In his hit song "Imagine," John Lennon imagined (hence the name) the world without religion. Yet, we don't live in that world, and we do have religions. So, the next best thing would be for all religions to get along, just accept the fact of pluralism.
And again, just as today's story proves, we don't live in this kind of world either. In a second, you'll read a story about religious grandparents having a hard time bearing the fact that their granddaughter doesn't share their beliefs and chose a different spiritual path for herself. And so, they go out of their way to inconvenience her in the pettiest ways.
More info: Reddit
In an ideal world, all religions would be able to co-exist, and there would be no clashing between them
Image credits: LaShawn Dobbs / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
But we don't live there, and so we have to encounter fights between beliefs, just like this one between grandparents and their granddaughter
Image credits: ASphotofamily / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Basically, a 16-year-old girl decided to test out pagan waters
Image credits: AndreyStar / Freepik (not the actual photo)
This included participating in various rituals for which she had to limit certain food intakes
Image credits: throwramildrama11
Yet, her Christian grandparents kept disrespecting her beliefs by, for example, bringing the food she cannot eat, which got them thrown out of dinner by the girl's mom
The OP grew up with strict religious parents, but now both she and her husband consider themselves passive Christians. At the same time, her parents-in-law are hardcore Christians, and they don’t really like her because of how nonchalant she is about religion.
Then, their 16-year-old daughter started getting into paganism and witchcraft. The parents didn’t really have much of a problem with her doing this, as long as she stayed grounded, but the grandparents did. In their eyes, the girl is being corrupted by demons, and so they do a lot to “bring her back,” which includes being rather passive-aggressive towards her.
For example, when they come over for dinner, they keep bringing the food that contains products, like garlic, fish, and fava beans, that the girl has to avoid for certain rituals. And it’s not like they are not aware of it, they just pretend to forget. To add insult to injury, they also made various remarks about “clean food” or “rejecting family food.”
After this kept happening, the OP started losing her patience and finally snapped. She told her mother-in-law to stop being deliberately disrespectful towards her daughter, and if she doesn't want to do that, she can simply leave.
Well, it’s good to see a mom stand up for her daughter – the grandparents are being unreasonable here, no doubt. It’s understandable that their worries about their granddaughter’s paganism come from their strict Christianity.
Image credits: The Yuri Arcurs Collection / Freepik (not the actual photo)
After all, there are enough Christians who believe that religious pluralism is an invalid concept. They think that different forms of religion being true to different people is logically impossible, as they view their beliefs as the only reasonable way to believe in God. Granted, not all Christians are like this, but a certain number of them are — the grandparents from this story included.
What makes it even harder for these folks to accept their granddaughter’s beliefs is the fact that she chose paganism out of all the other options. And the thing is that paganism tends to be highly demonized. These views date back even to the Salem witch trials, when many pagans at the time were associated with witchcraft. And some people haven’t updated their views ever since.
Just like the mentioned grandparents, some people still assume that pagans worship the devil, are evil deviants, and so on. Look, it can be involved in paganism, but not in a worship way, but just as figures, not that much different than in Christianity itself.
Overall, paganism is more about admiring nature, being aware of their environment, and all things like that, all depending on the specific paganism branch they choose. So, just as netizens said, the OP was not overreacting by kicking out her MIL for disrespect. It’s okay to have your religion, but you must learn to respect others’ beliefs too.
Do you agree with such a stance? Or do you think the mother was too harsh on her parents-in-law?
People online completely understood where the woman was coming from with her "throw them out" instinct and praised her for acting on it
