How Becoming a Parent Changed My Deepest Held Beliefs - Issue #19

In response to a reader's question, Fitz shows the cracks in his belief.

Back in December of 2020, which was, of course, 100 years ago, an old friend from high school and a subscriber to “In Progress” asked if I’d be willing to consider requests for topics for the newsletter. This person is very funny. One of the funniest people I have ever known. I felt certain that this question was a setup for an elaborate joke (his humor is elaborate). I replied “Haha,” because, again, I thought it was going to be a joke, and then said, “From you, yes!” Then, I waited to be amused. Here’s what he wrote:

Ok here are three I’d be really interested to read, especially from your perspective: (1) how your views and opinions, however you define them, changed since you became a parent. (2) music albums that have had profound effects on you and why, (3) advice you would give someone who wanted to pursue writing as a career.

I wrote back: “Wow!” Not only was this not a setup for an elaborate joke, but these are really great topics, really thoughtful. So, even though it’s taken two months, I want to honor these suggestions. Today, I’ll respond to #1, and, in the coming weeks, I’ll address each of the others.

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Question: How have your views and opinions changed since you became a parent?

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

I should say, first, for those who may not know, I became a parent nearly 8 years ago (my daughter will be 8 in April). My son came along two years and one month later. I didn’t expect any of my views, let alone my deepest held beliefs, to change—at least not as a result of becoming a parent. But then, I’ve always been kind of short-sighted in that way. It turns out that what, at first, seemed just a slight shift in my beliefs, opened the floodgates for a world of change.

For years, since at least 2001, I called myself a Christian pacifist. This was, at the time, itself a major shift in my beliefs brought on by the events of September 11. Before that, my faith reflected the conservative evangelical community that I was raised in. Even still, my adherence to pacifism was tied directly to my Christian faith. I believed then, and I still believe, that Jesus’ words and example don’t allow for any other option besides pacifism for those who call themselves Christians. That is to say, violence, for any reason, is a direct contradiction to Jesus’ life and teaching. More on that in a moment. 

People would always challenge me by asking what I would do if someone attacked my family. This is a classic “gotcha” for pacifists. Before kids, I took “my family” to mean Steph and so sometimes I’d joke that she could handle herself—she’d be the one protecting me! But that’s a dismissive answer. My more serious reply would be that I would probably fight tooth and nail to defend her, but it would be wrong to do so, a sin even. In this way, I was what you could call a transactional Christian…I’d do the wrong thing and then repent later, not a little self-satisfied that I’d managed to protect my family while exploiting the repentance loophole.

But then, my daughter was born. And here I could unleash a hurricane of cliches: things about holding her in my arms and how she was so helpless and on and on. But that stuff writes itself. Suffice it to say, I knew I would do whatever it takes to defend her. So, that’s kind of the same as before except that now I didn’t want to have to feel bad about it. The way I loved her upended my previous paradigm. I wouldn’t repent. I would fight to protect my family, even though I still believed that violence is anti-Christian.

A less doctrinaire person might, upon having this realization, change his view on Christianity to allow for violence under certain circumstances, but I am, if nothing else, doctrinaire. I do still hold that when Jesus says “turn the other cheek,” he’s not speaking hyperbolically. Jesus said, and then modeled, that there is no greater expression of love than giving up one’s life for another. But my family needs me; I am not going to just lay down my life. A small fissure opened then, but it wouldn't be long before the floodgates opened wide. 

Jesus told “the rich young ruler” that in order to follow him, he must go beyond following the commandments; he must sell his belongings. Then, lest his disciples think he was talking just about this one guy (as the usual counterargument goes from Christians who, you know, would rather not sell their possessions), Jesus said, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” And he meant it. His disciples were stunned and Jesus doubled down, issuing the famous camel through the eye of a needle analogy. Another time, Jesus said, “If you come to me but will not leave your family, you cannot be my follower.” In order to follow Jesus, you have to love him more than your family, more than your own life. I can’t do that. I don’t want to.

