Pastor’s Daughter Struggles With Faith

Sometime during the eighth grade, I stopped believing in God. Becoming agnostic was a bit of a relief after years of struggling with Christianity. The decision in and of itself was intimidating, but what really terrified me was telling my parents – more specifically, my dad, Pastor Paul.

Most people can simply turn away from religion after denouncing their beliefs. That was never an option for me. Religion is and always has been a fundamental part of my family. For most people, the majority of their religious experience takes place for an hour or two each Sunday, an in-and-out sort of affair. In my house, religion is a daily experience.

Because my dad is a pastor, dinnertime discussions often touch on plans for youth group meetings or renovations for the sanctuary. I listen to my dad read through his sermons over and over. I hear stories about God’s love and kindness, always different yet always with the same underlying themes: God is good, God loves you, God will watch over you.

I suppose for most people, these messages hold true. God represents a golden standard of morality, someone who knows it all, someone who has all the answers. For the first half of my life, God was this omnipotent, loving figure and the church was the purest of institutions, but hat began to change for me.

Living as close to the church as I did was both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I grew up in up in the heart of a community unified in its beliefs. My childhood memories are bathed in the glow of stained glass windows and echoed whispers of the Lord’s Prayer. My playmates were Sunday School friends and my babysitters were part of the church’s congregation. Being the pastor’s daughter, I found that I was paid more attention than most kids. My dad’s position qualified me for the role of Mary in the Christmas Pageant and gave congregation members license to hold 30-minute conversations over that week’s sermon with me. As a spotlight-loving seven-year-old, I didn’t mind the attention.

After years of the same questions, however, my weekly conversations began to sound quite redundant. The roles I recieved began to feel more like what they were – handouts, given to me because of my dad’s job and not through any particular talent of my own.

The strains Christianity and my dad’s job put on our family weren’t limited to those grievances. I noticed how a myriad of personal issues and complaints etched new lines on my dad’s face and a sprinkling of grey in his hair that was unusual for a man of his age. Seeing members of my dad’s congregation give him grief made me realize that the church was not the pure, holy institution I had believed it to be. After all, the church is made up of people, people who are imperfect beings who carry their flaws around with them, even into the quiet sanctuary of the church. For my whole life, the church and god had been closely intertwined, and seeing these imperfections in the church began to riddle holes in my faith.

For a while I was able to work past these holes and ignore the imperfections. But then, the year I turned eight, my parents moved us from California to New York, away from our friends, family and the only home I’d ever known. We were leaving because God “called us” to New York, a move which only served to reinforce the growing animosity I harbored towards the God I’d been raised to love.

When scandal rocked our church in New York, throwing any semblance of normalcy we’d developed straight to hell, my parents said we would get through it because God loved us, God was watching out for us. I suppose even then I still believed that it was true. I wanted to believe in God like I wanted to believe in fairies.

I wanted to believe my parents. I wanted to continue believing in God, but God kept causing problems for me. As soon as I’d settled in New York, my dad started looking for a job as a senior pastor, a position he couldn’t hold in our current church. So God called us to Kansas.

I’ve never been good with change. I have my patterns, my set routines. Taking the M7 bus home from school. Brushing my teeth before washing my face. A cup of peppermint tea before bed. After living in New York for six years, making new friends and settling into new routines, moving to Kansas was inconceivable – almost a laughable prospect. I wasn’t laughing when we packed our furniture into moving vans, though. Arriving at our new house, all I could think about was how I’d left my friends, the city and my home for the second time and God was, once again, at the root of the problem.

I’d had my doubts about religion before, yet the faults always seemed excusable. Maybe God just didn’t have time to look out for the Perkins Rock family. Maybe I was being selfish, considering only my feelings when there were so many people with troubles bigger than my own. Our move to Kansas took my belief to the breaking point. Didn’t I deserve to be happy just as much as anyone else? Christianity, this rigid idea of good and bad, this strict set of beliefs that had hovered behind me my whole life, was making me miserable.

Shortly after moving to Kansas, I made the decision to become agnostic. I didn’t abandon spirituality completely, however. Though I don’t believe in the specific ideas of Christianity, I still believe there is a purpose to life that’s bigger than just me as an individual. Being agnostic has made me a healthier person, spiritually and mentally. Being able to form my own ideas about religion and higher powers brought a sense of independence that I’ve been missing for a while. No longer is there a God in my life to take the blame for what goes wrong or what goes right. I am fully responsible for my life, something that has made me more aware of the decisions I make.

Of course, Christianity is still a major part of my life. My whole family practices Christianity and I have no desire to convert them or poke holes in their beliefs. I am happy where I am, and I know they are happy in their faith. Pastor or not, my dad loves me and has helped me work through my religious questioning. My parents have provided their unwavering support throughout the whole process even though they can’t fully understand my decision.

I still pray with my family at dinner time. I still talk about faith and religion with my parents but now I don’t blame God for how things have turned out. I’m not frustrated with a deity that seems to be the root of my problems. Somewhere near the end of my childhood, I became disillusioned with the idea of fairies and had to leave them behind. As time went on, I left behind various beliefs and fancies as my outlook changed. God, like fairies, had to be let go for me to grow into the person I am today.