The search for a church that isn't a church

Transcript

NATHAN ROTT, HOST:

I'm going to hand things over now to my colleague Rachel Martin for another conversation in her series called Enlighten Me.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: If you've listened to a few of these segments, by now, you've heard me talk about the reason that this whole project came about. I don't know what I believe. Don't get me wrong, I am a grown woman who has lived a lot of life at this point, and I have definitely learned some things. I have uncovered deep truths about the world and myself, for that matter. But when it comes to questions of faith, I do not have it figured out. The religion that my parents brought me up with doesn't fit anymore, but I still long for a kind of spiritual community. According to the academic types who study social trends, there's a name for someone like me - a none. Not the Catholic kind - N-O-N-E, as in when it comes to a religious identity, I have none.

According to a study by PRRI, the Public Religion Research Institute, almost 30% of Americans consider themselves to be unaffiliated from any religious institution. This was in 2022. Compare that to 1991, when only 6% of respondents said they were religiously unaffiliated. So there's clearly something going on. America is getting less churchy. But is it getting any less spiritual? I don't think so. I think it just means our faith communities and institutions aren't giving people what they need anymore, which is probably why Perry Bacon's recent column in The Washington Post caught my eye. Perry and I both grew up in really religious households. Both of our fathers preached at the pulpit on Sundays, and going to church was never an option. It was just what we did, what was expected of us.

PERRY BACON: My father helped run the Bible studies at the church, so one of the ways I learned to drive was my father was like, well, I go to this Bible study three days a week, so if you want to drive, you can drive me to Bible study. And so that's what I did.

MARTIN: But like me, Perry has grown away from the church he grew up in. It doesn't reflect the totality of his values anymore. He started feeling distant from his faith when he left his home in Louisville, Ky., to start college at Yale.

BACON: It was New Haven, Conn., so there weren't a lot of Black, charismatic churches to go to.

MARTIN: Right.

BACON: So, you know, I probably went to church, like, one of every three Sundays. Some years I went a lot, some I didn't.

MARTIN: Yeah. And if you didn't go to church on a Sunday during that time, like, did you feel unmoored in any way or did that time get eaten up real quick with, like, whatever? College pursuits...

BACON: No, no, no. I was always very aware of something is not quite right on this Sunday or - and some level of guilt, I would say about, OK, this is - I know where I'm supposed to be and I'm not there. And a little bit of, like - I think I had sort of internalized, OK, it's going to be easy to go to church when you're, like, maybe if I'm back in Louisville or if I'm an adult or if I have kids. There's not as much social pressure. There's no social environment in which church is required here. And so let me sort of write off these four years in a certain way, and I'm sure I'll get back to it afterwards. And that actually ended up happening, so that wasn't necessarily wrong. Yeah.

MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah. So then if we just kind of move through time, as, like, a young, successful adult living in East Coast cities, mainly Washington, D.C., where was your faith at? Was your spiritual identity still evolving? What was happening?

BACON: So evolving - so in my 20s, moved to D.C., and a few of my high school friends were also in D.C. So they - they're white, but their church was, while not being like the one I grew up with, it was multiracial. It didn't have hymnals. There was a lot of enthusiasm. They had, like, a band at the front...

MARTIN: Praise band.

BACON: Praise band. So I felt very comfortable in that environment, actually. And so I - pretty much the first year after college, I met a church that I liked. There was less focus on did God talk to you? - and so on. So the parts...

MARTIN: Right.

BACON: ...Of my childhood religion that I found to be really sort of hard, they - it was much more of one of these nondenominational, more like kind of optimistic Christianity, I almost think of it as. So that was a - it felt a little bit like home because I was in a community. So in some ways, I felt, OK, the college thing was sort of a weird four-year cycle. But...

MARTIN: Right.

BACON: I'm in a church. I'm in a small group, you know, during the week. This is kind of where I thought I would be.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MARTIN: So this is, like, a slow burn up to this question, but, like, what happened, Perry? It sounds like you felt like you belonged. You'd kind of found a place to be, to express that side of yourself, your spiritual self. And now you're like, I'm a none. I'm a nothing. What happened?

BACON: I think, you know, while being Black and having grown up with a Black church and all kinds of experiences like that, the Black Lives Matter movement and the sort of - the ideas around that were often more kind of radical and, you know - and more - and challenging to me. You know, I had been someone who's trying to, like, really work within the system, you know, to kind of taking the Obama-ish route through their career in a certain way of, like, being palatable enough to the powers that be, not talking about racial issues in a very direct way.

And so in that way - and not only with the Black Lives Matter, but the ideas that made sense to me and a lot of the ideas that came out of that were coming from scholars who were not religious. And some of the people I read were secular humanists, or they thought that the Black church actually had some elements that were not very helpful. There was - you know, the church created a level of acceptance of American society as it is instead of challenging it. And so I think that was one part of it.

