Has anyone navigated raising non-religious children in a tight-knit religious community?
Hi everyone.
Long time lurker first time poster.
My husband and I are both from a very tight-knit middle eastern Christian community where everyone knows each other and their whole family history.
Both my husband and I grew up Christian and both left the faith and are atheist/agnostic. Our family thinks we are just not super religious, but believe in God “deep down.” In reality neither of us believe but we always try to keep the peace and don’t address it. For example when they ask why we don’t go to church, we just say “oh we are too lazy to wake up that early on a Sunday” and then endure the lectures.
We now have kids of our own. To keep the peace we baptized our children and hosted a lovely lunch afterward. We did not mock or ridicule the sacrament and even got gifts for the godparents.
We both viewed it as a “culture thing” and “bit the bullet.”
But now the kids are getting older. Their cousins and peers talk about church and Jesus a lot. Their cousins and peers are also going to Sunday school and preparing studies to receive their first holy communion.
Husband and I are torn about what to do. Husband wants to teach the kids religion but tell them it’s a myth when they’re older, like Santa Claus.
I don’t even want to teach them anything at all other than to respect their cousin and peers Christian upbringing.
I’m not sure what the best way to navigate this. I am also so worried their cousins will tell them “you’re going to hell for not believing” and I have no idea what to do with that.
I tried to Google this to see if anyone has posted like this or had this experience but I couldn’t find much.
Any personal experience, advice would be welcomed. Thanks everyone!