This is a question for Christians who grew up in evangelical/fundamentalist households. What kind of reaction did you get from your families? What kind of reaction did you get from your church? Former ministers? How did they react to your move to Catholicism?
When I got engaged to the man who is now my husband, my father kind of lost it. He loved my husband, but not when marriage entered the picture.
My dad was pretty upset that I wasn’t a strong fundamentalist to start with and the Catholic thing seemed awful. Since I wasn’t part of their church, but just waiting until I was married to convert to Catholicism, I have no idea what kind of head shaking went on about me.
This was back in the '80’s and the deprogrammers were around. I truly worried about being abducted by some idiots to berate me into capitulating on my Catholic faith.
Oh well, I wasn’t abducted and deprogrammed and we just celebrated 20 years of marriage.
Well, I’ve only had to deal with my parents and sister so far. My parents, who are good ole Southern Baptists, rather freaked out when I told them last year I was going thru RCIA. My dad barely talks to me, but my mom is much better. Just don’t talk about religion with them.
My sister is ok, but then, she’s married to a Catholic (non-practicing) and her mother in law lives next door and is very close to her.
I have no idea how my former church reacted, but when I wrote privately to my old pastor and asked for my baptismal certificate so I could complete RCIA, the secretary called my parents before I had talked to them. I can only imagine what ole Ron said to my parents.
Havent told my brothers yet. I’m gonna wait until the blood pressure meds take effect.
I was fortunate in that only one person really ever challenged me and that didn’t last too long. But then I was well-founded in my reasons for conversion and never tried to shove it down anyone’s throat. I only answer questions as they come up. I am the only Catholic in 3-4 generations, BTW.
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I can only imagine what ole Ron said to my parents. 