at another church on American denominations.

I’m not a gadfly or church shopper. I like being an Episcopalian. I find theological breathing room in the Episcopal Church. I find a lot of nonsense, too. But isn’t there nonsense in every church? There’s Lutheran and Presbyterian nonsense, Catholic nonsense, Methodist nonsense, Baptist nonsense, evangelical and fundamentalist nonsense, and on and on.

Every church has nonsense in it.

When I teach world religions, I tell the students that no one can swallow any religious tradition whole. We all pick and choose what makes sense to us while filtering out the nonsense, usually by ignoring it. I don’t believe that most people care all that much about theology. Most church members are not theologically astute and do not read theological books. Most people do not join a church because they’ve studied its theology in detail and worked through all the thorny issues.

No, we cannot swallow any religious tradition whole. We all pick and choose what matters most to us, and let the rest roll off.

The Lutheran Church I occasionally attend has great doughnuts and coffee between worship services. I have some wonderful conversations with people. It’s fun. It’s part of Christian fellowship and community and a sense of belonging. People don’t believe in order to belong; they belong in order to believe. It’s like St. Anselm said: “Theology is faith seeking understanding.”

Perhaps the pattern is this: Belonging-Faith-Understanding. And as we mature in faith, we are better able to sort through everything and filter out the nonsense.