Church Affiliation

I sort of became sidetracked in writing about Jean’s and my life together — but of course the association we had with her parents was an important part of that. I believe I have indicated earlier that Jean and I sort of compromised on a church affiliation to provide a religious background for the rearing of our daughters. Jean had been a quite committed member of the Christian Science church,and she continued this after our marriage, and indeed Muriel attended Sunday School at the church in Berkeley for a short while.

When she felt that some sort of common agreement between us was needed we decided (after inspecting various area churches and denominations) to affiliate with Epworth Methodist church in north Berkeley. The attraction there was the pastor, one Don Getty, who actually moved on, à la Methodist practice, after a couple of years when a building program was finished. By that time our association had sort of become established and we have continued attending Methodist churches, both in Houston and here in Ashland.

Jean dropped her membership as a Christian Scientist, but had never formally joined the Methodist church. I transferred my membership from the Lutheran church, and have maintained it. Actually I think Jean retains some elements of her faith from her childhood and early adult years — I’ve lost virtually all of whatever commitments in thinking I ever had. Occasionally when we lived in El Cerrito, Jean would attend some Christian Science function such as a lecture and here in Ashland similarly.

Currently with our custom of attending the Methodist church on my once-a-month ushering day, Jean will sometimes attend the local Christian Science church. Over the years I have accompanied Jean a couple of times to a Christian Science Sunday service. I felt singularly unmoved by the experiences as I now react to almost any religious function I attend.

Our attendance at Epworth, aside from it providing social contact of an agreeable nature, had some additional facets that were interesting and useful. Among these were the adult classes on Sunday mornings which often had instructors from the Pacific School of Religion as teachers. Indeed several of the faculty from the school were members at Epworth. These provided discussion on a more intellectual and thought-provoking level than the usual Sunday morning discourse or service.

During the years we attended Epworth there was one other pastor whom I really liked, one Max Brown. I don’t know just what the attraction was since I do not recall his sermons for any particular level of interest or intellectual insight, but his kindly personality was certainly appealing.

We had all of our children baptized at Epworth, I guess this was, for me at least, sort of tradition retained from my early life and church association. Whether I would provide an impetus for this now is hard to say, certainly any real significance to the rite has long since departed from my thinking. Each time the child wore the baptismal dress that Jean had which had been made I recall by her mother sometime in her youth. Jean was not baptized in it — she remembers when she and her sisters were baptized well beyond their infant years. This was at the instigation of her mother whose family had a Methodist background in San Francisco.

Jean’s dad never had any religious affiliation, though further back in his family on both sides there were strong elements of religious belief. As Jean remarked, the Masonic Lodge was his religion. I think the primary years in the Sunday School at Epworth were instructive and worthwhile years for our daughters — I can’t really say beyond that. There was one primary teacher, of long standing and experience, at Epworth whom I thought to be an effective and worthwhile part of our daughters’ upbringing.

Looking back, I get the impression I used the church for what it could give me, without returning any real personal commitment, except for monetary contribution.