Tell Trish & the pastor right now that if they ever do that to your child again, you’ll get an attorney an file suits for child harrassment, child endangerment, stalking, denial of her right to freedom of (and from) religion, and overstepping your parental authority.
YOU are Trish’s parent. YOU are in charge. Anyone who threatens that postion should be caned.
Yeah, I was surprised. I mean, my kids know that there are fundamentalists of all religions (except ours) that feel theirs is the only way to God. In fact, one of the major things that attracted me to this Faith is that it agrees with what I have believed all along. . .that everyone needs to find the path that works best for them. But, I’ve taught my kids to be respectful of the beliefs of others, and our Scripture teaches us to answer questions, but not argue about it. Also, when I made it clear to Trish that, not only are we not Christian, but actively practice another religion, that would have been the time for her to take exception with us, not after she had my kid apart from me; but, no, she sounded perfectly accepting of this idea; made it sound like there’s no reason that a bunch of people who all believe in the same God can’t hang together and have some fellowship. She seemed like a good Christian, which is to say, a follower of the teaching of Christ, which would translate into respecting others. Apparently, I was the one who was misled!
All I knew about the church was that it was Christian. Well, the kids know about Christianity, just like they know about Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Islam (sorry if I’ve forgotten any). We are told in our Scriptures to: “Consort in glad fellowship with followers of all faiths”. I sent my daughter to this church for Kid’s Club in the spirit of this scripture. As I stated above, to Jersey, I assumed that if they were good Christians, they would do as Christ would have done, and been respectful. Oh, well.
Norinew said, “Also, when I made it clear to Trish that, not only are we not Christian, but actively practice another religion, that would have been the time for her to take exception with us, not after she had my kid apart from me; …”
Yeah, well business was slow…
I agree with the other posters who said this was friggin’ predictable. It’s all a recruitment game. My roommate’s kids went to a church thing and my kid wanted to go, but they had to bribe them with McDonalds.
If the pastor is a jerk about it, I’d stretch the truth a little and tell him that “well, obviously I made sure to talk to her so that she now understands that there never was anyone named Jesus and all of that hogwash that Trish told her…”
(I know that your belief includes Jesus, but this would be sort of a kick in the groin that would be well deserved.)
I sympathize to extent, but not as fully as many other posters. Frankly, if you don’t want your kid to be indoctrinated into another faith, you should not be sending him/her to their Sunday school programs, or any other programs, FTM, regardless of what the recruiter says. This does NOT let this Trish off the hook for being too heavy-handed with a little kid (not too effective either, obviously). But if you send your 12 year old kid to a Sunday school program, they will not find Christianity as “their path to God” by “search[ing] within themselves and f[inding] their own way” - they will be indoctrinated into the religion, whether by hard or soft sell tactics.
So I would recommend the third approach. You might talk to the pastor and get him to tell the woman not to be so obnoxious, but you will not convince him to change the Sunday school from what it is - an indoctrination into Christianity. So I would say just take your kid out and the rest is moot.
It isn’t a “Sunday School program” it’s a kids’ night on Wednesday evenings. “Sunday School” is a church service for kids, for the most part, and one would pretty much expect this sort of things from that environment.
Now, I personally would not send my child to a church-run activity unless it was very strange circumstances… but that’s just me.
:rolleyes:
Yeah, the emphasis is mine.
You don’t think that by practicing this Ba’hai thing you are subtely indoctrinating her in that?
First of all, I vote that you talk to the pastor; I’d even suggest you consult a lawyer. I’m not sure if it would hold up, but that FEELS like some sort of assault or abuse to me.
Second, please don’t veer this off by making ridiculous statements like “there are fundamentalists of all religions (except ours)”–which in itself as an absurdly fundamentalist statement. You’ll lose whatever sympathy you built up at the beginning of this thread.
And though Bahai acknowledges many different faiths (which is what I assume you’re referring to when you suggest it cannot be fundamentalist), they are anti-feminist and ani-gay.
Lord Ashtar
I did not mean to imply that our faith has no fundamentalists; even though our holy wriyings tell us that fanatacism is wrong, I’m sure it happens anyway; what I meant was that Baha’is, as a whole, do not feel that we alone have the “One True Path to God”.
lissener, please read above. I apologize for making a statement that was evidently misconstrued. Also, not to hijack my own thread, but we certainly are not anti-feminist; in fact, the Founder of our faith was reviled and ridiculed in His time for teaching, in His ministry, that women and men are equal; He likened them to “two wings of one bird”, and said that when one wing is crippled, or held back, the bird cannot fly properly. I also think “anti-gay” is a strong and misleading statement. There are clear prohibitions in the writings against practicing homosexuality. Does this mean that gays wouldn’t be welcome at our devotionals, or other worship services? Certainly not. Does it mean that “gays are going to hell”, as some religions seem to think? No, not that, either. The practice of homosexuality, in fact, is not nearly as strongly condemned as the sins of gossip and backbiting; in which case, I surely hope God is as Merciful and Forgiving as we have been told He is, or I’m in deep doo-doo!
