Relatives

Agent J

Right so its Christmas Dinner and my sister who i haven't seen in 7 years are talking.

Shes telling me shes become christian and i pretty much say " I'm Happy for you" and redirect the conversation elsewhere. I asked her what denomination and she was very fuzzy on it. She said something like she'd talking about it later. I had every intention not to but didnt want to be rude to her.

So later on during a seperate conversation she brings it back up. Now just a bit of back ground, shes been through a lot recent and seemed to need a faith to help her through it. That great, it makes her Happy and helps her. I try to duck and evade but its not working. I was being very vague and basically presenting a somewhat agnostic front but she was of the opinion its helped her so i should take it up to. She was pushing me to look up a group called "Alpha" who run intro courses. I promised i'd look them up and think about it. I decided to see what would happen if i threw her a little bit of what i believe just so she doesnt think i never think about these things. I said i believe in reincarnation and expanded a little on it. She looked as if i had just told her she had cancer. She tried to counter with " Have you ever read the bible?" My Response "Yeah i have, Leviticus". She didnt get the reference.

Now i really didnt want to go into it. I had said i had looked at christianity but i believe it should be personal so i basically a la carte from different faiths (Putting it crudley) and i have some major problems with a few of the basics like orignal sin. Her response
"Well you're open minded so you'll be come Chrisitian anyway".

If it had been anyone else at any point in time i would have fully engaged her and taken her argument to pieces but i couldnt risk doing that so i promised her i would think about it and look up that group. Then she started to say she had been praying for me to come to dinner there (I had been somewhat thinking otherwise) and that she would pray for me to find christianity.

Now throughout this time i never once mention that i would consider myself pagan.I used an old agnostic line until i could size up what was going on. I decided to test the waters and throw out reincarnation to see if she was at least ameniable to the idea.She very much wasnt. I have a few chrisitian friends who i know i could go to if i ever wanted to ask questions and would be more than happy to listen to me but would never be pushy about it.

Throughout the conversation i was very much on alert after having a relaxing day. I felt that if i even mentioned the P word she'd be reaching for an exorcisim kit.

Anyone else have this problem and can relate?

Oh yeah i did manage to find out what denomination in the Uk she had been going to.

Baptist.

Nevyn

I have had relations of mine and of my childrens father take me to task and my/his parents to talk publically for not having my children christained and I have been told I will burn in hell and they pray daily for me.

I struggled with my family for a long time but my mam eventually saw that what I believe works for me and after she had a chat with a lady who is not christian and she came to respecther then se realised that if she can respect a stranger's beliefs then I deserve that courtesy as well.

It can be hard esp when for a lot of people they don't know about the spiritual side of paganism and the invovlement of diety;
they only see the sensational occult side of things and assume the worsest.

Asiaprod

I used to face the same problem every time I went home to Ireland. It was very hard for all my Christian family and friends to accept that I was an ex-cathiolic now turned Buddhist. Over time they kind of accepted it, based on the kind of person I turned out to be. Reincarnation was always a flash point. It was a concept that was completely alien to them. Some do say I will burn in hell and that they pray daily for me. I always resist the impulse to tell them we are all already in Hell:)

Agent J

Asiaprod wrote:

I used to face the same problem every time I went home to Ireland. It was very hard for all my Christian family and friends to accept that I was an ex-cathiolic now turned Buddhist. Over time they kind of accepted it, based on the kind of person I turned out to be. Reincarnation was always a flash point. It was a concept that was completely alien to them. Some do say I will burn in hell and that they pray daily for me. I always resist the impulse to tell them we are all already in Hell:)

When she pushed my on what my concept of hell was i said i dont believe in it because it makes no sense to me but what we got here could be close enough.

Lou.m

I am pretty lucky in that my family is very supportive. What i would say is that usually it is best to be as honest as possible as holding back promotes distrust in a family and distance. However i understand it can be difficult. I think people who have problems with religious choices are either concerned for the person themselves and misinformed or have their own religious problems. For instance if someone is so " devoutly " christian that they cannot understand or accept other peoples beliefs it may be that the particular religious fervour they have is not very positive and perhaps they have become involved with a group that is a little too controlling. Or perhaps they are not content enough in their own faith i have noticed that christians who are content tend to be tolerant. It is those who are troubled who seem to want to seek to preach and to search for those they consider to be lost. I think that those who are lost themselves often seem to try to find others they consider lost.

