The Church

“You would come to Mom and ask her the most annoying questions,” Karen says. “You were like six years old, and you’d come out and say something like ‘What does “the” mean?’” My sister is re-telling a story I’ve heard quite often. “Do you remember that?” 
 
“I do!” I reply. “And I stand behind my question. It was clearly the mark of a young lover of words.” I’m mostly serious in my defense of my childhood self. 

“It was clearly the mark of an annoying little sister,” she counters. “Who asks that kind of question?! What kind of kid wants to know what ‘the’ means?” I know she’s teasing by this point in our lives, so I take no offense. 

“My kind of kid, obviously.” 

Most of us, including me, don’t think about “the” very often as adults because it serves a function more than having a meaning. It can’t stand by itself. It’s a definite article, like “a” is an indefinite article,” so if I say someone is “the best friend” rather than “a best friend,” it means something different. 

OK, don’t worry. This blog post isn’t all about the word “the.” Or parts of speech. Or grammar and usage. It could be, because it turns out that young Jennifer’s question is a profoundly interesting one—to people like me—but not to most, and that’s ok.   

Also, fair warning: don't think about words like “the” too much or you may start to become aware of something that is automatic in your speech and that can feel strange. 

No, this post isn’t about “the,” not exclusively. It’s about how words sometimes feel automatic, but probably shouldn’t be. It’s about how words we use carelessly sometimes are layered with meaning for us and our listeners.  

For me “church” is one of those words.  

Lots of people say they’re “going to church” and mean a physical building. Many people talk about “church” as a set of beliefs. And some people refer to “the church” and mean there ought to be only one, that only one is correct. For me, that’s where these two small words, packed with so much meaning, become problematic. 

When I wrote my dissertation—the book-length manuscript I had to write to earn my PhD in English—I wrote a lot about religion. My research focused on the ways that 19th-century female writers in England talked about women entering the ministry. It isn’t surprising then that my first sentence talked about “the church.” The problem was, what church did I mean?  

I was raised to believe there was one true Church, the Roman Catholic. But in my dissertation, all about novels written in England, the church is the Anglican Church. And there were lots of other Christian churches I was going to be writing about. 

So I had to put in a footnote explaining what I meant by “the church.”  

In the first sentence. 

It felt a little silly. I couldn’t even get one sentence in without having to try to explain what I meant. But powerful words are like that.  

St. Andrew's Catholic Church in Granite Falls, MN, the first church I attended regularly

If you had said to me when I was a young child that we were going to church, I could only have imagined St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Granite Falls, MN. By the time I was a teenager, if you had talked to me about “the Church,” I would have assumed you meant Roman Catholicism. As an adult, I learned that most believers think of their organized religion as “the church,” often as in “the only one.” By the time I wrote that dissertation, I understood how slippery the word “church” is, how despite what I suspect Jesus wanted (wholeness and unity), we have splintered Christianity into a hundred different paths, all claiming to be the one. 

For my dad, Roman Catholic equaled “the Church,” with a capital “C” even. He couldn’t see it any other way, even though he talked and wrote at length about how imperfect that church was, even though that church and its leaders hurt him profoundly and deeply with their structures, rules, and exclusions.  

When I began to practice in an ELCA (Lutheran) church, I know my dad wasn’t worried for my immortal soul or anything like that. I know that because he had talked to me about his respect for other faiths, including Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and more. We had read about and talked about what we can learn from each other.  

Still, for him, none of these were “the Church” (or “the Religion”), so for him it was devastating when I went out of bounds.  

I love my current church, Bethel Lutheran in Menominee, MI. I love the congregation’s care for each other. I love the building itself, a small but somehow still grand church built by Swedish immigrants to the Northwoods.  

I tell Jason, “I’m going to church to practice organ,” and entering the building alone feels very familiar. I’ve done so thousands of times at different churches and in different Christian denominations. I’ve played organ for Catholics and Lutherans and Episcopalians and Baptists and Presbyterians and members of the United Church of Christ. And since there were all sorts of folks in attendance, I know I’ve also played organ for members of the Jewish faith, Muslim faith, Hindu faith, and for some atheists and agnostics.  

All the members of the various churches told their loved ones, “Let’s go to church” and some of them probably saw it as “the Church.” And of course, some said “Let’s go to mosque, or to temple, or to nature.” I wonder sometimes how much each person thought about unity and division, about difference and connection, about faith and belief.  

I think sometimes I am the best version of myself when I am furthest away from my dad’s belief that there is “the Church” and then everybody else. I think I am the best version of myself when I remember and seek a faith in something larger than myself that calls me to be a better person—to love more and be more compassionate—not to exclude or divide or feel superior or set up hierarchies where someone wins and others are wrong.  

That’s not easy. It’s easier to just “go to church” and feel like I’ve found “the church” for me. It’s so easy to feel like my best fit for spirituality is the best fit for everyone.  

I’m clearly not a very good evangelist or promoter for my church as the one and only. I’m also quite skeptical of those who are. And that meant, years ago, that my dad and I had a fundamental disagreement that led to a four-year separation, one I don’t regret. My dad couldn’t understand how I could leave the one and true Church—and I couldn’t figure out how or why he stayed. Ultimately, when we came back together, we just didn’t talk about it much. This rich vein of conversation about our faith lives, something we had discussed so much before, was mostly closed off, all because we couldn’t get past whether it was “a church” or “the church.”  

What a shame.  

I use the loss of what would have been rich conversations to spur me to be better at valuing other religions and other veins of Christianity. Yet I am still wary of those who won’t or can’t or don’t strive to look beyond their own denomination. And I am troubled by those who say they belong to “the Church” and mean the only one that matters, especially if in doing so they limit membership, potential salvation, or roles.  

So maybe I’m not as open to other religions as I think. That act of exclusion from an organized religion is pretty common, even within members of my own current religion.  

In moments of doubt, it’s easy to throw up my hands and say it’s all nothing and I should stop worrying about it and just go live my life, being the best person I can be.  

In moments of faith, I look forward to a time after death when all of this makes sense. 

And in the in-between moments, when I have neither strong faith nor absolute doubt—which is most of the moments in my life—I am left thinking about the power of two simple words, words I wish we all would use more carefully, words that take us to a physical space, yes, but could take us to profound reflections on what divides us and why. In my mind, I go to church and wonder where that leads me.