Why people don't go to church (or synagogue, etc)

Image via WikipediaDo you regularly attend religious services? If you do, you may have some misconceptions about why others do not. If you don't, see if you don't recognize what I am talking about here.

I recently ran across a video advertising a church by talking about why people don't attend. It was interesting to see what they thought were the big reasons. I don't think the reasons they gave are poor, just incomplete.

If religious institutions cannot or will not see the light by accepting and responding what really keeps people away from their doors, they are going to have smaller and smaller numbers who tend to look, think and sound alike.


To quote Guy Kawasake from his book Enchantment, "A diverse team helps make enchantment last, because people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and skills keep a cause fresh and relevant. By contrast, when a naked emperor runs a kingdom of sycophants and clones, the cause moves toward mediocrity."

Reconciling tradition and contemporary insight: The role of the church

This is part of a series of essays exploring ways to honor religious tradition while making its message accessible and relevant to people today. It isn't officially endorsed by any group, it is an attempt to spark people to move forward with their faith. It draws on another essay sketching the outlines of two visions of the Christian message.

Too often we see important elements and individuals in religion reduced to lists of rules and theological reflections. The overly familiar images and language becomes sterile, and they make the way we speak or think of God lazy: "Almighty God", "in the name of Jesus", "who with the Father and the Holy Spirit", etc. Many have an idea that they should use these things because they are Christian, but what if we took away those convenient, easy and familiar words and the handy reactionary assumptions of theology that they hide?

Because some overarching themes became so ingrained and taken for granted in major swaths of the Christian traditions, people just assume what terms like sin and holiness mean and never really bother to explore them beyond the impression the receive from the environment in which their beliefs were formed. But what if there is more to it? What if a failure to take into account the original context of an idea or to ask how it might have been expressed today isn't just lazy, it shows a disrespect for the idea itself. It also means many people will find the idea sounds outdated or irrelevant, no matter how much its proponents shout and stamp their feet.

Let's continue from where we left off  and examine how a mystical approach to the identity, life and passion of Jesus can inform us about the Gospel and the role of the Church.