Why I Didn't Go to Church on Easter Sunday

Magic. We've all been there, one way or another. Maybe you don't watch the sixth inning of a playoff game for fear of jinxing it. Maybe you rub a little spit onto the corner of that job application for good luck. You wear yellow underwear on New Year's Day.
Or maybe you're normal and just avoid broken mirrors and the number 13.
I've been having a little fun with magic myself, as the economy seems to spin out of control around us.
A little magic seems like harmless good fun.
A little religion...not so much.
I didn't go to church Easter Sunday. The rest of my family went. My daughter helped set out Easter eggs for the little kids. Me--I stayed home.
I'm still feeling guilty, I guess, which may explain why I'm blogging about it today. This is a big deal to me. I can't ever remember having missed an Easter Sunday. In college, my fervent roommates and I became "born again" Christians. We used to go to church Sunday morning, Sunday night and sometimes Wednesday night, too. Later, in Kansas City with young kids, Mike and I still managed to go almost every Sunday.
The past three years or so, though, we've skipped more and more. First it was just in summer. Then it was most of the year. Finally our attendance boiled down to just Christmas and Easter. This year...I don't know. Easter dawned and I just didn't feel like going.
I bring this up for two reasons: The Newsweek cover story (please subscribe) this week was titled, "The Decline and Fall of Christian America," by Jon Meacham. He quotes the American Religious Identification Survey, showing that the percentage of people who call themselves Christian has dropped about 10 percentage points since 1990--from 86 to 76 percent, while the number of unaffiliated has doubled.
At the same time, religious faith pops up there right along with "positive attitude," as a good thing for mental and physical health. (See related articles here and here.)
So apparently I'm part of a trend.
The Meacham article is mostly a reaction piece. It doesn't go deeply into why people's attitudes are changing.
I can't speak for everyone else on that survey, but what I feel is religious fatigue. It's been building for a long, long time--since back in the early '80s.
That was when we started hearing endlessly about right-wing religious fundamentalism and how it was reshaping politics and the economy. First it endorsed Reaganomics, then ever more extreme forms of laissez-faire capitalism. And social issues. Those who disagreed were renounced ever more loudly.
I started to hear with amazing regularity that I couldn't possibly be considered a Christian if I voted a particular way, or disagreed with a particular thing. I couldn't possibly be both a liberal and a Christian.
And, I don't know, at one point--maybe it was during the campaign season--I just quit arguing. Yeah. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm not a Christian after all. It felt good just to say it and get it over with.
Because when I think back on the past two decades, it's been American-style Christianity backing up the politicians who got us into the mess we're in. Ergo, American-style Christianity should be willing to shoulder some of the blame for the shambles that is the world economy.
So does the decline of self-identified Christians mean optimism is also on the decline? Can I possibly have the hope I need without a religion? Especially now, when I should be praying like mad? We'll see. All I know is, I feel a little better for having unburdened myself.
Ahh yes. Another gray, cold Monday morning.