Do I disbelieve in church?

My connection with my faith is at an all-time low. Am I reverting to atheism? No, I don’t disbelieve in God. But is there a word for a person who disbelieves in church or religion?

Before the pandemic, I was a very busy church volunteer. Now, I do nothing. Early in lockdown, my church started an initiative encouraging locals to pray. But where was the foodbank? Where was the encouragement to join a mutual aid group? Just pray?

I believe what all of us want now is to feel ‘the peace that surpasses all understanding’. I believe this of both the anti-mask people on my social feed, and those who update daily on how little mask wearing they see. Through coming to Christ and through three years of counselling, I am now starting to see peace as both extremely attainable and exhaustingly limited by our own thinking.

When my church’s online service focuses on worshipping in the storm, or stories of prophets who survived difficult times through faith in God, it can be helpful; but if I am struggling, or in shame, or just locked down in depression, all I see is people managing. I think: All those Old Testament folk, they were better, stronger, more faithful, more disciplined, more obedient…

Commitment-Phobe is a Christian

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This is an extract from an article published in the September 2020 edition of Reform

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