What I go to church for

The Column: 04.28.25

The Supreme Court is taking up the case of right-wing Christian parents who don’t want their schoolkids to be assigned to read storybooks in which gay persons are portrayed as normal, which reminds me of my childhood when my parents wrote to school asking that, for religious reasons, I be excused from gym class for the unit on dancing. So for two weeks, while other students did square dancing and ballroom in the gym, I sat in study hall and did my lessons.

As I recall, it was no big deal. I didn’t feel odd or set apart or estranged. I snuck off to some school dances and found that dancing to Little Richard, the Coasters, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, was pretty free-form, not the waltz or foxtrot or mambo they taught in gym. I saw no moral wrong in bopping around on the dance floor with a girl. I was 17 and becoming my own person.

America has an old tradition of accommodating minorities. My ancestor John Crandall immigrated to Boston in the late 17^th century, preached in the streets, was set upon by angry Puritans, and escaped to Rhode Island where he felt welcome among the Baptists. Quakers found homes in Pennsylvania. Mormons were persecuted in Illinois and made their way to Utah. I live in Manhattan where I see some kosher groceries. The list goes on.

I have idealist friends who wish to shield their kids from a materialistic acquisitive status-conscious conformist culture and so choose to homeschool the kids and live in the woods and not own a TV and discourage exposure to social media. I wish them well though I feel that isolation has its own perils but I do not express an opinion.

My parents believed they were doing good by keeping me off the dance floor but I’d suggest that history class was a more dangerous enemy, which omitted Divine Will from the story of civilization, and also science, which omitted Him as well. I know plenty of people who grew up in strict religious homes and who managed to relax their faith in adulthood, even erase it. Evangelicals who became humanists.

I am part of the shrinking population of churchgoers and I sympathize with my neighbors who prefer to sleep late on Sunday, drink coffee in their pajamas, read the Times and bitch about the stupidity in high places, do the crossword puzzle, and figure out a three-letter word for “self.” I do not feel superior, walking up the steps to the sanctuary in my suit and tie, taking a bulletin from the usher, putting my offering in the basket, and kneeling in the pew. I do not feel proud to be there. Don’t imagine God putting a checkmark by my name. I am aware of my shortcomings. I could list them for you here but there isn’t enough room.

I join my voice to the voices around me in the hymns and prayers and the creed. We praise our Creator and acknowledge His love and give thanks for His gifts, His endless goodness. All week I’ve been walking around inside myself and this hour on Sunday morning is when I disappear and feel joined to the world around me. I think tenderly of those I love and I also pray for my enemies. This is the heart of my faith: love, kindness, charity, sitting with head bowed in a beautiful quiet corner of the biggest busiest city in America, in a Jewish neighborhood, a block north of a Hispanic Catholic church, a Buddhist temple and a Muslim temple and Hindu temple within walking distance, in a city where same-sex couples are a common sight, and I pray for those whom I need and love. Religious doctrine does not cross my mind, not even a wisp or whisper. I feel lightened, lifted, buoyant. We sing the closing hymn, our hands raised on the chorus, “And I will raise them up on the last day.”

I slip out of the pew, I give a fist bump to the deacon who read the Gospel, I thank the priest for the good word, and I head out into Manhattan and walk home. I pass the Hispanic church, parishioners gathered around a priest. I pass the Korean Baptist church. A jerk on a Harley goes blasting past down Columbus Avenue. A chopper full of tourists goes overhead at low altitude, chopchopchopchop, and I send them a silent message: “New York is not about rooftops, it’s about people. Walk around. Maybe come to church.”

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