David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

David McElroy

I don’t claim to know the solution, but the modern church has failed

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The modern evangelical church shaped my early life to a remarkable degree. I was so deeply embedded in the church subculture that I unconsciously believed that being part of that culture was synonymous with knowing God.

I’ve lost faith in the church. I’ve lost faith in the people who have set themselves up as God’s spokesmen on earth. I’ve lost faith in the institutions which I was taught to believe in. I’ve lost faith in my long-cherished belief that being part of that subculture led to knowing God.

But as I’ve lost faith in all the earthly people and institutions which I was taught spoke for God, I’ve strengthened my belief in the God who I’ve always struggled to know and define and understand.

The church as I knew it was just a subculture — a little subset — of modern American culture. We were shaped by our national culture and then we unconsciously shaped our religion to be an acceptable part of the middle class culture we cherished.

If the Christian church is just a subculture of modern American life, what is the point of its existence?

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If you’ve gotten on the wrong bus, nothing changes until you get off

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Getting where you want to go in life can be complicated. We’re all making this up as we go along. Other people give us advice. Many act as though they know what they’re doing. But even if you’re sure you know what you want — which can change along the way — how do you know which route will get you there?

So you choose a place where you want to go and then you come up with a plan to get there. Years ago, I heard a pastor talk about this in terms of navigating the bus system in an unfamiliar city. I was reminded of this today when Seth Godin used the same metaphor.

Let’s say you’ve chosen a route and gotten onto a bus. You’ve paid a price to be there. You’ve left the place where you were. You’ve settled in for a comfortable ride. And as the bus starts moving forward, you slowly realize this bus isn’t taking you where you wanted to go. What do you do about it?

Most of us stay on that bus. After all, we chose to get on. We don’t want to admit we were wrong. We already have an investment in wherever this bus is going. So we keep going in the wrong direction — because we forget that nothing is going to change until we get off this bus.

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Try a new game: Make others smile — and let yourself smile with them

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I’m not sure exactly when this game started. I don’t even remember when I first noticed what I was doing. I just know it frequently lifts my spirits when I need a boost.

It sounds silly. It sounds like something a child might do. But it makes me happy — and I’ve realized it lets me bring a brief bit of joy to others along my way every day. And it’s super simple.

The game? I count how many times each day that I can get people to smile — when they clearly hadn’t felt like smiling beforehand.

Ridiculous? Maybe. Childlike? Absolutely. Life-changing? Maybe.

Dr. Jerome Motto was involved with attempts to curb suicide in the San Francisco Bay Area for years. One of his patients committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge in 1963, but the retired physician told the New Yorker in 2003 that the suicide which affected him the most occurred in the 1970s. After a man jumped to his death, Motto learned something that left him chilled.

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