Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
On Loving and Honoring My Parents

On Loving and Honoring My Parents

Last updated on: March 21, 2014 at 12:20 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

On Loving and Honoring My Parents 2014-03-21T12:20:33-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

How do you honor your parents or childhood church if you fundamentally disagree with important aspects how you were raised?

I am not talking about situations or structures where the law must intervene. The state exists in our broken world to bring justice and any healing, hope, or forgiveness can often happen only after justice is done. How such hope can happen in Christ in some situations is beyond any experience, wisdom, or grace I possess. This is a job for trained women and men and for years of careful spiritual work. Speaking the truth in love to those God has placed in authority to check the family or the church is not dishonoring one’s parents, but honoring the higher law of love. Sin dishonors, not truth.

And yet between these horrible structures and people, I write on the day Fred Phelps faces judgment (and may the Lord God have mercy on his soul), and the Holy Family of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus live most of us in the imperfect and barely tolerable middle. What of mistakes, errors in judgment or theology, that every parent makes and many kids see? I have sinned as a parent and my parents were not perfect. In American conservative Christian subculture these sins or errors fall in certain lines. What if my parents censored all “secular” music or classical literature? What if our Church taught foolish views of Biblical exegesis or falsehoods about science? I knew of a goodhearted Church that believed they had seen a piece of Noah’s ark, but were duped by a conman. What should I do when I outgrow errors?

Also common are students who move from one Christian tradition to another. What if I was raised a Baptist/Catholic and am persuaded that becoming a Catholic/Baptist is the way I should go? How can I avoid exposing the “nakedness of my father” (the sin of Canaan) and dishonoring my parents, but still be faithful to the truth (as I see it)?

Here are five basic rules I try to follow in answering this question for those who ask and in my own life in dealing with my biological and spiritual parents.

I cannot honor my father and mother and make money or a build a career on trashing their deepest beliefs.

The world is complicated and there may be exceptions, but there is something unseemly about a man or woman who spends his or her life talking trash about mostly decent people for fame or money. Humor or “loving criticism” is hard to stomach from anyone you suspect is still hurting from being raised in a family that did not “do prom.”

Notice the difference between Nathan, who spoke the truth to King David at great risk, and Noah’s son making a mock of his father’s nakedness. The person who speaks truth to power at great risk and cost is a hero, but such heroism must not be cheapened by conflating it without exposing the stupidity of one’s high school reading list for laughs. The support group for serious issues that acts as Nathan in the Internet age is a great and holy thing: the snark about Christian radio heard in childhood is something else. Bad people and communities want us to hide sin or disagreement and sometimes a trumpet of alarm must be blown in Zion, but trumpets are not fit for all messages. We must take care with our new power to “share” that we do so appropriately.

I found Jesus in an Advent Christian Church, which teaches that the soul sleeps after death and that hell is not eternal. I strongly disagree with both of these ideas, but I (generally) refrain from harping on my disagreement to honor fathers and mothers who gifted me with greater goods. It does not dishonor to candidly disagree and healing can come from a testimony to a changed life or to the exposure of bad ideas, but I may not be the man to build a career around these areas and should take care to mention disagreement in an appropriate way: honestly, sacrificially, lovingly, without hint of gain, and as little as possible to achieve justice.

I cannot honor my father and mother without recognizing the good they did.

All of us have parents with dumb, false, or even wicked ideas. We are right to disown these errors in the family and separate from them, as we can, but a sad truth of history is that otherwise good people have bad views and these views are not “harmless.” Loving children confront those evils in their parents as gently as possible: doing to their parents as they would wish future generations to do to them.

As much as possible, we preserve relationships realizing that we take to be the “truth” or the “curve of history” may be provide the cause for the next generation to deem us degenerate. We would not be the first group of children to find our grandchildren rising up and calling their grandparents (or even great-grand parents) blessed!

If your parents provided you the very education that allows you to disagree with them, take care that you honor that good. If your too distant Dad spent time giving you a comfortable life, honor that sacrifice while refusing to honor the distance.

I cannot honor my father and mother and hate my father and mother.

My parents are sinners and (I am blessed) that they are also my friends, I like them. Many I know are not so fortunate and they have the harder task of learning to love people they dislike. Often, it is easier to love those who are evil than those we despise. We hate the ugly religious art from our childhood, it shames us. We loath the superficial politics of our parents, it annoys us. We detest the aesthetic of the worship service, dated to our parent’s youth forever.

And yet we can honor and love our parents without agreeing with or even liking our parents. We need not change our tastes, our politics, or liturgy in order to be kind. If Jesus could leave the goodness, beauty, and truth of Heaven and put up with us, then we can put up with our parent’s talk radio for a holiday. We can ask them to compromise on certain things . . . and even if they do not . . . use our disagreement to deepen our holiness. After all, our parents do not agree with us! Sometimes moving to a new area, the healing power of distance, can help disperse the dislike to make the hard work of sanctity easier.

I must judge my Mom and Dad the way I hope my children judge me. One way I can do that is to tell them my dislikes, but not everyone else.

I need to let go of petty griefs, but acknowledge to my parents (if it is safe to do so) where we disagree.

I have known people who cannot let go of the fact that their parents oppose evolution or did not vote for Obama. Let us assume the belief and the act were wrong. Let us go further and concede for arguments sake that nothing in biology makes sense without evolution and that no sound political reason existed to vote for Romney over Obama.

Neither the error or the vice is worth breaking the commandment. I can honor my parents for the good they have done with these disagreements. The petty man or woman who cannot love over vegetarianism cannot love Christ, though he may love cows.

I need to build my life around what I propose as an alternative not around what I oppose.

My passion is a measure of what is central to my life. If my greatest passion is in attacking errors and not in proposing good, true, and beautiful alternatives, I need help. I live for Jesus, the Church, my family, and my community. I should not live for an idea, because I am a man and men use ideas, they don’t worship them. My God is a person and not a cause, my Church is made up of people living and dead, and my community is a band of neighbors. I will stand before God as a member of the American nation and not as an isolated ideologue.

And so when I think of the Church of my childhood, I need not put on distorting glasses, but merely love. When I pray for my parents, my in-laws, or my spiritual fathers and mothers, I can recognize their faults (as I see them) and then pray: “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Education

Spiritual Reflections

Previous Post

March 19, 2014

Middle March Advice from Middlemarch

Next Post

April 1, 2014 Letters to William: On God (Part 1)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of ____, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Select your answer to see how you score.

Strength Wisdom Faith Hope

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »