Churchiness Never Was Happiness

When I moved for dental school, I hoped that I could have a good experience at church. I quickly learned that although there were lots of other students in my ward, the ward itself was rather dysfunctional, which didn’t help the fact that I didn’t have much of a testimony. Several months, later, Salt Lake decided it was time to rearrange the ward boundaries within our stake and I got dumped in a new ward. My new congregation was much better than the old one. But after a few months of attending, I figured out that it didn’t seem to matter which congregation I attended with. I would rather be sitting in a dental school lecture than to attend church. The biggest part of the problem is that I spend most of my time at church chasing my kids. I spend most of my time at home chasing my kids, too, but it is much easier when I don’t have to tell them to shut up and listen to the wonderful messages. It will be several months before I can send my youngest child to the nursery, so I am trying to figure out how to survive church until that time comes. There was a time when I legitimately felt uplifted by every hour of Sunday meetings. I, like the prophet-general Mormon, press forward without faith that things will change.

In Mormonism (and I suspect in other Christian-type traditions), adherents perceive that churchiness leads to godliness. What are some examples of churchiness? I’ll give you a few: attending church meetings, reading religious books, praying, fasting, talking about churchy subjects, converting outsiders to your faith, etc. I think that doing good unto others might belong in this list, but it is sometimes not as visible or inherently churchy as other activities. The truth is, that in my life, attending church, reading scriptures/religious books and praying do not actually help me become the sort of person I would like to become. Maybe that means that I have no interest in becoming a godly person. The more likely scenario is that godliness can be attained by a more direct method: doing good to others, working to overcome personal weaknesses and seeking to right public wrongs like poverty and discrimination. I don’t remember Jesus making a big deal of spending endless hours in church meetings. I don’t remember him saying you need to read the scriptures constantly. I think he suggested that it was worth knowing what the scriptures say, but it’s not like you need to read them every day for an hour. What did Jesus say? Love your neighbor. Forgive your enemies. Do unto others are you would have them to unto you. I’m sure I’m leaving some important stuff out, but the point is that churchiness is the signature of the Pharisees. It doesn’t make me happy and they didn’t seem to be terribly cheerful either. And when I see everyone at church playing games on their phones during the lessons, I suspect that they don’t enjoy church any more than I do.