I’ve been attending the same church in my home town for the past 20 years, since my youngest sister was 6 months old, and it wasn’t until college that I seriously started questioning it. It’s a great church, don’t get me wrong, a lot of people love it. But to me, it’s become stifling. I changed a lot during my four years of college, and I no longer fit at my home church.

During college I started attending a church called Jacob’s Porch that encouraged it’s members to question, to wrestle with God. My college church is where I am challenged, where I find my community, where I find my strongest support and where I find unconditional love and acceptance. I don’t hide any of myself when I attend Jacob’s Porch; I don’t feel like I have to toe a line when I’m there. They know my story and I have never felt any judgment from them because of my story. My home church, though, I would never feel comfortable revealing my whole story. I think people would judge me behind my back. I’m just another face in the crowd there. I no longer share their opinions about toeing the conservative, Republican party line or accept what they say wholeheartedly. I’ve learned to question. But I like going to church, so when I’m in my hometown, I attend church and sit quietly in the attendance and I don’t make waves.

I changed that last Sunday when I threatened not to come back to the church. A couple of weeks ago, after the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, our head pastor spent a good 15 or 20 minutes talking about the tragedy. Good. Great. We should be talking about it; we should be helping the people that are suffering over there. But he has a daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren living there, and he spent the whole talking about them. He talked about how his family had been affected. Not about the hundreds of other people affected, but the four missionaries there from his own family. Look, I know he was scared for his family’s well-being, but by focusing all his attention of them, it was as if he was saying his family needed/deserved prayers more than any other affected person. The next week, our worship minister was preparing to read the first chapter of Job to the congregation, and he pulled out his iPad to do that. Fine, whatever, I support technology. But as he pulled up the chapter to read he starts talking about how great the iPad is, that you can read the Bible on it, and how great iPhones are, too because they let you do so much. I don’t need product placement during my church service–I get pissed off enough when I see it in movies. You know what else is great to read a Bible on? The Bible. We’re in a church; it’s no like we didn’t have any access to an actual Bible. I mean, is Apple now sponsoring our church services? Did he get a free iPad because he’s supposed to plug it during service?

I guess neither of those things are that big of a deal, but I don’t want to be part of a church that is becoming a business, a church that only preaches about what the pastors think is true or important, instead of being open to dialogue, a church that thinks only men should be in positions of leadership. I threatened to stop going after the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. If Japan wasn’t mentioned at my church, after spending 20 minutes talking about Christchurch and the pastor’s specific family there, after the church had made a point to say during multiple services and write in the bulletin that members could specify their tithing contributions to go to the pastor’s family in Christchurch so that family could decide where the money was most needed, if the tragedy that occurred in Japan wasn’t even mentioned, then I was out. I would not be going back. Ever. A church that is so unapologetically hypocritical is poisonous.

The church did mention Japan in our opening prayer. So I was appeased. I debated even blogging about this; I mean, I have some qualms, and one of them is badmouthing a church. But I believe that people should question their churches; we should be discussing our beliefs, not just sitting in chairs or pews, week after week, passively accepting whatever the guy at the pulpit says is fact. I do believe there are some ultimate truths, but I am wary of believing that humans can know those truths completely. My god is not a human, and I don’t think any human can know what God knows. So I don’t accept what any human says about God wholeheartedly. I agree with some preachers, and authors and musicians and artists and average, normal people about what they think about god. I believe some people more than others, I accept some viewpoints as closer to truth than others are, but no preacher is my god. And no preacher should be a god for anyone.

I think one of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned is that we should question. The only way we change and grow and live is by learning and questioning.