On God and Parental Responsibility.

The arrival of Easter has me thinking again about that vexed question ‘Do you believe in God?’ I keep meaning to make a post about it, but it’s a complex and emotive issue that is likely to give rise to offence in some people - mostly because they won’t hear what I’m actually saying, but will process it through a filter conditioned to notions of heresy and blasphemy. That’s why I’ve avoided it so far; I want to be sure I get the words right. One aspect of it has come to my attention, however, and I feel I have to make a comment.

I was browsing through some bloggers recently and came across a woman who included in her interests ‘glorifying God and raising my children for Him.’ Those eight words could generate a sizeable essay on the subject, if not a small book, but I really want to keep this short and to the point.

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I have no time for the certainties of fundamentalism. Nothing is certain unless it can be conclusively proven. I do feel convinced, however, that there are levels of reality above and beyond what we take to be this world. The question of the metaphysical is far from being a no-go area to me. The problem with this woman’s statement is that it comes in two parts.

The first part causes me no difficulty at all. I fully respect her right to believe in whatever form of Supreme Being suits her. If she wants to glorify her notion of God, it’s nobody’s business but hers. It’s the second part that concerns me.

Of course, it goes without saying that I don’t know exactly what she means by ‘raising my children for Him.’ It might be that she is merely offering them her beliefs by way of benevolent parental guidance. But it doesn’t sound like that. It sounds like a failure to appreciate that her children are not just ‘her’ children; they are independent beings who have a right to make their own choices and follow their own roads. It smacks of an unhealthy level of control and conditioning. It suggests the imposition of unwarranted certainties. And if what I have seen and heard of fundamentalists is typical, it might even amount to a mild form of child abuse.

Maybe I’m wrong; I hope I am. And maybe it’s all part of life’s learning process anyway. Rejecting the values and ideas instilled into us by our parents is part of the process of growing up. You don’t have to stop loving them to do that; you just need the strength to say ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ Therein lies the problem, though: it’s OK for the strong minded, but what about the rest?