Last I heard, norinew, there were no women in any positions of authority in the Bahai faith. Is this no longer the case?
And “clear prohibitions in the writings against practicing homosexuality” is pronounced anti-gay, however you rationalize it to yourself.
As far as women in positions of authority, I will explain, to the best of my ability: the faith has no clergy. Or, if you wanna look at it another way, we’re all clergy. I, along with any other member of the faith in good standing, for instance, can perform a legally binding marriage ceremony. From a different point of view, we have, essentially, two governing bodies. One is the National Spiritual Assembly (each country has its own). The NSA is made up of nine individuals, who are elected every year. Men and women alike serve on the NSA. Then we have the Universal House of Justice. You are correct that only men (again, nine, elected) serve on UHJ. Why? I don’t know. It has never been explained to us. All that was said was “the reasons will become clear in time”. But I do know, and certainly could quote Scripture (if you’re interested) that we do consider gender equality as well as racial equality, to be of utmost importance to mankind. If I believe that the Founder of the faith was sent by God to give us a message (and that is what I believe), then I have to trust that He knew what He was talking about, and had His reasons.
As for the “anti-gay” issue: well, I don’t think anything will be resolved by us arguing about it. Of course, I can speak for myself, as an individual, and as a Baha’i, and say that I am most certainly not anti-gay, and if you felt like wasting a whole bunch of your time and reading everything I’ve ever posted here, anything I’ve posted regarding homsoexuality would certainly be in the vein of the idea that gays should be free to live their lives, unharrassed by others, and should have the same rights and liberties as anyone.
Oh, and cole burner, yes, I’m sure that by raising my kids in the faith, I’m “indoctrinating” them, to some extent. But I would never force, or even push them, to make their Declaration (kinda like our version of baptism, happens at age 15 or later). In fact, when my oldest daughter turned 15, and said she had decided to do this, I talked to her about what it meant, and asked her if she was sure. If she had said she had any doubts, or wanted to investigate other options, or whatever, it would have been fine with me. That’s all I meant.
I think she’s more suprised and offended that the Christian woman from the Christian church lied to her about her intentions.
lol
I go to a church myself, its non denominational.
Kids clubs are good, but…I suppose Trish should’ve given nori’s daughter some tracts to take to her mohter to read, not the child herself.
I got “saved” just by reading a book(Hal Lindsey!) no one ever preached to me, no one ever has.
We’s all christians down here…I dunno, you gotta let them find their own way to Jesus.
My 2 cents.
Jersey! don’t you owe me a letter?
What JerseyDiamond said, I’m afraid.
Christians evangelize. That’s what we do. We are on direct orders from the One we worship to do so.
If you genuinely want to expose your children to differing faiths, you will have to deal with the fact that other faiths are genuinely different from yours. Even on matters that you take for granted (that all paths are equally valid, or however you would phrase it).
Regards,
Shodan
I’m gonna go with the Baha’i stance on this, and say that all posters’ opinions are equally valid:D
Anyway, I appreciate all the input!
Christians casn evangelize without being underhanded and telling lies. Also, once you’ve given your message, it’s counterproductive to be an ass about it and give people crap for not agreeing with you.
Personally, I’d love it if there were a way to get an accurate statistic for how many people have been “brought in” by unsolicited evangelizing versus how many have been completely turned off by it. Frankly, even if I knew for sure that I’d go to a real, actual hell, I’d sooner go there than go to a Christian church. Why? Because it was shoved down my throat growing up.
I’m with you, Opal.
Actually, since I am a Christian I would hope you would not choose Hell, but I do completely understand where you are coming from.
As a child, I had something (relatively trivial, but important to me) “shoved” down my throat quite aggressively by a lot of people around me. I still occasionally get flak for not “conforming” in this particular thing.
It wasn’t as if the thing that they were shoving down my throat was bad. It really wasn’t. It was their arrogant, presumptuous attitude. Because of their attitude, they pretty much alienated me from the thing they were trying to persuade me to embrace. I’ve lightened up somewhat in my adulthood, but I’ll never be “normal” in my response to this thing.
Having stuff shoved down your throat, even GOOD stuff, can really turn you off of it. Forever. It’s a Very Bad Thing To Do to someone else—to nag them or shove things down their throat. Your efforst will very likely backfire. And here—look—here’s Opal as a living example of vehemently rejecting the thing that some people so desperately wanted her to embrace.
Because of my childhood experience, I feel very strongly that nagging or pestering or pressuring usually backfire. And I hope that I don’t do that disservice to something I feel is very good—namely, Christianity. I don’t want people to react to Christianity the way Opal has reacted to it. Because I totally understand where she’s coming from.
Ah, but one who has not had extensive contact with evangelizing sects of Christianity (IMO not all are, YMMV) may not immediately associate Christianity with assertive evangelism. There are Christian churches where they put on activities in order to be a social center, Christian churches where they put on activities in order to get people inside the church building so they can preach salvation to them, and everything in between.
With that in mind, I’d have to say there’s a real need to investigate the beliefs of any church before letting one’s kids go there, unfortunately.