Cunningham, Sarah - Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation

(Full disclosure: Sarah Cunningham is a friend of the Burnside Writer’s Collective, has contributed articles, and will hopefully continue to contribute. This review had nothing to do with that, however. You can read an excerpt from Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation here on the site.)

I’ve never walked away from church altogether. But I have thought about it. I’ve even visualized what it would look like.

My chin up, my gaze steady and foreword-directed, I’d stride confidently out the double glass doors of the church lobby. Periodic sniffling and the occasional sob would then rise from the congregation, who would naturally succumb to immediate sadness over my departure. Or so my daydream goes.

Reality of course is a slap in the face. In the real world, it would likely take several weeks for anyone to even notice I’m gone. Perhaps he’s just on vacation or sick or visiting his parents…

When they do notice I’m gone, they will not be sure why. And they won’t be sure it is even appropriate to ask. Instead of picking up the phone, they will hope we will run into each other at the local Target where we can exchange awkward “hellos” and “I haven’t seen you arounds” until I budge and divulge the reason behind my absence.

The rough truth of it is that leaving the church won’t get me the results I’m hoping for. Church leaders, for instance, may be even less likely to champion causes that are important to me or to resolve my concerns if I am no longer in the building to voice them.

This is part of the realization that author Sarah Cunningham, whose book Dear Church: Letters From a Disillusioned Generation, helps readers to make.

In the beginning, Dear Church is something of a daydream itself. The first six or so chapters imagine the possibility of walking away from the church and never going back. Granted, devoting six chapters to such a topic may strike some as painfully immature. An irreverent mismanagement of one’s time and book pages.

But while this book may gain no best friend status with veterans whose faith has solidified into easily managed black and white categories, it will find camaraderie with those who need the book most: the disillusioned.

Like it or not, admire it or not, those who are “disillusioned with church” are a noticeable slice of the world’s population. And Cunningham’s book is one of the only books I know of that will connect and move them in the most important place: the heart.

Cunningham’s humorous observations about church life stir up long-forgotten nostalgia in those who were raised in organized religion. Readers will remember themselves trotting off to junior church or chiming into campfire sing-a-longs and it will make them smile in a wistful sort of way. And when Cunningham offers generic descriptions about where church “went wrong” in her life, I have a feeling their emotions will get in line to join her there, too. They will cringe to remember adults who didn’t live up to their faiths and people whose lifestyles went sour, and they will feel the wind sucked out of their stomach in tandem with the author.

The fact that the book delves into frustrations is not surprising. Complaints are a dime a dozen, right?

The surprising part of Dear Church, though, is the emotional state Cunningham invites the reader into. By the end of the book, she has not only guided her fellow cynics through the motives and perceptions that contribute to disillusionment, but she has decisively urged them beyond it into healing. And I am guessing that the journey feels natural to them. So natural, maybe, that they don’t even realize they’ve experienced healing until they close the book and reassess the condition of their hearts.

The book does not provide all the meat and doctrine the reader will ever need to survive after disillusionment, but it does point to firm ground for the future by laying out wise advice and adjusted expectations for the young church goer. And where it may fall short in terms of academics (the professor in you may not love it), it finds adequate credibility in intelligent and connective conversation.

I fear that Cunningham shoots for a strange audience because she attempts to talk to a variety of people both in and outside the church in one fell swoop. But in my mind the best reader is drawn from one of two groups of people.

First, pastors should pick up this book. But not to critique it, as perhaps we become fond of doing after a long list of monotone authors. No, that approach would only serve to feed others’ disillusionment further.

Pastors should read it like they are given the rare chance to sit next to a twentysomething on a plane. They should imagine that they ask this young person about their impressions of God and church. And then they should open the book and listen, allowing themselves to be captivated by the young person’s response, not because they themselves have felt or can legitimize every emotion, but because they have never heard the perspective explained quite so articulately or with so much church-savvy.

And secondly, if you know a few people who are disillusioned, and I question you if you claim you don’t, this is the book someone should anonymously mail them or toss into the backseat of their cars when they aren’t looking. Some of us who aren’t big fans of the word “disillusionment” should not back away from a text that has the potential to make us uncomfortable. Instead we should thank Sarah Cunningham for saying these things in the language of the disillusioned and for helping to limit the disillusionment we find so frustrating.