CHURCH, ATTENDANCE, CHRISTIANITY

Since my blog has been very much neglected, the few who still read probably don't know that I stopped attending church about two years ago. The physical struggle was just too much. Since I'd been a church-goer all my life, what surprised me was that I didn't miss church at all except for the hymns. I very much enjoyed congregational singing.

I pray at home and meet God in my house and in my heart, and that seems enough for now. I try (and often fail) to live out the heart of the Gospel, which is love, as Jesus preached in the Two Great Commandments:

Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:36-40)

and the Golden Rule:

‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.' (Matthew 7:12)

Jesus was only ever a Jew. He was born a Jew, and he died a Jew. His teachings are rooted in the Hebrew Bible, and he never intended to found a religion. One of my touchstone verses in the Hebrew Bible is Micah 6:8:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Love, kindness, and humility are what Christianity is about, or it is nothing to me.