To think this friendship is doomed

[Ivanovaa]

We recently moved to a new town and I just found out that one of the people I befriended is an evangelical born again christian. I am actually quite shocked that my lovely, kind and cool seeming friend is also a fundamental christian who believes in hell, sin, saving people and is against abortion and homosexuality.

Other than sometimes referring to how much strength she gets from god, she never talks about these things and our relationship is not different from the ones I have with other (mom) friends. She also knows that I am not religious. I thought this would not be an issue but maybe I’ve been naive.

Am I overreacting to think that she secretly believes my whole family is going to burn in hell forever if we don’t embrace jesus and that she may at some point start trying to “convert” me?

Is she haranguing gay people and protesting outside abortion clinics?

I am actually quite shocked that my lovely, kind and cool seeming friend is also a fundamental christian who believes in hell, sin, saving people and is against abortion and homosexuality.

How do you KNOW that's what your friend believes? What the official teachings of a particular tradition say and what individual religious practitioners actually believe are not necessarily one and the same thing.

Has your friend actually TOLD you that she believes person X or person Y is bound for the fiery pit or are you assuming this because she belongs to a church whose official stance on the matter is that?

I'm lapsed Catholic and views vary widely among the Catholics I know on many issues, irrespective of what the church's official view is.

Have you actually asked her what she believes or are you assuming?

Its not necessarily doomed albeit maybe limited.

Had a colleague who i got on well with. I knew she was religious- she was married to a vicar and did a lot of voluntary work through the church. We got on well until one day I made the mistake of saying something about a local church , and then she started questioning me, did I go to church as a child (yes), why did I stop etc etc. Saw her in a different light after that, sadly.

I am an atheist with some very religious friends and relatives (Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims) and I think YABU. None of my religious friends have ever tried to convert me. The times in my life when 'friends' have attempted self-righteous 'interventions' in my way of life have never involved religion. Of course, I don't know this individual, and I can't guarantee that she won't use her religion in an unpleasant way, but assuming that she will do so without evidence is rather prejudiced in itself.

@Ivanovaa you are being prejudiced because you are pre judging her on something she hasn't actually done (try to convert you) and on assumptions on what she personally believes as oppose to what her church puts on their website.

I am now agnostic but was brought up catholic, even within Catholicism many in fact probably most catholics do not adhere 100% to their churches teachings.

You say she is lovely but you want to judge her for what you presume to know about her privately held beliefs or on what she might do or say to you.

You sound prejudiced towards her religion, personally I wouldn't want such a prejudiced closed minded person as a mate so yeah, bag her off, she deserves a better friend that what you appear to be.

Wow you are so judgemental- good luck finding friends op. If they don’t fit precisely with your world view which sounds very very limited.

Maybe she is slowly building up your relationship so she can finally save you from your wicked ways.

So she has not been anything other than lovely to you, but you want to drop her because of her beliefs that she hasn't even discussed with you?
There's someone being prejudiced here but it isn't her.

I was brought up catholic as well. It is completely different from born again/evangelical christianity. When someone chooses to travel to another town to join a small fringe church that follows the teachings of a fundamentalist preacher in the US, she herself is pictured on their website baptising people in lakes, then yes I assume she “privately” believes that I will go to hell and that homosexuality is a disease. I DO have an issue with that and that is why I question our friendship.

i don’t care how lovely anyone is, if they believe homosexuality is a sin and abortion a crime, I will indeed bag you off. I will ask her and if she believes that shit, then it’s clear. Thanks for all the input.

Well that's a dripfeed....

You go girl, you get judging that judgemental person

I have no religion, married a man whose faith was so strong he didn't believe in sex before marriage, two of my closest friends have strong faith but I have just ended a friendship of 30+ years after it became clear she is now a raging racist.
Like you OP I wouldn't be friends with someone who believed being gay is wrong and abortion a crime, and if I have less friends for that I'm fine. someone who attends that type of church that promotes those beliefs would concern me.

I wouldn’t worry too much OP. Evangelical people will usually not be close friends with those who aren’t ‘saved’ and I know this from growing up in that subculture. They can and do compartmentalise.

The Christianity wouldn't bother me , but the homophobia and anti abortion stance would. My Christian friends don't hold those views.
However are you sure she has the views expressed on the web page? She may belong to the church but not believe in everything.

If she believes that gay people will burn in hell then no she isn't.

By your standards, no one should make any distinction between any type of thinking at all 🙄 Is it wrong to make a judgement concerning someone racist? Or homophobic?

(Heres a clue: it isn’t).

A long time ago there was a thread about someone who had just discovered their lovely friendly neighbour was part of the Ku Klux Klan, and some posters decided to go with "Be Kind. It was a long time ago."

You're not unreasonable. I had an evangelical friend when I was a teenager, we rolled along fine for years and I went along to her church for a time but when a mutual friend died, all agreed with sadness that he was in Hell. This 18 year old who died accidentally and tragically, was 'in Hell'. That was it for me and the friend and any 'evangelical' with like views, they can take it somewhere else.

I have friends who are more moderate/mainstream CoE now and they are completely different. They are also far more educated and open to 'questioning', doubts, modern day problems etc than any evangelical I've known, whose answers to theological issues were little more than "All things are possible with God." I would not waste my time, OP.

For me it would probably be doomed but that's probably because I don't have time for any of that claptrap. We have loads in town at the minute getting in everyone's way and spouting nonsense through megaphones. They seem as nice as pie but they're a bloody nuisance and I can't get my head around the misogyny and homophobia. Not for me.

I had two Jehovah's Witness friends, which is about as evangelical as you get, a Mormon friend and a very devout Muslim friend. We just compartmentalised and never discussed anything related to their faith and my lack of it.

If she isn't foisting her beliefs on you, can't you just ignore it?

I'm an evangelical Christian and there is nothing I know of in the Bible that leads me to believe anyone will burn or be tortured forever. There's a lake of fire, but that's more about destruction. There's mention of a second death (after a day of judgement)... All in all, it reads much more like those who don't want to spend eternity with God just cease to exist. Which sounds fair, no?

Devils with pitchforks and burning pits of despair are more Dante's inferno than Jesus... A product of medieval obsession with pain.

I think the problem is you are ‘judging’ her without even discussing it with her. For all you know she might have family that go to this church and she might feel she can do more good staying and trying to give them another viewpoint. I realise this is unlikely - but you haven’t asked her you’ve gathered information online and made your decision. This is very similar to people who have beliefs like this - they have ‘information’ given to them and they choose to belief it without question. The similarities are ironic at the very least.

Here’s another way of looking at it: the church you describe very likely teaches your friend that no matter how loving, kind and selfless she is in her day to day life, no matter how good of a friend, colleague, employee etc, she should expect judgement and condemnation from ‘worldly’ people like you because that is what ‘worldly’ people will always do. Do you want to play into that narrative?

Well, I'm not the OP, but happily my life is brimming with gays, infidels and abortionists.

Honestly, how silly. There are 8 billion people in the world, and you need the merest fragment of a percent of them for a decent social life.

You don't need to hang out with nasty bigots if you don't want - whether that's the OP, or her friend.

Oh, and what you did in your post WAS JUDGING. So don't feel too superior, eh?