Religious nothingness of institutional church

People are not listening to the Church. And it is not because they hate God. It is because they have listened, and they have done what the Church told them to do, and it has left them empty. Could it be that the Western Church today is filled with people who know better, but prefer denial to the pain of facing their religious legends, and thus the pain of finding their way to glory? Could it be that the disinterest of the world in Christianity is owing to the fact that the world sees that denial and the religious nothingness it produces and wants nothing of it?
~ C Baxter Kruger

Yes, I have been reflecting that those in the Christian church circles are stuck in a routine. I remember when I was invited to attend Saturday services at a friend’s church around 2001, I noticed that after the service the people would seem to heave a collective sigh of relief and started talking the usual things they talked about before the service started. It is almost like they needed to get into a certain spiritual state during the service to worship God, and then their religious duty was over when the service was over and they felt free to be themselves again. I remember Baxter Kruger made a similar observation in one of his books, and he wanted to point that God is all the whole working in and through us, and God doesn’t just turn up at a service, and leave us to our own devices when the service ends.

I think more and more people are coming to see through the religious nothingness of the Christian church, and they want to experience the authenticity of spirituality in everyday life, not the kind of facade of religious holiness on a Sunday service or during church programmes. For example, joy and peace can be realised anywhere at any time, not necessarily in a church setting. Similarly, pain and doubt are just as real and to be embraced instead of suppressed in a church setting. People can simply be themselves because we are all already spiritual beings on a human journey and there is no need to try to be spiritual. Hence, people are leaving christianity as they realise God is much greater and more loving and inclusive than what the christian church dogma portrays God to be.

Related post:

How Great is the Divine

About these ads