Religion and relationships

[mrnoodle]

Following Christ > being a "christian"

When people do the former, the latter rarely causes problems. The first is a relationship, the latter is religion. There are lots of breakups over differences in religion, there are not so many caused by one following Christ's example in their life.

[BlacKat1980]

[quote=Iggy]I usually agree with most christians, but I have issues with some of what is believed in the faith. So maybe I am not actually christian but that is the closest to what I do believe. It is so confusing that I don't know how to tell him about it. He wants definitive explainations why christians believe certain things, and I can't give him that. I just know that is what I was taught. That is the major reason I don't discount our differences. If I don't really know why I believe what I believe, then how can I tell him he should believe the same too?

I know this makes me seem really fake and superficial and I am trying to remedy that. But I find it hard to believe that everyone who isn't Christian will go to hell. I just don't know what to think sometimes. I just need time and a better education into my religion, and then I will know what I believe.[quote]

As you learn more about Christianity you will know what to say to your boyfriend. Offer for him to read small sections of the bible that will help explain Christian beliefs, ask fellow christians for help with it. God will also be helping you as you learn to know what to say to people who don't understand or opose Christianity. Even if someone isn't a Christian, if they repent and accept Jesus into their lives before they die, they will be accepted into Heaven with all other Christians - if they are truly regretful.

[BlacKat1980]

Being a Christian means you have a faith - being that you have Jesus in your heart and have accepted that He will look after you and that He is your Saviour. Having a "religion" means you follow someones "rules" in beliefs (organisation), not the bible for what it is. I don't want to bad-mouth religions as I'm a baby Christian at the moment but I know that there is a difference. the bible does say to marry another Christian

True Christians are not responsible for any acts of violence nor are they intolerant of others and they know not to judge others, but on the same hand, Christians are still human and are not free from "human thoughts and acts and are not in any way sin-free. Everyone will be judged on their own merit in from of God when their end is come.

Who's to say that the two of you wont stay together as a couple even if he does leave for a year or two? Or that you may (with some further knowledge or more of a nudge from God) decide to take on Christianity as your own faith in the future? You would not believe the number of Christians I know that started out as either not believing in God at all or following a religion such as catholicism. This situation could even be God's way of asking you to join him, through your boyfriend...after all, we all have to start and learn from somewhere.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by BlacKat1980

the bible does say to marry another Christian

I'd be curious to know where it says that. I imagine most religions like you to marry other from within the fold, but I never heard that it was in the bible.

[mrnoodle]

The most commonly quoted verse is from Paul's 2nd letter to the Corinthian church:

2 Corinthians 6:13-15 (Today's New International Version)

13 As a fair exchange—I speak as to my children—open wide your hearts also.
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial [a]? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

When Christians talk about being unequally yoked, they are talking about 2 people with vastly different spiritual beliefs being tied in a union that requires a single mindset for harmony. One or the other has to abandon some part of their belief to live with the other.

This is a loose interpretation, though. It might not have anything to do with marriage at all, but with the fact that the people Paul was writing to were getting involved in idolatry, which was the status quo in those days. He was telling them to separate themselves as believers from those who had other gods.

The same author also wrote this:

1 Corinthians 7:12-16 (New International Version)

12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.
13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.
14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace.
16 How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

I never was aware of this passage until I read it for myself. Yay legalistic churches! /sarcasm

[BlacKat1980]

Thankyou mrnoodle. As I said I'm a baby Christian so am not the best at explaining things in the bible.
However i do know that the second quote from the bible you gave about not divorcing your wife/husband if they do not believe, means that if you marry - both as non believers - and then one of you becomes a Christian, then your wife/husband is saved through your belief and you mustn't divorce just because you don't have the same beliefs.

I have learnt some things through bible study...lol

[glatt]

Thanks mrnoodle. I didn't realize that particular topic was covered in the bible.

[mrnoodle]

If you're a believer, though, I think it's important to note that Paul's giving a personal opinion, and isn't presuming to speak for God.

Many Buddhists believe he as a Buddha and treat his teachings as such.
Books by Thich Nhat Hanh

[Hoof Hearted]

Originally Posted by shalini

...I told him that I had really started to like him more than a friend and he acknowledged the same feelings but there was something preventing him from going any further with this relationship. He told me I wouldn't understand ..

...he wants someone that is Christian like him. I, obviously, am not Christian. He believes that only Christians will go to Heavean and he would only want to marry someone that would go to Heavean with him after death.

Four months later .. our relationship has advanced to where we act as a couple, when we are alone. If his friends knew about us, they would force him not to see me again.

I'm sorry. I think this relationship is doomed unless you both can compromise and stop HIDING. The secretiveness is most telling, to me. Love should not be treated as if you are ashamed of it. If it is being treated that way...it isn't True Love, in my book.
Sorry for the negativity, I vote you need to cut your losses. It appears he would rather break before he bends.

[Elspode]

14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

From the Wiccan perspective, light cannot exist without darkness, nor vice versa. Duality/opposites are fundamental to the makeup of the Universe. Good cannot exist without evil, right without wrong, etc, etc.

Therefore, from the Wiccan (or more to the point, *my* Wiccan) point of view, the merging of opposites is not only possible, but natural.

[xoxoxoBruce]

See Els, the gooder you get, the more you need me.

[joelnwil]

"Four months later .. our relationship has advanced to where we act as a couple, when we are alone. If his friends knew about us, they would force him not to see me again."

This all sounds way too weird. He must be part of some fundamentalist sect. It is important to find out what he really believes, and it seems he is fairly vague about that.

But having "friends" who can force you to behave in a certain (so far as I am concerned) very unnatural way is definitely not a plus.

Well I spend 5 years in Divinity School and Graduate School of Religion. That pretty much cured me of religion. Mostly, the things that seem to be so important to religious people and cause such divisions are fairly absurd.

Not long ago you could fund fundamentalist preachers all over the South and elsewhere who believed and preached that segregation was the will of God. Now they have given up on that and just about the only group they get to hate is homosexuals. So the Episcopal Church is divided over whether or not to ordain homosexuals, and the split could be very bad. I just mention that because the absurdity of objecting to homosexual behavior seems to be part of what passes for Christianity in some places these days.

Remember that if you two are having sex, he is bound by his religion to repent and never do that again. How do you think that makes him feel about the relationship?

Anyway, I have less and less patience with this sort of stuff the older I get (and I am really old).

My advice is to run for the nearest exit. Find yourself some nice person who does not have to deal with such a rigid code of behavior, which he violates anyway.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You make some very good points, joelnwil.

I think this statement is worth putting up in neon lights....

.....what passes for Christianity in some places these days.

An excellent reminder not to lump everyone together with the extreme fringes of any large group.

The great thing about my wife is that she NEVER says to my son, "we behave this way" or "do, or don't, do this" because God does not want us to" or "because it will make Baby Jesus cry" or similar stupid shit... because you have inserted a fail system into that person's moral/ethical system.
So, when they have their series of religious questionings/epiphanies during their early teens they will not feel like they don't have a moral base.
While in therapy in my teens I saw so much of this it was very scary.
Your ethical/moral base/system does not have to be based in your faith, they just have to work together... in fact if that is the case, I think that strengthens both. It is a system of checks and balances.
But, at the same time, we don't (& won't) say damaging crap like "because we said so".