MARTIN: So you saw a different way to be...

ROTT: A different way to be a Black, moraled (ph)...

MARTIN: ...A Black person in America...

BACON: America, yes.

MARTIN: ...And concerned with social justice and...

BACON: Yes, exactly.

MARTIN: ...Prioritizing those issues.

BACON: Thank you. That's what - yes. And so second thing was - so I was at the church. I was a - they had these - they have small groups at churches like this, where you have - where people come to your house during the week. And you - you're supposed to help build a fellowship. So I was hosting one where, like, it was a men's group. So men would come to my house, and they would - we would read. We would discuss what happened in the sermon. We would have - it was supposed to be kind of a community-building exercise. And so this is, like, 2015, I guess. And so one of the people who was in my group, you know, had lunch with me, and he said, you know, I wanted to be a small group leader myself. And the church said I can't. They said because I'm gay, I can be a member, but I can't lead a group unless I don't...

MARTIN: Right.

BACON: If I'm in any kind of relationship, then I couldn't be a member of - couldn't be a leader of a small group. And I honestly had not spent a lot of time thinking about the church's policies on gay rights because the church had - I was in a church - I was at a church, at this point, that was in Washington, D.C., proper, and it was very pro-immigration, pro-refugees. The pastor talked about how Black Lives Matter is important. So it was pretty liberal, I would say, or pretty progressive on a lot of the issues that I cared about. So I hadn't really noticed, or I hadn't really...

MARTIN: You made an assumption, or you made an assumption.

ROTT: Yeah. I made - and I think a lot of nondenominational churches - 'cause I've spent a lot of time looking into this - don't necessarily - if you go on their website, you have - you'd have a hard time figuring out what their views on gay marriage are. I actually - I've been exploring churches a little bit in both in D.C. and here in Louisville now. And I had to go ask one of the pastors personally, what are your views on this issue? Because I spent a lot of time on their website and couldn't find it. I remember the pastor in Louisville said to me, well, we're welcoming of everyone. We would not do a same-sex wedding. Is that good enough for you?

MARTIN: Wow.

ROTT: So he seemed to know exactly what I was asking.

MARTIN: Yeah.

ROTT: Know - and it sounds like I was not the first person who asked. He said, actually, we would not put this on our website. So again, the goal is to obscure. It's not...

MARTIN: Right.

ROTT: They know there's an audience of people under 50...

MARTIN: It's complicated for them. Right.

BACON: ...Who do not want to go to a church that is anti-gay, but they don't want to show that. So I was struggling at the church I was in to - 'cause I'm in a church that I...

MARTIN: To reconcile all this stuff. Right.

BACON: Yeah. But we were thinking about moving to Louisville anyway, or...

MARTIN: Oh, that's convenient for you. You could just be like...

BACON: And so it was convenient.

MARTIN: Sorry. Peace.

BACON: So it's like - so I didn't have to have - so I knew - so I - in some ways, I was - the church break-up that I was headed toward I didn't have to have. And so we moved. Then I'm in a new old city. So I had - I still had other questions, which is, my church that I grew up in still exists, obviously. It's smaller. So when I get back to Louisville, it wasn't like these questions were unresolved. So...

MARTIN: Right. Even more profound, actually, because you have to make a decision.

BACON: So, yeah. Certainly. Since my belief itself was sort of weak, I - you know, I wasn't - any - you know, I wasn't sure about the Jesus Christ parts of the sermon. So that was parts where I was struggling with, do I believe this? What do I think about this? Also...

MARTIN: So it wasn't just the politics and - or whatever was changing your theology. I mean, you yourself were having kind of existential doubts about the core beliefs of Christianity.

BACON: I was treating Christian as being, like, Jewish in some ways. It's like, I was born into this...

MARTIN: Right. Culturally Christian, yeah.

BACON: I'm sort of culturally Christian. There's no reason to sort of drop it because it's fine. And maybe if I was born in a Muslim family, I'd be a Muslim. So it's like...

MARTIN: Yeah.

BACON: So at this point, it's like, OK, where do I want to land? Pandemic hits. We - the first year, 2020, I watched the church services online on Easter. I'd never missed a church service on Easter. But...

MARTIN: Yeah.

BACON: That year definitely sort of fulfilled - the separation from church was sort of complete.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BACON: You write explicitly that having your daughter, Charlotte (ph), is actually one of the reasons that you have stepped away from organized religion because you don't want to have to explain to her, oh, yes, we believe that, you know, these tenets of the Bible - but these other ones are sort of problematic. And for me, it's the opposite, actually. I grew up in a super religious household, and my dad was also, like, a volunteer assistant pastor. And as a young adult, I fell away from that faith.

