# Religions that discourage visitors. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 19, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610 "2012-06-19T03:27:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/1 "2012-06-19T03:27:45Z")
Here in the US, LDS(Mormon) churches have a sign out front saying “Visitors Welcome”, perhaps in response to awareness that visitors are generally not permitted in their temples, which are separate and distinct from local church buildings. I have seen this type of sign elsewhere as well, perhaps indicating that they are afraid that outsiders will see their church as an insular community that does not want to be disturbed and is not open to outsiders. What are some faiths that _discourage_ nonbelievers or outsiders from attending basic services? I have attended a conservative Mennonite service where I was the only person not in conservative Mennonite/Amish garb, but I was not made to feel unwelcome, though I actually knew one of the members socially already and thus wasn’t truly alone. Note that I’m talking about attending services, not about converting. I know that there are several faiths that discourage people from converting to them and/or make the process very involved in order to test one’s patience, but are there any faiths that will either _explicitly_ ban visitors from attending ordinary weekly services in general (e.g. by posting signs saying “\ites only, no visitors”, placing bouncers at the door, or by calling police to have visitors arrested as trespassers), or _implicitly_ ban or discourage them by making them feel uncomfortable? ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/2 "2012-06-19T04:04:04Z")
Occasionally religions may require tickets to attend services on special occasions or their most holy days when everyone who doesn’t come the other 364 days of the year suddenly wants to attend. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/3 "2012-06-19T04:46:05Z")
A number of Christian churches including Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox don’t keep outsiders from attending services but will not allow them to receive communion, which is a major part of the service: > **[Closed communion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_communion)** > > Closed communion is the practice of restricting the serving of the elements of Holy Communion (also called Eucharist, The Lord's Supper) to those who are members in good standing of a particular church, denomination, sect, or congregation. Though the meaning of the term varies slightly in different Christian theological traditions, it generally means that a church or denomination limits participation (with respect to the Eucharist) either to members of their own church, members of their own denom... ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/4 "2012-06-19T05:19:32Z")
Parsi Fire temples (Zoroastrian) temples in Bombay and Gujarat do not allow visitors and you can’t convert to Zoroastrianism, you have to be born into it of two Zoroastrian parents. Yes their numbers are seriously dwindling as you’d expect. > **[Parsis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsi)** > > Parsis (/ˈpɑːrsiː/) or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of the Persian Empire (part of the early Muslim conquests) in order to preserve their Zoroastrian identity. The Parsi people comprise the older of the Indian subcontinent's two Zoroastrian communities vis-à-vis the Iranis, whose ancestors migrated to British-ruled India from Qajar-era... ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/5 "2012-06-19T05:26:23Z")
Contrary to US Christian practice many, if not most, non-US centric faiths are not all that interested in or focused on bringing in and accommodating or converting those not of the faith. While some view this as unfriendly others view the American fetish to proselytize their faith as something kind of distasteful. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/6 "2012-06-19T05:32:48Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Contrary to US Christian practice many, if not most, non-US centric faiths are not all that interested in or focused on bringing in and accommodating or converting those not of the faith. This is just a bizarre statement and blatantly untrue. The Roman Catholic church actively converts (and does pretty well at it, check the growth rates of the Catholic Church in Africa especially) in Africa and South America and many other countries. > **[Christian population growth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth#Roman_Catholic_Church)** > > Christian population growth is the population growth of the global Christian community. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there were more than 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, more than three times as many as the 600 million recorded in 1910. However, this rate of growth is slower than the overall population growth over the same time period. In 2020, Pew estimated the number of Christians worldwide to be around 2.38 billion. According to various scholars and so Th... (Hint, the Roman Catholic Church is NOT a US-centric faith). And Islamic communities actively make efforts to convert entire non-muslim populations in India and in Indonesia and in many other countries. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/7 "2012-06-19T08:34:20Z")
I don’t think you’d be welcome at an Exclusive Brethren service. They have high fences around many of their churches and their gates are padlocked. ---
**Author:** ![Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shinna_Minna_Ma)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/8 "2012-06-19T08:46:12Z")
> [@jabiru](#): > > I don’t think you’d be welcome at an Exclusive Brethren service. They have high fences around many of their churches and their gates are padlocked. Wow - all these years I thought Garrison Keillor was making up the Brethren. Live and learn, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/9 "2012-06-19T08:48:53Z")
