The Theologian's Daughter

Introduction:

Religion is like food. But whether you want to use it to feed your neighbour or shove it down their throat is upto you.

Hello there! Welcome to a new blog series of mine titled “Disentangling my Faith”. Over here is my attempt to address my journey of faith, growing up in a Christian household, especially being born to parents who wanted to serve the Lord full time. I had my own set of unique experiences of interacting and familiarizing myself to aspects of the Christian faith. My faith was also very deeply tied to my very being, my identity. And most of you would reply saying, “Wow. That must’ve been very good”, and you’re mostly right. But how much is too much?

How do athletes cope with an identity crisis when they lose a limb? How do homemakers who catered to every need of their child, find their worth when their child leaves for college?

Keep thinking about these two questions. I do not have exact answers for them either. But these analogies give me a better idea of how my identity, confidence and self-worth were deeply affected during the years I found myself not wanting to associate with anything of my faith, struggling keep-up with the reputation of “The Good Christian Girl”.

Okay, enough talking. let’s begin.

1. Lovingly Fed and Overfed

For the initial 18 years of my life, I was that almost perfect Christian kid one would look upto. The one who could spontaneously shoot Bible verses by heart (sometimes even with the reference on point), who would stir up impromptu elocution scripts, who regularly studied books of the Bible for quiz competitions and turn anything into a debate topic. To add to that, I was a voracious reader while I was in school. So by the time I was a teenager, I had a good enough collection of Christian and theological books for my own personal spiritual journey. I asked a lot of questions. To my dad, to my Sunday school teachers, and to my church clergy. I remember the time when I was attending my first Holy Communion classes in 7th grade and was trying to understand the Marthoma church’s stance on the Seven Sacraments and the mystery of the Holy Communion and I couldn’t help but ask so many questions that I probably delayed the class by atleast half an hour (much to the annoyance of most parents waiting, probably). But that was who I was. I was a curious child. Always brimming with questions, ready to shoot them at whoever falls prey (ouch).

Apart from my own church, I was also exposed to, and to some extent involved, in a lot of inter-denominal and ecumenical spaces. This also exposed me to the variety of doctrines and theologies that different types of Christians held. I asked my dad a lot more of these questions.

Who were Calvanists versus the Armenians?

Who were the Egalitarians versus the Complementarians?

What was the stance of the church that we were members of?

What was the stance of the para-church organisations we were associated with?

What was the personal stance that we held as a house-hold?

I also remember touching on more nuanced questions.

Should Lent be strictly followed?

Is it compulsory for men and women to sit separately in church?

How come you and Mummy get to sit together when we go to AG’s (Assembly of God) but not in our church?

How come there are female priests in other churches but not in ours?

Why aren’t girls allowed to enter the altar in the Marthoma church?

And then some more difficult questions,

Would God be angry at me if I entered the altar?

What does baptism mean? Why do some follow child-baptism while some follow teen/adult baptism?

Why was I baptised as a baby and so many of my friends only baptised after my first Holy Communion?

What does personal salvation mean?

And on and on and on…

Looking back, my eyes are almost filled with tears with the innocence and enthusiasm I shot these questions and with the way my family (dad, mum and sister included) had to lovingly deal with them.

Looking back, I also realize how carefully some of these questions were dealt with – especially those that could easily be very polarizing. Whenever I asked my dad piercing questions it was often dealt with the understanding that different churches had different understandings of the Word. And yet, they all believed in the same Christ. These were careful but deliberate lessons imbibed to me by my family. The same values echoed in the inter-denominal gatherings I participated in. And I thrived in those spaces.

These were the lessons I learnt. That there is something I can learn from every church. There are always flaws in every church. No church is perfect. Yet, there are believers that exist in every church. The same God that speaks to us speaks to them as well.

In short, I grew up in a relatively healthy, loving and mostly positive atmosphere when it came to the Christian faith.

So what went wrong?

(Click here for Part 2.)

(To know a little more about how I was fed, quite literally and figuratively, you may also read Fathers who Run.)