For the purposes of this poll, I don’t mean anyone who went from atheism to theism or vice versa. I’m looking to hear from people who converted from one religion to another, like a Catholic who converts to Judaism.
Anyone here ever done that? If so, please talk about it. What made you decide that you needed to convert? Was there any kind of ritual involved, and if so what kind? How did your family treat you, assuming they cared? Anything else relevant that you’d like to share would be great.
I was born and raised in a Southern Baptist household. My great-great grandmother was a founding member of the church and it is only about .5 miles from my family home. My family is considered more than members - they sort of have a claim to being the bedrock on which the church was built. A member of my family has never NOT been on the Board of Deacons, and I once calculated that I was related to nearly 80% of the people buried in the cemetary. You get the picture.
I am not a Southern Baptist. I am an Episcopalian (by way of Unitariansim). The “hellfire and brimstone” aspect of the Southern Baptist tradition, as well as its extreme conservatism, completely put me off. There is also a judgementalism inherent in the Southern Baptist tradition that is off-putting.
For a bit I attended a Unitarian church, and I enjoyed myself very much. I got a tremendous amount out of the experience. I then moved and, in an effort to become a part of my new community, I attended services at a few churches. The service, the people, and the warmth of the reception I received at my present church moved me to join. While not confirmed, I am an active participant in the life of my Episcopal parish and was married in the church on Nov 1, 2003.
My parents do not feel betrayed, and instead appreciate that I am nurturing my spirtual side.
If anyone is considering it:
Early childhood I have no idea.
After moving to Atlanta at age 9 Southern Baptist, until my mother’s SS teacher got divorced. The church replaced him as the teacher and the whole class quit the church. Became Presbryterian. Went to Episcopal college (had to attend 35 chapels and 7 Sundays a semester). then married a Methodist.
I took test with the following results:
[ul][li] Unitarian (100%)[/li][li] Neo-Pagan (95%)[/li][li] Liberal Quaker (83%) probability because I wasn’t a pacifist.[/li][li] Mainline Liberal Protestant (68%) how I practice[/li][li] Mainline Conservative Protestant (32%) tell me about it. 
[/li][/ul]
I was originally located on the path Religious/Christian/Protestant/Methodist, having been raised with it. I should mention that while it may not be true for Methodism in all places or at all times, the version I grew up with could’ve summed up theology like so:
Around Junior High School, I became conscious of fervent people who were mostly at Religious/Christian/Protestant/<unspecified demonimation>/Apostolic who had it more like this:
I think it was the exposure to that stuff that made me go back and question this part of the deal on my own path, which was there if you grabbed ahold of Methodism hard enough and asked if it is expected of us that we believe this:
So I ended up thinking I liked the “be nice to people” stuff and the “works” stuff but was ready to cast most of the theology bit into the discard bin with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and Paul Bunyan.
mv /Religion/Christianity/Protestantism/Methodism/AHunter3 /Agnostic/Humanistic/Undifferentiated/Nonorganized/AHunter3
Given sufficient years and enough angst concentrated in the late teenaged and early 20ish ones, the “what does it all mean” and “why does the world suck” and “why doesn’t good break out in success all over” questions meshed up with the “why am I unhappy” & related personal stuff and I sought out more in the way of spiritual answers. Did a lot of reading, sought out a lot of direct personal experiences, eventually had some rather vivid ones with pretty clear answers within the limits of human fallibility and the confidence of trusting one’s own spiritual findings etc.
mv /Agnostic/Humanistic/Undifferentiated/Nonorganized/AHunter3 /Religion/Unaffiliated/Unique/AHunter3
From all the reading I’ve done over the years and discussions I’ve gotten into with other folks over the years, I’ve developed an inclination to describe myself in various other ways, none of them 100% accurate (but what is?) and all of them more useful for the sake of communication with most folks than saying “I’m religious but it’s a do it yourself version.” Thus I identify as Wiccan if I can emphasize that I’m not merely an unorthodox/undogmatic Wiccan but an actively anti-orthodoxy anti-dogmatism Wiccan. I identify sometimes as Gnostic if I can emphasize the absence of any specific resonances content-wise with the historical Christian Gnostics. In the right setting I will identify as neither theistic nor atheistic but rather as a person whose insights and beliefs and experiences can be accurately described with either vocabulary set.
