Do I Belong in Church?

Church communities, I believed for most of my life, were a place of belonging. And some churches, I still believe, truly are. However, in the past few years, as I’ve begun to ask more questions and look from new perspectives at what I was taught as absolute truth, I discovered just how much I had confused belonging with fitting in.

Before I get any further, it’s time for some definitions. For my purposes, belonging is the state of being fully accepted as you are, with no expectation put upon you to conform in any way that is opposed to who you are. On the other hand, fitting in requires making one or more inauthentic changes in order to meet others’ expectations of who you should be. 

The very picture of Jesus on which I was raised is based on fitting in, yet it was presented to me as full acceptance. The authentic Amy, I learned, was not who I might understand or imagine myself to be, but actually who God said I was. Yet the only way to ascertain God’s opinion, was to trust what other people told me. This all left me with the twisted view that while I couldn’t trust my own perception about myself, I must trust the judgment I got from others, particularly those in authority over me.

Maybe you can already recognize how problematic this method of self-conception is. If not, let me be clear. I was married for 15 years to a man I had been taught had authority over me. When he projected his own manipulation onto me, I believed I was somehow being unconsciously manipulative. When he repeatedly beat the drum of personal responsibility, I saw myself as irresponsible. When he told me he wasn’t comfortable making himself vulnerable with me, I felt I must be untrustworthy. The lessons of obedience to my husband as to God, combined with the insistence that God (through others) knew me better than I knew myself led directly to my accepting emotional abuse as godly submission to authority. My religious indoctrination groomed me to be an unwitting, but willing victim.

Is there any way to reconcile the Church family I grew up with, the faith I have studied and practiced and loved . . . with the abuse I have experienced and seen in so many other ways? The truth is, I have no idea whether I can or not. I stopped calling myself Evangelical two presidential elections ago. Three years ago, I stopped using the term Christian without further clarification, such as, “many Christians I know would say I’m not.” Last year, I landed on “Christian-leaning agnostic,” which is still the closest terminology I know to label myself. I haven’t been to church since 2021, and the last time I went, my anxiety spiked so high, I couldn’t even tell you the topic of the homily. 

I have wanted to go back. Many times over the last several years, I’ve asked myself, can’t I just set aside everything I have seen and done and learned; simply deny myself and take up my cross to be welcomed back into the fold where I once thought I belonged? Yet even before I finish the question, I know my answer is no. I can’t. I can no longer worship a God who would rather have his children pretend to fit in than honestly belong. 

Which leaves me in this awkward, uncomfortable in-between, neither fully accepted nor thoroughly excluded. And yet, there are moments I realize, this space on the edges is actually quite familiar. One thing I know about fitting in rather than belonging is it only takes one step in what other people decided is the wrong direction to go from celebrated insider to unwelcome pariah. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s not pretty. 

So, I stepped out on my own terms, and I don’t quite know where I belong. But, here I am. I’ve made some friends along my journey who are also here amid the borders. And maybe where we belong is the place we’re creating together, where we each define ourselves and accept one another, just as we are, and the only practice of our fledgeling faith is love. And maybe that’s not actually so far away from Jesus as I’d thought.

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