When Did I Adopt My Worldview of Religion?
Social constructs provide the frame – identity is the vibrant painting within
When did I embrace the religion, my parents chose for me? I say chose, because more than 50 percent of people in the US are the same religion as their parents, as outlined in a 2021, Pew Center Research Study. My parents were born as Baptists, the religion of my grandparents, and converted to being Jehovah’s Witnesses when I was five. Their religion became my religion.
Most people practice the religion of their parents. The majority of people born in a Western country practice one of the many dominations of Christianity, the predominant religion in the Middle East is Muslim, if India was your place of birth, you are probably Hindu, and if you were born in Israel, you more than likely practice a form of Judaism.
When I was twelve, I was baptized as a Jehovah’s Witness because the Bible said that there would be wars and rumors of wars and then the end would come. The rumors were real because the Vietnam War was going on and we watched images of soldiers in their combat gear, fighting a war thousands of miles away, or protests about the war on the nightly news.
I always believed that I chose to be a Jehovah’s Witness, but I when I was baptized, I wasn’t even a teenager and still playing with Barbies. Witnesses said that they don’t believe in child baptism like members of “worldly” religions, but wasn’t I a child? In many other religions individuals are baptized as infants, but despite the protests from JWs, wasn’t the assimilation process of the Witnesses the same? After all, I was just a few years older than a baby, then I was baptized in the religion of my parents. The Witnesses’ explanation of being against child baptism seems like a distinction without a difference. Do we choose our religion or do we accept our parent’s choices?
And what if we change our minds about the religion our parents bestowed on us? How do you explain the change? Can you easily walk away from the religion? About forty two percent of people in the US are no longer the same religion as their parents. Are you practicing the same religion that you were born into? If not, how did you balance your new beliefs with your community?