I remember sitting through the debriefing of the exchange students who had been to the States the previous year. One of them described a story that made me laugh, and years later I still think it's very revealing of how Europeans and Americans each tend to view religion.
She was living with an American family who were evangelical protestants. She never said that, but I knew, because I recognized so many things she talked about that could easily have happened at my church. They asked her to come to church, involved her in the youth group, lent her a Bible, etc, etc. She went along with it all because exchange students are supposed to please their host families, right? Well, eventually, they took her to an evangelism meeting, where she was offered the chance to "accept Jesus into her heart." To the American family, this was the single most important decision she would ever make. It was life-changing, earth-shattering.
For her, it was something she did to please her host family. End of story. Eight months later, I sat in a Rotary Club meeting in France and listen to her wax eloquent - and very, very confused - about why her host family had been so excited.
I could have cleared up the mystery for her, but my French was good enough to understand her but not good enough to express those concepts, so I didn't. But it was one of several events that shed new light on my own faith that year. Sixteen years later, I'm not a Christian anymore.
She saw religion as rituals people went through at points in their lives, and as an element of cultural history. Her American host family saw it as a defining feature of their worldview. I think the European way is healthier, personally.
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She was living with an American family who were evangelical protestants. She never said that, but I knew, because I recognized so many things she talked about that could easily have happened at my church. They asked her to come to church, involved her in the youth group, lent her a Bible, etc, etc. She went along with it all because exchange students are supposed to please their host families, right? Well, eventually, they took her to an evangelism meeting, where she was offered the chance to "accept Jesus into her heart." To the American family, this was the single most important decision she would ever make. It was life-changing, earth-shattering.
For her, it was something she did to please her host family. End of story. Eight months later, I sat in a Rotary Club meeting in France and listen to her wax eloquent - and very, very confused - about why her host family had been so excited.
I could have cleared up the mystery for her, but my French was good enough to understand her but not good enough to express those concepts, so I didn't. But it was one of several events that shed new light on my own faith that year. Sixteen years later, I'm not a Christian anymore.
She saw religion as rituals people went through at points in their lives, and as an element of cultural history. Her American host family saw it as a defining feature of their worldview. I think the European way is healthier, personally.