Hopefully this thread is ok for this forum...
I was raised as a Christian--my whole family is very involved in church, Christianity, etc. In fact, when I was in middle and high school, I wanted to go to a Bible college and either be a youth minister or a missionary. Any time growing up that I started to sway from my faith, my mom would tell me that she prayed and cried for me every night
. ...so obviously Christianity is something very important to my family.
So to make a long story short, I now would label myself as agnostic. I feel like this is something my parents need to know. They keep asking me to go to church with them (even though I haven't been in over a year--and before that it was another year
), and I know that as DD gets older they will ask me more and more to take her to church.
I also live in the middle of the Bible Belt--the vast majority of people here are protestant and much judgement is placed on those who are not. There was actually an editorial in our paper recently speaking out against those who are "not smart enough to believe in God"
So although a few people around me know that I agnostic, most do not. I don't want this to be something that I hide, but I end up doing just that.
I feel like sharing it would be a sort of coming out, you know? And I have no idea how to do that. It actually scares me a lot. I'm not looking forward to the judgement (or the crying) I'll get at all.
Does anyone have advice? Commiseration? BTDT?
Thanks
I was raised as a Christian--my whole family is very involved in church, Christianity, etc. In fact, when I was in middle and high school, I wanted to go to a Bible college and either be a youth minister or a missionary. Any time growing up that I started to sway from my faith, my mom would tell me that she prayed and cried for me every night
. ...so obviously Christianity is something very important to my family.So to make a long story short, I now would label myself as agnostic. I feel like this is something my parents need to know. They keep asking me to go to church with them (even though I haven't been in over a year--and before that it was another year
), and I know that as DD gets older they will ask me more and more to take her to church.I also live in the middle of the Bible Belt--the vast majority of people here are protestant and much judgement is placed on those who are not. There was actually an editorial in our paper recently speaking out against those who are "not smart enough to believe in God"
So although a few people around me know that I agnostic, most do not. I don't want this to be something that I hide, but I end up doing just that.
I feel like sharing it would be a sort of coming out, you know? And I have no idea how to do that. It actually scares me a lot. I'm not looking forward to the judgement (or the crying) I'll get at all.
Does anyone have advice? Commiseration? BTDT?
Thanks
