Religious Service12/1/2019 I went to a church for the religious service this time. The full name of the church is St. John’s Episcopal Church. The church believes in Episcopalian and is a member of the Anglican Communion. According to my research, Episcopal churches are between Catholic and Protestant. However, the church I went to last year was a Protestant church called South Church.
Since both of them are churches, they have a lot of similarities. First of all, both of them believe in God as a savior. Therefore, they both provide Bibles in front of the seats for people to read. There were crosses in front of the room. In both services, the celebrants referred information in the bible, either presented as direct quotes or the interpretation of the quotes. Although they were tough for me to understand, I concluded that the general information was both about believing that God can forgive your sins if you choose to believe in him. Of course, both churches simplified some language to tell bible stories so that kids could understand, and I found that interesting. Later on, both churches mentioned some current events and linked them with God. Last year the Father talked about the polarization of politics and asked people to unite together under religion. This year, the celebrant mentioned the school shooting and how it changed a lot of parents’ lives. Because of that, she said, a lot of people shut themselves off. She encouraged us to open up, be awake but keep alert. I think this is a really good message because not all people are bad people. Although there are a lot of similarities, I believe I observed more differences. The whole tones of two churches are completely different- in the church, I went to last year, it was super casual. People could shout “Amen” in the middle of the talk, or raise their hands when they were passionate. However, the church I went to today was more serious- there were more people but much quieter. Inside of the architecture was a lot of religious decorations. A few children were holding crosses, and there were colorful glasses like those in Europe. Even the songs in two churches were different. In the church I went to last year, it was like a rock band that performed. The band was wearing jeans, and the songs were modern. However, in this church, there was a formal choir that sang religious songs that were hard to understand. They were dressing quite religiously, too. All of the songs were beautiful, and the entire service was so sacred that I didn’t even dare to breathe loudly. The ethnic components were quite different, as well. In the church last year, the majority of people were black and Hispanic. In this church, however, all of them were Caucasians. There was definitely more engagement in last year’s church, but this church has more clergies. I read Vox’s Secularism article. I found it quite interesting to read because religion has always been an area that I don’t know a lot about. Seeing the objective data is very nice. I don’t know whether I agree or disagree with this article because I don’t know much about religion and its importance in American society. However, I am suspicious about whether religion matters that much in a person’s life. I think it has to do with the country you live in and the environment you grow up in. For example, I’ve spent most of my time in China, and religion isn’t that prevalent there. Therefore, growing up without religion, I find myself doing pretty good now. I do not feel the “loss of morality” or “community,” as the article suggests. However, I do understand and agree that if religion has always been a part of the family or community, it is indispensable. Therefore, it really depends on individual families of whether religion is important. I think it is quite interesting how this article separates being “spiritual” and being “religious”. There is still a lot of unsolved quests and puzzles in the world, so being spiritual makes sense to me. Also, I believe the reason family and friends rank higher on the community chart is because they are tangible, but religions require a deeper and more comprehensive understanding.
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