My husband and I both consider ourselves Christian Universalists. We don't agree on everything - I tend to take things less literally than he does, like rejecting the idea of Jesus actually performing miracles, though he's not what you'd consider a "literalist" if you get what I mean.
We were both raised Christian, although our experiences are quite different. I was baptized Catholic, and then switched to Pentecostal and then Methodist churches as my mother remarried and my parents looked for middle ground. I was also raised to think outside the box, to question for myself, to come to my own conclusions, to see faith as something personal that we each can cultivate for ourselves, understanding that doctrine/dogma/"official position" isn't the only way to look at things.
My husband was raised in a more fundamentalist way, a way where questioning wasn't really encouraged, where there were clear right and wrong ways of looking at things. Looking at things from another point of view or understanding wasn't acceptable (even in his discussing with his sister about his disbelief in hell she says "you were raised better than that")....
We've known each other almost our whole lives (met in 6th grade, when I first fell in love with him), were best friends from the moment we met, though we had never really talked religion before. When we finally got married (about 2 years after we graduated high school) I was going through an identity crisis, you could say, wondering whether my inorthodoxies could disqualify me from being Christian. That's when I found Christian Universalism, which wasn't like finding a new way of thought for me, it was like finally being able to put a name on what it is I've always believed. Religion has always been a big part of my life - we may have been raised in a way where we weren't really indoctrinated, but we were always very involved in church, so much that my stepbrother and pastor would tease me about him training me to go into ministry. I'm always studying, discussing, etc. My husband says that being exposed to such a different way of thought, realizing that people can have different opinions about things, gave him the motivation he needed to really sit down and consider what *he* believes. He just happens to have come to the same overall conclusion as me, in terms of Christian Universalism, though I did mention that we don't line up on all of the specifics.
I'm not one of those who is all about being with someone just like me, though, and other than enjoying religious discussion I haven't pushed him in any way. His path is his to cultivate, and wherever it takes him is fine with me. Not that I don't enjoy that our paths are so similar at the moment, but I'm open to that changing when and if it ever does, if that makes sense...
