How did it go with your family of origin? I recently became Christian and it's right for my life but horrific with the relatives.
Curious to know whether your relatives ever stopped judging about it. |
My grandmother was orthodox jewish. I married a catholic and became catholic.
She said, life is to short to let others make you feel bad about your life choices. Be happy. The rest of my family...meh. |
NP. love your grandmother!!! |
I did this. My mom - who is "extremely" Jewish - was upset at first but very quickly came around. She understands me and is supportive - she loves me and decided it was not worth losing our relationship over. But the rest of my family, including siblings and step-parent? They have basically disowned me. This has hurt my feelings beyond words BUT it also cemented my decision to become Christian. I had no idea that our relationships were based on religion. Whatever. |
It's not really germane to the conversation, but as a non-believer I am curious what goes on within one during such a conversion. Do your beliefs actually change as to the Trinity, the virgin birth, immaculate conception, resurrection, transubstantiation, etc?
I am really not trying to be snarky. I have a friend who was a Jewish convert to Catholicism, and I was surprised when he made it clear to me that the conversion of wafer to flesh of Jesus is very real to him. I am just curious to what extent conversion extends, from accepting the rituals and raising the kids in the religion at one end, to complete acceptance of Church doctrine at the other. I suspect it varies with the individual, but I would like to hear how it is for the various posters here. No nasty feedback from me, I promise. |
This mirrors my experience as well with my brother. I am tired of making all the effort to make him comfortable with my very personal decision. He attitude and reaction has made me extra certain that I made the right decision; that I am now in a place genuine to me and my beliefs and not among those that judge. |
I had a different conversion, but in my experience, the process of loosing faith in my family's faith was a different, and earlier, process than discovering what I now welcome as the truth. With regards to specific tenets of the faith, those didn't come first for me. Maybe you'll meet the one guy who was so drawn to the idea of transubstantiation that it was the pulling force for his conversion, but for most people, I imagine you first come to believe that Christ is who he claims to be, and from there you accept his teachings - some of those are more easily accepted than others, but that is why having faith is not a binary event, that is achieved and then indefinitely maintained. Having faith is a life long journey. |
I can identify with the image of a life long journey. Thank you for expressing that here. |
I can identify with the image of a life long journey. Thank you for expressing that here. Interesting - that is how some people feel about no longer having faith. |
I think this is extremely uncommon - at least it doesn't get talked about very often. My relatives (including my parents and 2 siblings) are VERY judgy towards family members who are not Jewish enough (hard to explain because we are NOT a "religious" family). They get upset when ANYONE they know marries a non-Jew. They somehow don't seem to realize that it's a big, diverse world out there. They are centered on their Jewishness to the point that it seems to define them. I find it totally bizarre and have never felt connected to Jewish culture or Judaism - I love my family but feel like an outsider because of this. If i were to convert to another religion I think it would be considered a major crisis. There is just no way it would fly. Ever. My beliefs should be my choice but for Jewish people it seems to not work this way. |
I don't think your faith, as an adult, is anyone else's business. If people can't respect that, even family members, they aren't worth worrying over because they clearly don't respect you. |
In a Jewish family, everything is everybody's business. Seriously. |
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WHY |
I came from a non-observant Jewish family and converted to Protestant when I married. My family never says anything overt, but I know that my conversion has created distance in our relationship. I just sense that they don't feel they have as much in common with me now that I'm Christian. It makes me sad. |