When I was 13 and my parents’ marriage was inching toward divorce, they stopped going to church and I couldn’t get there from the country. I told the priest I spent “church time” praying at home. He told me that wasn’t good enough, I had to be in church. 1/x https://twitter.com/stephenlautens/status/1264198245691113472

That was the beginning of the end of my time as a Catholic. I asked the priest how God was smart enough to build the world in a week but too dumb to know I was still honouring him in my way. He said the church existed on sacraments and one needed to be there to receive them. 2/x

I pointed out that the church was built on tithes, not screamers, and the church depended on my being there for THEM to receive my/our money and maybe that was the whole reason for church. He argued about receiving blessings and absolution for my sins. 3/x

But it was at this time that Robert Clifford Olson, Canada’s worst serial killer, had been murdering CHILDREN in my neighbourhood/city, and I said Olson went to church every Sunday and it wasn’t working out so good for him. 4/x

So the priest explains that Olson is receiving God’s grace at least. BUT MURDERING CHILDREN, I countered. He didn’t have much to say to that. This was when the Groucho Marx line about not joining any club who’d have HIM for a member popped in my mind. 5/x

How could Clifford Olson be in better standing with God than I was, just because he was at church, meanwhile I was at home and living a good life and praying? It occurred to me that it wasn’t GOD who was the moron, it’s the fucking CHURCH who are dumber than balls. 6/x

And that’s when I stopped believing in church and instead bought into Ken Kesey’s thinking — if you can’t find God in your backyard in Kansas, you won’t find him at the pyramids in Egypt or in the grandest cathedrals either. Fuck the churches. Keep God in your way. /fin