I guess I grew up in an interfaith family, my dad an atheist and my mom Catholic. It didn't come up much. The kids were raised Catholic, I was baptised and all that but never made it to confirmation.

I've only dated atheists. That's pretty comfortable for me. The plurality of my friends are non religious. I'm not really that religious or anything so it's never been weird. I think I feel more comfortable with someone different from me.

Interfaith is my life. I mean, why not?

Well my wife is Hedge Witch Wicca, while I am Celtic Reconstructionist. We are both ministers for a mainstream Wicca congregation.

My husband was raised Roman Catholic (Italian heritage) and developed a serious aversion to organized religion as soon as he could escape the nuns & priests.  Still has that aversion now.

I grew up in the United Church, lapsed for a while in my 20s & 30s, then returned with my own kids to active church participation in United Church.

My girlfriend is a christian...although it really remains to be seen what type.  She has said presbyterian at one time, and baptist at another.  She 'belongs' to a presbyterian church, but she works (as the pianist/organist) at a baptist church I think.

I'll have to clarify with her and get back to you.

We generally keep religion as a private issue, she believes what she believes and I believe what I believe.  For some time she was a lot more fundamentalist than me (a christian more fundy than a muslim?  :O ) but I suppose contact with me as "normalized" her so to speak.  She still can't take much criticism when it comes to religion, not that I can blame her ("what did she do to these people?").  I've got thick skin, experience has taught me that.  She has never had to until recently in highschool and until she becomes more involved in society. 

It's an evolution.

I personally like it.  It certainly keeps things interesting.  Best part is if we have a theological dispute, it's not like she can say "well, your not a real muslim!"  or vice versa, ya dig?  We can just accept our diferences and co-exist (gee, I wish some people on the café would do that -.-).

As-salaamu alaikum, Eid Mubarak!

-Omni

I always wondered (and wished) that I would date/become good friends with a Jew.  I'm so fascinated by Judaism and all it's facets (just as I am with any religious group...I just haven't yet become more than a "know in retrospect that that person was jewish...years later" person).

As-salaamu alaikum, Eid mubarak!

-Omni

My father was a Jew. My mother, though she would be considerd by Judaism a Jewess, was a practicing Lutheran. I adopted my father's faith for about 30 years of my life. I still do many Jewish things as they are cultural or hold some meaning beyond religion for me. I still am a hand washer and a bless everything at the table type, for examples.

While a practicing Jew, I never dated another Jew. My life has always been interfaith. The list would include Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, atheist--who was a former Jehovah Witness, santeria (Mexican), voodoo (Dominican), lapsed Pentacostal, Buddhist (SGI) and a spiritualist.

So, my wife has had an interfaith relationship with me as both a Jew and a Christian.

It certainly expands your knowledge and understanding of other faiths, if you want it to. The down sides can be many, also if you want them to be. For me, it is a relationship, as such, it  is what you put into it.

I am Christian.  My wife is an atheist, but not of the nouveau atheists who proselytize even more than JW's and are always in a snit. She was raised Christian so we see eye-to-eye on most moral and ethical issues.  If she were a serious or even half-serious pagan, I would have great difficulty.

And why is this "0 points" thing appearing in my post?

Thanks everyone!

(DonnyGuitar, I gave you a point. I'm not sure what they are either.) Points all around! I can appreiciate that you have enough self-awareness to know that dating a Pagan would be difficult for you. As open minded as some people claim to be, I think there are always things that are impossible for us. I believe that my interfaith relationship with my Jewish boyfriend works as well as it does, because in a large part I admire Judaism as a faith and I am more interested in it than other faiths that are not my own. As much as I have nothing against people of certain faiths, it would be alot harder for me to live my life with one as my partner.

Omni (can I call you Omni?) I am really interested in your situation. How long have you been with your significant other? I don't know much about Muslim/Christian interfaith relationships. Do you live in a large city with a sizeable Jewish population? If so, it's possible that you already have many Jewish acquaintances and just don't realize it. That's what happened to me. I find a lot of Jewish people that I know tend to appear more secular and downplay their cultural/religious worldview moreso than others.

StevieG, I found your post really nice, and there's lots of things I would like to comment on. But I would have to say that I found the idea of dating a follower of Voodoo has my interests peaked. Care to enlighten me?

Overall, I like the comments about theological discussions and education being the best. For me, I also love the holidays! There is always something on the go. As a Catholic dating a Jew, I really appreciate how Judaism's holidays tend to follow the wheel of the year moreso than the Christian holidays. Passover in spring, Rosh Hashanah in Fall, Hanukah in winter. Oddly enough, observing Judaism in this way makes me feel more connected to Paganism. I also apperciate the deeper purposes behind some of the Jewish traditions, like Yom Kippur. There is no parallel to this in Christianity, unless individual Catholic communion counts. When I learned what Yom Kippur meant, I wished that there had been something like that in my life.

That statement makes me a little curious, Donny, although I admire your honesty.

Why would you have great difficulty if she were pagan, but not atheist? Do you consider us to be "worse" than atheists somehow? I would find that strange considering that at least we pagans agree with you on the idea that God exists.

