For a long time there has been a tendency for young people to be lulled into the
local default religion without question; but in today’s society, with the
Internet, more travel links and an ever-increasing cultural diversity in cities,
physical isolation should really no longer be a barrier.
I am a teenager
living in a small village in the heart of rural England, and around here, like
most places in England, its Christianity or nothing. There’s the Protestant
Church, the Methodist Church, or you can hop in the car to the nearest Catholic
Church ten miles away. Predictably, there isn’t a sniff of anything other than
some branch of Christianity, which I never questioned until fairly recently.
For the last few years I’ve been finding my feet with Wicca, a religion
that I find much more fulfilling than Christianity. I had gone to Church with my
mum every Sunday for as long as I could remember; I never believed in ‘God’, it
was more a social gathering with friends from the village for me. I believed in
God when it suited me, when we were all told to pray together, or when I wanted
help from God. For a while, amongst us youngsters, as the workload at school
increased and other commitments emerged, Church became less and less convenient
and the young people stopped going; but they did come back
eventually.
Last Christmas, I tagged along to the usual Church Nativity
(otherwise I would’ve been stuck in the house on my own on Christmas Eve) , and
my mum was busy helping backstage so I kinda hung around. There were rapidly
diminishing numbers of children to perform the play, so the people who had been
doing it for years – the people my age – filled in the gaps. Most of them still
went to Church regularly, and a whole bunch of them had been recently confirmed
into the faith (there had been a fair bit of pressure to do so.)
As they
acted out the play, I began to look in more and more disbelief at the young
people the Church had now acknowledged as adults. Certainly, none of them had
chosen Christianity as the belief system they wanted to follow, and it led me to
wonder… surely they couldn’t ALL be satisfied with the default religion they’d
blindly been led by the hand into. I found it quite baffling.
What was
the reason for it? Are they genuinely satisfied with what everyone else around
them believes, or can they not be bothered to seek out another religion more
befitting their personal beliefs? As much as I liked all the people in my local
Church, discovering Wicca was like a breath of fresh air – the idea of the force
of nature ITSELF calling the shots suddenly seemed so obvious; to me it made
Christianity look quite man-made in comparison.
In the school curriculum
in England, other major religions such as Judaism, Islam and Buddhism are
lightly brushed over in the lower years, but for the GCSE exams at 16, in my
school and I’m sure many others at least, Christianity was the only religion
covered. I had a very open-minded Religious Studies teacher and he encouraged us
to talk openly about our beliefs; to my dismay it seemed that no-one out of my
class of 22 had ever even heard of Wicca, and very few out of my year group – of
those who had, most of them had some rather prejudiced ideas.
It seemed
that for most of the people in my RS class, religion in general hadn’t really
occurred to them, although they sometimes left the class thinking, “Oh, perhaps
I should be a good person and go to Church.” The rest were all Christian
because, like me, they had gone to Church every Sunday from an early age
‘because it’s the right thing to do.’
But the most dismaying thing by
far was the large number of people in my year group who class themselves as
atheists simply because they reject Christian ideas about God, and Christianity
appears to be all that’s going for them. (There’s some light at the end of the
tunnel about this, though – one of these ‘atheists’ is now exploring Buddhism,
which is great.) Similarly, if children are brought up within a devout family of
any religion, even if they live in a multicultural area, it’s more than likely
that they wouldn’t dream of converting to another religion, even if they feel
trapped in the family’s religion.
I once read that ‘religion is
constricting, but spirituality is freedom’, which makes a lot of sense to me. My
mum, a Christian, once told me that everyone needs a faith; everyone needs
something to hang on to in his or her darkest hour and they need a path by which
to reach God, whichever path they choose. I think it’s a very good point and I
stand by it.
What I like about Wicca as opposed to monotheistic
religions is the fact that spirituality is encouraged more than religion;
exactly what to say, what to do and what to think isn’t dictated by books or
people, and the individual is allowed to develop creatively at their own pace in
their own way. I think it encourages peace and harmony and avoids the all too
common pernickety rows between factions of religions because they do things ever
so slightly differently. I neither advertise nor hide my faith, which I think is
how it should be.
So do you think it’s fair that a religious belief
system should be dictated to children from a young age, the particular religion
depending on where they grow up? Or do you think that a single religion per
community brings people together, and children would only be confused if they
were bombarded with many different conflicting ideas?
Does the default
religion of an area restrict people or support them?
I think that it’s
probably a good idea to raise a child within a religion, but when they reach an
age where they are developing ideas for themselves they should be given more
choice. Perhaps there is a barrier of fear surrounding other religions, or
cultural barriers; but who says you have to live in a certain country or speak a
certain language to follow a religion?
I once read, “When the student is
ready, the teacher will appear.” While I recognize that Wicca, Paganism and
other alternative paths are not for everyone, I think that in an ever-changing
world, young people should be given the chance to seek out a belief system that
suits them without the hassle that seems to affect so many people.
People shouldn’t have to aimlessly follow something they don’t believe
in to please others, and I think it should be made easier for young people to
access information for example through school and their local community. I think
it’s about time we emerged from the dark ages and embrace, rather than reject,
freedom of choice in a multicultural society.
Sophie Horrocks, Southeast
England.
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