Mother Raises Kids without God

It is not surprising or even shocking that we find this article about a mom who raises her kids without God. I am also not surprised that CNN.com would publish it like its news. I clicked on it and I am sure that both believers and skeptics alike took time to read it. Their advertisers must be thrilled.

In the mean time I wanted to respond to the author who is described this way in the producers note, “TXBlue08, a mother of two teenagers in Texas, blogs about raising her children without religion. She said she shared this essay on CNN iReport because 'I just felt there is not a voice out there for women/moms like me. I think people misunderstand or are fearful of people who don’t believe in God.’ I am positive that only my few faithful will look at this but it is okay I had a few things I thought were worth noting.

She starts out asking the question that has been asked throughout the ages. Not why can a good God allow evil to prosper, although it comes up later, she asks about disease and birth defects. I will not pretend to have an answer. I will reject that it disproves God and is cause for reverting back to a purely evolutionary philosophy. I do believe the sick and weak among the animals are either eaten by their own species so as not to be protein for a competitor or left behind to be eaten as the healthy animals flee to safety. Instead my kids will know that just as they have in them the stamped image of God and are precious so do those who do not share their mobility, cognitive function or health. In fact I will tell them it is their duty as followers of Christ to be his healing hands to these populations that are so often marginalized.

She then critiques that a moral code based on fear of a higher power is not healthy and that a moral code must be internally structured. I am not sure what humans she hangs around with and how they have managed without God to create a moral fiber that is not based on their own desires. They must be a great bunch, in the mean time I am going to recognize my own depravity, what John Calvin calls “the smolder of sin” that is alive within me and look to God for moral guidance, lest I justify my own base sloth and gluttony. My kids will know that they are not God and cannot create God. That is what we do when we create a frame work for the universe with ourselves at the center. We create God and therefore become God every time we reject any one of his Biblical Tenants on the basis of disagreeing with it. Who is the person in charge if you got to choose what part of God’s law you followed.

I may respond more later in the week but let me finish with this thought. The accusation that God teaches narcissism was a surprise. She didn’t want her kids to feel like out of all the matter in the universe they are somehow special. They are just part of the big machine called the universe that at any point can snuff out their meaningless existence with the right earthquake, meteor, or morally self-justifying totalitarian tyrant. The Costa’s will continue to be flattered, humbled, in awe of God caring for them. “What is man that you are mindful of him?”

The Costa’s will love God. Love will not be some emotional sentiment that comes and goes with chemical responses in the brain. It will be the laying aside of our own kingdoms to serve and build the Kingdom of God. We will love God in public, not in private. We will proclaim his goodness to the ends of the earth. We will look forward to our forever lives in the New Heavens and New Earth where every knee will bow and ever tongue confess to the Glory of God the father. Amen.