Going to Church on Sundays

[EdithSimcox]

Question for Christians obviously: How important is it to you to be able to go to church on Sunday?

I have recently refound faith after an absence of 25 years. My DP is finding it impossible to accept. I've been trying to find ways of being as unobtrusive as possible about it - including going to church near the office on a weekday lunchtime so as not to disrupt our family weekends. But I do want to go to church on Sundays sometimes - I want a 'home' church, to be part of a regular congregation, to sing hymns, to feel part of a church family (DP would really shudder at that one). In the last 8 weeks I've managed to go twice. I wasn't going today anyway because I knew 2 weeks in a row would really tip her over the edge. But this morning she asked me to agree never to go on Sundays. I said it was too big an ask to try and bounce me into and she had a sort of panic attack (I don't know if that's a technical thing, but it's definitely a physical panic/pain response she has - which she is having therapy to deal with but she thinks may never go away)

I do want to put her and the DC first, and I am prepared to compromise, but I was thinking more like going once or twice a month, not never. But she says I can pray anywhere and go to church in the week, so it's not a big thing to ask at all.

As a compromise I'm think I'm going to agree not to go until September, but that won't be enough I'm sure.

What do you think?

If you start a relationship with a person who thinks in a particular way and that meshes with the way you think, then it's bound to be a challenge if that person Starr thinking in a fundamentally different way. I don't understand why anyone would disagree with that.

"I am a Christian and my fiance is an atheist. I go to church every Sunday plus bible study on a Thursday evening and spend some hours each moth in the company of other Christian women. He looks after the kids during this time."

is that how it was when you started your relationship, or are you a convert?

If you start a relationship with a person who thinks in a particular way and that meshes with the way you think, then it's bound to be a challenge if that person Starr thinking in a fundamentally different way. I don't understand why anyone would disagree with that.

Bertrand, just because I don't think people necessarily think in only one way for the rest of their life. There is an element of unpredictability - we are constantly evolving, growing and changing. Yes, this can be challenging but also it is fascinating. I like enigmas.

Of course people change.

But absolute, fundamental, complete change? Thinking the utter opposite?

Are you really saying it wouldn't be even a bit of a problem for you?

Just suppose, Bertrand, that becoming a Christian wasn't a complete, fundamental change - that the person had the same history, the same memories, the same relationships; and that they became not less but more of themselves; a better version of the person they'd always been.

Would it be so hard to swallow, if you looked at it like that?

Bertrand a lot of changes is people are a long time coming, they happen gradually. I can't say I wouldn't find an apparently 'sudden' change difficult but this could happen with anyone, in life. My outlook is just that I'd hope to do my best with them.

The problem is that you both genuinely and sincerely believe that becoming a Christian makes you a better person and I don't. I don't think it makes you a worse person. But it makes you a person who ignores a bit of their thinking, rational brain.

Maybe hating faith more than loving people, is the bigger problem.

Nobody said anything about hating.

Are you going to decide I hate Christians in a minute? Because if you are, I'm out of this conversation. Which would be a shame, because it's really interesting,

Bertrand Good, I'm glad you don't, as you put it 'hate Christians' - I never suggested you did as I mentioned hating faith.

Thankfully, your comment shows you can separate a person from their religious faith, at least in terms of how you treat / view them. As I alluded to earlier, people are multidimensional. So it is possible to love others regardless of their faith.

I don't think being a Christian means you ignore the rational part of my brain. Indeed, I had to do an immense amount of critical thinking as I re-examined the received ideas I'd grown up with.

And while I think that imagination, emotion, and experience are all vital to faith )and indeed to proper human functioning), it's extremely important to me that my faith is reasoned. It isn't simply irrational, uncritical and unthinking fideism.

I have to say, Bertrand, although I'm sure you don't hate Christians, you do sometimes sound as if you despise them - or perhaps more accurately, you despise their faith (which is, I think, what Capsium was saying).

Well this thread has been going around in circles. As an atheist I do NOT assume any belief of a theist, I ask them what they believe,. And that is the problem because I base my life on what I can have confidence in knowing.

FYI atheists can not be dogmatic because they do not have a set of beliefs. Unlike theists who do have a set of beliefs. What if your partner decided to change there sexuality, in the middle of the marriage. I would still love them but I couldn't be with them and starting to believe in the supernatural is on the same par.

When a child has an imaginary friend, nobody hates the imaginary friend. Some might get annoyed with the 'relationship' but you cant hate something that isn't real. That's exactly how an atheist sees a deity, hated doesn't come in to it.

It seems to me that the distinction between faith and reason is something of a false dichotomy. We are all capable of believing 'six impossible things before breakfast', and people believe in things that can't be proved all the time. Now, I agree that this is not the same as believing in God (or rather in a god), but I would argue that this is much more of a spectrum and less of a black-and-white divide than is sometimes made out.

I believe in science, in pushing the boundaries of knowledge, in what I can see with my own eyes and touch with my own hands.

I also believe in love. I believe that how I feel about my children adds up to more than just an innate desire to preserve my genetic material in the next generation. I believe that how I feel about my DH is more than just a biological urge to reproduce.

