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WHAT
DO CHURCHGOERS
BELIEVE?
ANDWHY?
by
Herbert W. Armstrong
A large segment of American life attends church on Sunday mornings.
WHY do they go? WHAT do these churchgoers
BELIEVE, and WHY? The plain t ru th is a little shocking- and illuminating!
N
OTHI NG
is so astonish–
ing as the truth!
lt
is
often st range r than
fiction.
Most people who attend
church regularly, or even occa–
sionall y, would be really sur–
prised if they should probe into
their own minds far enough to
ask
WHY
they go, and just
WHAT
is their religious belief–
and
WHY?
Do You KNOW?
As a baby,
T
was taken to church.
As a child, 1 was taken to Sunday
school and church.
ll
was a Quaker
church.
l
attended ch urch until 1
was 18. Then 1 began áttending the
thcater, the athletic contests or
dances. When we were married, my
wife and 1 felt we ought to attend
ch ur ch. We looked over the
churches in the general area of our
home, selected one that was conve–
nient, respectable, with a modern
building, a friendly and personable
pastor, and members we liked
socially.
But
WHY
did we join? WHY did
we attend church?
February 1982
Well, we just felt we ought to-–
that's about aJI. Did we stop to ana–
lyzc
why
we ought to attend
church? Well , no. We supposed all
people
should
atte nd church,
should they not? We probably
didn't think much about
why!
But
hasn't everybody always
heard
that
one should go lo church?
lt
seems
we had.
Most people simply assume, take
for granted and accept without
question what they've always
heard. Usually they don't know
WHY.
What Did We Believe?
Did we have a definite religion?
Reflecting back, my answer would
have to be "No." How about you?
What did we believe? Well , we
had no deep-rooted convictions. We
believed, of course, those things we
had most often
heard
in church. We
supposed there is a heaven and
hell- an ever-burning hell. We
believed-or supposed we did- in
the immortality of the soul. We
believed in Sunday, and Christmas
and New Year's and Easter, and
from boyhood 1 had heard the pastor
talk about a few weird things, or
names, or something that had abso-
lutely no meaning to me- " Pente–
cost," "grace," "Antioch," "sancti–
fication," "j ustification," "dead in
trespasses and sins." Of course 1
knew all thosc things carne out of thc
Bible- but thcn, 1 always said, " 1
just can't understand the Bible."
And, speaking of the Bible, what
does
the average churchgoer think
about the Bible? 1 think that in those
years I was typical of many. l t was
"the
Good
Book." I did, in a way,
regard it with a ccrtain superstitious
awe. It was beyond my comprehen–
sion. Of course I assumed our
church got its beliefs out of the
Bible. T he preacher could under–
stand it. But then, too, I grew up
looking on the minister as a person
different
from the rest of us. He was.
a sort of boly man, not tempted to sin
or to enjoy the wordly pleasures likc
the rest of us. He was like a man
from another world. But the Bible
was the Book men laid their hands
on when taking the oath of office.
And it was the one Book 1 should
have been too embarrassed to carry
down the strect.
Did I look on it as " the Word of
God"? Well, yes, 1 suppose so. But
then 1 never thought of it in
specif–
ic
terms as the message, the
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