Why I Went Back To Church

My own personal Prodigal Son moment

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

Matthew 6:5

I’m trying to keep the above Bible verse in mind while I write this essay. I don’t want to appear as if I’m spiritually showing off or bragging. “Hey everybody! Look at me over here, talking about going to church! Aren’t I great?” That’s the last thing that I want for this piece.

What I want is simple: I want to explain why I started going back to church late last year, as well as the previous 25 years that led up to that decision. Hopefully, I can do it in a way that even a non-believer would understand.

Like a lot of people raised Catholic, I stopped going to church after my Confirmation. I never liked it as a kid (How many kids actually do?). My childhood memories of church mostly involve sitting there, standing when required, and waiting for the whole thing to be over. I always got excited whenever we got to the “Peace Be With You” segment of the service, as I knew Communion was next, which meant it was almost time to leave. The only true enjoyment I got out of church was going to 7-Eleven with my dad afterwards to get donuts. I was more interested in eating of a chocolate glazed than the Body of Christ.

All of that ended after my Confirmation in eighth grade, way back in the year 2000. My parents didn’t force me to go to church anymore and I had no interest in attending of my own volition. Confirmation is supposed to be a strengthening of your faith, one that enables you to live it more fully. Instead, I walked away. Little did I know that those steps were the first on a journey that would bring me back to the church a quarter of a century later.

I came into adulthood during the era of Reddit Atheism, a smug, holier-than-thou attitude which posits that no intelligent person could ever believe in God. People think the Bush years were a time when Evangelical Christianity took over the nation, but that’s only half true. Evangelicals controlled the institutions, but not the zeitgeist.

The prevailing cultural sentiment back then, at least from my perspective, was that religious people were hopelessly naive and out of touch. They weren’t even fit to be mocked. A simple raised eyebrow and knowing smirk would do. How could anyone believe in sky magic when there’s just so much science around? The fact that I graduated college the year Bill Maher’s Religulous came out perfectly sums up the cultural environment.

After college, I went out into the world as an adult. I got a job. I started doing stand-up comedy in Washington DC. I moved to New York and pursued comedy as a full time career. All the while, the thought of religion, and Christianity more specifically, never even crossed my mind. It seemed like a relic from a bygone era of my life, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Mad TV. The thing that got me back on the religious track, the first very small step that initiated my return journey, was (ironically enough) a comedy podcast.

One of the breakout shows from the original comedy podcast boom was Pete Holmes’ You Made It Weird. Pete, a former Evangelical Christian, would bring comedians on his show to discuss his favorite three topics: comedy, sex and God. After being cast out into the spiritual wilderness following a divorce, Pete remained fascinated by the concept of faith and took on all perspectives as he looked to re-integrate religious belief back into his life.

Occasionally, he would have a religious thinker or spiritual seeker as a guest. One episode, from June 2015, featured writer Alexander Shaia. The episode revolved around the four Gospels, and how each one reflects a different stage in Joseph Campbell’s Hero's Journey. I remember listening to it as I was traveling from New York to DC for a weekend of shows and being completely fascinated. It was the first time where I truly felt, in my soul, that the stories in the Bible were more than just prescriptive finger wagging meant to control my behavior. They became guideposts that, when acted out in real life, could lead to a sense of wholeness and fulfillment that is difficult to find anywhere else.

At the time though, I could only interpret this theory through a detached, intellectual lens. “Well, evolutionarily it makes sense that we created these stories to help us cope with the tragic nature of existence. Christianity is a myth which allows us to…” blah blah blah. The influence of Reddit Atheism was too strong. However, the initial seed had been planted, and there would be plenty of times over the coming decade where it would be watered.

After that, whenever I encountered Scripture or Biblical stories in the wild, my antenna would involuntarily go up. I remember rewatching Season 1 of True Detective (In my opinion, one of the best pieces of art ever committed to film) and hearing Rust Cohle say “The body is not one member, but many.” I went to look that line up, only to be hit with these verses from 1 Corinthians, Chapter 12:

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.

There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.

There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6

Reading that really lit me up. I had spent a lot of time thinking about how my favorite things (jokes, songs, movies, books, college football, etc) all gave me the exact same sense of euphoria, even though they seemingly had no relationship to each other. What, I wondered, was underpinning these works that generated such a feeling? And here was the answer, in a book written over 2,000 years ago. Someone had noticed this same sensation long, long before I had and felt compelled to write it down.

