The god of my father...

Trying to balance...

I love my parents immensely. They have supplied both my brother and I with love, stability and support throughout our lives. Of course, looking backward at my life history thus far, there are many things that I think they could have done differently; knowing what I know now about them makes them more human than god-like. But this newfound revelation does not come without consequence. Knowing that my parents are falliable makes me also question the god that they taught me about growing up. If my parents could be wrong about different life situations, what makes the god they want me to worship unquestionable?

I have a very strange relationship with my father, particularly looking at the past year or two.

Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed discussed the "banking system" that many are aquainted with in educational environments. This system is one in which the teacher/instructor is the one that knows all whereas the student knows nothing. The teacher/instructor must feed the student knowledge and the student subsequently cannot question in any manner that will lead them to a conclusion other than the one the teacher/instructor espouses. Unfortunately, in the religious community of my youth teaches God in this manner. The preacher knows all and the congregation knows nothing. If any conclusion is drawn that is outside the realm of orthodoxy, then it must be deemed ungodly, heretical or even demonic.

When I was a knowledge recepticle of my father - accepting those things he said as true with no questioning - we had no problems. While I shied away from conversations of doctrine (because even then, I questioned things, just silently), in school, I was daddy's protege. Anything I heard him say, I repeated. I was dogmatic to a fault sometimes. People knew not to get into a verbal tussle over religion because they would lose - not because I was right, but because I knew how to argue.

But now that my mind is no longer the daddy repository of religious dogma, it is very difficult to have conversations with him. He always thinks that I am trying to attack his god which is not the case. I am just not one to accept what one says as true without scrutiny anymore. I try not to say much about anything religious, sectarian, doctrinal, spiritual, etc because I know that there will be a point of contention between us...

And now, I find myself trying to respect...

his deity...While I am still a Christian, I cannot believe in a patriarchal, oppressive, hell-fury deity anymore. That type of god doesn't align with my spiritual walk any longer which is confusing to my parents. My father is very denominationally-oriented. He believes within his heart that both my brother and I will return to the Church of God in Christ in our futures; it is his earnest prayer to God. He believes that we will one day see the light and then understand that he was right all along. He leaves no room for the slight possibility that he could have been wrong on any number of things. Pentecostalism is the only right way. The Church of God in Christ is my heritage so I will eventually come home. I mean, the Bible does say train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. No doubt, this is his prayer; that both his children will come back to the teachings of our youth...the teachings that trained us.

I just don't see that happening...

But how do I continue to respect my parents' beliefs when there doesn't seem to be a reciprocal respect for my beliefs? When I realized that in the grand scheme of things, my parents are merely human as I, so my belief structure can be no more or less greater than theirs, I was liberated. I really want to respect their beliefs. But their beliefs are steeped in oppressiveness, or divisiveness or even elitism (only Christians that do things our way are making it to heaven, unfortunately).

What is a son to do?