> [@Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](#): > > Wow - all these years I thought Garrison Keillor was making up the Brethren. Live and learn, I guess. I don’t know who Garrison Keillor is but we have Exclusive Brethren not far from where I live and they definitely live up to their name. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/10 "2012-06-19T09:19:59Z")
Here is Oz I have come across the Exclusive Brethren. Big high fences, blacked out window and large no trespassing signs. But then they have blokes standing on street corners yelling out the usual repent or be damned. Will not speak to anyone that approaches. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/11 "2012-06-19T10:20:36Z")
> [@gkster](#): > > A number of Christian churches including Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox don’t keep outsiders from attending services but will not allow them to receive communion, which is a major part of the service: > [Closed communion - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_communion) “Will not allow” is a stretch. More like, will expect those who do not believe in Communion as a Sacrament to refrain from partaking in it. It’s not like there’s someone asking the people in line for their baptismal certificates. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/12 "2012-06-19T10:25:06Z")
> [@Alley\_Dweller](#): > > Occasionally religions may require tickets to attend services on special occasions or their most holy days when everyone who doesn’t come the other 364 days of the year suddenly wants to attend. This certainly does happen at Jewish synagogues, but the motivation behind it is purely for lack of space, and a need to ration the limited space which is available. There are also economic motivations involved, a feeling that the 1/365-ers impose a disproportionate strain on the budget. These considerations are very different than any sort of exclusionary belief, which I think is what the OP was asking about. A better (but imperfect) comparison would be to an invitation-only wedding or funeral of a famous person, where the general public feels a closeness and a desire to attend, but those in charge decreed “invitation only” for purely practical reasons, because of expectations that those who are truly close would already fill up the place. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/13 "2012-06-19T14:09:09Z")
I always heard that the [Yazidi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidi) were fairly closed to outsiders. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/14 "2012-06-19T19:11:10Z")
The Druze are another religious group which is closed to conversion (one can only be a Druze by birth), and very secretive. They majority of secular Druze (Juhhal) are not allowed access to the holy literature, or allowed into a portion of their services reserved to an inner elite (Uqqal). I don’t know what their attitude to non-Druze attending the portion of the services open to Juhhal is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was discouraged or perhaps forbidden. They hold services in inconspicous buildings, and adapt many of the outward trappings of the local religions, behaving largely as Muslims around Muslims, and Christians around Christians. Much of this evolved in order to protect themselves during points in their history when they were heavily persecuted. Persecuted religions may discourage outsiders simply from the standpoint of safety, and it can become codified into their practice. [http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Bu-Dr/Druze.html](http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Bu-Dr/Druze.html) ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/15 "2012-06-19T21:59:07Z")
Judaism is not a proselytising religion and, while it’s not impossible to become a Jew, it’s not something that is made easy. You have to study a lot, etc. ---
**Author:** ![67java89](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/aeb1de/32.png) [@67java89](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/67java89)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/16 "2012-06-19T21:59:55Z")
What about Jehovah’s Witnesses? Can you just walk into a Kingdom Hall? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/17 "2012-06-19T23:49:23Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > Judaism is not a proselytising religion and, while it’s not impossible to become a Jew, it’s not something that is made easy. You have to study a lot, etc. Yes but most synagogues are open to visitors and would allow non-jews to attend shabbat services wouldn’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/18 "2012-06-19T23:51:16Z")
> [@jabiru](#): > > I don’t think you’d be welcome at an Exclusive Brethren service. Wow. I’d never heard of them before. Reading the wikipedia page gives the impression that they spend all their time breaking ranks with each other. **bleedin’ splitists!** ---
**Author:** ![zombywoof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9e8a1a/32.png) [@zombywoof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zombywoof)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/19 "2012-06-20T00:00:10Z")
Question - if a church claims tax exempt status, does that come with any requirements regarding them to be open to the public any way? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610/20 "2012-06-20T00:30:17Z")
> [@zombywoof](#): > > Question - if a church claims tax exempt status, does that come with any requirements regarding them to be open to the public any way? I’m not exactly certain, but I remember reading that the Church of Scientology has had trouble maintaining or establishing tax exempt status because it charges fixed fees for certain services. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religions-that-discourage-visitors/625610.md?page=2)