There was also the time in January of 2020 when my wife and I were planning our wedding for later that year (lol) and we attended Mass at the Catholic church in Brooklyn we were supposed to get married in. Neither of us considered ourselves religious, we were just doing it to appease our family members. The church visit was mostly a premarital reconnaissance mission. But I remember sitting there, listening to the priest’s homily as he spoke about some art show in France that featured a golden toilet. He used this example to illustrate to the congregation that shiny material objects have no real value in this world. Hearing this, I thought of one of my favorite scenes in all of movies–the discovery of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade.

When it comes time for Donovan, the film’s villain, to pick which Grail to drink from, he settles on a beautiful golden chalice, saying “This certainly is the cup of the King of Kings.” Of course, he’s completely wrong, and he pays the price for his hubris. Indiana picks a simpler one, saying “That’s the cup of a carpenter.” He has chosen wisely. The takeaway in this scene is clear. Focusing on simple, meaningful things brings life. Focusing on bright and empty things brings death, both physical and spiritual.

When I walked out of church that morning, I felt so much better than when I had walked in. I loved how a story from Scripture could remind me of something meaningful in my own life. It brought on more of that “many gifts, one Spirit” feeling that I discovered while watching True Detective. But I didn’t think much of it after I got home. The switch hadn’t flipped yet.

What really put me over the edge, the tipping point in this whole journey, was watching Robert Eggers’ 2022 film The Northman. On the surface, it’s basically The Lion King but with vikings. On a deeper level, it’s a movie about the importance of ritual and belief. It argues that immersing yourself in subjective, unmeasurable experiences can have a tangible impact on your material reality. The best example of this, in my opinion, is the Berserker scene at the beginning of the film.

A group of warriors dance and chant around a fire, enacting a ritual where they turn into wolves before battle. They get down on all fours and howl as a drum beat steadily speeds up. By the end of it, these guys truly believe they are wolves.

Do they actually, in material reality, turn into wolves? Of course not. But by participating in this ritual, they summon forth a new reality. They fight harder and longer than they would have otherwise. The ritual changes them and it changes their outcome. But the crux of the entire experience is that they have to believe it is real, or at least act as if it is. They can’t intellectualize it. If they’re dancing around the fire and howling while thinking “By participating in this ritual I’m increasing my adrenaline by 75% which will make me more aggressive in battle and increase my odds of victory,” then the power of the ritual is lost. They need to let go of their conscious minds and give themselves over to belief if it’s going to have any effect.

I thought about this scene on and off for two years. Something about it stayed with me. I didn’t know what it was, but it felt like it had implications beyond one movie.

What I eventually landed on was this. It’s a big swing, but I ask that you please indulge me.

Ever since the onset of the Scientific Revolution, human beings have believed that one day we’ll be able to fully map and understand reality. Surely, we thought, as technology and measuring instruments became stronger and more powerful, as data piled on top of data, we would eventually know all there is to know about the universe. At that point, we could perfectly optimize our lives around those conclusions. The mystery of existence would be solved, and the old superstitions could be discarded.

How has that worked out so far? Does it feel like life is getting easier, more clear? Or does it feel like the opposite is happening?

Forget about the last 40 or 50 years, when families and communities fell apart as human beings were increasingly viewed as interchangeable cogs, as points of data, in a complex economic machine. How about just in the last ten years? Millennials and Zoomers grew up in an era of techno-optimism. We were told that all technological progress was good progress, that our lives would become better, freer, and more enjoyable once, as President Trump put it, “Everything is computer.”

The verdict is in when it comes to that worldview. It’s completely, undeniably wrong. I don’t think I even need to cite studies or data here. Everyone seems to accept that people today are less happy, less fulfilled, less alive than they were even in the recent past. Because of the primacy we’ve placed on material reality—focusing only on what is directly observable—we’ve lost sight of what gives life meaning and thus leads to genuine human flourishing.

Approaching the world with a rational, materialist mindset has its limits. It’s helpful when it comes to the realm of scientific inquiry, but it has nothing to offer spiritually. To paraphrase an old adage, there’s no scientific solution to a spiritual problem. You need something transcendent and ineffable for that.

