A letter from a twice-a-year Christian

a few words from those who show up on festival Christian days and ignore the rest of the Christian calendar

Today is Easter Sunday, the culmination of the Jesus story and the most important day on the Christian calendar. Without Easter, Christmas is meaningless. Upon reflecting on the possibility that I would be spending one of my favorite holidays outside a church I felt real sadness. Growing up Mormon, Christmas wasn’t always celebrated on Christmas Day in church because of its calendar placement; but Easter is always a Sunday and at least most of those Sundays was spent commemorating Christ’s resurrection, at some level. For a few years I had actively pursued the Episcopal community, serving, speaking, and learning as much as I could in order to be part of it. But I was reminded last year that every church has requirements for fellowship and full participation, even when they profess a fully welcoming theology.

So I spend most Sundays with family, with my work family, or in nature trying to make sense of the call of those why cry “return!” but conveniently avoid proclaiming the fine print of how that could happen. In the recent LDS General Conference, Elder S. Mark Palmer gave this call of return with a healthy serving of guilt, gaslighting, with the affirmations to the faithful and the corporate organization that they don’t need any kind of change; this is the common way Mormonism calls people back to pews. And I was reminding of it today when I sat in a local Episcopal congregation while an animated and dedicated priest called all the “Christmas/Easters” to show up on all the other Sundays. He said, “we need you!” He’s right, Jared Halverson is right, they’re all right, they all need us. But until the organizations drop their rigid requirements for participation, valuing loyalty above morality, the Christianity in America will continue to wither. It must drop the expectations, drop the checklists, drop the patriarchy, drop the racism, drop the infallibility of leadership, drop the pretense of perfection, and most specifically divorce itself from the toxic theology of Christian Nationalism, prosperity doctrine, and the embrace of power that has so poisoned what little resemblance the American church has ever had of the original Jesus community. I do acknowledge that some churches are farther along on the journey of corporate repentance than others; I’m truly impressed by the Quakers, the Episcopalians, and many Lutheran and Methodist congregations. But churches in general still must let go of their insistence that they are the only true and correct way to meet God. The religious arrogance and insistence on ordinances/sacraments over the internal transformation of a relationship with the Divine has to go.

So why do folks only show up twice a year at Church? What’s their deal? As an active Mormon I often heard those folks didn’t understand the true message of Christ, that they weren’t truly converted, that they were here for the pageantry or the nice music. Active church goers make up a lot of stories to make themselves feel above those who don’t show up, to make themselves feel justified in their life choices and worldviews. But here’s an answer from someone who is now a “twice-a-year Christian”; come in close:

We show up twice a year because that is truly all we can stomach.

We show up twice a year because those are the two days a year we are 90% confident Christ will be celebrated and professed.

We show up on those two days because our families carry on traditions of new clothes, candles, egg hunts, baskets, flowers, brunches, early vigils, joyous music, and hallelujahs. We come to church with them as part of those special traditional days.

We show up on those two days because it feels wrong to be anywhere else even when we’re unsure about resurrection, unsure about God, unsure about Jesus, unsure about anything after death.

We show up because we want it to be true, we show up because we want to believe.

But we don’t show up the rest of the year because we can’t leave a part of ourselves at the door in order to be accepted or allowed to participate.

We don’t show up the rest of the year because we can’t know what we’ll be expected to swallow about the historical Jesus.

We don’t show up the rest of the year because the community feels shallow and lacking in transparency.

We don’t show up the rest of the year because the good message of Jesus has been hollowed out, chained to a sword, and paraded thru the streets as a symbol of power, supremacy, hate, and cruelty.

So when pastors, priests and bishops call, “return to us” - we hurt. We hurt because we know we could do a lot in the community and make it beautiful; but we also know it wouldn’t be a community that welcomed everyone, one that welcomed Christ’s friends.

And to the faithful who do show up every week to make community in the pews, please understand that community making with the model of Christ doesn’t have to be restricted to inside chapel walls. Many of us continue the moral imperative to seek after the forgotten, the hungry, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, and those left out and we build community with them. We work among the ever widening part of our crumbling society that can’t survive on two paychecks, can be financially ruined by a medical emergency, are one paycheck away from homelessness, are denied access to essential health care, are denied their human rights, are torn from their families, are sent to death camps by a cruel authoritarian regime. We pursue the same vision and the same work that Jesus pursued; we seek after those at risk in an empire society. We do this because we know that only in community will we be safe, only in community with each of us find the freedom and liberation we are denied by a system governed by hate and retribution.

We celebrate Easter because we love Jesus, his message, and his model; we stray from the chapel doors because we’re busy doing His work. Maybe we’ll come back when the work is finished and we’ll help you with ushering, programs, catechisms, leadership meetings, counting tithing, confessions and worthiness interviews. But don’t wait up.