I stopped being religious after having kids, but are still involved and love the church community

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was raised an active Catholic going to church every Sunday, Catholic school, the works. Although I always questioned everything, I just went with the flow. My wife had a very similar upbringing.

We got married in the church and went to church most Sundays when our kids were little. Once our kids got elementary school age and started asking questions, the same questions I asked (human suffering, heaven and hell, miracles, are bible stories true, usual stuff), we just couldn’t continue as we were. Although I had it in me personally to continue on with religion, I just couldn’t stand behind it enough to pass it on to my kids because I felt that so much of it didn’t make sense or was contradictory. This was about 8 years ago, and we have slowly drifted into being a pretty much a secular family. My wife and I don’t really push religion, but we don’t push against it either.

However…we are still moderately involved in the local church community. Our church is great! We got CYO sports, youth groups, festivals, and all sorts of charitable projects. We will go to church occasionally and we still participate in the sacraments, but we all have this “understanding” that maybe God exists, maybe he doesn’t, but in any event Jesus seems to be a pretty cool guy and we should try to be more like him when we can.

When our church friends ask us what mass we usually go to, or when my kid’s friends start praying before lunch and my kids just put their heads down, we kinda give each other this smile and nod. I feel a little guilty, but at least we are being as honest as we can with ourselves (but maybe not with the community). Maybe my kids will grow up to be religious, and that would be great if it makes them happy and fulfilled, but it will not be because of my explicit direction.

Anybody else in a similar situation?

2

Kinda-sorta. I was not raised in a church but I did go to catholic school a year in primary school. I believe much of the bible is nothing more than fairy tales, myths, and other assorted bupkis while some of it is likely true, and Christianity in general is not a bad idea. Jesus was likely a real guy, probably a pretty cool dude, and if more people followed his teachings we’d probably live in a better society.

Unfortunately a huge percentage of the American population who confess to be Christians do not follow Jesus’ teachings and openly and willing embrace ideas, trends, and political leaders that Jesus clearly warned against. Why they, for instance, look at Donald Trump, a thrice married serial adulterer who publicly commented on his desire to sleep with his daughter, has starred in a pornographic film, and openly called for the execution of innocent people an exemplary example of a model Christian while simultaneously denigrating, belittling, and openly expounding known false accusations against a real example of a model Christian and continue to call themselves “Christian” I will never know.

The churches I am familiar with which, admittedly, are mostly evangelical churches, are full of people like that. That very fact has soured me to the idea of going to church. The now permanently entangled web of extreme right-wing politics and Christianity is not something I want to deal with.

My wife was raised in a Pentecostal church. She grew up believing gays were inherently evil, Republicans were God’s chosen people in America (really… “Republican by the grace of God” reads one her dad’s bumper stickers), women had no place outside the home, and men were the God-given head of the household and, by extension, the world. They grew up as paupers, unable to pay for heat in the winter and eating from food pantry donation boxes. But they believed they were right with God so everything else was ok, even if it wasn’t.

When she decided to go to college – well into her 30’s – her mother accosted me and demanded to know why I wasn’t supporting her better (I was going to school too).

Thankfully my wife has abandoned those beliefs and today is pretty progressive: she thinks Donald Trump is the embodiment of human evil (I don’t think she knows who Ron DeSantis is), thinks gays are cool, wants a career outside of the home, and for the most part can’t handle the screaming and fit-throwing of the church she grew up in.

We have two boys, now both teenagers, and we have raised them solidly secular. I think both of them are borderline atheists. I know my older son feels the same way that I do: many churches just grift their members or use the pulpit to embrace and promote a particular brand of un-Christ-like political ideology.

I think if we could find a liberal, progressive, welcoming church both my wife and I would start attending.

3

My family would exchange gifts on Christmas and hunt eggs on Easter, but we never went to church except for other people’s weddings and funerals. But my brother married a Catholic, and they raised their daughters as Catholics.

Once, when the girls were in elementary school, they went to church. When time came for the Eucharist, the girls got up to go to the priest, and they wanted Daddy to come with them.
My Brother: “I can’t.”
The Girls: “Because you didn’t go to confession?”
My Brother: “Because I’m not Catholic.”
The Girls: :astonished: :astonished: :astonished: :astonished:

They insisted that he convert.

He’s still not particularly religious, but he likes the social network. From what I hear, churchgoers with small children have an easier time finding babysitters than non-churchgoers. Also, in my town, the Catholic school has a much better academic reputation than any of the public schools.

4

I couldn’t lie or try to make excuses to my kids either.
So I left it up to themselves. Of course it was asked about.

The Li’l-wrekker ask me was Santa Clause, Jesus. She was age 5.
I couldn’t answer. One lie and the Santa myth was just another.
It all left a bad taste in my mouth.

I needn’t have worried about Santa some kid in kindergarten told the whole kindergarten class that year.

The Bible and church and religion in general stayed a topic as long as they matured. S. Arkansas is Baptist central so it was everywhere.
Their friends would invite them to church or bible school and the questions would come up again. They finally got old enough to read the Bible or study religion on their own.
Neither of the 3 go to church. But they often are spiritual. And are good folks.
That’s all I care about.

5

Try the Episcopalians. That’s where I go now. Unitarians are another option. There are, in fact, lots of liberal progressive churches out there, particularly in liberal areas of the country. My Catholic church back in Santa Cruz California (a very progressive town) was quite liberal even though, of course, the Catholic church as a whole is not.

6

Yeah, I attend(ed) an Episcopalian church prior to the pandemic, and it was a very welcoming, liberal, tolerant, progressive place for the most part. By that I mean that the church leadership is, but some of the older congregants are more conservative and less about progressive/tolerant stuff than you might think.

