Reply to At what point do diverging world views lead to a friendship ending?

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[quote=Anonymous]I’m having a hard time assessing the feasibility of maintaining a friendship with one of my oldest friends.  In recent years our worldviews have diverged dramatically.

We are childhood friends, and grew up in an UMC circle in a medium-sized southern city.  After some moves in adulthood we are again quasi-local to each other (about an hour away) but I don’t know whether to maintain the friendship based on some recent changes my friend has made.

I am a Christian, but very mainstream and engaged with the world as it is.  I wear trousers, work full-time, get my kids vaccinated on schedule etc.  Over the years my friend first converted to Christianity, then joined a fundamentalist church that requires women and girls to wear dresses (and has women cover their hair), has all but completely dropped out of the medical system, and generally only seems to befriend others who share this libertarian/counter-cultural worldview.

I have friends with diverging religious and political opinions. I myself was very radical youth, holding almost revolutionary political positions, so I understand this impulse.  But while I find that middle age has made me more centrist in all my beliefs, my friend seems to be drifting to an extreme worldview.

Part of my consternation is her husband, who has always seemed profoundly judgmental of anyone who doesn’t share his perspectives and is deeply suspicious of institutions in general.  I suspect that he is highly controlling behind closed doors.

Have you faced a situation like this? How did you deal? Cut off or just distance? Does it ever get better?[/quote]

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