Are there any unorthodox religious people here?

[rookie]

I mean people who would call themselves by some traditional religious name but are actually unorthodox followers of that religion to the point that others in the mainstream of the religion would claim they are not that religion at all.

 

If so, please share why you continue to call yourself said religion even when its mainstream adherents do not consider you one of their own.

 

Also, if you were orthodox, how you moved toward unorthodox and how your views changed.

 

Clear as mud? :001_smile:

[yellowperch]

My mother is a life-long liberal Catholic. She cheered Vatican II and has taken the Church's teaching on social justice to heart. She is very devout and prayerful. She has given much to the church and gained much. It and our family are at the center of her life. The priest-abuse cover up hurt her very deeply (our family priest, a man who was her spiritual guide through the loss of her child, was convicted of chid molestation and died in prison a few years ago. We still don't know if this priest harmed my brother in the last months of his illness befor he died.) She worked hard for many years to see the church become more open and accepting of homosexuality and more respectful of women, and has been heart-broken to see it move in the other direction.

 

She considers herself a true Catholic, and thinks her church has been hijacked. She'd like to see married priest, women priests, and a church more concerned with social justice and truth. Whenever (now jokingly because I have learned) I suggest she join a liberal Episcopalian denomination she says the Catholic Church is her church an no one will convince her to leave. The pope would leave before she would.

 

You go, Mom!

[Luckymama]

yellowperch, my mother was JUST like your mother (subtract the former priest issue and add in a gay adult child). I wish I could have the courage of my convinctions like she did.

[MorganClassicalPrep]

My mother is a life-long liberal Catholic. She cheered Vatican II and has taken the Church's teaching on social justice to heart. She is very devout and prayerful. She has given much to the church and gained much. It and our family are at the center of her life. The priest-abuse cover up hurt her very deeply (our family priest, a man who was her spiritual guide through the loss of her child, was convicted of chid molestation and died in prison a few years ago. We still don't know if this priest harmed my brother in the last months of his illness befor he died.) She worked hard for many years to see the church become more open and accepting of homosexuality and more respectful of women, and has been heart-broken to see it move in the other direction.

 

She considers herself a true Catholic, and thinks her church has been hijacked. She'd like to see married priest, women priests, and a church more concerned with social justice and truth. Whenever (now jokingly because I have learned) I suggest she join a liberal Episcopalian denomination she says the Catholic Church is her church an no one will convince her to leave. The pope would leave before she would.

 

You go, Mom!

 

wow. Can I just say I wish there were more people like your mom in the Church? I may still be an active member if that were the case... :glare:

Amazing. Really.

[Peela]

I do not belong to a religion myself.

 

But I have a friend who is a Franciscan monk who is very radical in his views. He is homosexual, promotes multi faith events, and believes in reincarnation. He is forever being reprimanded by the church. He owns nothing and lives in poverty, living by donation, as per his vow- he wears his monks robes a lot of the time- he is nothing like any other Christian I have met, especially Catholic- yet he very much sees himself as one. We have great conversations.

[arghmatey]

I attend a Catholic church that is full of homosexuals and local millionaires (and obviously non-homosexuals and non-millionaires, too). It's fun, has a lot of ministries that interest me and include intelligent, well-mannered people, and it doesn't bore my kids and me to death. We actually listen in church, and we randomly stop by to pray.

 

No other church draws me in like this, and I'm not letting the mainstream or anyone else decide what I call myself.

[KellyKelley]

Me. I am a Missionary Baptist but I am not typical. While I am very conservative both socially and politically I am also of the mindset that "good stewardship" means leaving as small a footprint as I can. I refuse to pump and give bottles at church for modesty I do use a cover but I have I cups so I can not nurse modestly, when Jesus died on the cross the need for sacrifice was ended so my son remains intact. Paul was very clear that the sacrifice of my son's foreskin was not needed. I grow an organic garden because the pesticides are harmful to my middle child who has a parasympathetic nervous system. She also had vaccine reactions so we don't do those anymore either. I am a mostly AP style parent as well and all of these things mark me as an odd bird in our church circles. As for issues of homosexuality or sex outside of marriage it is nomdb and I stay out of other peoples lives because we are all imperfect sinners and it is between them and God. Someones personal or religious beliefs are not for me to critique as we all have our own paths to tread. I try to live my life in a way that makes people want what I have instead of aggressively trying to convert them. I do regularly talk about my faith but in the context of how it fits into my everyday life. All of this marks me as non-typical.

[Ginevra]

I mean people who would call themselves by some traditional religious name but are actually unorthodox followers of that religion to the point that others in the mainstream of the religion would claim they are not that religion at all.

 

If so, please share why you continue to call yourself said religion even when its mainstream adherents do not consider you one of their own.

 

Also, if you were orthodox, how you moved toward unorthodox and how your views changed.

 

Clear as mud? :001_smile:

 

This is a pretty good description of me. I identify with Protestant Christianity; I practice the faith, am raising my children as such and do believe in God and Jesus. But if I were to have a heart-to-heart tenants-of-the-faith discussion with, say, 12 Christian peers, I have no doubt that at least a few of them would denounce me as a Christian. I keep my doubts pretty close to the vest for this reason.

 

I continue to identify with Christianity because I believe in Jesus and because I think faith is preferable to agnosticism and out of the faiths I could participate in, Christianity is the best fit. It's also the most logical from a social standpoint.

 

This is the short overview of how I arrived here: I was raised by devout Pentecostal Christians. I never embraced the talking-in-tongues and word-of-faith stuff, but I believed in Jesus and God. I went through the typical doubting in my late teens/early 20's, but threw myself fully in when I was 29. At that point, I was a very typical Evangelical.

