Agree to disagree?
My Mom is currently dealing with a tough situation.
Someone she is close to (I don’t want to give out too much information) has recently expressed to her that she does not ascribe to a traditional Christian belief system. In fact, it’s not really a mainstream religion at all. Now, my mom is creeping up toward 70 and a lot of the new “progressive” social movements (for lack of a better term) just have her stumped, so it’s actually pretty hard for her to get her head around the idea that someone doesn’t profess a belief in God, as in with a capital “G”, in the way that she does.
And that makes sense. For her entire life, she was taught to believe the Bible and has taken the Word at its word.
Fifty years ago, probably 85 to 90 percent of the people in her world (and the world around here in general) would have been on the same page as she is. Even 25 years ago, it was probably still something like 60 to 70 percent. You were either “saved” or you weren’t. You might be Baptist or Methodist or Church of Christ… Catholic even, so long as your bread-and-butter was Jesus crucified for our sins and resurrected as our risen Savior.
But that’s not really the world we live in nowadays. There are dozens of widely-recognized religions now. And not just in some faraway land full of people who don’t speak our language. Sure, here in Arkansas, three-out-of-four people profess some form of Christian faith, but 15 percent of folks say they are basically non-religious. The remaining 10 percent (which is still more than 300,000
Continued on Page 5 VIEWPOINT (cont.)
people include Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus and some “others” that weren’t statistically significant enough to get their own spot on the list I found online from 2019.
And while most of the, lets say, 40-and-under crowd has been brought up to be at least tolerant of other faiths, my generation is sort of caught in that inbetween place where most of us cling at least on some level to the faiths of our parents but many of us are asking questions and looking for answers along other paths.
And that’s where my Mom, and many of her generation, are simply throwing up their hands. She doesn’t want to cut ties with this person-of-a-different-faith, but so much of who my Mom is comes from what she believes is right and wrong, good or bad, and in this case, an eternity in Heaven or and eternity in Hell.
That’s the tough part, and I totally get it. I mean, if I am a Christian, and a big part of my faith is me telling people about Jesus and how to get to Heaven, am I not obligated to tell someone who I know doesn’t believe that about it? To maybe be a little belligerent even? I mean if I care about someone, I have to convince them to do what it takes to avoid the fiery pits of Hell?
Except, turn it around.
What about a person who strongly believes something different? What if they were just as desperate to convince me that I am wrong? I want to say we can just “agree to disagree,” because that’s sort of my approach to life…
you do you and I’ll do me and hopefully there are some overlapping circles where we can find a happy, healthy relationship and where our circles are different, we’ll just do our own thing.
Makes sense, right? I have a good friend who enjoys hiking and backpacking. I am not a fan. I enjoy watching and playing sports. Not his thing. But we both enjoy music and movies and good food and playing cards. So, we do those things. We also both happen to be the same religion, and I’m wondering what our friendship would be like if we did not.
And that’s where we are.
We are in a world where it’s not “you’re either this or that” anymore. There’s this and there’s that and there’s this other thing and this other thing or even maybe a little of this and a little of that. Maybe sometimes I like this but I want to keep that as an option.
And this isn’t just religion.
It’s everything from politics to prejudices, from preferences to policies. We are all looking at the world through the lens of our own selves. We should no more insist that everyone think like we do than we would like someone telling they insist we think like they do. Or, if it helps to think like this: Put it in God’s hands.
Agree to disagree, and whatever will be, will be.
