Episode 8: Christmas: Going to Church When You Don’t Go to Church Anymore

Christmas is a strange season for folks who are in the process of exploring and healing from the ways that the church has negatively impacted them. Especially when Christmas falls on a Sunday, as it did this year.

The soundtrack of Christmas is a mixture of Whitney Houston’s All I Want for Christmas is You, Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime, and dozens of religious carols that integrate messages of hope into Matthew’s narrative of the birth of Jesus.

Nativity scenes join Christmas trees, ornaments, and lights as the visual backdrop.

Many of our listeners are deconstructing Christianity in some way. Jeremiah describes the conundrum (22:00):

“There's this idea in the deconstruction world that moving out of the church means moving out of the church. It means saying f——— you to the institution and the practices within the institution. In the therapy world, we call this an emotional cutoff: a way of completely separating yourself from family members and systems of older parts of your life. And don't get me wrong, in cases of abuse, cutoffs are necessary. However, generally speaking, cutoffs don't give you the permission to engage with the complexities of the family members and stories and institutions, and that tends to lead to a lot of problems in other areas of life.”

Christmastime, in some ways, represents the best of the modern Christian tradition, as Jeremiah explains (20:35):

“Christmas carols and other types of acapella music and the process of singing harmonies are my continual connection to the church. And I'm okay doing some of the mental gymnastics of singing philosophical and theological ideas that I don't believe in to to draw me closer to home, closer to that sense of familiarity.”

Christmastime intersects hope with grief, especially for those of us who have moved out of overtly religious spaces. Julia encourages (36:00)

“Being intentional to set aside space for grief. That might be a walk on your own, early in the morning or late at night. That might be time to journal or to write a letter to someone who isn't present for you.”

“You don't need to perfect your rituals or traditions this Christmas. It might take several Christmases to find what works for you, and maybe you'll get lucky and you and your partner or partners or friendships will find something new that you can hold onto that will continue throughout the rest of your life.”

We hope that you find spaces of peace, hope, and safe spaces for grieving this Christmas week!