The Church of Ma-ma and Pa-pa

I've been meaning to get back to blogging for the past couple of weeks, but as ideas came to me for articles, they all seemed "too religious." I mean, what's happening to my Stay-at-Home-Mom angle? I meant to do a lot of articles about finances, and how SAHMs can save money, thus enabling them to stay at home. However, in explaining why a mother should consider staying at home, and to give up some things and change her buying habits for the sake of her children, I inevitably run up against the concepts of self-sacrifice, suffering, and serving others, all uncompromisingly Christian values. The fact is, I cannot make a convincing case to the secular mom on why she should stay home, when the world's values tell her that her fulfillment is paramount and that children are not that important--more like a proprietary appendage--to be stashed away in public schools as quickly as possible for as long as possible. Therefore, if one pays heed to the prevailing wisdom of our culture, the question of being a stay-at-home-mom may well never arise.

That leaves me in the position of having the freedom to write about the housewife/ stay-at-home-mom experience from the religious perspective, if in fact we angle the newsletter that way. I think this will be possible, although unsatisfyingly generic, since in aiming for an even narrower "faith-minded" audience, one is forced to make allowances for practically every shade of Christian, which many readers who are passionately committed to certain doctrines or interpretations of Scripture might find hollow. There would seem to be no middle ground that would satisfy everyone.

What does all this have to do with the Church of Ma-ma and Pa-pa? With the utmost respect to my departed grandparents, for whom I pray and sacrifice daily, I have to explain this family phenomenon. Apparently, when my mom and dad got together back in the 70's (presumably, after my dad told my mom that he would never marry a Catholic), my mom decided after long talks with her in-laws that their version of faith suited her. She became attracted to the Billy Graham revival movement, and even attended one of his crusades. She got my dad to set foot in a church, and even taught Sunday School for a time.

Fast-forward ten years. Mom divorced Dad, and although he retained custody of my sister and I, we lived with Ma-ma and Pa-pa while Dad attended nursing school. We went to an "Orthodox Presbyterian" church and the youth activities there. It was a happy time, and every night before bed Ma-ma would always come in and pray with us and we'd recite our Bible verses, most especially John 3:16. I don't know what exactly they believed, but for us it was a child's faith, a comforting faith, uncomplicated by doctrines and questions of exegesis and authority. We knew Jesus loved us and died for us and that we believed in Him, so we would go to heaven.

Fast-forward twenty years. Today Ma-ma and Pa-pa are gone, and although what I remember of their faith didn't get me too far in life, my sister clings passionately to what she remembers. My mother claims this as well, and has told me that "Whatever Billy Graham believes, that's what I believe." My dad, as well, while rejecting a faith that requires church-going, parrots verses and lines of argument that he no doubt learned in his youth. This is what I call "generic Christianity." It's a comfortable, "Jesus-and-me" religion that seems translatable to adult life straight from Sunday school, and it often serves as a middle ground for adults trying to reconcile differing denominations, creeds, and confessions.

There are a number of problems with this kind of Christianity, as you might expect. Without the regular reading and study of Scripture, one quickly loses one's moorings, relying on Ma-ma's or Billy Graham's interpretation of some half-remembered Bible verses and glossing over the rest. For example, my dad takes Paul's verse about preaching only "Christ, and Him crucified," to mean that we are not to concern ourselves over anything else the Bible might have to say. My sister has attended Seventh-Day Adventist churches without a clear idea of what they believe, not that it matters. As she told my mother, "Just because I go to a church doesn't mean I believe everything they believe." And for my mother, finally, the rejection of any organized church and the absence of any Scripture study at all leads to the uncritical acceptance of reincarnation, gay marriage, liberal politics in general and condemnations of the Catholic Church in particular.

As I turned from the "Bible church" I was attending, hoping to find some version of Christianity I could accept without doubt, I briefly considered the Church of Ma-ma and Pa-pa, but immediately rejected it. Why? Well, there was a reason I was looking for a church to attend in the first place. I knew Scripture clearly called us to worship in community AND to serve others. If you go long enough, you can lose sight of the fact that the whole point of Christ's sacrifice was not to make people unaccountable for their sins. Christ's sacrifice was not a get-out-of-jail-free card for sinners. But that is the logical conclusion of a "Jesus and me" religion. If there's no sin, there's no punishment for sin, no need for a religious mechanism to deal with sin, and therefore no need for any authority at all in matters of faith--not even the Bible.

In the Church of Ma-ma and Pa-pa, it is impossible to sin, either because one subscribes to a Calvinist view that there is no free will, and you therefore are not accountable for your sins, or because one believes, with Luther, that all sins are forgiven at the point of faith, that everyone, ALL PEOPLE, are totally depraved, and there is therefore no point in trying to avoid sin or do good, since you are so intrinsically bad that you can't avoid sin--and the good things you think you are doing are actually an offense to God. So much for worshipping in community and serving others.

In fact, it has been whispered in my family that my sister is in "error" because she believes in helping the homeless and suchlike, with her "works," and that somehow has merit in the eyes of God. And yet those whisperers have no more foundation for such beliefs than my sister has for hers! God forbid we should serve others, since that might be seen as a "work," and would therefore offend Him! You see how quickly half-remembered things from Scripture turn Christian values on their heads. Compare that with these words of Paul: "But there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, Jew first and then Greek. There is no partiality with God" (Romans 2:10-11). If, as Luther believed, our good works are repugnant to God, and if, as John Calvin believed, there is no way we are capable of choosing to do good, then this verse makes no sense. It, and the passage preceding it, clearly point to our ability to choose to do good, which then has some value to God bearing on our eternal reward (glory).

In the Church of Ma-ma and Pa-pa, one's fond recollection of those two dear loved ones substitutes for knowledge of theology and doctrine. For me, it wasn't enough. You're ultimately setting up your very own church of one believer, with no one to gainsay you--not even God.