First thing to know, we were still in our club clothing and had been up the entire night, so we probably were looking like the living dead. This is my first time going to a church in about 3 months, and I think same with my friends.
At roughly 9:30 this morning, I know we were out in the daylight, we paid our for our coffees and food, and started to walk towards the church. This all ties into this blog because it was an ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America). I don't want to start a flame war amongst Synod's of Lutheranism so I will leave the name of the church out of the matter.
As we were walking towards the church, you could feel the looks starting. "Who are these freaks?", "What are they doing here?" etc. We persisted because they weren't coming from everyone, only a select few of the older people. So we get into the church, and everyone stopped. I think expecting us to catch fire, I take off my cowboy hat which I customarily wear almost everywhere when not in uniform, and we find a seat towards the back of the church, yeah I know traditional lutherans here. The service starts...
The start with a modern praise and worship song. Cool, everyone is up and about worshipping. Then comes the church announcements, and then I guess the tradition of greeting the visitors, I should of known something was up when only a couple people came up to us to introduce themselves. I shook off this feeling because honestly I thought my imagination was playing tricks on me, mainly just from all the stories I have heard about goths showing up to church and some of the greetings that they have been given. The few people who did come up to us, were very friendly, and we were overly friendly back (don't want to ruffle any feathers). One note, the pastor didn't come up to us to introduce himself, he turned on his heels when he got back to us.
Then came more music, and then the Scripture readings. The Gospel on which the sermon was based was on Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 4). The pastor then goes on to start his sermon, and I honestly think to this minute that it was directed towards us sitting in the back. He talked about how Jesus broke Jewish custom when talking to the Samaritan woman, and that we as Christians today should embrace diversity.
I just want to note something right here, this pastor was a hypocrite. He needs to practice what he preaches. Not fifteen - twenty minutes earlier he wouldn't say a word to us goths sitting in the back pew of the church, and now he is sitting up there preaching that Christians should welcome us? Who does this man think he is?
So yet again, my search continues for a church out here in California, that is a) not hypocritical and b) accepting of me for who I am not what they think a Christian is.
I am not a for lack of a better term, "cookie cutter" Christian. I love Christ with my whole heart, even though I do stumble from time to time, mainly with my past lifestyle of Wicca, and me and der_m have had a conversation about it already. But one thing I do not stand for is blatant hypocrisy like I experienced this morning.
My question for you all is this, why is it that there is such blatant hypocrisy in the Church here in America, and how can we change the modern church culture to make it more accepting and thus open to a much more diverse crowd?
xtan.goth
