So My Friend's Family Thinks I Want to Convert Him... What To Do?

[The_Truthinator]

I have a really, really close friend my age (14) that is amazing. He is by-far the most godly person I know. He walks, talks, and breathes Christ. His life is a testimony to his faith…

Well, we used to go to the same church (which was Baptist). Now we just go to the same school. His parents, I think, get the feeling that I’m trying to convert him. Obviously, I have no desire to convert him, but I love to talk about our different beliefs and bounce stuff off of him. His parents don’t really get that. They mistake it all for Catholic propaganda.

For instance, his dad gave me a ride home tonight. We were talking about a lot of different things. I mentioned how my science teacher had randomly broken out into a hymn one time in class, but caught herself, as she doesn’t like to force her beliefs on others. I said that this was why she wouldn’t even discuss evolution or its mechanisms with us (usually as her own personal beliefs were brought up). I recalled that she did leave the Church-of-Christ, though, because she couldn’t take their views on the subject. I backed her up by saying that I too passed over the denom (non-denom, rather) for many reasons when trying to find Christ’s Church, but mainly because “I couldn’t be a part of a church that disses Darwin.”

His dad heard this and humorlessly asked, “What?! So, do you buy the stuff he said?” I replied, “Well, yeah! Some of it… I believe in micro-evolution and and am looking into macro-evolution, which has good tenants, but is on shakier ground… Only the former is an established fact and almost universally accepted. It’s the latter that I want to know more about, though.” At this he quickly retorted, “How’s it an ‘established fact’?” “Well, it can be observed to an extent in laboratories with fruit flies, the genetic changes from generation to generation, that is.” There was a long pause. I could sense tension (and noticed my friend’s expression, which was serious but unreadable) and then changed the subject to something more light-hearted.

When I got out, still I didn’t feel like it had blown over completely. I felt like I was adding to their worries that I was going to turn their son into not only a “Mary-worshiping” Catholic but now a Darwinist as well…

sigh

What to do? Just keep quiet…?

 

[Rawb]

Pick your battles…

I know that exact tension that you talk about. My dad thinks that “The Origin of Species” was dictated to Darwin by Satan as much as the Bible was dictated by God. I personally don’t really care how God created the universe, I just know He did, and if it was by theistic evolution, who am I to judge? If someone else wants to believe that God created the world in six, twenty-four hour blocks, in the exact order of Genesis, then, again, that’s not any problem with me. I personally don’t believe that, but it isn’t a salvation-affecting belief (according to The Church. To my father ((and your friend’s father too probably)) that’s another story).

If they say something untrue about a doctrine of Catholicism, maybe speak up. Be respectful, as you would to any elder, but if they insist on believing we worship Mary and only pray to Saints and think that we believe we can re-crucify Christ, then nothing said by a ‘child’ is going to convince them otherwise. My aunt thinks I’ll come to grow tired of the ‘unnecessary’ rules of the Catholic ‘cult’ I’ve joined and eventually leave it; that I only joined because I’m young and did it on a whim and once I speak to her protestant minister son who’ll be able to point out the errors of Catholicism by directing me to the areas of the Bible that show the blatant contradictions I’ll joing a protestant church again. I don’t correct her (well, I told her that the Bible and Catholicism don’t contradict each other, but she was still talking), because there isn’t any real point.

Have your conversations with your friend, but I’d probably avoid faith talks with the parents. Your friend might think you have a point, his parents probably won’t.