How did your family come to its religion

[robtex]

What part of Germany did your grandparents live in? A lot of the East Germans were unreligious due to government influences. The East Germans I met who were religious had to practice their religions in secret.

My mother was raised in Essen and later Frankfurt.

 

[michel]

Interesting. How did your family's attitude towards religion shape your feelings on the subject?

I guess it left me in a complete 'religious limbo' ( religion was not included in school subjects in Africa). My first 'Taste' of religion as such was at the age of eleven, in an English school, (and that would have been Church of England). In fact, through all my schooling, I can honestly say that the subject of religion never once came up.

I guess that after a very bad time of bullying at school, spending so much time on my own, I began to think about the purpose of life. Perhaps that is why my faith was so 'D.I.Y'; sometimes I believe although I can call myself a Christian (because I believe in the life of Christ, and would do anything to come close to emulating him), I still retain 'bits' of other religions. It is difficult; I have had no help from anyone; it has been a very long arduous and solitary journey.

 

[Energy]

My father's family is catholic. I have a book at home my ancestors. It goes all the way back to the Middle Ages, and everyone in that book was catholic. So, unfortunately, I'm the one who breaks the chain. My mother's family is christian, but they believe in the calvinist ideas.

 

[arhys]

I came to my family's religion by a sort of reverse osmosis. I didn't know either of my grandfathers so I wasn't directly influenced one way or the other by family traditions. My mother's father, who died before I was born, was raised Catholic (his mother was Croatian) but he lapsed and quit practicing before my mother was born. If my mother were raised Catholic I would probably have looked there. I have a mint condition 1950 bible that my great-grandmother grave to my grandfather, but that's the only semblance of "passed down" religion I have. My father's mother was irreligious and my mother's mother was a seeker; she sent her kids to whatever church was nearest to where they were living at the time. She was, at times, a Quaker (her mother joined a Quaker church (the nearest to her home, spiritual laziness ran in her family), a Catholic (on account of my grandfather, I suppose - there are no Catholics in her lineage), a Pentecostal, etc. Growing up I never heard "our family is this" or "this is what you are."

I was never baptized or brought to church because my parents felt it should be something I should have the choice of participating in, which sounds noble but turned out to be a huge pain. I had a fundamental loathing for religion growing up and read philosophy, instead. When I became an adult I had a conversion experience and started to explore different schools of Protestant theology. Unsatisfied with them at the time (partly because I came to appreciate them all and was thus unwilling to commit to one and partly because the fragmentary nature of Protestantism is confusing and frustrating), I began to explore other faiths. Islam, Buddhism. Uncomfortable with those, I decided to stay near to my own culture.

My great-great grandfather (paternal line, my father's father's father's father) was German-American, the son of a German immigrant and a German-American mother. He was raised and married Lutheran but he and his wife (who was raised in a Scots-Irish Presbyterian home) joined a United Brethren church sometime after their marriage. The UB were more or less a German Methodist sect. They merged with the Methodists in 1968, hence "United Methodism." My great-grandfather was raised and married United Brethren but his wife's family attended a Methodist Episcopal church and they ended up there. My grandfather was raised Methodist and my father, too, though my father's step-father (who had his own independent church) attempted to beat the love of God into him and ended up whooping all respect for organized religion out of him instead. I had no idea what my religious heritage was until I pointed out a church building with nice stained glass windows and he remarked offhand something like "I'm a Methodist, sorta. I was raised Methodist, anyway." Now I can trace eight generations of Methodists on his side. Technically, my father broke the chain by not having me baptized, but he had good enough reason. I figured if I were raised in a religion, it would be Methodism, so I repaired the chain as it were.

Not that there isn't a pool of heritable religions choose from besides the one most closely associated with my surname. I've got Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Catholics, and Lutherans as well as Methodists. Believe me, I still struggle.

 

[Willamena]

Not. We came to religion via not.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I know nothing about how my family came to their religion. My mom's dad's side is Methodist and her mom's side is German Lutheran. Her dad was of Irish and Scottish descent. No idea how they ended up being Methodist. I don't really know much of anything about my dad's side. Apparently his parents went to a Baptist church, from what I can tell from his dad's obituary. One of his relatives might have become a missionary and disappeared somewhere in Africa. I don't know. Religion isn't strong in my family. My mom's mom did believe, though. The rest of them are pretty much atheists in how they live except for my mom's oldest brother, who feigns being a Christian.

My mom and I are both converts to Catholicism and I plan on raising my kids Catholic. We had a priest friend of ours preside over her dad's funeral. I'm sure he wasn't too happy about that from wherever he is in the afterlife. Lol. It was either have the priest do it or have no religious/spiritual dimension to his funeral at all, which we thought would've been wrong. None of her siblings brought up having a pastor preside.

 

[metis]

My maternal grandmother, who was Swedish, belonged to the ALC Lutheran synod, which later merged with the LCA to form the current ELCA. My mother adhered to that faith, and my father, a former Baptist, converted to it as well, and that's how I grew up.

I left that faith due to the issues of evolution and racism, and I later converted to my wife's Catholicism but never felt entirely comfortable there either. Much later I converted to Judaism, where I now am affiliated over the last nearly 20 years.

 

[Revoltingest]

My family is apathetic about religion.
Even my extended family from China & Iran are all "meh" about religion.

 

[Penumbra]

My mother comes from a multi-century chain of generations that have all been New England liberal protestants. She personally then joined religious groups that mix very liberal interpretations of Christian archetypes with New Age beliefs.

My father came from a long history of Roman Catholics, although I don't have any info about it from before the 20th century. They left Germany somewhere around World War 1 to come to the US. Religion was not an important thing to them, for the most part. My father was basically an agnostic theist that was mostly familiar with Catholicism but accepted other religions as no less valid (except atheism).

 

[Sha'irullah]

My family as far as I know is a lengthy stream of Christians but primarily South Baptists do to the affiliation with the African American community in Mississippi.
My mother broke this cycle eventually and attended non-denominational churches that lead her to the departure of the Baptist church and eventually many of my aunts and uncles came to the same religious stance as she did.

I on the other hand left Christianity altogether in my teen years and created another schism along with my sister in the family . More and more schisms have occurred since in the family in regards to varying Christian churches although my uncle did become a MOI Muslim primarily do to his hatred of white people(no joke).

Not much variation in religion exists in the family but I am without a doubt the most boldest and most heretical in the family and extended family in regards to religion

 

[StarryNightshade]

Both of my parents come from Southern Baptist backgrounds. Much of my family also belongs to said denomination, although there are a few Pentecostals and Non-denominationals mixed in.

I'm the first of my immediate family who identifies as something other than Christian.

 

[Amechania]

My parents have been staunch Mammonites for as long as I can remember.

 

[Badran]

In regards to how my family started embracing the faith i was raised in, i haven't really got a clue. Every single member from both sides alive or dead and to any traceable point in history has been or is Muslim, at least publicly so and to my information. There are only two exceptions to that, me and another guy who technically isn't 'blood' but i'm counting him anyway.

As far as i understood he first converted to Christianity and changed his name and then took some form of comparative religion studies, became non-religious, and at some point through all that traveled to Germany. He married there and has kids, and so he started his own chain of new religious beliefs/world views.