The idea of a family member worrying over someones soul or beliefs seems to indicate a kind of inner anxiety about the BIG questions. And indicates a need to be reasured in some way.

I would try not to let any religious discord ineterfere with the rest of your relationship if possible and try to be as tolerant of her anxieties for you as you can REASONABLY be. Point out to loved ones that no matter what you will always be family and that will never change.
A lot of groups pray on anxieties family members have saying your loved ones will be separated from you for eternity if they dont do so and so or whatever.They are very powerful messages.
And it can be really destructive.
Or a group may insist that THEY are a members true family which is also very sad.
I would always try to maintain a close relationship with a member of my family. No matter what.

I do not want to judge the situation with your sister though and it seems you are a very understanding person anyway and i think that will help.
Maybe remembering that you have been her family for life and always will be long before she met this group would help.
If she has been through a lot she probably needs all the support and love she can get.

Talliesin

If people say they'll pray for me I thank them. If people tell they'll pray for me because they think I need to change my way of thinking to be more like theirs I tell them to stick their black magic up their arse.

If people try to proselytise to me I tell them I object to being proselytised to. If they invite me to something in their faith I accept the invitation if it seems to be nothing more than that (e.g. I take an invitation by my partner's family to join them in going to church at Christmas as nothing more than a continuation of the hospitality they have always expressed, and happily go along) and ignore it otherwise.

If someone wants to talk theology or thealogy I'll happily do so. If someone wants to ram a particular theology or thealogy down my throat I tell them to back off (well, something matching the pattern "??ck off" anyway).

Simply put, I go a long way to accomodate other people's beliefs, to respect them and indeed to cherish the fact that I have people in my life whose religion is important to them whether that religion is the same as mine or not, but the moment someone tries to intrude onto my freedom to worship as I see fit I become pretty damn prickly.

The result of which is I get on well with plenty of people from a wide range of beliefs, and limit the crap I get from those who can't respect others' (including those Pagans who can't respect others' beliefs, who personally irritate me the most).

Agent J wrote:

Oh yeah i did manage to find out what denomination in the Uk she had been going to.

Baptist.

That's a pretty broad denomination. Many Baptist churches have the belief that there should be a full separation between Church and State quite strongly held, often to the point of being a principle in congregational constitutions, and that's a view I have full political agreement with. Baptist churches have a degree of autonomy from each other similar to that of Wiccan covens, and as such saying someone is a Baptist says very little about the finer details about what they believe including what they belief about those of us that are Pagan. Jerry Falwell is a Baptist minister, and he's an infamous bigot, but Martin Luther King was a Baptist minister also.

Be careful in protecting yourself from bigots that you don't tar people with that brush that don't deserve it and in so doing be guilty of de facto acts of bigotry yourelf.

Agent J

Talliesin wrote:

Be careful in protecting yourself from bigots that you don't tar people with that brush that don't deserve it and in so doing be guilty of de facto acts of bigotry yourelf.

Thats a fair point. I am guilty of automatically making assumptions based on the church title. I automatically associate the word baptist with evagelicism and evagelisicm with the religious right in america.

I have a few Chrisitan friends who i would happyily debate theology with and they would not attempt to force their views at me. However i can see my sister is not one of those types. I would hope she will learn to be somewhat tolerant of other views but based on her reactions to things i have already said i dont hold out a lot of hope.


Her action since have not exactly endeared me to her view. I was thinking of going to my mothers on new years day and brining my girlfriend who my mother hadnt met yet. On new years day i get an invite from my mother on the subject. My mother then (Much later on) informed me that she had asked my sister to drop the religious angle this time after my sister had said she prayed for myself and niamh to come along. My mother was particularly annoyed at that. It wasnt the fact she prayed , it was the fact she felt she had to inform her about ten times of it.


As soon as i heard that i was Prep'ing in my head a few defensive measures but i couldn't think of any bibilcal quotes. The best line of defence i could think of was should the matter come up was to ask her "Why she felt the need to tell me that?" and let her work out the answer for herself. Personally i see it as pride/taking credit.

Turns out it wasn't needed but right before i left my sister shoved a booklet into my hand about the course she was going on about last time. I was tempted to say something but i didnt.