Name changed for this as I’ve had people follow me around threads recently.
I’ve known my friend Jane for three years now. We met as mature students and have stayed friendly as I moved into a house not far from her after uni. We’ve always got on very well generally, and I gelled with her partner too. However, over the last year or so she has got heavily into Christianity, which has started to affect our friendship.
I should be clear that it’s not the religion itself with which I have an issue - she’s entitled to her beliefs. However, she doesn’t want to accept that I’m entitled to the same thing, and that I neither believe in God nor want to debate why I feel this way.
It started relatively slowly, with questions about what I did believe if I didn’t believe in God. When I said I didn’t really have a theory about “the creation”, she said “that makes me think you haven’t given it enough thought”. I said I didn’t need to give it any thought; that I didn’t have to believe in God just because I hadn’t got a particular favourite alternative theory. I pretty much shut the conversation down after that. On another occasion, we’d met to go shopping and, before she’d arrived, I’d been stopped by one of these “Have you heard the joyous news?” types giving out leaflets. He’d recognised me as he’d knocked on my door with the same spiel a few days before and got very excited; telling me this wasn’t a coincidence and God had meant it etc… I just said I had to go and to have a good day, but was thinking “What a nutter”. I told my friend when she arrived, thinking she’d find it as ridiculous as I did, but she also decided it wasn’t a coincidence and that maybe God was trying to tell me something 🙄 Also in general when I’ve made clear that I don’t want to get into discussion about this, she’s said things like “Well, maybe you’re just not ready to let God into your life yet”.
Anyway, it’s all come to a head this weekend. She told me her friends from church were having a couple of events over the weekend and asked if I’d be interested in coming. I wasn’t, but I had plans anyway, so just said I couldn’t go rather than specifying that I didn’t want to. She replied, “That's a shame - Matt [her partner, who doesn’t share her beliefs] doesn’t want to come, but I thought he might if you did”. I said maybe if she reassured him that it was just a chance to meet her friends and not a recruitment drive, he’d be prepared to go.
Jane suddenly starts looking a bit sheepish. She then admits that the idea of the Friday and Saturday social events is that, once you’re there, they start asking you if you’d consider joining them on Sunday too - at church. I was really annoyed. I suppose I should have guessed, but I was daft enough to think my friend wouldn’t try to con me. I told her as much. She got flustered, saying she knew I’d really like everyone and that’s why she wanted me to go, and of course she wouldn’t put me under any pressure, but that she was expected to “spread the word”.
I’m fuming. I feel conned and pressured. The only way I can see our friendship continuing is if we take religion as a subject off the table, permanently. I don’t care if she thinks I’m just not being open to it, or haven’t given it enough thought - I don’t believe in God and that will not be changing. I can’t see this going down well - she’s already on Facebook groups called things like “Why should I be ashamed of loving God?” that are basically suggesting Christians are somehow an oppressed minority, and I can just imagine what her so-called friends from church will say if she tells them. But I don’t see any other way.