I'm 72 and attended church every time the doors opened until I left my first wife around 28. Later my new wife thought our kids needed some religion and we tried a few churches several years ago. They're all grown now. Whatever loss or sense of inadequacy they ever felt didn't last. I often miss the community and support that a church family provides, but the rigid doctrinaire demands, and range of acceptable beliefs were unattractive, to say the least. We were Church of Christ, a rather strict, conceited sect I eventually learned. "Only ones going to heaven" kind of attitude, evangelical, missionaries in Africa, etc. The Prince of Peace was always the message, though. Deacons passed the plate, not the ammunition. My mom was bad about taking in strays, messed up foster kids in our little house, and every kind of good work. That world no longer exists. People are not generally good anymore, and the law/culture is morally degraded beyond redemption, in my lifetime at least. I understand that a lot of churches today are faced with a lower class of human being. Drugs, abuse of every kind, economic misery, drunkeness and crime, a sense of entitlement. I don't judge people like Pastor Booger who carry guns in church and try to help these folks. I am skeptical of any success with such lost souls. It is appalling what can and did happen here, just down the road from my perfect little world that is no more. I may have failed to express those concerns and criticisms in a helpful manner. For that, I apologize.