 

When my daughter died in labor, that was the beginning of a crisis of faith. Not immediately, but over a couple of years. A lot of it surrounded prayer and the goodness of God; faith and trust in those ideas. For a while, I went apostate and for a period of time, I identified with Deism. I did not "go public" with any of that, though I discussed it with some close friends. I continued to attend church, but we also changed to a "doctrine light" church for a couple of years. My husband is very flexible and was willing to go in whatever direction I wished. Eventually, we began to go to our current church, which is not "doctrine light", but is also very meet-you-where-you-are.

 

So, really if I were honest, I would call myself someone who tries to be a Christian. I know mainstream Christians bristle at this term. But that is how it feels to me. I want to stick with God and Jesus, but there are also lots of parts of the Bible and foundational beliefs that I doubt or disbelieve completely. I can't really reconcile to one, cohesive system of belief, but Christianity comes the closest, so I stay.

[SailorMom]

I was, for a long time, a VERY unorthodox Christian - absolutely to the point that most Christians wouldn't have considered me one.

I figured out in my early 30's that I wasn't Christian at all, though...

[KC in KS]

I'm a devoted member of a local non-denominational evangelical church. Right there, most people assume they know a lot about my beliefs and my politics.

 

Not so. I have this really bad habit of studying the Bible and trying to figure stuff out for myself. It leads me down a lot of paths that would make the Religious Right absolutely hysterical.

 

Fortunately, our founder/senior pastor emphasizes grace.... we may not all agree, but through grace, that's okay.

 

Actually, I'm currently writing a summer Bible study to teach other women how to do the same sorts of research for themselves. Might just stir up some discussions in our church! :lol: (and yup, the pastor's just fine with that!)

[annandatje]

My mother is a life-long liberal Catholic. She cheered Vatican II and has taken the Church's teaching on social justice to heart. She is very devout and prayerful. She has given much to the church and gained much. It and our family are at the center of her life. The priest-abuse cover up hurt her very deeply (our family priest, a man who was her spiritual guide through the loss of her child, was convicted of chid molestation and died in prison a few years ago. We still don't know if this priest harmed my brother in the last months of his illness befor he died.) She worked hard for many years to see the church become more open and accepting of homosexuality and more respectful of women, and has been heart-broken to see it move in the other direction.

 

She considers herself a true Catholic, and thinks her church has been hijacked. She'd like to see married priest, women priests, and a church more concerned with social justice and truth. Whenever (now jokingly because I have learned) I suggest she join a liberal Episcopalian denomination she says the Catholic Church is her church an no one will convince her to leave. The pope would leave before she would.

 

You go, Mom!

 

 

I too miss that Catholic church you described even though I am not a person who finds the basic paradigm of Christianity believable.

[twoforjoy]

I'm pretty orthodox for an Episcopalian, but that's not saying much. ;)

[Elizabeth in MN]

Does my being a Very Liberal member of The Church of Jesus Christ of later-day Saints count?

[elizabeth]

My mother is a life-long liberal Catholic. She cheered Vatican II and has taken the Church's teaching on social justice to heart. She is very devout and prayerful. She has given much to the church and gained much. It and our family are at the center of her life. The priest-abuse cover up hurt her very deeply (our family priest, a man who was her spiritual guide through the loss of her child, was convicted of chid molestation and died in prison a few years ago. We still don't know if this priest harmed my brother in the last months of his illness befor he died.) She worked hard for many years to see the church become more open and accepting of homosexuality and more respectful of women, and has been heart-broken to see it move in the other direction.

 

She considers herself a true Catholic, and thinks her church has been hijacked. She'd like to see married priest, women priests, and a church more concerned with social justice and truth. Whenever (now jokingly because I have learned) I suggest she join a liberal Episcopalian denomination she says the Catholic Church is her church an no one will convince her to leave. The pope would leave before she would.

 

You go, Mom!

 

I think she sounds fabulous. Wish we had more like her!!

[elizabeth]

Does my being a Very Liberal member of The Church of Jesus Christ of later-day Saints count?

 

I would think so. One of my new friends in the past few years is in fact a liberal member of the LDS church.

[kchara]

I don't fit in anywhere. DH and I have both left the churches we grew up in, but we're still searching for one that will work for us. I'm actually starting to get a headache tonight b/c I've been looking up dogma and doctrine and catechisms all afternoon. And we're still searching. But... I'm undeniably Christian, rather conservative, although I do hold to the belief that there are salvation issues (namely, the divinity AND humanity of Christ, the belief of Christ as the final sacrifice, and the complete payment for our sins, and the resurrection of Christ), and that everything else is not a salvation issue. That doesn't mean, though, that I can comfortably just go to any church. I don't know, I'm really confused and befuddled at the moment. :001_unsure:

[shinyhappypeople]

I'm a Christian and go to an evangelical church but...

 

I think the Biblical creation story is poetry and myth, with the purpose of conveying the truth that God made the world (and us) on purpose and for a purpose.

 

I'm unsure about homosexuality. I don't understand it, but at the end of the day it's also none of my business who someone else chooses to love. Besides, I've seen so many straight couples lead sexually immoral lives (or grossly immoral in other ways), who am I to judge a loving, monogamous gay couple as being somehow "less than"?

 

I believe in universal salvation, that God's grace knows no limit and in the end EVERY knee will bow and EVERY tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

 

One of my favorite movies is rated R (Shawshank Redemption), I don't have a problem with people drinking, just be responsible and practice moderation. Smoking is a nasty habit, but it's not a moral issue.

 

Oh, and the most shocking of all: I voted for Obama... and in the 90s I voted for Clinton. :svengo:

 

So, I make a pretty crappy evangelical. But, I love Jesus and have surrendered my heart and life to him. I'm a Christian.