Beware of charismatic people.
My sis was telling me about her friend's recent family dispute.
Her friend is in a Buddhist family, and recently one of her sisters went to the City Harvest church, and fell in love with the church, cell group, and the general population of the church.
As everyone can see, the stage has been set for future conflicts, and the stage wasn't left unused.
After the sister declared her intentions to get baptized, the world was still at peace. But her family members were quite skeptical about it, because they were all Buddhists and thus cannot relate to this sudden deviation from their norm. Then things escalated when she started those before-food prayers or something, because she'd be thanking god, while her father smoulders with indignance as he was the one who bought the food for her in the first place, why thank a god that's not even his? That was his source of anger I guess. I would be angry too if gratitude for the food placed on my child's table isn't for me, but for some divine presence whom I cannot feel.
That's not the only conflict.
Then the sister started appreciating god on her facebook alot, and there was once her status went like 'with Him i see', and my sis' friend's boyfriend went to comment on that status something along the lines of 'wah you can fly ah?', to which she replied 'not funny.', and her friend commented something like 'yea you go girl! take that!'
From a very objective perspective I can say that the friend's reaction was a bit...crazed. Was 'not funny' something that epic to cheer about?
My sis' friend also got into some dispute with her over her worshiping tendencies. It got so bad that the sister deleted her. It's kinda resolved now or so I heard, but still, it's weird right?
Isn't religion supposed to unite? Don't all religions have the same thing in mind--to bring to people a (good) way of living? It's really very weird that people these days seem to be missing the point in religion as a way of life, but claim that they are actively worshipping the religion they place their faith in, and when they mean active, they mean like bringing it to other people (not just evangelism, I know other religions do their own advertising too). And then religious leaders start comparing the amount of followers they have, almost as if it's like comparing the number of Facebook friends one has. I am no ardent fan or follower(at all) of any religion, but I just find it weird that people can bring themselves to despise another religion.
About the sister in question here, I do believe that she has her rights to choosing of her own religion, and that her family shouldn't try to influence her on her own religious choices, but I'm often kept wondering why did she suddenly decide to like going to church?
I've heard that the pastor is very charismatic, but does one really want to make a lifetime of commitment over someone's charisma?
-- 3/25/2010 10:31:00 PM
