I found the following article last year, and am posting it here. I have no idea who wrote it, or when. It appears to be written by a non-Christian, but for all I know, it could have been written by a disenfranchised Christian. But whoever wrote it, it says a lot of things that I think and feel, and so I am posting it. Whether you like what is written below or not, please recognize that there are millions of people out there (both believers in Jesus and religious people) who empathize with what this person wrote. So here it is:

I went to church this Sunday; it was the first time in over a year and I was reminded once again why I will never be able to call myself a Christian. The people there were quite handsome, I’ll give them that. The building was beautiful, a masterpiece of architecture with a marble foyer and picturesque stained glass. There was greenery in every corner, which was about the only indication of life in the whole place. I sat on a very comfortable bench next to well-dressed people with plastic smiles full of bright white teeth.

The man in charge of music made us sing the same chorus over and over until everyone seemed to have convinced themselves that God was pleased, and then we all were told to greet one another. While an organ played some little diddy, a man extended his hand and asked me how I was, to which I replied, “Fine.” This happened three more times before I decided to tell the truth. “How are you this morning?” asked a perfect specimen of a young lady. “Horrible. Awful.” I replied. Her answer to my answer? “Well, praise God.” She never even heard me.

A few moments later a man approached the podium and talked about the great financial need of the church – apparently God was broke this weekend – and then he told us to give an offering as the Spirit led us. The Spirit didn’t say nothing to me so I didn’t give a dime when they passed the buckets – yes, an actual bucket – my way.

At this point it struck me that I had heard about the church, about money, about pastor so-and-so, but nobody had mentioned anything about Jesus. Seriously, not one word about their Christ. Oh, well, what did I care? I mean, after all, they were the Christians, not me.

Still holding out hope that the day would not be a wash, I listened to their preacher as he asked us to turn to the book called Matthew. He read about Jesus telling the disciples to not worry about anything because God would feed and clothe them. Nothing wrong with that in my book. For the next fifteen minutes he told me and the other 500 plus people that everything was good, and not only good, but getting better. He told me not to judge anyone because they weren’t to judge me.

His big thought of the day was that we ought to take a meal to whoever was our next door neighbor and tell them that Jesus cares for them and so does the church. Hmmmmm. My neighbor’s name is Russ and he is heavily tattooed, curses like a sailor, and beats his wife every other weekend after sucking down a bottle of Jack Daniels. Somehow I didn’t think that fried chicken, apple pie, and a hugs-and-kisses message from Jesus was really going to impact him so I chose not to take the preacher’s advice.

At the end of his little chat, we all bowed our heads and reminded ourselves of how good God is, how good we are, and how good it is to be good. Funny…in spit of being reminded how grand is my state of being, I left feeling rather bad.

Actually, it didn’t even rise to level of bad, it was the saturation of nothingness… irrelevance… and needlessness. I wondered if anyone else had caught this bug during the last hour or waste. What would have made the difference? I’m really not sure. Maybe a tear, maybe a glitch in the flow of the ultra-smooth program, maybe a torn page in the hymn book to let me know that imperfections were allowed in this church. I mean, the babies didn’t even cry, for goodness sake. Maybe a preacher with less of an ego and more of a soul might have helped.

I don’t know; I honestly went there hoping to find this Jesus that my friend tells me I so desperately need. All I found was a group of mannequins who resemble a Hollywood cast party more than a group of people with an in-road to God. I’ll take Jesus any day that I can find him, but you can keep your Christianity. I mean, I can find insignificance in life without God and His polished posse.

I may not be a Christian, but I can tell you one thing, the only time I know of that Jesus went to a place of worship like the one I attended last Sunday, it is my understanding that he turned over their tables, called them thieves, and ran them all out so that they could think about what the house of God was really supposed to be. Maybe if I had seen that from someone this past Sunday, Christianity would be more appealing.