Have some mild brick today.
My sister is getting baptized this weekend. We grew up Catholic, and we were all baptized as children, however, as you likely know, most religions have some form of adult ceremony, as it's said you don't have free will as a child. For some churches, it's confirmation. Others do adult baptisms.
Well, my sister has been very spiritually curious for the last few years. She's said her life has been empty. So, she started doing some religious exploration with some guidance of people at her workplace. The company owner is very religious and part of an evangelical church. She's participated in church book clubs and such over the last year. Last week she tells me she's getting baptized on Friday and hasn't yet told her husband (of 16? years).
He's been very uncomfortable with the whole thing, as he's never been comfortable with her bosses church and feels she shouldn't tangle work and religion. So, in effort to "protect" him from feeling "weird" about the whole thing, she's not telling him.
How would you feel about this if you found out after the fact, or the day of?
ETA: I'm trying to find out more about the church and am having little luck.
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I wouldn't like it one bit. I lecture my assistant all the time about keeping secrets from your spouse. And hers are small secrets. This is a big secret.
If Michael did this, I would have to wonder what else he is keeping from me.
I wouldn't like it one bit. I lecture my assistant all the time about keeping secrets from your spouse. And hers are small secrets. This is a big secret.
If Michael did this, I would have to wonder what else he is keeping from me.
My sister did the adult baptism thing a couple of years ago - into a church that a neighbor woman spent about a year reeling her in. It does give her an instant social network, which is what she was craving. She's divorced though. I would freak out if Tom did this without telling me!
I agree with Boo, both of them. *grin*
As you know, I’ve been very spiritually curious over the last few years. Also, my DW and I are on completely different wavelengths when it comes to religion. When we started out together, neither of us was at all religious. We didn’t get married in a church, and we had my dad ordained as a minister so we could legally marry without a church official. Now, she is exploring her religion in her own way, and I’m exploring religion on my own. We never, ever discuss it. That’s where I’m coming from.
If the woman I loved and planned to spend the rest of my life with undertook something this significant without feeling like she could tell me about it, I would be very hurt and very afraid for the future. I think his "shouldn’t tangle work with religion" is a red herring and not a valid concern. It sounds like she’s choosing this; it’s not being forced upon her.
I gave her the advice that she NEEDS to tell her husband she's doing this and why. And I think she needs to give him the option of attending her baptism.
I'm very worried that she's getting in deep without asking some important questions. Like I said, I don't know enough about the church to validate or invalidate my suspicions. I know it's evangelical and "contemporary." That can mean a whole lot of different things.
I'm somewhat torn on this....I can understand the desire to belong to a church and to have some backing for your feelings and decisions. I can also understand her husband's concern of mixing work and religion.
Three things in life to never, ever mix - politics, religion and ... I forget the third. But it can make life very messy, very quickly. What would happen should she leave her job on a bad note and still see these people weekly at church? What if her personal life becomes very involved at church and she has problems at home...does she want the office to be involved?
However, I do NOT think that it is right AT ALL that she keep this from her husband, no matter what his concerns about religion and work. On this, I must side with Mark's comment about feeling hurt and afraid for the future. Religion can be a HUGE part of a person's life and excluding your partner from your journey (or even KNOWING you are on that journey) can destroy all trust and faith in a relationship.
Red flags are flying all over for me. Can you send me an email with the church name and location, and I can ask our pastor about it. We belong to an evangelical (of sorts) and contemporary church, but I would hope we would not condone excluding spouses unless they wanted to be excluded
I have to find the name of the church. I only know about it from what my sister has told me throughout the years. I know where it's located because we've driven by a few times, but I can't remember the actual name of it.
And I don't think the church is advocating for not including the spouse, I think they've let it be her decision and she's choosing not to include him to "protect" him from feeling "weird."
It's a shame when a couple feel like they can't share things with each other. I sort of understand why she feels she has to hide it though. Her husband only has a negative view about the religion/church. Hopefully you'll be able to find out more on the church. If it isn't doing her any harm, then you might feel better about it all. She should still tell her husband. And, he should probably be more tolerant, unless he has some hard facts why he should be against it.
Hiya Kim,
I agree that it's not something she should hide from her spouse.
As for the whole adult baptism thingy, I may be reading you incorrectly, but it seems you have some concerns (or just some questions) about the validity of the process.
I attend a "contemporary" church that also does adult baptism. It's a fairly common practice in a lot of churches (most prominently examplified by John the Baptist in the New Testament). If you have specific questions about it (that your sister hasn't provided you), just send me an e-mail and hopefully I can shed some light.
If that's me totally misreading you.. just ignore me :-)
Me? I would completely freak out if Mr Bob did something this important without me (and I consider myself as having a pretty sticky freakout trigger). Like mariage endng freakout.
Though, as we are both very atheist, such an action would be huge and he wouldn't be the person I thought he was.
No, Meemo, I don't have any concerns about the adult baptism process. I actually think it makes a lot of sense. I have more concerns about financial requirements (some churches have very strict tithing standards and I worry this might, given what I know...and not sure she's thought ahead to that), and I'm a little concerned that the churches beliefs, based on what I've heard from her in the past, might be quite incompatible with her beliefs.
I think she's really only explored what having God in her life means from a inner-spiritual perspective and enjoys the sense of belonging. That's all good, but I worry she hasn't really understood that churches operate in different ways, and she might get in too deep before realizing there's more to it than singing on Sundays and church pageants.
Then again, maybe the church is fine and I'm being overly concerned. I just don't want to see her get involved in a cultish church, especially when her spouse isn't on board, when there are tons of other churches she could be involved in.
None of the churches I've attended in the last 20 years have any sort of financial requirements. All of those churches teach that tithing is an important element of worshiping God in that all we have belongs to Him. Biblical tithing involves 10% of your income. But all of the churches I have attended (Methodist, Episcopal, Southern Baptist, Evangelical Free, Conservative Baptist) teach that what you "tithe" is between you and God and that regular giving is what's important. Also, all of those churches do not advocate wives giving more than their husbands agree to or know about, especially if the husband is not a believer and does not attend church with the wife.
None of those churches would tell the woman whether or not she should tell or invite her husband to the baptism unless she asked for specific advice on the matter. And all of them would probably advise her to tell him what she is doing and give him the opportunity to share this experience with her.
I think she should tell him. It's the right thing to do and I hope she gets good, Biblical advice from the leadership she is dealing with.
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