The Church - part one

I went back to the church.

Well not exactly. I didn’t go back to the Catholic Church. Growing up Catholic I had all the same problems with Catholicism that many people do. The Church’s views on birth control, premarital sex, women as leaders of the church, divorce, gay and lesbian rights, were all opposite mine. After high school I very rarely thought about organized religion but never forgot God.

This changed when Deaglan came along. I started to think about baptism. I had been baptized but Shaune had not. I spoke to him about my growing desire to get the baby baptized. He completely surprised me by saying he would leave the decision to me.

Shaune has had some strong opinions about organized religion. When I listened to his arguments sometimes I wondered if he thought all religions were really cults in disguise. But mostly I could understand why he felt so strongly; you wouldn’t have to look much further than the nightly news to see all the insane things people will do in the name of religion.

We talked about it several times over a few months. We both agreed that it would be nice to get to know some of the people in our community and to be more involved in charitable work. We also thought it would give Deaglan a spiritual foundation which he could choose to carry on when he got older. But we felt it was important to set some boundaries. We were dead set against joining any church that might judge us or others, or tell us how to behave or ask us to impose our beliefs on others.

We found the United Church of Canada.