Why some churches turn people against religion

I love God, not church greed
By GEORGE LOUIE BROGDON IV

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

We Americans are not “losing our religion,” as syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts charges. Our religion is losing us.

In a March 18 column, Pitts cited a 2008 survey suggesting Americans have been moving away from organized religion for the last two decades.

Pitts blamed perverse church scandals, predatory preachers, violence in the name of religion and intolerant messages as the demons driving this departure from the divine.

While harmful, the problems I and many of my fellow college students see are much more basic.

It is not because priests are playing doctor with the altar boys that my generation is leaving the church. It’s because clergymen are playing politician with our country.

Jerry Falwell’s bygone “Moral Majority” is not our majority. And the unholy union of evangelical Christians and the once-sensible Republican Party has confused the principles of both groups — and their followers.

It is not because a slew of shepherds have built expensive palaces on the backs of their flock. It is because churches have built palaces for themselves. How many multimillion-dollar megachurches did Christ — or Muhammad — need to attract people or do the works of their God, the God of Abraham?

It is not because religious zealots are spilling the blood of the innocent in the name of their God. And it is not because some religious leaders spread messages of persecution and bigotry.

As a 24-year-old product of a Henry County public education — and maybe a few too many years at the University of Georgia — I have read enough history to know that we have long used religion to manipulate people and justify killing them.

I was blessed with a steadfast and loving Methodist upbringing in McDonough. I left the church, driven away by forces less extreme than the actions of Eric Rudolph or the tragic events of 9/11, both of which Pitts cited.

I have vivid memories of Sept. 11, 2001, when it seemed all the air had been sucked out of Union Grove High School in one giant gasp, and every television in the building flashed images of smoke and fire as our teachers — some not much older than I am now — stood quietly, heads bowed, pleading with their God for the courage and wisdom to explain to frightened teenagers what was happening.

I remember the prayer circles — people not close before but now unabashedly coming together to seek guidance from a higher power during dark hours. If there was one comfort that came from that tragedy, it was that people could lean on their faith, and their fellow man, in time of need.

No, my disenchantment with organized religion began on a sunny Sunday morning, in the same pew that my family always sat in at our Methodist church.

My church, like many others, had become too large for our space. And in the grand tradition of Methodism, a committee was formed and a fund-raising drive was kicked off to build a bigger and better, multimillion-dollar house of God.

Suddenly, some Sundays were devoted to numbers and figures, charts and graphs, costs and benefits and losses and gains — not piety and devotion, charity and compassion, humility and service or love for thy neighbor.

As these Sabbath day negotiations went on, even at 16, I thought of the 21st chapter of Matthew, the 11th chapter of Mark, and the 19th chapter of Luke — the only time Christ was angry, driving the merchants out of the temple.

Eventually my church — the church of my confirmation — split in two.

I realized then that churches could be bought and sold just like anything else. Our church had become a company and its congregation the shareholders. I wondered how many shares God still held.

I don’t attend church regularly anymore, but I do speak with God every day. On occasion when I feel particularly lost or troubled, I sneak into the Methodist church in Athens. I have to get in through the office entrance, because the doors to the sanctuary usually are locked.

I see this and other multimillion dollar churches all over our state, equipped with gymnasiums, baseball fields, projector screens and state-of-the-art sound systems.

Then I think of what they cost — in pennies and people. The pennies could have bought clothes for the naked or food for the hungry. The people could have given help to the helpless or given care to the sick.

It did not take a big scandal to drive me away from the church — just a pledge drive.

• George Louie Brogdon IV is a student at the University of Georgia.

VIA