Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

Author:Donald Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

Church

How I Go Without Getting Angry

IT SHOULD BE SAID I AM AN INDEPENDENT PERSON. I don’t like institutionalized anything. I don’t like corporations. I am not saying institutions and corporations are wrong, or bad; I am only saying I don’t like them. Some people don’t like classical music, some people don’t like pizza, I don’t like institutions. My dislike might stem from a number of things, from the nonpersonal feel I get when I walk into a corporate office or the voice-mail system I encounter when I call my bank. It might be the nonengaged look on every fast-food worker’s face or the phone calls I receive in the middle of dinner asking me what long-distance carrier I use. Those people never want to just talk; they always have an agenda.

My dislike for institutions is mostly a feeling, though, not something that can be explained. There are upsides to institutions, of course. Tradition, for example. The corridors at Harvard, rich with history, thick with thought, the availability of good, hot Starbucks coffee at roughly thirty locations within five miles of my home. And what about all those jobs? Without the corporate machine, where would people work? I suppose we need them. The institutions. The corporations. But mostly I don’t like them. I don’t have to like them either. It’s my right.

I don’t like church, either, for the same reason. Or I should say I didn’t like church. I like attending a Catholic service every once in a while, but I think that is because it feels different to me. I grew up Baptist. I like watching religious television every once in a while. It’s better than Comedy Central. I want to study psychology so I can sit in front of religious television and figure out these people’s problems. For a while I was very fascinated with televangelists. I couldn’t afford a television ministry but I had a computer, so I would go into Christian chat rooms and try to heal people. It was funny at first, but it got boring.

Some of my friends have left their churches and gone Greek Orthodox. I think that sounds cool. Greek Orthodox. Unless you are Greek. Then it sounds like that is where you are supposed to go, as though you are a conformist. If I were Greek, I would never go to a Greek Orthodox church. If I were Greek, I would go to a Baptist church. Everybody there would think I was exotic and cool.

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