Once this all clicked, I realized that I needed more ritualistic, subjective experiences in my life. After years of being drawn to Biblical stories and verses, I figured the best route would be to attend Catholic Mass, a ritual I had avoided for a long time. I would go once, just to see how it felt. Something was compelling me to attend, and I thought I should honor that.

I chose a weekend where my wife was out of town so I wouldn’t have to explain myself or my rationale (Imagine her reaction when, after asking why I was going to church, I launched into my whole diatribe about The Northman). I went to Mass, and I felt pretty good afterwards. “Maybe I’ll go back next week,” I thought to myself.

Six days later, we found out my wife was pregnant.

“Well,” I said, “I guess I should keep going to church.” That was late November. I’ve only missed one Sunday since then.

But I’m not attending church out of a sense of superstition after learning my wife was pregnant, although I’ve prayed for my son’s safe and healthy development every day and continue to do so. I’m attending church because of how it makes me feel, and what I learn when I’m there.

Luke Burgis

wrote a great piece last week about the accelerated pace of modern life. I agree with it wholeheartedly. There are hardly any times where we, as human beings, can sit and be still anymore. The days move by at such a violent speed, speed which robs us of our ability to truly feel, enjoy, and be changed by our experiences. It’s a problem I face on a regular basis, except for when I’m in church. When I’m sitting in the pew, whether I’m listening to the priest, praying, or silently waiting for Mass to start, I’m completely still and at peace. My phone is on Do No Disturb, tucked away in my jacket. Most of the time, it’s not even on my body. My mind doesn’t whir. Church is an oasis in the middle of chaos, and I look forward to it every week. What a departure from the experiences of my childhood. I don’t even need the 7-Eleven donut anymore.

Even better, all of those bits of Scripture that I would randomly come across in the past are now readily available every Sunday. I don’t have to wait for them to come to me, I go to them. I’m hearing old stories with fresh ears, and taking in brand new information as well. A few Sundays ago, the Old Testament reading included Sirach 27:4-7. I had never even heard of the Book of Sirach, let alone these words, which read:

When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear; so do people’s faults when they speak.

The furnace tests the potter’s vessels; the test of a person is in conversation.

The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had; so speech discloses the bent of a person’s heart.

Praise no one before he speaks, for it is then that people are tested.

Sirach 27:4-7

Hearing about the importance of watching your words, laid out in this beautiful language, had a profound impact on me. It’s the reason I’ve focused so intently on abstaining from taking the Lord’s name in vain during Lent. It’s something I’m taking seriously, but it’s not only about following the Second Commandment more faithfully. There’s a secondary benefit at hand as well.

The goal of refraining from taking the Lord’s name in vain isn’t simply to stop dropping GDs and JFCs whenever I miss the bus or spill a cup of coffee. It’s to be incredibly intentional and precise with my language. To stop saying those words for 40 days, I have to carefully monitor what comes out of my mouth. That practice has benefits far beyond avoiding a few curse words. Like the Berserkers dancing around the fire, following the ritual generates real world outcomes.

And that’s a perfect summary of where I’m at with my faith right now. I’ll be honest, I’m still not fully there when it comes to viewing the Bible as a historical document. If I said I was, I’d be performing. I can’t yet say with certainty that these things happened exactly as they’re written, but I’ve chosen to act as if they did. Because what I have faith in at this moment–what I believe is absolutely capital-T True, even without definitive proof–is that if I live the way the Bible instructs me to live, if I follow the teachings of Jesus, my life will be better because of it. I believe the words, wisdom, morals and lessons imparted to me every Sunday are as real as anything gets, and I desperately need them in my life.

Right before Lent, I decided I had one more ritual to enact. I was going to attend Confession. I hadn’t been since right before my Confirmation, and I was afraid to tell the priest it had been 25 years. I thought he was going to make me do some kind of crazy intense penance, or even admonish me. Instead, when I told him the amount of time that had passed, he greeted me with just two words, the same two words the Prodigal Son heard when he finally came home.

“Welcome back.”

An image of the church I attended as a child (Not pictured: The 7-Eleven where we got donuts afterwards)