I just don't get my families beliefs. I'd say that I believe more or less in the Christian faith and DH (who's a bit more agnostic than me) and I go to a local URC church from time to time. It's a pretty liberal church and v focused on what I'd call social action / justice. It's also pretty ecumenical. We also married in a (different) church as that felt important to me at the time.
I was brought up Baptist / Pentecostal and DH's parents were Catholic / CoE but neither of his parents observed their family faith.
My parents are still Baptist and traditional and their church (or rather, chapel) is pretty much what you'd expect - organ with hymns and traditional sermons (though a bit fire and brimstone if I'm being honest!). Other relatives go in for a very modern, evangelical church and go for occasional visits to those US-style mega churches with huge music bands on stages where everything is OTT and lots of the church-goers are v well off. The latter just makes me cringe and the pursuit of materialism doesn't sit well with me, but the former just isn't me either - it's too old school. Both churches do lots of good work in their local areas though, for regular members of the community.
My general life outlook is pretty progressive and definitely left of centre and that's another difficulty for me when it comes to religion as lots of Christians I know, even if they seem like great people in other respects, seem to accept misogyny (specific views on the roles of women and segregated youth groups etc) and are quite reverential on material gain - which don't seem to be very Christian to me. I also get confused by those who support ecumenicalism and those (my relatives! who oppose it.
There are no real 'issues' as far as religion goes in our family. All my relatives believe that people should decide their beliefs for themselves and can't and shouldn't be forced to be believe something. But I'm so confused! When we go to our church, DH and I often feel 'moved' emotionally, especially when the sermons deal with issues of social justice but I don't know what that means...? But we have so little time to spare with young DC that we don't go weekly and can't manage more than a Sunday service in any case. How do we explore all this and how do I stop feeling distant from my relatives due to the denominations of Christianity they follow?
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When your family's evangelical Christian beliefs aren't yours.....?
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praisedalord · 15/07/2014 14:55
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