I was born and raised a Catholic and still am today. I will admit to going through a huge struggle with my faith in the early 70’s and have never quite recovered. I miss the high mass, the Latin spoken, nuns in full habits etc. What has stayed true to my heart is the catechism taught when I started kindergarten.

Would I change my religion? No, but I feel very shortchanged that the things that made me “feel” Catholic are no longer in practice. The Faith is still there as strong as ever though.

Actually, one needs to be pretty careful with the question: Is a Baptist a different religion than a Methodist: I would argue that they are not.

The only way the question truly makes sense is if the divisions are very broad: Christian really only has 3 divisions: Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox. And so on.

So yes, I was born and raised protestant, and I still am.

Fair point, hs. Although, I would expand it to suggest that we aren’t necessarily talking about Christianity. Someone could have been raised Christian, but convert to Judaism or Islam, etc. The spirit of my question, however, is this: Do you worship in the same faith tradition now that you were raised in. I will adjust the wording of the question to reflect that.

I have never really been sure on this one. My mother was Episcopalian, some of our family on her side were Jewish, she converted to Catholic when she married my step-father, and my father’s people were/are Christian Scientists. I will say I never saw any of them practice their religion to any great degree other than my grandfather, who was some sort of uppity up in the church, and my step-father who went to church every sunday but, because he was divorced, could not fully participate for reasons I am not sure of. I know I was sent to Sunday school at the First Church of Christ’s Scientists in E. St. Louis in the mid 50s and have never set foot in a church except for a wedding or 2 since then. Organized religion has always been a mystery to me although I understand the need for it to exist for a lot of people.

nope, not catholic anymore, can’t seem to learn spanish. not even evangelical anymore.
I prefer to see the church as a part of a local community, and not a multi-national buracracy controlled by some weirdos in italy.

To answer the specific question: I grew up Presbyterian, spent 15 years or so in a non-denominational church, and then returned to my Presbyterian roots. Of my 3 young adult children, One has no church affiliation, one has become Quaker, and one is freshman in college….searching, I suppose.

The thing in the Pew report that should give all the mega-church leaders pause is that it shows that there is no overall growth. The development and growth of the mega-churches is coming at the expense of others, not from those without a religious home.

The growth of non-Christian groups, and their acceptance by society, I see as a good thing, not as a threat.

I was born into a Catholic family and attended Catholic schools until I graduated from high school. (Mercy High–anybody remember that one?) Then I began to question a lot of church teachings, beginning with birth control and going deep into basic religious dogma. I just couldn’t reconcile my own personal beliefs with what the church had been trying to teach me. I didn’t switch over to another faith or attend alternate services. Frankly, while I looked at some other faiths, I wasn’t finding anything else that hit home for me either. Everything was too stiffled, too European, too “western.” I didn’t care for the strong delineation between “Man” and “Nature”–like somehow we were above it all and the big boss cheese of the rest of creation. Science was affecting my viewpoints too. Still, I consider myself a basically religious person…it’s just more along the lines of Native American beliefs (for lack of a better description.) But I still find myself “thinking” like a Catholic in many ways. Weird.

I grew up nondenominational. We read the bible, but had no real use for organized religion. I wasn’t baptized until I was 21, and only then because I felt it was called for in the bible. My wife however, was raised devout Roman Catholic, an “every Sunday” type of family. I was glad I had gotten baptized, because that allowed us to marry in a Catholic church.

The wife wanted to join a church, especially after we had children. She felt that being raised in a churchgoing environment had helped her by providing a sense of peace and stability. I was fine with joining a church, but after researching the Roman Catholic religion, I was very troubled by much of their dogma. This also happened to be about the time of the pedophile priest scandal, and the poor way that was handled by the Roman Catholic hierarchy didn’t make my wife too excited to get back into the “fold”. After much further research, we settled on ELCA Lutheran. It has all of the Catholic sacraments and traditions, but lacked the troubling dogma.

So, in short; no – neither my wife or I are the same religion as we were raised. And the wife is part of one the fastest growing religious groups – ex-Roman Catholics.

I was raised Catholic. My father had studied to become a Jesuit priest, before leaving the order one year before ordination. My mother was Mormon. To keep peace on one side of the extended family, I was raised Catholic: Christian Brothers elementary school, Jesuit high school, Holy Cross college, etc. My mother’s parents, who were Mormon, were too kind to interfere. Today, I still consider myself Catholic, and I try to respect the Catholic spiritual practices that are there to put my faith into action. I’ve looked into other faith groups that offer a more eclectic and individual apprach to spiritual exploration, but have found them to be too obsessed and explicit about implying negative critique about more organized, mainstream religious groups, and this obsession tends to get in the way of expressing a viable spiritual message. And, from my limited experIence, I feel also that many who affiliate with new-age religious groups are guilty of “pastor chasing,” which suggests a stronger devotion to the pastor than to the pastor’s boss.

Most folks grow up thinking their parents were geniuses or heroes. They’ll usually stay with the parent’s religious program no matter how ridiculous it is or isn’t. I preferred to grow up and see them for what they were. The only time I go to church is if they nail me for Pall Bearer duty. Considering what modern organized religion has become, God must be shaking his head in grief. I certainly want no part of it.