Much better than almost any other church in that regard, which is the ONLY reason I’m even remotely willing to be part of it.

7

In much of the northern and western U.S., United Methodist churches are quite liberal, including being welcoming of LGBTQ members and visitors; the UMC church I attend, in suburban Chicago, is one of those.

But, the UMC is in the end stages of a long struggle between its liberal wing (the portions of the U.S. mentioned above, and much of its European base) and its conservative wing (the southern U.S., and much of its African wing); the core issue in that struggle is views on homosexuality. The church is headed towards a schism along that line, which (last time I looked) has been agreed upon by both sides, and should become reality soon.

8

As for me, I grew up Catholic (went to Catholic schools, went to Mass every Sunday), but what I did not know at that time was that it was all to placate my paternal grandmother, who was a devout Catholic; my dad is an agnostic, and my mother is an atheist.

Since becoming an adult, I’ve wandered through several denominations, including a conservative evangelical church (which I quickly decided was not for me), several ELCA Lutheran churches (in part because my wife is a lifelong Lutheran), and most recently, the United Methodist church I mentioned above, which I joined a decade ago, after a couple of good friends kept bringing me along to church activities.

What I’ve come to realize is that I’m at least as much a deist as a Christian, and what I care about is being good to people and the planet. The actions of many conservative “Christians” in the U.S., particularly over the past decade, really sickens me – not only have they poisoned the well regarding Christianity for many younger Americans, but they use their beliefs to justify hateful words and actions against others.

9

I grew up in a Roman Catholic family. Eight years of Catholic grade school and four years of Catholic high school. Was a server at Mass, got the T-shirt, etc.

One benefit: my grandmother had nine children, all Catholic, so family parties were fun when I was growing up. Lots of booze & laughs.

I tried to keep the church thing going after our children were born. Went to Mass every Sunday. But I just wasn’t a believer. And I found it disingenuous to get our children involved when I had major doubts about the whole thing. So we stopped going when the children were still fairly young. And they way I figure it, if any of my children become religious, I would rather they “find” it on their own vs. having someone force it on them (as was done to me).

But I would not consider myself an atheist. Probably agnostic. I do believe there’s something “out there” in the universe that we don’t understand (and will never understand) that is intimately connected to our existence.

10

I suppose it’s not worth converting, but Reform Judaism is liberal, progressive, and welcoming. And it doesn’t require you to assert a belief in God. My mother was president of our Temple when I was a kid, and she had to give a talk to the congregation on Yom Kippur, sort of a personal meditation. She spoke about how to be an atheist and a Jew. The rabbi told her that he kept a copy of her talk on his desk to remind himself that a large fraction of his congregation didn’t believe in God and he had to minister to them, too.

11

this may come across as not particularly bright, but I’m not really familiar at all with Judaism of any variety, what is Reform Judaism?

12

The first paragraph of the wikipedia article gives a decent overview.

Reform Judaism - Wikipedia

There are several large organizations of Jews in the US, each with its own seminary and network of congregations and schools and such. The Union for Reform Judaism is one of them, as is United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. “Orthodox Judaism” is more of an umbrella name for a bunch of groups that take a more literal approach to following the Torah. (The law that God gave the Jews, via Moses, at Sinai. Also known as the Pentateuch or the first five books of the Bible.)

The most religiously “liberal” branches of Judaism in the US are the Reform movement, and the much smaller Reconstructionist movement. Reform Judaism focuses on the moral precepts of the religion, and especially the commandment to “repair the world”. “It’s our job to continue God’s work of creating the world by making it a better place.” Conservatives have adapted the law to the modern world, but still try to follow it. Just to be confusing, most Conservative Jewish organizations are politically very Liberal. :slight_smile:

But any decent Reform congregation will give you a group of people to meet with, guidance and support for ritual celebrations (most of which Jews do at home), some programming for kids, some ways for adults to learn more, and a lot of volunteer opportunities. My congregation is large and well-funded, and has, for instance, sponsored and supported a number of refugees, cooked meals for people who are sick or financially struggling or just need a meal, organized opportunities to tutor English as a foreign language, and a bunch of smaller programs, as well as programs focused on the well-being of congregants. .

13

Also the one in which I was brought up, and where I was a Bar Mitzvah (a rather lengthy speech about Groucho Marx):

14

I’ve long said that the easiest thing in the world is to call yourself a “Christian,” while one of the hardest things to do, apparently, is to act like one.

Or …

Some of the people that I’ve known who are the least like Christ … are devout Christians, while some of the most Christ-like would either call themselves agnostic or atheist.

15

I didn’t realize that was a formal movement, with organization and all that. I confess I thought it was a description of a “style” common in the more liberal congregations. Sorry!

16

I don’t think devotion to a particular sect of Christianity has anything to do with personal holiness, and yet all the holiest people I have met were practitioners of some well-recognized religion. Buddhists and Christians for the most part. And most of the just unusually kind, as well. It appears to me that if you are drawn to spiritual practice, you almost always need a framework and mentors and peers on that road, otherwise you easily fall prey to self-delusion and crackpot ideas. But the large majority of people are not drawn to spiritual practice.

Churches (and synagogues and mosques and temples) offer ordinary people mutual support, opportunity for charity, and community rituals for life passages. Those are all very good and necessary things. I would bet that the majority of attendees have only a cursory and unexamined set of doctrinal beliefs.

17

Wife and I are both firm secular Humanists, but the our kids were young we joined a couple of UU churches, largely for the RE component. UU congregations vary widely in terms of spirituality. For us, any more than minimal spirituality was a deal breaker. But when we stopped going a decade or so ago, the national org was clearly moving towards “christianity-lite”.

During our search, my wife really liked a local synagogue, but Rabbi Bob said a belief in a supernatural being was pretty much required. Other than that… :smiley: