I just read part of this to P, and said "That's why I read LJ. Well, that and the gossip."
My current denomination, the United Church of Canada, is also known as "the NDP on Sunday mornings". My immediately previous denomination was American Baptist. In both congregations, I noticed people assuming that a social or political belief that was very unpopular in the general population would be universally held in that church. An example was that during Gulf War I or whatever it was called, people in Ohio were overwhelmingly pro-intervention, yet people in the church tended to assume that everyone in the church was strongly anti-intervention and anti-military, to the point of really offending a few people who had different political opinions and/or military relatives, and who had thought the congregation was open minded. I had the same tendency myself, maybe because I felt so marginalized and foreign elsewhere during that war that I wanted my church to be a comforting haven of like thinkers.
And then there was the time I attended a poly discussion group, where some people started making cheap jokes about Baptists, so I asked if this was the right time to come out as a Baptist.
no subject
My current denomination, the United Church of Canada, is also known as "the NDP on Sunday mornings". My immediately previous denomination was American Baptist. In both congregations, I noticed people assuming that a social or political belief that was very unpopular in the general population would be universally held in that church. An example was that during Gulf War I or whatever it was called, people in Ohio were overwhelmingly pro-intervention, yet people in the church tended to assume that everyone in the church was strongly anti-intervention and anti-military, to the point of really offending a few people who had different political opinions and/or military relatives, and who had thought the congregation was open minded. I had the same tendency myself, maybe because I felt so marginalized and foreign elsewhere during that war that I wanted my church to be a comforting haven of like thinkers.
And then there was the time I attended a poly discussion group, where some people started making cheap jokes about Baptists, so I asked if this was the right time to come out as a Baptist.