Mainstream Wicca? I didn't know there was such a thing.

Depends on which Wiccan you ask

Me = United Church.  Declined confirmation as a teenager, but made a profession of faith when I was in my late thirties.

Husband = Lapsed Presbyterian, leaning towards agnosticism.

This is an interesting thread, Modern Girl.  Thanks for starting it.

Well, I'm Buddhist but my mom is uhhhh....well she's her own religion (I mean she has her own views while not following any specific path, I didn't mean that she has her own religion where she worships herself ) and my sister is.........well I din't think even she knows. We haven't really had any sort of interesting situations come out of this though.

@Donny: what is a JW? Japanese Werewolf? Jewish Waiter? Jesus Wannabe? Sorry, I've never heard JW before (at least I do'n't think I have ). Also, I think the point system is like the ones on other sites where you can rate the post if you agree or not rate it if you disagree :D

Hi Sebb, 

Admin 2 explained over in Social that the points thing has to do with responding to art (painting your faith) but there are some problems to be worked out.  Such as appearing in all the discussions.

JW = Jehovah's Witness, I think

I thought it was JW= Judge Wapner, like the TV show...

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Thanks Paradox! that makes alot more sence than what I thought ("Jelly Wombat", what was I thinking?!). Ant thank you for explaining the point system .

@Witch: ROFL

Yes, it would be difficult.  If I were dating a pagan, my wife would probably take a framing hammer to my head.  Not because my date was pagan, but because I was dating someone.

Sorry, I couldn't resist the joke, lol.  And thanks for the points! (whatever they mean).

The word voodoo scares people because of movies and we think of zombies or a witch doctor (sorry Witch) sticking pins in a doll. It is a tendency to associate it with evil.

My once-girlfriend and still close friend is from the Dominican. Her family is Dominican and Haitian.

So, I met a charming lady, a bank manager, sweet and kind... and she taught me voodoo is not all about zombies and voodoo dolls. I learned that I stereotyped her religion.

It combined Roman Catholic rituals and native African religions and magic, if you will. Where to begin...?

She believed in one supreme God and lesser dieties. It is those lesser deities that like the rituals. They use those deities jr.'s as guides, protectors, helpers... it did not seem all that much stranger than patron saints.

African religions often have alot of ancestor worship. It is not that different from aboriginal faiths or belief in the orient regarding ancestors.

One of her tenets was that spirits of the dead can be called to help or curse the living. The cursing thing gets all the attention though. 

Religions that are foreign to us often get stereotyped harshly. Perhaps I understood that being a Jew and knowing people seriously thought Jews ate babies.

Are you kidding?  Your kind are far worse than even atheist scum.  You devil-worshipping, cauldron-bubbling, eye-of-newt-eating, broomstick-riding Shrew of Satan!!!

StevieG,

Thanks for the info :) That's what a heard about Voodoo (being a combo of Catholicism and African tribal practices). Unfortunately, the bad reputation will likely continue via Disney's lastest movie (Princess and the Frog) in which they are turned to frogs by a Voodoo Witch Doctor in New Orleans.

And I hate that sick slur about Jews eating babies. I never even heard of it until I started a blog and would frequently google "Jew" or "jewish" to find images. If you want to see anti-semitism, Google image search is where it's at. Much like if you want to learn a few new racial slurs, Wikipedia has them all (and categorized!)

So do people feel that being in an interfaith relationship has made you more open to other faiths, or more critical of your own, or both?

 Most certainly :)

More than a year.

Neither did I xD  I guess it's no different that any interfaith couple, we have our differences, but we respect each other.

Nope.  There used to be, but in recent years they have dwindled, I'm not sure we have any Jewish people left, although you never can tell.  None that I know of at least.

All the Jewish people my family knew about were when I was much younger, I remember celebrating passover with some when I was 8 or 9.

Yes, well I hope to meet and befriend some someday!

As-salaamu alaikum!

-Omni

Oh, and I figured it out, My girlfriend is Presbyterian, and was raised baptist.

She also plays at a presbyterian church (i guess thats how she is presbyterian).

As-salaamu alaikum,

Omni

My wife was raise Anglican, though her parents were pretty ambivalent about religion.  She was baptized and confirmed, but stopped going in her teens.

I was raised without God in my life.  We just never talked about him.  That lead me to kill a few people in my youth, but thanks to the Young Offender's Act, I'm free and have no criminal record.

We were married in the Anglican church of her grandparents, whose ties to that church go back to WW I.  St. Michael's and All Angels on St. Clair West in Toronto, to be exact.  Father Brown is a great guy.  Nice place.  Needs work, but I like the architecture of old churches.  Everyone knew I was an atheist, and would only be "going through the motions", but that didn't seem to matter to them.  I got the impression my wife's grandparents wanted to host the wedding there, because many of their grandkids had gone Catholic by marriage, and my wife might be their last chance at hosting a wedding at St. Mike's.  Besides, they had given so much money to the church over the decades, I'm sure St. Mike's would have married us if we were both committed satanists.

Today, my wife is probably best described as agnostic.  She digs her heal into my foot if I laugh during one of my infrequent trips to church for weddings and baptisms, but that's OK.  She wears sensible shoes to church.  Our 2-year-old will not be baptized, obviously, and neither will the one on the way.

