How to Deal With an Atheist Family Member

My 24-yr-old daughter loves staring at the stars, growing roses (which I h2o) and dreaming nearly attending fine art schoolhouse in England. She is crazy about dogs. Crazy about drawing. And will always remain crazy nearly Harry Potter.

But the Father Almighty, maker of sky and earth, and of all things visible and invisible? Well, she is not too crazy about this "God matter."

When she was 15, she told me she was an atheist. I was non shocked. I was not emotional. I just rolled my eyes and smugly said, "Well, God isn't finished with you yet." I was sure that her "lapse" in faith would not last long. She would "go over it" just every bit she had gotten over Beanie Babies, alternative stone bands and her nasty obsession with wearing all blackness.

Turned out that the whole ordeal was indeed a growing pain, merely mine, not hers.

Ten years later, my persistent daughter continues to stand her earthly basis. God does not exist. Scientific discipline rules. Carl Sagan is absurd.

"I can call up existence wary of religion, fifty-fifty when I was quite young," she said. "Something felt 'off.' When I was a bit older, I'd notice that anybody around me was conspicuously feeling something that I could non. They had a tangible relationship with God. They could hear his voice; they could experience his presence. I felt nothing. I thought I was broken. Merely I kept praying considering I idea it was what I was supposed to practise.

"Accepting my beliefs — or nonbelief — took me a long time because I was scared of disappointing my parents, and I was scared there was something wrong with me. I felt ashamed."

So what are parents to do? Her dad and I debated with her. Preached to her. Reasoned with her. We used everything from theological documentation and Scriptural balls to Sunday school lessons and counseling with the youth director — all to "prove" our point. At that place is never a "winner." In the end, if there is an finish, nosotros just decided to honey her and support her life journey into herself.

Fight temptation to contend and preach

Some would say we failed not only God, but also our child. The Rev. Kenda Creasy Dean, United Methodist pastor, author and professor of youth, church and culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, understands the frustrations both parents and children face when their religious worldviews practice not lucifer.

Photo courtesy of Rose Urban center Park United Methodist Church.

MARQUEE SPURS RESPONSE

Rose City Park United Methodist Church in Portland, Ore., posted a church sign that chop-chop went viral online.

The goal was to start a conversation, explained church building ambassador Kay Pettygrove. "We wanted to share our message, 'Kindness is better than hatred.'"

The church has received criticism but as well compliments."I've been told many times," Pettygrove said, 'fifty-fifty though I'g an atheist, I would still come up to your church.'"

"I've fallen into all the traps," Dean said. "The feeling of failure is real. So is embarrassment. So is fear and the temptation to argue and preach."

"Bringing kids to church building helps sometimes, but not e'er," she said. "If I were an honest teenager, in that location are times I wouldn't have wanted to be there either. And as an honest adult, there are times I'one thousand embarrassed past the witness of our church. And in that location are times I'm embarrassed past my lame witness as a parent."

Dean's experience with research reveals that during high schoolhouse, kids are well-nigh probable to mirror their parents' organized religion. Withal, what many young people encounter in that mirror is that their parents "don't give a hoot about faith." They do not make it a priority.

"A majority of young people agree to a benign 'whatsoever-ism' when it comes to religion,'" she said. "They believe that organized religion helps them to exist dainty and helps them feel good well-nigh themselves, but that God pretty much stays out of the manner." Much has been made of the increasing numbers of young adults — nearly i in three — who are religiously unaffiliated.

Dan Arel, author of Parenting without God, is "ane of them." Raised in an evangelical church, heavily involved in his church building growth and nurtured by a deeply religious mother and churchgoing male parent, Arel began to explore beyond church pews. Study later report shows Americans are not very open-minded when it comes to atheists. In fact, they "strongly distrust and fearfulness" — even using the word "threatened" to describe nonreligious people.

'This is your journey'

He asked many of the questions young adults are asking today: Is anybody listening? Where is the person who should exist helping us? What happens when we die?

He expects his ain son, now three, to take many of the same questions. Arel will give him the unconditional freedom his parents offered: to explore and find his ain way to whatever he chooses to believe.

"I know far too many atheists who have been shunned past their families," he said. "[The parents] feel shame for what their kids believe."

Christian parents, Arel has found, seem most afraid of what their children will not accept if God is absent from their life — comfort, endurance and a identify in heaven.

"It's very scary for a parent to recollect their child will go to hell," the journalist has learned. "They worry people will think their child is 'lost,' their social status will be tarnished or others will be judgmental almost what is going on in their house."

They especially worry their children will not have a purpose in life. However, "life has the meaning you bring to it," he said.

Dean, a Christian, and Arel an atheist, share a philosophy: It is not a parent's job to brand their children over into their ain image religiously. Parents cannot teach their children what to remember, just how to recollect.

The parent/child bail should not be broken because they have different worldviews," said Arel.

Consider this advice if you and your child are struggling with faith and non-faith.

• Always be supportive of your teenage children, even if you do not support everything they believe or practise. Unless their beliefs impairment others or themselves — which calls for firsthand action — practise not overreact or become confrontational. Share mutual questions, experiences and points of view.
• Don't tell adolescents their beliefs are incorrect. Support their exploration without fearing or discounting their discoveries and share the ways you explore your own organized religion.
• Ask yourself questions. Evaluate your behavior. What kind of role model are you?
• Forgive yourself if you find that you and your immature adult children are on different pages about faith.
• Do your best equally a parent and let God do the converting. Just considering some young people pass up God doesn't mean God has rejected them.

*Susan Passi-Klaus is a freelance writer based in Nashville, Tenn.
Media contact: Fran Walsh, 615-742-5458.

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Source: https://www.umc.org/en/content/whats-a-parent-to-do-theres-an-atheist-in-the-house

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