Here’s the thing, I know about all the ways around these hard teachings. I have decades of Christian education, decades of theological arguments with really smart, often seminary-educated, friends. I know that most Christians can read these passages and talk about context or specific cases or whatever, but these always feel like hermeneutic excuses to me. I respect the text, and as such, I won’t mistreat it by making it say what I want it to. This isn’t a matter of originalism; it’s a matter of fidelity.

The Jesus of the Gospels is a radical whose ideas were fully antithetical not only to the values of first-century Palestine, but indeed to most reasonable people’s ideas of how the world should work. That’s what all the “last shall be first” stuff is about. The Jesus of the Gospels was trying to turn the world upside down and, for two thousand years, Christians have been trying to turn it back right side up by interpreting our way out of the parts that are particularly topsy-turvy. We’re so good at this revisionary Christianity that a majority of evangelicals could throw their support behind Trump and not see any kind of contradiction there.

But I can’t do it. I won’t. If I’m going to choose not to follow the teachings of Jesus that I find too difficult, I have to question whether I have any right to call myself a follower at all. I want to. I still have faith, but I fear my faith is not strong enough to overcome the fact that when it comes to the hard stuff, I’m just not doing it. And the fact that nobody else is doing it either doesn’t make me feel any better. I’d rather be theologically honest than get to be a card-carrying member of the club.

So, what has changed since I became a parent? Well, first I stopped calling myself a Christian pacifist, and then the floodgates opened. Everything has changed. But perhaps the single biggest change—the change that underscores all of this—is that before, I wouldn’t be able to live in this gray area, this in-between. I can’t reason my way out of this conundrum, and I don’t know where I fit in. But I’m a husband and a father and I’d do anything for my family and I’ll sort out the rest as I go.

The views expressed above are solely those of the author.

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Some Sounds to Listen To…

Fitz: Big news in the Contemporary Christian Music world (stay with me): Last week “Look Up, Child” by Lauren Daigle was unseated from its spot at the top of the Christian music charts on iTunes by “Preacher’s Kid” by singer-songwriter Semler. Who cares about CCM you say? Well, Semler is openly gay and her EP wrestles with doubt and faith and carries an “Explicit Content” label. It’s Christian music like you’ve never heard before, unless you remember early Pedro the Lion, which this reminds me of, and I’m very much here for that. Give it a listen yourself:

JB: Sometimes I feel fortunate to be an Old Head in this day and age. To try and keep up with new music is exhausting. But once in a while – actually, much more frequently, if I’m giving credit where it’s due – something served up by Spotify’s Discover Weekly Playlist will make me stop what I’m doing, sit up in my chair, and go, “Huh?”

Combining elements of folk, punk, jazz, hardcore, and junkanoo (New Orleans street band-style music), that’s what The Taxpayers did for me. My understanding from the band’s haphazard biography is that essentially anyone who showed up with an instrument and an interest was invited to be in the band, and the sound evolved from there. This song first caught my ear and I went down the rabbit hole. It comes from an album called, “God Forgive the Bastards: Songs from the Forgotten Life of Henry Turner,” which tells stories of a local homeless man who claimed to be a star pitcher for Georgia Tech back in his day, and whom the band members met when they were living in a storage unit in Florida. Intrigued? Yeah. Whatever their varied musical influences may be, these guys are punk rock in the truest sense. Check ‘em out.

Some Words to Read…

Fitz: Student papers! The semester is in full swing. The grading crush has begun.

JB: Guess what? We’re going down the Taxpayer rabbit hole even further! One of the band members wrote a book about Henry Turner, and actually did a decent job fact-checking the man’s drunken ramblings as best he could. Henry Turner was not a “good guy,” in the same way most roving alcoholics are not good guys in the traditional sense. But he really was a star pitcher for Georgia Tech, and his life unfolds in a fascinating if horrifying way. I love this little book because it tells the story of a life gone off track, and a version of “redemption” that most readers will find completely unsatisfying, if not outright unacceptable. But this author decided to tell it anyway. How punk rock is that?

You can read the first few pages here with the ‘Look Inside’ feature. See if it grabs you the way it grabbed me.

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Thank you, as always, for reading.