-s /Religion/Unaffiliated/Unique/AHunter3 /Religion/NewAge/Wiccan/Unorthodox/AHunter3
-s /Religion/Unaffiliated/Unique/AHunter3 /Religion/Unaffiliated/Gnostic/AHunter3
-s /Religion/Unaffiliated/Unique/AHunter3 /Mu/Inclusive/Unaffiliated/AHunter3
I was raised by church-going Methodist parents in Arkansas (well, my dad became a Methodist after marrying mom – his parents were Church of Christ). I was quite active in church activities through high school, and even briefly considered the ministry as a career while under the influence of a particularly young and charismatic minister.
During my college years, I became a pretty thoroughgoing agnostic.
In my early thirties, I met and became engaged to my wife, who is Jewish and was raised in a Conservative-bordering-on-Orthodox synagogue in Asheville, NC. At the time, I did not intend to convert to Judaism just to facilitate a wedding in a synagogue. I felt that Judaism was and had been too important to too many people for me to cheapen it that way. Nevertheless, I did agree that I would support my wife in helping make a Jewish home in which to raise our kids. As one of the steps in doing so, I took an Introduction to Judaism course intended for prospective converts. The more I learned and studied, the more I felt drawn to Judaism. Most of the objections I’d developed to Christianity weren’t issues in Judaism. Ultimately, I studied with a Conservative rabbi for another eighteen months or so and eventually converted to Judaism under his supervision. I’ve written more about that process in other threads, including here, here, and here. I think among those three threads I’ve addressed the questions in the OP; if there’s something else you want to know, fire away.
I think rackensack might be me (well, except that he’s male, and grew up in Arkansas instead of Maryland).
I grew up Methodist, but remember realizing at some point when I was a teenager that I didn’t really believe in Christianity. I kept going to church to avoid fights with my mom, but I usually watched the kids in the nursery instead of going to the service, so I would not feel like too much of a hypocrite.
After I left home to go to college, I never went to church again. I tried being an atheist in college, but I realized I didn’t really believe in that either.
When I started graduate school, I met Mr. Neville (well, I sort of met him before that, but that’s a long and off-topic story). He was and is Conservative Jewish, and keeps kosher. I started learning about Judaism, and found that it seemed more satisfying to me than anything else had been. I officially converted almost five years later, a few months before we got married.
I got asked questions by a court of three rabbis- well, that’s what was supposed to happen, but it isn’t really what happened. I’d been taking classes or mentoring from all three of them, so they were satisfied with my general level of knowledge and asked me a token question. After that, I immersed in a mikveh, or ritual bath. One of the rabbis was a woman, and she came into the room where the mikveh is to witness my immersion (Judaism won’t let male rabbis witness female converts’ immersions for reasons of modesty)
My family wasn’t ecstatic about it, especially my mother. But I think my taking my time in the process (for many reasons) helped- she had a lot of time to get used to the idea. It also helps that my in-laws are really nice people. We don’t talk about religious matters- never did, even when I was Christian, so that hasn’t changed. My dad, sister, and most of my other relatives- they aren’t particularly religious, so they don’t mind.
Yeah, but every Jewish woman I met before my conversion to marry Mrs. Plant asked me if I had already been circumcised. I told Mrs. Plant that I would ask the next woman what it meant, and scream across the room “I have to do WHAT?”
The moehl has this spring loaded pen thing with a blade in it that he pokes you with…but I won’t digress further.
A guy on the Bet Din, a tribunal of Rabbis, asked me if I were a Zionist and I said “Yes, but I wish they would stop killing each other’s children”.
I’m also from Arkansas and Conservative, rackensack.