I believe in beauty. I believe that music, art and literature have the power to make me happy, to make me cry, to give me hope.

I believe in justice and generosity, and that sometimes the right thing to do is not necessarily the thing that is to my own immediate advantage.

I also believe in God. Not in a God who issues instructions, sets ultimata, tells me who I can and can't love, who smites and judges and condemns, but in a God who encompasses and helps me better to experience love, and beauty, and justice.

I don't expect other people to share that belief, and I understand totally why people might be wary and disapproving of religious belief. I hope, though, that the people who know me best (and my DH is an atheist, who was pretty horrified when I started going to church again in my 40s, though he knew I'd always been more agnostic than atheist) can see that my faith is a positive, for me, and therefore indirectly for them too. I don't believe that my faith makes me better than people without faith. It certainly doesn't make me morally superior. It does, however, make me 'better' (happier, stronger, more open, more hopeful, more focused on others, paradoxically perhaps more grounded) than I was before I had faith.

None of this is helping Edith though. And there I just wish that there was something more constructive and helpful that I could say. If you're still reading, Edith, I'm thinking of you.

"We are all capable of believing 'six impossible things before breakfast', and people believe in things that can't be proved all the time."

What sort of things?

All the ones you list later, like love and justice and beauty are things that come from humanity. They do not require belief in an external "being"

But a person can disapprove / disagree / hate an idea, way of thinking or system of belief. What I am suggesting if this sentiment is absolutely predominant then it sometimes can interfere with how loving a person is towards someone else who holds the (set of) ideas in question. This is why, I presume, some have said it would be practically impossible for them to continue a relationship if their life partner suddenly acquired religious faith.

So, as I see it, 'hate' (or which ever disapproval sentiment is seen as most appropriate) of faith predominates over the love for another person, in this case scenario.

It is important for me to go to mass on Sundays as, as well as the aspect of communion with God, it is communion with my church. I don't think Sundays is a deal breaker and I think God would be happy for you to be there anytime but Sundays is when most people are there.

My DH doesn't attend church and my children have fallen away from it at the moment so I go alone to the early mass and they are all usually still in bed when I get back!

It seems that the Sunday issue has become the flashpoint for you although your partner clearly has deep rooted issues with religion. It must be difficult for her to understand your newly found faith and I am guessing she is worried about how you will change and your relationship will change. Only time can assure her that you will still be you and that, despite the expectations of others, finding faith will not turn you into a bigot, people who are bigots may use their faith to justify their views, but there are lots of us who aren't and who view Christianity as a direction for love, tolerance and acceptance.

I would try and move things forward gently. This is important to you and she needs to understand that but you also you recognise her fears. This is a journey you are both on in your relationship. Relationships are often about compromise so, if attending Sundays is important to your faith, maybe you need to look at the way you can do this that impacts as little as possible on your relationship so early, less often etc, however I would suggest that she is going to have difficulties with you attending church and practising your faith at any time and you need to work with her to show that you are still you, you still love her but this is also important. Lots of families work it through, it takes time, effort and compromise from both but so do lots of aspects of relationships.

'I fell in love with my partner because of who they are but if their political, social or moral beliefs where to change significantly in a short period then I dont see how I could be with them anymore, they wouldn't be the person I fell in love with.'

'But absolute, fundamental, complete change? Thinking the utter opposite?'

There are a lot of things that can happen in life that can and will cause this type of shift. And even in a short period of time - an illness, an accident, something that someone else does to you or yours.

I'm so glad I'm married to a person who didn't just leave.

In our case, it wasn't religion, it was our daughter's death.

Neither one of us is the person we 'fell in love with' (I don't believe in 'falling in love' but in love as a continuum, because people change over time.

You are absolutely right, expat, that neither party in a long relationship can be unchanged. All couples will have to survive things that change them in fundamental ways, things that you don't 'get over' but which change you forever.

OK- let's move away from faith.

I would similar problems if my partner suddenly declared himself to be a fervent believer in homeopathy.

Of course people change, or are changed. But anything which marks a change in the fundamental way a person thinks is going to be an issue, surely?

On a completely pragmatic level, Bertrand, for me, it would depend on how the new beliefs manifested.

If a change in thinking manifested a persistently cruel or violent behaviour towards people around them, I would have a big problem on my hands. However if the person in question remained kind and loving I would find it a lot easier to be accommodating.

"However if the person in question remained kind and loving I would find it a lot easier to be accommodating."
Well, of course!

How is a sudden belief in the power of dandelion fluff going to thwart your love for a person?

'But anything which marks a change in the fundamental way a person thinks is going to be an issue, surely?'

Not necessarily. That depends on a lot of things. And again, even if it is, it's a question of degree. I wouldn't want to be with someone who wanted me to be the same person they 'fell in love with' because I've found that nigh on impossible as I go through life. I'm definitely, fundamentally not the same person I was when I was 22. There have been some very profound shifts. In DH, too.

Bertrand good, so why would you have a problem with someone who 'fundamentally' changed what they believed, if they remained kind and loving?