MVPC. Moraga Valley Presbyterian Church. One of the places I called home for the majority of my life. It was the first place I found that I could openly talk about my problems with people who understood. It was where I created a foundation for my faith, and where I formulated many of my personal beliefs. Now, it is the reason that I am questioning them.
Around a year ago, MVPC switched out of the Presbytery and into the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Us in high school weren’t really told why, but there were rumors circulating that no one wanted to believe. It was being said that we switched denominations because the Presbytery was getting ‘too liberal’. There were rumors about gay rights within the church and how our views were different than the views of the Presbytery as a whole.
Me, being a pretty liberal person, found this hard to believe. I have always known that the church as an institution is conservative, and I had learned to accept that my views were different. But it never crossed my mind that something like this could happen at my church. I thought we were relatively liberal, which I guess in comparison to many other churches, we are. I just never thought something like this would happen to a place I love.
My first reaction was one of anger. “How can they do this? Don’t they have any sense? Don’t they know that by doing this they are taking away a whole aspect of senior high (our youth group) that made it as special as it was?” I was angry for quite a while. I felt betrayed, to be honest. My faith kind of fell to the ground for a while because the place that built it wasn’t what I thought it was. I didn’t know if this was what I believed anymore, if I wanted to be affiliated with a religion that took this stance on issues, specifically gay rights. I felt almost disgusted by Christianity. I know it might be a little naive that I didn’t realize this before, but it didn’t really register with me that this is what a lot of churches believe until it started to affect mine. My faith was so closely tied with my church that when I lost my church, I lost my faith. I had to struggle for a while just to find some remnant of it. I thought I wouldn’t, but a conversation with my dad changed my view. He stressed that just because I don’t want to go to church or be a part of one doesn’t mean that I don’t have any faith. My faith was mine and mine alone, and I already thought what I did. That I didn’t need to go to church to believe in something greater than myself. But he encouraged me to look for a youth group that I felt at home in while I was away.
So far, I haven’t really found that. But after my first search, I kind of stopped looking. I went to one of the local groups during the first month of classes, and the second I walked in I felt like I shouldn’t be there. Not that there was anything wrong with it, it was great. There was food, games, songs, and a wonderful sermon. However, I just was not ready to go back to organized religion. I don’t know if I’ll ever be. My beliefs were altered as a result of this experience, and in my opinion, they are better than before. I am more aware of what I believe as opposed to what the church believes; which are not the same thing. And I’m fine with that.
