Spiritual Questions to Ask Friends
Questions for friends who have never quite had this conversation, including friends who believe different things or nothing at all. They start with upbringing and practice, then move to death, doubt and what you would each want from the other in a bad year.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What did you grow up with, and what happened to it?
Why ask it
Two halves: the inheritance and what became of it. Old friends often assume they know the first part and have never asked the second, which is where the drift, the return or the quiet resentment lives.
If someone asked you today, what word would you put on your beliefs?
Why ask it
Watch the hesitation before the label. People who reach for agnostic, lapsed or spiritual but not religious are usually describing a position they have not examined in years, and saying it aloud often prompts them to revise it.
Is there anything you do every week that you would call a practice?
Why ask it
This includes a service, a meditation, a swim and a walk to the same bench, so nobody is excluded by the question. It also separates people with a routine from people with a worldview, which is a real difference between friends.
What do you do at three in the morning when you cannot sleep?
Why ask it
Nobody performs an answer to this, and what comes back is honest: a podcast, a prayer, the news, lists. It is the most reliable route into someone's inner life without using any religious vocabulary.
What got you through the worst year you have had?
Why ask it
Answers are usually a mix of people, habit and something harder to name. Notice whether anything they mention still exists in their life, because that gap is often what a friend is best placed to see.
Do you ever pray? Do you tell anyone when you do?
Why ask it
The second question is the interesting one, because plenty of people who would not call themselves religious pray in an emergency and have never admitted it. Asking makes it safe to say.
When were you last inside a church, mosque, temple or synagogue, and why?
Why ask it
A funeral, a wedding, a school event or a Tuesday all lead somewhere different. It also gets at whether they miss any of it, which lapsed friends rarely bring up unprompted.
Who do you know that you would call wise, and what makes them so?
Why ask it
You learn what qualities they actually rate, and they are almost never the ones people list when asked about values directly. Expect a grandmother, a colleague, an old teacher rather than a public figure.
Do you believe in luck, fate, both, or neither?
Why ask it
A low-stakes way to find out whether they think anything is steering events. Most people hold contradictory positions here, and noticing that out loud together is more interesting than resolving it.
Where do you think your sense of right and wrong came from?
Why ask it
The answer is usually a person and a rule, and it explains behaviour you have watched for years without understanding. Friends who share a background often find they took different lessons from it.
What do you think we owe people we will never meet?
Why ask it
This moves from private belief to how they actually live, and the answers range from nothing to something quite demanding. Follow it with what they last did about that, which is where talk and practice separate.
Have you ever had an experience you have never told anyone about?
Why ask it
The offer of being the first to hear it is what makes this work between friends. Some will decline; those who do not will usually preface it with an apology, which tells you how long they have held it.
Have you changed your mind about something big and not mentioned it to anyone?
Why ask it
Quiet deconversions and quiet returns to faith both happen without announcement, often for fear of a friend's reaction. Asking directly is sometimes the first opportunity someone has had.
Is there part of what you believe that you would not say out loud in this group?
Why ask it
It admits that groups have limits, which everyone already knows. Whatever comes out afterwards tends to be the actual conversation, and it is worth asking only where the friendship can hold it.
What do you make of suffering: is there something to say about it, or nothing?
Why ask it
Giving nothing as a permitted answer keeps this from collecting platitudes. Friends who have been through something serious usually pick that option, and the room learns from how firmly they pick it.
Is there anything you feel guilty about that you have not been able to put down?
Why ask it
Ask this one-to-one, never in a group, and only if you are prepared to answer it yourself. The value is not the confession but the discovery that it can be said to you without consequence.
What do you think happens when we die?
Why ask it
Old friends often assume they know each other's answer and are wrong. Keep your own reaction flat, particularly if you disagree, because the tone here decides whether the next question gets an honest answer.
Is there anything you would want at your funeral that we would not know to do?
Why ask it
Practical as well as reflective: readings, music, burial or cremation, who should be told first. Friends are often the ones who end up making these decisions, and a short answer now saves a bad guess later.
Do you think we actually believe different things, or just use different words?
Why ask it
Worth asking of a long friendship across a religious divide, because the answer is frequently the second one. Where there is a real difference, naming it calmly is what stops it turning into a no-go area.
If you were falling apart, what would you want me to say, and what should I not say?
Why ask it
The most useful question here, and the one people remember. Some want prayer, some want a lift to an appointment, some want no mention of it at all, and guessing wrong is how friends drift during a crisis.
Talking about belief with friends
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to open it up
Say why you are asking
A friendship of ten years that has never touched this needs a reason for the change. "I realised I have no idea what you actually think about this" is enough, and it stops the questions sounding like a test or a prelude to an invitation.
Go first, and be specific
Give your own answer with the uncertain parts left in. Friends match the register you set, so a polished answer gets you polished answers, and an honest one about what you do not know gets you the same back.
Choose the format deliberately
Guilt, unexplained experiences and doubt belong in a two-person conversation. Upbringing, luck, wisdom and what we owe strangers work well around a table, because people can listen while they decide what to say.
Agree what stays in the room
One sentence before you start, saying none of this gets repeated or brought up as a joke later, changes how much people risk. It matters most in groups that share other friends.
Sequences
Two friends, walking
- 1What did you grow up with, and what happened to it?
- 2What do you do at three in the morning when you cannot sleep?
- 3What got you through the worst year you have had?
- 4If you were falling apart, what would you want me to say?
Group of four or five, after dinner
- 1If someone asked today, what word would you use?
- 2Do you believe in luck, fate, both or neither?
- 3Who do you know that you would call wise?
- 4What do we owe people we will never meet?
A friendship across a religious divide
- 1Is there anything you do every week you would call a practice?
- 2Where do you think your sense of right and wrong came from?
- 3Do we actually believe different things, or use different words?
- 4Finish by asking what they would want from you if things went badly.
What goes wrong
Turning an answer into a recruitment pitch
The moment a question becomes a route to an invitation, the honesty stops, and friends can feel the turn coming a sentence early. If you want to invite someone to something, do it plainly on a different day.
Scoring points off the least defended answer
Groups tend to pick on whoever is most tentative, usually as a joke. That is the person you learn the most from, and one laugh at their expense will close the subject for years.
Doing it four drinks in
Late and loose feels like the right moment and produces conversations nobody can remember accurately, plus the occasional real hurt. One drink, or a long walk, holds much better.
Pushing a friend who has just changed their mind
Someone recently in or out of a faith is usually still working out what they think and is braced for judgement. Ask what they want to talk about rather than asking them to account for the decision.
Openings and exits
Starting from nothing
- 1"Can I ask you something we have somehow never talked about?"
- 2Ask about upbringing, which is the easiest entry point.
- 3Give your own version, including what you dropped and why.
- 4Leave it after two questions the first time.
When it gets heavy and you need an exit
- 1Say the true thing: "I did not mean to take us somewhere hard."
- 2Ask whether they want to carry on or leave it there.
- 3If they leave it, do not offer a summary or a conclusion.
- 4Come back to it once, weeks later, so they know it was not a one-off performance.