Sunday Blues

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned that I left All Souls, where I sang in the choir for two years. There was a long list of reasons, chiefly my dislike for the minister. His rambling sermons made no sense to me and he treated my friends rather shabbily after a dispute over church hall rentals. One of my friends managed the rentals and his partner handled maintenance on the church’s two historic buildings--both thankless unpaid jobs. They aren’t people you treat shabbily, in my book. It doesn’t bear going into the details. I’ll just say the minister’s past life was as a labour organiser and I think the tactics that may have stood him well in that post haven’t translated well to the ministry.

I have a history of leaving churches disillusioned. I want ministers to be good listeners, compassionate, intellectually curious, inspiring, and committed to social action. A tall order. Traits I’ve seen among ministers include narcissism, control issues, sexism, attention seeking, laziness, and hidebound resistance to anything new.

My inability to find a good-fit, church wise, is worse in Northern Ireland because the menu of liberal religious choices is down to one choice, Nonsubscribing Presbyterianism. Where we sing very traditional Christian hymns from the 1800s and hear Bible stories. I don’t agree with church’s doctrine--and I don’t fully understand what non-subscribers are not subscribing to. Apparently mainline Presbyterianism here is more like Bible-thumping Baptists in the US.

Another wrinkle: the ministers here are paid from the churches’ income from renting parking spaces, halls, or other church property. The congregants aren’t on the hook for more than maybe the heating bill, if that. I think if the congregants aren’t paying the salary, they are less invested in the minister and he is less answerable to them. I think that’s a bad thing.

Anyway, today I went to First Presbyterian, a non subscribing church in downtown Belfast. It was built in 1781 and is Belfast’s oldest place of worship. It is a beautiful building and its leaders were leaders of the United Irishmen, which led a revolt against the English in 1798, for which they were executed or exiled. How nice it would be if that revolutionary spirit whispered down the ages. No sign of it today, but I met a very nice couple who, like me, hanker for something broader than the confines of Christianity.
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