Amen? Amen.

I haven’t been to church in more than a month. It’s not that I’ve been actively avoiding it – aside from one arbitrarily skipped Sunday, vacation and other commitments have conspired to keep me away. What I’m conflicted about is my attitude towards religion, which, lately, has been fairly apathetic.

Nothing about Westmoreland has changed – the people there are still exceptionally welcoming, admirably involved in the community, and dedicated to pursuing social justice with a progressive bent that closely mirrors my own views – yet I still find myself growing increasingly distant. Forgive me if it seems like my feelings are a little schizophrenic, but I suspect that this latest bout of uncertainty has little to do with Westmoreland itself. I still believe that I’ve found, in that church, a wonderful community well worth joining. It is the larger issue of God and religion that is currently vexing me.

When I first wrote on this topic, I expressed confusion over the role of religion in my life. Though I’ve attended services for more than seven months now, none of that root uneasiness has really vanished. I’ve learned quite a bit about theology and I feel more comfortable now with the idea of church than I ever have in the past. Yet as the novelty of being a part of this new community has faded, I’m reminded more and more of many of the things that made me skeptical of religion in the first place.

My thoughts on this are illustrated quite well by a recent episode of This American Life, in which Dan Savage lambasts the Catholic Church for driving him away from religion with its seemingly backwards stance on many issues, despite a strong desire on his part to believe. To me, the most moving passage follows Savage’s revelation that, since his mother’s death, he’s been tempted to put aside his reservations and return to the church after decades away.

But when I am tempted, when I feel like maybe I could go through the motions, return to the sacraments, take what comfort I can, the pope goes to Africa and says that condoms spread AIDS. Or an archbishop in Brazil excommunicates a Catholic woman for getting her nine year old daughter an abortion, but not the Catholic man that raped the nine year old girl. Or I contemplate how the church views me and the two people I love most in the world: my boyfriend of 14 years and our 11 year old son, and I think “I can’t even think this.”

Though, like Savage, organized religion sometimes offends me, I am as much to blame for my conflicted feelings as the church. Just this past weekend, I attended a beautiful wedding ceremony in the rural mountains of Pennsylvania. The minister’s televangelist-style sermon was, objectively speaking, a little ridiculous. But even without the corny delivery, exaggerated “Amen? Amen”s, and the repeated emphasis on marriage being between a man and a woman, there is little chance I would’ve taken him seriously. I have this problem nearly every time I encounter a church official, be it at weddings, funerals, or on TV. For some reason, I involuntarily recoil from these people, assuming (often incorrectly) that their views are irreconcilably different from my own.

This borderline closed-mindedness leads me to snicker at things like little red pew pencils emblazoned in gold with the phrase “Jesus Never Fails” and roll my eyes at overly long prayers. Perhaps worst of all, however, this immaturity is not restricted to unfamiliar settings. Once, at Westmoreland, I had to fight down laughter when a member of the choir sang a solo titled “He Touched Me.” I realize that, to most churchgoers, this absolutely reeks of blasphemy, but that’s certainly not my intent. It would be one thing if I were a stereotypical, self-assured liberal atheist, confident in my views and content to engage in occasional Bible-mocking. But instead I’m struggling to fit God into my life – a confused 23 year old who happens to find some aspects of organized religion in modern society both anathema and irrepressibly humorous.

This contradiction is a problem, and I don’t know how to make it go away. I can accept that I will never agree with the Pope’s beliefs on social issues. The United Church of Christ is extraordinarily progressive, and reasonable people across all faiths are able to look past the very literal interpretations of religion favored by many extreme right wingers. But I don’t know how to change what’s inside me, or even whether or not I should be trying.

The last time I had dinner with Rev. Bob Maddox, he tried to reassure me, explaining that many members of the church community have unanswered questions about God and that my uncertainty was not at all unusual. This is, of course, somewhat comforting and one of the reasons I’m so grateful for my time at Westmoreland to date. But I cannot shake the sense that I’m acting disingenuously, going to church, reciting the Lord’s prayer, taking Communion. Though I feel strongly that religion should not be an exclusive experience, this does not shield me from the fear that I do not belong. Who am I to sit in church every week, if I cannot definitively answer whether or not I believe in God? I want to, but is that enough? I don’t know the answer to these questions.