A Tale of Two Belief Systems

Dear Micah

               My husband and I have major religious differences between us. He is atheist and I am a Christian. This is affecting every aspect of our life together. I don't know what to do. He won't come to church with me and he gets angry whenever I try to talk to him about God. My faith is really important to me. Other than being atheist he's a really good man and I love him so much. I want to have him around in the afterlife too. And I want our life on earth to be as good as possible and it isn't with us fighting all the time over our beliefs. I need some advice on this.

Born Again

Dear Born Again,

               Did you meet your husband before you married him? Atheism isn't something that is easily hidden here in the Bible Belt, at some point in time that had to pop up. Either you two are the most uncommunicative couple the world has ever known or one of you recently changed your stance on religion. I will assume it's you since you signed your question "Born Again." Look, the answer is pretty clear--get off his back. You cannot force someone to share your faith if they don't want to. How would you feel if he were trying to convert you away from your beliefs? Maybe he is, and if so tell him to cut that out too and start respecting your right to your faith. You have a right to your faith, but he also has the right to his, even if his is non-belief. Neither of you have the right to mistreat each other or harass each other in the attempt to convert the other one. Don't worry so much about his afterlife. He isn't concerned with it, so just enjoy the present together. Lots of people who love each other have opposing religious beliefs, but that doesn't have to alter your feelings about them. You said, "Other than being atheist he's a really good man..." Great! Then love him for being a good man, but you made it sound like he's some kind of reprobate. I think you are catagorizing him as a bad person simply because he doesn't believe in God. That's not fair or nice. It's not like he's out eating the heads of babies and baying at the moon. An atheist shouldn't be automatically tagged a "bad person" anymore than a Christian should be awarded the title of "good person" simply because they believe in God.   People are people and most everyone shares the same kind of moral composite and in every group you will find an array of wonderful people and horrible people. Faith has very little to do with what kind of person you are. You're either rotten or you're not. I would caution you to stop prejudging him based on your interpretations of his belief system. Likewise, he needs to begin to understand that whether he believes or not, your faith is important to you and you should feel free enough to express it inside your home without fear of being made fun of or insulted. If you feel like praying, pray. He doesn't have to participate, but you have the right to enjoy your faith. Regardless of any of this, your marriage does not have to be stressed over religious differences. Your predicament was commonplace on one side of my family tree. When I was growing up, my paternal grandfather never went to church with my grandmother, my uncle never went to church with my aunt, and my male cousins never went to church with their wives. This wasn't an issue either. It didn't affect them at all, in fact it was never even a topic of discussion. I don't know if the men were Atheists or not, but I know that they didn't go to church and I never heard any of them discuss religion. I grew up thinking that this was a pretty common situation in the south. I knew lots of women who went to church, and very few men that did. So if that didn't wreck their marriages way back then, why should it wreak havoc on yours now? However, if this is a sore spot with you and you just cannot get passed it, then you may have to resign yourself to finding a new, more devout husband...but wouldn't that require you to turn your back on your sacred marriage vows? You'll have to weigh all that out yourself and determine which is worse for you. But please, next time, get to know the man a little better before you marry him.

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