Kristen & Ilyas
Interfaith families continue to build bridges–quietly, peacefully, steadily, around the world. For today’s post, I invited guest blogger Kristen to write about her Catholic and Muslim relationship, and why she intends to raise her children with both family religions.
Ilyas and I got to know each other when we found ourselves living in the same neighborhood as college students. A Muslim who emigrated from Algeria as a child, Ilyas has no accent and lots of American friends. He seamlessly fits into both worlds, and I found him both interesting and easy to relate to. I am a Catholic of European descent who loves to travel and learn. Ilyas has said that my blue eyes drew him in, and that my kindness and optimism brought him closer. We both agreed that being together felt right in a way that no relationship ever had. Just the right amount of interesting and familiar, we were soon inseparable and completely in love.
As the relationship progressed, Ilyas and I began to think about what the future might hold. We didn’t have everything figured out yet, but we knew that our futures would include each other, and so we decided to get married. Religion had never been an issue between the two of us–he occasionally goes to church with me, and I will attend some events at the mosque with him. We both value our religions, and respect each other’s beliefs and right to form our family’s identity. Even so, we felt it was important to discuss how to handle religion when we decide to have children. Most Muslim sources say that the kids have to be raised as Muslims, and most Catholic ones say that the kids should be raised as Catholic. We found ourselves in a conundrum.
The predominant view seems to be that interfaith couples should choose one faith for their children, but neither of us felt comfortable with the idea. Religion, culture, and identity are inextricably linked. How could either of us sacrifice the influence of our religion, the right to be a part of forming the religious and cultural identity of our children, without losing ourselves and our heritage in the process? Almost every family get-together, every memorable event of both of our childhoods, is linked to the things we celebrated as a result of our families’ religious identities. We feared that not sharing in either of those identities would isolate our children from the “out” parent’s side of the family because they would not be celebrated as an insider, and a member of the community. Ilyas and I were both concerned that we, and our future children, would feel such a loss very strongly, and we could not imagine asking each other to make such a sacrifice. We were sure that our marriage would not work if we chose one faith, so we chose both.
Although I am from a Christian family, I actually attended a Jewish preschool and elementary school, and I participated in the plays and Jewish celebrations. My parents thought that the smaller classes and rigor of the Jewish private school would help create a more challenging environment than any other local schools. I found it to be a really wonderful experience that taught me the value of interfaith knowledge and understanding. It definitely influenced the positive way that I view the idea of exposing children to more than one religion. Looking back on his years of celebrating Christian holidays with my family, Ilyas agreed.
The more we talked about it, the more clearly Ilyas and I saw what we believe. We believe that it is a human right to help shape the religious and cultural identity of one’s children, for both the mother and the father. It would be devastating for either of us to be excluded from that right, and so being both–raising our future children attending church and the mosque, fully part of both of our religious communities– is essential for us. We both value our religions and find profound and substantial similarities between our faiths that we feel will unite our future family.
We plan to explain the differences in our beliefs by telling our children that God, so amazing that he created this universe and more out of nothing, is just too great for any human to fully understand, and so people differ in beliefs in their effort to try. We aren’t diluting our faiths–we are teaching everything about both. We feel that we will be giving our future children a religious heritage that is accurate and complete by refusing to ignore either side of their family’s background. It may not work for every family, but we are confident that we are making the right decision for our family, and that we will have no regrets.
Kristen is an Ohio native who loves British TV, good books, and the Buckeyes.
Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family by Susan Katz Miller, available now in hardcover, paperback and eBook from Beacon Press.
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