What is your faith???

[Jufarius87]

We all want to STUDY religion.... but just out of curiousity, I thought it would be interesting to discuss what we actually believe...

I'll go first, my family started out not so religious, then my parents had the "born again" experience. Couple years later I finally came to faith as well. After having studied Church History though, Im strongly considering converting to Eastern Orthodoxy (thus Im putting in a vote for Christian-Apostolic, even though Im not as of yet in such a church :| )

[demondeac]

That's a ballsy move to put Roman Catholics and Orthodox in the same "apostolic" category . Not to mention all those double-predestination calvinists lumped in with the free will baptists....laaaaaaud have muh-ceee (in smooth southern drawl).

[Jufarius87]

lol thas what makes it fun, clumping those groups together encourages debate

No no... only 10 maximum voting options per poll. lol

[Sinope]

Why no option to check more than one? As an Episcopalian, I'm pretty sure I fall squarely in both of the first two categories. . .

[rjhend1]

Why no option to check more than one? As an Episcopalian, I'm pretty sure I fall squarely in both of the first two categories. . .

Ah no my friend! As an Oxford Movement Anglican, I consider us firmly in the second category!

[demondeac]

Ah no my friend! As an Oxford Movement Anglican, I consider us firmly in the second category!

As a baptist (the good kind), I don't even consider myself the first! :wink:

[jcesarps]

As my old mission professor told me, I am catholic (small "c"), orthodox (small "o"), evangelical (small "e"), but Christian (with capital "C"); The only thing that we are not anymore, he said, is protestant, since in the historical sense of the word, we have nothing to protest anymore.

[amdg09]

Raised Evangelical Protestant; converted to Catholicism during my first year of graduate school at Saint Louis University (where I also completed my undergraduate degree).

[JusticeYeti]

I'm a Roman Catholic, with some Evangelical leanings and some Tolstoy tendencies. Basically its a mass of contradictions. But I hold it together in some weird and abstract way.

Im a practicing Roman Catholic

I work in an Evangelical/Emergent Ministry

And I have an idolatry problem with Leo Tolstoy.

[LunaSea]

I was a Protestant that went to Catholic school. The priest ostracized me and during Mass, I, along with a Jewish student and a Hindu student, sat in the back of the Church and could not participate. Our conversations about our love of faith and disdain for dogma is what catalyzed my interest in the academic side of religion.

I'm still very spiritual, but not quite devout.

[a piece of bread]

well, my faith is a kind of original islam, has its roots from quran. i am not sure if you have any idea about it. but i feel i belong to an emotional islam (sufism of mevlana celaleddin rumi) which offers a kind of peace, and of course "love". this is the key of sufism. as yunus emre said, "we love creatures for the sake of their creator" :arrow:

[LunaSea]

Nejjad- I studied Sufism as an undergrad, and while it was an academic pursuit, I fell in love with their poetry and practices. My honors thesis focused on Sufism's shift from ascetic to ecstatic mystic concepts in 8th century Basra. It is a beautiful tradition and I wish more people in the US knew of the mystic side of Islam.

[philothei]

I'm a convert to Orthodoxy of sorts, was baptized but never really raised in it as my mother is Lebanese and father German. Coming back to my roots has been a wonderful experience. I think you'll like it, especially studying religions, since it's the original Christian practice and is closely akin to Jewish practice. Are you considering it intellectually or have you begun to dive into the traditions?

[LunaSea]

While I keep my writing as academic and detached as possible, I can't research a particular faith without finding myself somwhat attracted to it. When I studied Vajrayana Buddhism I wanted to fly to Tibet; when I studied Orthodoxy I wound up in a class learning to paint Byzantine Icons; when I studied Sufism I attended dhikrallah in NYC. It may not be the most professional approach in academia, but it certainly is a deterrent from Orientalism (that is, Edward Said's definition of it, meaning a Eurocentric prejudice). I still paint Icons, and I find Orthodoxy quite interesting, particularly its roots and the events and groups surrounding the Council of Nicea.

[a piece of bread]

LunaSea, good to see an American who is interested in Sufism. Poetry forms the most important part of it. I think you speak Persian or Arabic. Sufism in Turkey is based on creeds of Mevlana, born in Belh, Afghanistan and moved to Anatolia in 13th century. He spoke Turkish, but wrote his poems in Persian since it was the language of literature at that times. As you probably know, Persian is a very strong language for poetry.

To be honest, even I do not know anything about 8th year Sufism in Arabic world. Of course, it is true that Sufism's roots come from the first ages of Islam. But what I know is that it was shaped after 11th century in Central Asia by Dervishes who afterwards came to Anatoli and of course Muslims in Spain (Endulus, remember the cities Cordoba and Granada) such as Ibn Arabi.

Actually, I plan to study 19th century Turkish nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, but I also find traditional Islam of these ages very alluring to study. We'll see

Can you tell a few words about early ages' Sufism?