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Old 08-23-2017, 02:42 PM
Throwaway234 Throwaway234 is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2017
Posts: 8
Quote:
Originally Posted by navane View Post
That's a good point. There are some individual chapters that may have a group culture for a particular religion even when the national organization does not lean as heavily, if at all.







Thetalady makes an excellent point. There are usually outward indications of religious leanings in the sorority history, blessing is sung before meals, etc. Though, I can't imagine that any sorority is going to disclose to their new members the precise contents of the ritual prior to the performance of the ritual. So, if one religion is highlighted during a portion of ritual, they would not have been able to tell you about it before hand.

OP, did you by any chance discuss your concerns with your sorority prior to dropping? I wonder if they might have offered an option for you to not have to recite any readings etc that make you feel uncomfortable. If you personally felt that your religious beliefs conflicted with the ritual or teaching or culture of your sorority, then I completely understand why you felt it would be best to withdraw. You must do what is right for yourself.

Though, I caution you from believing that that grass is greener on the other side. If you were to pledge again, how would you ever know what the new sorority has in *their* ritual before going through it? What if their ritual has even more "objectionable" content than the first? I almost wonder if the religion thing is an excuse....especially since you mention that you want to go through recruitment at a new school.

Look, we had a situation at a chapter I advise where one of the new members quit before initiation because she said that she is a deeply religious Christian and she felt that her participation in the sorority was in conflict with her values. Oddly, my sorority is one of the ones which seemingly is more "Christian" on outward appearances -- after all, our open motto is a Bible verse and our founders came from Christian families. Yet, we absolutely respected her feelings and she was released. She then promptly went and pledged another sorority which one might consider from outward appearances to have a "non-Christian" slant. We were kind of puzzled.

What we do know is that you cannot ever join another NPC sorority again once you have initiated into one. You might, however, like to look into seeing if there is a non-NPC sorority which specializes in your religion. I know there are Christian sororities, Jewish sororities, Muslim sororities, etc. This link might help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultur...and_sororities
Our sorority didn't really spend much time together like that before initiation, I suppose that must be different at different/bigger schools. I spoke to a few members on exec. about it, but ultimately I felt it was best to disaffiliate. I understand how it could seem like I'm trying to come up with an excuse, but after transferring to a school closer to home and talking with some friends in sororities I really started to miss being involved. I was holding onto a glimmer of hope NPC made once in a blue moon exceptions because of the great parts of greek life. But now I understand they really do not haha. I appreciate all of the responses on here and will look into other non-NPC groups.
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