But having kids, as a parent, I'm like, you know what? The religion of my parents doesn't fit me anymore. But also, I sort of need help as a parent. Like, I want other people to be involved in talking to my kid about right and wrong and the nature of forgiveness and humility. It's like I need another team. And for me, my point of view is, like, a church was an easy place to get that. Plus, like, here's some organized volunteer activities and, you know, coffee hour where you meet your neighbors. It's just, like, one-stop-shopping. And so my kids were really the impetus for me to find a church, and I haven't been able to. But for you, it seems like it was the reason you stepped away.

BACON: Well, it's both. It's like, I want all that stuff, too. So if they - if I can find a church - and I'll - look, (inaudible) exists where the Sunday school - they have a Sunday school, but it's very low on the here are the beliefs of Jesus and very high on the community part. That's kind of what I'm looking for. And I'm guessing if I, like, went to 30 churches in Louisville, I could probably find a Sunday school that's sort of low on the Jesus rose from the dead and high on the we should be compassionate, caring people. And that's kind of - I'm guessing - I would just like that to exist in a way where I could just find it quickly as opposed to I - my piece ran - I've been emailed by 15 churches in Louisville saying, we are perfect for you.

MARTIN: I'm sure (laughter).

BACON: And so I - and I'm guessing probably one of them is. But I do think the community part will be helpful for Charlotte, too. Yes.

MARTIN: Right. Do you, though, in some way, to even loosely attend or loosely wear the identity even of a cultural Christian, don't you sort of need, like, the resurrection part or it loses its backbone altogether?

BACON: I have not thought through this part in great detail, but I think that's probably.

MARTIN: This is also vexing me. Yeah.

BACON: Yeah - is the - yeah, the resurrection part. So one version is what you said - is, like, can you be a Christian who is sort of culturally Christian? I think another route is to - maybe I could be the recruiter for the Unitarians in Louisville or something. You know, that - you know, I'm not - I don't think that that's out of the possibility either. Yeah.

MARTIN: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BACON: Even though I'm Black, I'm in a very white, liberal environment. So my neighborhood is pretty white. And there's a farmers market that my daughter and I go to every Saturday that is from, like, March to November. And so...

MARTIN: I love that you caveat that. Like, that's, like, the whitest activity - going to, like, the farmers market (laughter).

BACON: No, no, no, no, no. Well, the reason I say that is because - I mean, I'm sure I should care about buying fresh vegetables more, but I really do not go there to shop at all. I go there because we see the same people almost every week and, therefore, we talk to them. And I know their kids, and they know Charlotte. And it ends up having the same sort of kind of functional - it has that same - it ends up being that sort of function as like...

MARTIN: Farmers market is your church?

BACON: Yeah, I'm getting close to them - I'm not going to repeat that sentence or say yes to it precisely. But it has ended up having some of the sort of community functions that I'm looking for. And I now think of it that way as, like, we - I really do try to go every week. And we're going to spend an hour here. We're going to talk to people here. And we're going to hear what people talk about. And some of that - and some - there are some people we probably pretty much only see there.

MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah.

BACON: So it has become a little bit of a community. And I think that's the kind of thing that I'm thinking a lot about is like, OK, so are there - I think I'm much more interested in, like, community spaces. I think the sacred spaces thing I haven't totally figured out yet.

MARTIN: Yeah. It's the community that's really at the heart of it for you. It is a community of shared values that you miss.

BACON: Yes.

MARTIN: Are you still searching?

BACON: Yes.

MARTIN: Yeah.

BACON: Well...

MARTIN: Oh. Unclear.

BACON: I don't think I'm being unreasonable, but I'm getting close to - the church that I want to go to, I think, could exist, but maybe doesn't currently. And rather than investing in a church that I think - I don't want to get up again in 10 years and we invested in the wrong church. How did I forget to ask what their gay rights views were before I joined? You know, I would rather not do that. And I think I might try to figure out - spend a lot of time thinking about, how do we build a community of people with shared values? What are the way to do's (ph) that? How - what are the ways to educate Charlotte about those values? And what are the ways to make sure that we're living to those values ourselves? And so think about those three questions, answer them, and be a little - and be maybe open to the idea that maybe those answers are not going to come through a place open from 10 to 12 on Sunday.

MARTIN: Perry, it was so great to talk with you. Thank you for spending so much time doing it and having this conversation. I really appreciate it.

BACON: Thanks, Rachel. Appreciate it.

ROTT: You can hear more of Rachel Martin's Enlighten Me series right here, same time next week. And you can find past conversations on npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.