Which Christian Denomination are you?

[jaywalker]

Helemal un-devout Buddhist with Pagan leanings and with a yen for Freya.

[BabyBlues]

Jaywalker,

I appreciate your Helemal un-devout Buddhist with Pagan leanings and with a yen for Freya-ness

[Penelope]

JayWalker's Label:-

Helemal un-devout Buddhist with Pagan leanings and with a yen for Freya.

You have pinpointed the problem, Jay. As some of us get older, our labels get longer......my label would look like 'The Gettysburg Address'. So maybe my grumble at these people for labelling themselves, is just envy on my part.

It is true that the more I read and study and listen and look around me....the less certain I become of what is really going on. Quite bewildered!

But, I know I like it.

[Penelope]

Jaywalker - I just thought I would confess, that never having heard of Helemal - I Googled it. I got three links in German (or Dutch?) and your post came fourth, from Booktalk.

Before long,you will be famous, if you insist on making obscure posts.

I don't know why you bother....You should let us all burn.

[tarav]

BabyBlues said:

It is funny beause if someone were to come on the boards and say he or she were an atheist (as people on here have done...especially apparent in the boards about 50 reasons...) , I doubt people would be upset that he or she was using a label to define him or herself. Yet, if someone expresses, even in this trivial poll, that they do have a religious inclination, then the label is negative and separatist. I think that is very interesting...

I understand what you are trying to say here. However, your assumption that the label of atheist is a uniformly accepted label is debatable. There are actually many atheists who complain about other atheists using the term, "atheist"! Many people do not want to be defined by the absence of a belief, and shun the label atheist. Some people feel that the negative connotations of atheist make it an undesirable label. There was even a movement pushing the term, "bright" as a more desirable label. So, I am not sure that your "doubt" is founded. There are probably people who would be upset about others using the label atheist. There are people who don't like labels and people who like to identify with a label. I see both sides. I understand how labels are limiting and often divisive. I also see the practicality in applying labels. We like to sort and categorize! We also like to be unique!

[jaywalker]

Penelope, yea sorry, I talking Dutch and English all day and I mix 'em up.
sorry again.

[bibliophile_18]

Not one for the horrible labels of society. I am a firm believer in whatever-is-out-there-has-a-horrible-twisted-sense-of-humor-and-helps-when-necessary.

And yes, I know that's a mouth-full but I don't feel like making it short. It fits who and what I am. Raised Christian, turned against that god and tried to find myself among everything else just didn't work. so...yup. that's me. And please, no labeling me. -_-

[amielou]

Soon to be Catholic. I'm beginning RCIA classes in a month. Mostly because it's the only church I've ever been comfortable in and my boyfriend is Catholic and we're planning to get married.

(But I don't have the ring yet, for those of you keeping track....soon. Very soon...I'll keep you all posted).

[Dissident Heart]

I am a baptised member of the United Church of Christ...doing my part to lead adult education, be a member on the board of directors, provide occasional sermons and helping with the worship committee...honored to serve alongside some beautiful souls on the peace and justice ministry team...and stoked to participate in the inter-faith committee that is working to define and foster our relationship with the Synagogue that shares our worship space...and well aware of the imperfections and room for growth that plague any human enterprise- this Church being no exception...the cliques, gossip, self-righteousness, fear and ignorance, and all those less than noble elements that make living in community so damned difficult. I am grateful that this community is hungry for knowledge and committed to making the world a better place, wanting to ensure social justice and ecological sustainability...and they work to develop tools of forgiveness, reconcilliation and compassion...practical methods to increase family vitality and community awareness and civic responsibility...learning new and old ways to pray, meditate and sit quietly with life's mysteries and tragedies...to also accompany those who are in great need through illness, loss of job, housing or death. Did I mention a profound appreciation of music too, and art as well?

[Robert Tulip]

I am a member of the Uniting Church in Australia. The UCA was formed in 1977 by the merger of the Methodist Church and parts of the Presbyterian Church and the Congregational Church, bringing together three of the mainstream nonconformist denominations. Conservative Pressies and Congies remained sectarian and did not join, so the UCA has more of a left-liberal leadership although deeply conservative among many members. My father's father John Tulip was a Methodist Minister who emigrated from Durham to Queensland in 1923. My mother Marie Tulip's family were from Scottish Presbyterian emigrants to Queensland in the 1850s and mum's dad Robert Grant was the town doctor in Mackay. I was baptised in Epping Methodist Church in 1963, but when the UCA formed my parents were more in sympathy with the local Congregational congregation, so I attended there in between long bouts of atheism. My mother wrote a book about the status of women in the Uniting Church, starting from the premise that Jesus was a feminist and moving to the conclusion that the church is a bastion of patriarchy. Partly as a result of writing that book mum sees herself as more Buddhist than Christian. My dad Jim Tulip was an associate professor of English at Sydney University and head of school of religious studies, with primary interest in the relation between literature and spirituality. Mum and dad met at the University of Queensland and went together to Chicago where dad did a PhD at University of Chicago on Richard III and mum did an MA at Northwestern on the love poems of Paul Clodel, returning to Sydney in 1962. Dad had sabbatical leave for a year at Oxford University in 1968, so I started school in Sutton Courtenay. We went to Sweden to stay with my mother's sister Helen and her husband Lars Frostell, and we drove through Denmark and Germany and the low countries to Paris in May 1968. Dad had a next sabbatical at Yale University in 1976-77, and we lived at New Haven and drove in June to California, including stays with Norm Spector in Chicago and Robert Bly in Minnesota. I have the three strands of the UCA in my heritage, Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregationalist, but am still something of a pariah due to my eclectic background and views, and am tolerated at my local congregation Kippax Uniting Church where I play piano for the traditional service and help choose hymns and occasionally do the intercessory prayers for others.