{"id":3956,"date":"2018-03-31T07:20:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-31T11:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/?p=3956"},"modified":"2018-03-27T07:21:27","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T11:21:27","slug":"religion-independent-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/03\/religion-independent-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Religion is independent of church"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 30,000 Christian denominations exist worldwide, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thirty thousand. That\u2019s an enormous number.<\/p>\n

A 2018 Barna Research study<\/a> reports that, \u201cChurches of all stripes practice their own flavor of ministry in cities across the United States, all based on particular interpretations of scripture and style.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arguably, there is no lack of interpretations and style, although it\u2019s unfortunate when they provoke confusion or havoc. However, the surplus of understandings and style can promote spirituality and peace of mind.<\/p>\n

In my memoir, I Am My Father-Mother\u2019s Daughter, I talk about the mental confusion experienced as a child when I was sexually abused. I talk about learning to say no to someone using me for their own self-satisfaction.<\/p>\n

I also talk about the power to say yes to life instead of to death.<\/p>\n

Saying yes to life stirred me to survive a fiery terrible accident. Moreover, it eventually helped me prioritize divine rules before church rules, probably because my church was dying.<\/p>\n

A unique feature of these churches is the idea of an objective Pastor, communicated during services by lay-readers reading from the Bible and Eddy\u2019s book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. But, what worked in the past wasn\u2019t working in the future.<\/p>\n

Multiple reasons are found for the demise of my church and its pastor, however, I discovered that even if church was gone, I still have the religion, Christian Science, simply defined as the law of divine Spirit interpreting harmony to the universe.<\/p>\n

It was curious to learn that my religion wasn\u2019t dependent on church.<\/p>\n

If I learned anything else through my religion, it is the value of not acting as if other people solve my problems for me. Sure, I can watch and follow quality examples, but I need to be accountable to the divine.<\/p>\n

Pew Research reported<\/a> that about half of United States adults switch churches sometime in their lives. The Pew study found that, \u201cFully 83% of Americans who have looked for a new place of worship say the quality of preaching played an important role in their choice of congregation.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think the choice isn\u2019t so much between 30,000, or more, denominations, as it is choosing the collective enormous divine Spirit as alive and well.<\/p>\n

Bio: Cheryl Petersen is a freelance writer and author of, 21st<\/sup> Century Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures<\/a>, and from science & religion to God<\/a>. She lives in Delaware County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 30,000 Christian denominations exist worldwide, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia. Thirty thousand. That\u2019s an enormous number. A 2018 Barna Research study reports that, \u201cChurches of all stripes practice their own flavor of ministry in cities across the United States, all based on particular interpretations of scripture and style.\u201d Arguably, there is no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[1990],"class_list":["post-3956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community_world","category-religion","tag-spirituality-without-church"],"yoast_head":"\nReligion is independent of church - Everyday Spirituality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Religion is independent of church - Everyday Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"More than 30,000 Christian denominations exist worldwide, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia. Thirty thousand. That\u2019s an enormous number. A 2018 Barna Research study reports that, \u201cChurches of all stripes practice their own flavor of ministry in cities across the United States, all based on particular interpretations of scripture and style.\u201d Arguably, there is no…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/03\/religion-independent-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-31T11:20:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-03-27T11:21:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cheryl Petersen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cherylpetersen\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Religion is independent of church - Everyday Spirituality","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Religion is independent of church - Everyday Spirituality","og_description":"More than 30,000 Christian denominations exist worldwide, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia. Thirty thousand. That\u2019s an enormous number. A 2018 Barna Research study reports that, \u201cChurches of all stripes practice their own flavor of ministry in cities across the United States, all based on particular interpretations of scripture and style.\u201d Arguably, there is no…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/03\/religion-independent-church.html","og_site_name":"Everyday Spirituality","article_published_time":"2018-03-31T11:20:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-03-27T11:21:27+00:00","author":"Cheryl Petersen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@cherylpetersen","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/03\/religion-independent-church.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/03\/religion-independent-church.html","name":"Religion is independent of church - Everyday Spirituality","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-03-31T11:20:00+00:00","dateModified":"2018-03-27T11:21:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/#\/schema\/person\/5f61c15bc03b38172723cefb1475d1bb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/03\/religion-independent-church.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/03\/religion-independent-church.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/03\/religion-independent-church.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Religion is independent of church"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/","name":"Everyday Spirituality","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Cheryl Petersen","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/#\/schema\/person\/5f61c15bc03b38172723cefb1475d1bb","name":"Cheryl Petersen","description":"Cheryl Petersen engages and advances divine Science, interpreting harmony to the universe. Cheryl's book is, \"21st Century Science and Health.\"","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.HealingScienceToday.com","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/healingsciencetoday\/","https:\/\/x.com\/cherylpetersen"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/author\/cherylpetersen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3957,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3956\/revisions\/3957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}