Jennifer Fulweiler, who blogs at Conversion Diary, asked her worldwide audience to comment on the religious climate in their countries. It's not a scientific poll: for one thing, it has a self-selected Catholic bias. But it is eye-opening nonetheless. Here is what she asked:
If you live (or have recently lived) outside the U.S., we want to hear from you! Some questions:
- Where do you live? (Or, if you’re not currently living there, what part of the world is it that you’re familiar with?)
- What is church attendance like in your area? Are there many churches? Do they seem to have active memberships?
- At a typical social event, how appropriate would it be if a person were to explicitly acknowledge in casual conversation that he or she is a believing Christian? For example, if someone at a party made a passing comment like, “We’ve been praying about that” or “I was reading the Bible the other day, and…”, would that seem normal or odd?
- What belief system do the politicians in your area claim to practice? For example, here in Texas almost all politicians at least claim to have some kind of belief in God, regardless of what they may think in private — to openly admit to being an atheist would be political suicide in most parts of the state. Is this the case in your area?
- How many families do you know who have more than two children? If a family with four children moved to your area, would their family size seem unusual? What about a family with six children?
- What seems to be the dominant belief system of the people in your area?
- Do you notice any trends? Do people seem to be becoming more or less religious?
You can read all the comments (currently there are over 100) to the original post, or for a shorter (but not short) version, you can check out Jennifer's summary.
Responses came from six continents (no prizes for guessing which one was left out) and show a pretty consistent pattern. It reminds me of two stories, the first from about twenty years ago, and the other more recent.
- A missionary speaking at our church told us how difficult it was to raise support for his family's work in France, on the grounds that missionaries should be spending their time in the dark, difficult countries of the world. What people don't realize is that Europe may be wealthy and comfortable, but spiritually much of it is darker than the more traditional mission fields.
- In the midst of the uproar over the American Episcopal Church's ordination of an uncelibate homosexual bishop, an African bishop said to one of his American colleagues, in effect, "What? You people brought the Bible to my country, and now you tell us we shouldn't believe it?"
It's a wise parent who is willing to learn from his children.
One friend when asked what is something that people find unusual about you, responded that he has four children. I was astounded (that people would think that unusual), but he assured me that people always react that way when it comes up. ???
Sorry, but absolutely true. We have six children (now aged 32 to 20). It's less of a problem now that our children are grown, but when they were small, we got criticism, scorn, laughter and "advice" almost weekly. The worst was when I was spat on in a grocery store, after putting four (!) cans of marked-down apple juice in the cart for "endangering the planet." Our children were also teased. At a Catholic school.
It's different now. Now that the children are grown, and we have 8 grandchildren so far!and we are older, as are our peers, the same people who mocked us 25 years ago now comment on "how lucky we are" and turn to us for parenting advice.
I've said before (too many times, some would say!) that in our era (our kids are 28 and 31) the pressure against having children in excess of two was tremendous. I'm thrilled that the tide has turned somewhat.
