Find Religion?
by Allison
I’ve recently been contemplating the very title of my blog–find religion.
I’m not sure a single website can help anyone find religion if they are truely searching. However, I do hope that this may help people formulate their own answers to life’s important questions. Whether you believe in a Divine being or not, answering these questions, or at least exploring them, is the only way to find religion. Religion isn’t just a tradition handed down to you from your parents to be blindly followed.
Is it out duty to help others find religion? Yes, I think it is. Stay tuned for advice on this subject, and feel free to leave some advice of your own. How can we help others find religion?
find religion, Divine, Religion, advice
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October 29th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Perhaps I shouldn’t be writing this after the 7th Saturday that a nicely dressed man and woman have knocked on my door in the middle of my Saturday breakfast (making Halloween pancakes) with my children. But, I can’t resist.
My thoughts on this topic are twofold:
1. Religion is the socially defined cousin of faith. Many people can have faith without religion. It makes them none the less close to God or whomever they believe in. My father is perhaps the most faith-driven man I know, but he will not set foot in a church.
2. To believe that it is one’s obligation to help folk find religion–in essence, witnessing, to the less enlightened public, is a lofty proposition indeed. Sometimes, in that mission, it’s possible to lose sight of the strength of someone else’s faith.
For example, no matter how many times I respectfully and openly tell the strangers at my door on Saturday that my faith is firm and spirituality deeply rooted in the lives of myself and my family, they cannot hear it. In trying to help me find religion (most specifically, their religion) they have failed to see that I have faith. It is someone’s individual faith that should be celebrated, honored and pursued in this life in my opinion…regardless of how often they sit in a pew.
October 30th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
I’ll agree that religion is a loaded word for many and that church attendance is a completely separate from the matter of faith, but I agree with Allison that the obligation to witness to others is still there.
Faith itself is also a loaded term: What exactly is it you have faith in? Buhdism, Taoism, pantheism, monotheism, Atheism (secularism)? That’s alot of -isms!
As a Christian I believe that it is my obligation to inform others of my Faith and deliver the message of salvation through Jesus. But it’s just my job to deliver the message, not force it down your throat or try to beat you into submission. Once I’ve done my job (informing you) it’s up to God to do the rest.
I’m sure others of differing faiths also have some form of Evangelism.
Is it lofty to share what you believe to be a path to salvation? Not really, it’s actually a form of compassion (if done correctly) and caring.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Keith- I think you bring up a valid point (and perhaps fodder for another post from Allison)…how do you witness? How do you share, openly and passionately about your own faith, without “forcing it down someone’s throat?”
I know it’s possible. I have had many a beautiful, intellectually stimulating discussion with people of different faiths. And, while my faith stayed firmly rooted in what I believe, their sharing DID have an impact on my faith and the way that I see other people with similar beliefs.
I suppose what I was questioning in my post was how it’s done by not all, but a very boisterous “many.”