Churchgoers

Jordyn Mason

Professor Wood

English 1101

23 Feb. 2015

Churchgoers

Religion is an essential part of social life that accompanied the development of all

societies throughout the history of mankind. Nowadays, the role of religion is still quite

significant, though it has changed substantially compared to previous eras. Nevertheless,

there are still a lot of people who often go to church, but it is now believed that, “religion is,

rather, a human attempt to process the God experience, which breaks forth from our own depth

and wells up constantly within us,” as said by Paul Ramsey. However, the reasons why people

go to the church may be quite different and, thus, it is possible to speak about different types of

churchgoers: the devout, the insincere and the socialites. After attending a few church

services, one becomes very aware of these various types of attendees.

First of all, it should be said that the devout churchgoers are probably the most

conservative and sincere of those who go to church regularly. These people are really religious

and sincerely believe in God and treat their church as a sacred place, where they can purify

themselves spiritually and where they morally and psychologically relax from their social

life/outside world. The devout churchgoers basically visit church to satisfy their religious needs

as a place where they can communicate with God, whom they share their problems with, and ask

for pieces of advice through priests which they view as mediators between God and the human

race. They eat, sleep, and breathe their religion and can often times be misinterpreted as stuck

up, judge-mental and closed minded individuals outside of church.

Another group of churchgoers is totally different from the previous one. This is the

insincere group of churchgoers who simply go to church for different reasons but, their major

characteristic is the lack of faith and it is even possible to speak about certain