Religion is Private
We've heard all sorts of things about religion and France, but it always
fascinates me to hear things directly from the mouths of French
people.
As we sat crammed together around the little table in my favorite café
for our English Conversation Group, we discussed the changes that we’ve seen
throughout our lives in various areas such as communication, technology, gender
roles, education, families, and even religion.
“I think that there may be more people who actually believe in God today
than before, but there are less people who practice religion,” one young girl
shared. “For example, I believe in God,
but I don’t practice a specific religion.”
She went on to explain that her mother had been baptized into the
Catholic Church, but she didn’t want to impose her own religious beliefs onto
her children [as they'd been imposed on her], so rather than teaching her children about God, this mother
waited for her children to ask their own questions. The girl sitting across from me smiled and shrugged her shoulders a bit bashfully. "I'm the only one of my siblings who was ever curious," she said.
Another woman softly stated that religion is private. “There are perhaps a few very close friends that you
may be able to talk with about religion or spiritual beliefs,” she said, “but
it’s so private that it’s not even talked about within families.”
This shocked me.
“I understand wanting your children to make their own decisions, but how
can they make their own decisions if they haven’t been taught anything?” I asked.
“For example, I grew up in a home where we went to church, prayed, and read
the Bible. However, at some point, it
was my own decision to follow Jesus, not my parents’ decision for me.” The ladies around me nodded, not having much
of a response.
Sometimes being an American talking about Christianity can be a detriment; it doesn’t surprise French people to hear that an American is a Christian. After all, aren’t all Americans Christians? We’ve had people ask if our church is something that we’ve brought from the United States; we reply with a resounding, “No.”
My conversation with these 4 women reminded me that simply having any
sort of spiritual conversation is a break-through in this cultural
context. Of course, each family is
different, but if, for the majority of French families, spirituality is so
private that it’s not even talked about in the home, how can I expect to speak
about it on the streets or in cafés? Any spiritual conversation, no matter how seemingly profound
or shallow, is a door opened by God Himself.
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