I don't know if an atheist-agnostic couple is considered an "interfaith" marriage, but at my nephew's baptism a few weeks ago, I dipped my finger in the baptismal font on the way in, thinking it was just a fountain.  Now, I'm afraid I'm a Catholic.

Hey!!!!

I resemble that remark!

Hi Chansen,

Enjoyed your post. I would place a smiley here, but I have lost the smiley function today.

To add to my earlier comments:

Me = United Church, raised by a lapsed Anglican and an atheist

Husband = lapsed Presbyterian, raised by a lapsed Anglican and a (now) lapsed Presbyterian

apparently I have lost the enter function also. Oh well, I am sure Admin will have this fixed later.

I hope that this is not a function of age, like my vision getting worse. 

MG - Although both my wife and I are UCC from childhood, we go to different churches. The way I explain it is that we have different missions. However, it is a matter of considerable discomfort to my wife, as she has left many hints that she would like to see me in "support" her by attending her church. Which gets to a major issue about what you are asking about. Often conflict arises not because a couple has different beliefs (could a conservative ever marry a liberal? could a Leafs fan ever marry a Habs fan?), but rather it is in the practice of that belief.  It is the practice involves decisions about where you will spend your time, how you will spend your money, and who you will associate with, in a way that belief alone doesn't require. And often spouses expect that they will do (most) things together. And before the atheists hop in and suggest that this would be a good reason for dispensing with religious practice altogether, it is no less a source of conflict in purely atheist marriages (will you go to the local little theatre or a hockey game? Margaret Atwood reading or Shania Twain concert? go to the bar or see an indy film?).  It is not the practice itself where we find the conflict - that lies in expecting our spouse to be our constant companion.

spiritbear, how about

- a local little theatre play about hockey

- Shania Twain doing a reading of Margaret Atwood or Margaret Atwood singing a Shania Twain song (put me down for the former)

- seeing an indy film at a local bar

DG - or how about a Christian attending a synagogue service? Or a protestant going to a Catholic mass?  Or a Buddhist attending prayers at a mosque? I don't find anything intrinsically problematic about these things. But we can't be in two places at once. You can't go to both a hockey game and a play if they both start at 8pm (or whatever). And face it, not every little theatre play is going to be about hockey. So if everything must be done together, at least one spouse must give up something.

  It's interesting though, in the religious examples, how many barriers we set up for ourselves. One might be interested in attending a Catholic mass just to see what it's like, but wouldn't actually go out of fear for doing the "wrong" thing (hard to do, actually - just do what everyone else is doing). It often doesn't take much to get us out of our comfort zone, which usually only arises from our lack of experience(s).

Carolla's got a situation closest to mine, only I'm a bit younger (no kids yet).  I grew up in the UCC - baptised and confirmed, and all that jazz.  I did a bit of religious exploration/experimentation in High School, but returned determined after University, and have been neck-deep in my church since.

My fiance, however, was born and bred Spanish Roman Catholic.  I mention the Spanish because they tend to be a more potent type.  Like Carolla's man, he was very disappointed with the church when he realized that a lot of the truths he was taught growing up were untrue. 

Where are we now?  I'm not quite sure.  He has come to my church before, and has mentioned how much he thinks it's more social club than church.  And he allows me to be as involved as I am with committees and volunteering without ever saying much.  But that's the thing - when he does come, I feel like he just comes for me.  And it's taken me a while, but I'm okay with that.  We've talked religion before, and had similar opinions about things, but the way we practise them is so different that we simply let the other be.

(These point things are new, aren't they?)

spirit, my comment was just for fun, but I think you deserve a more serious answer. 

I think that one can be very devout and serious about one's faith while taking an attitude of live and let live toward others.  Within Christianity, I am quite ecumenical and when I am out of town on a Sunday, I always try to get to church.  This has led to some wonderful experiences in quite few different churches - Catholic, Pentecostal, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and others. We are all Christians.

I even go up for communion in Catholic churches although I do not partake of the elements.  I cross my arms over my chest, which informs the priest that I am not in full communion with the Catholic church, and I receive a blessing instead.  It is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

As for other religious institutions, I have been several times to a synagogue - for a naming ceremony and for at least three Bar Mitzvah (what IS the plural?).  I feel a strong connection to Judaism.  I have also been to a Mosque, although not a Buddhist temple.

This does not shake or challenge my Christian faith in any way.

Well said, DonnyGuitar, well said indeed.

This week I attended a presentation by Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes, senior pastor at Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto.  It's a huge and thriving church, whose main mission & social justic work centres on LGBT folk.  Interestingly, he commented that many many more people who are not LGBT are recently joining this church - in particular many interfaith couples - due to its open, inclusive, vibrant and loving approach to all people.

Before I die, I want to visit a place of worship of every faith of fibre.  (that means no scientology prisons lol)

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

I would likely not attend the church you mention because the main mission is not something to which I can contribute much.  Different churches have different focuses.  However, any church which does not welcome people is not a Christian church, in my opinion.  

Rev. Hawkes is really nice.