Rethinking Authority
in parenting...and theology
Yesterday morning I listened to Kelsey Kramer McGinnis’ interview on the Becoming Church podcast about her and Marissa Franks Burt’s new book The Myth of Good Christian Parenting. A lovely conversation hosted by Kristin Mockler Young—go listen. I am eager to dig into this book!
Something that I got me thinking was Kelsey’s comment that she needed to deconstruct her own authority, her own importance. I love that SO much, and I agree that parents (especially Christian parents) need to interrogate and then let go of the idea of their authority.
I’m not saying no boundaries. I’m not saying let your kids walk all over you. But as Kelsey laid out, and as I look forward to reading in the book, children have autonomy. They are made in the image of God just as much as adults. Childism is unacceptable. Kids deserve our respect NOW.
In turn this got me thinking about when I worked for the United Church of Christ as a Pastoral Assistant. Childrenʼs ministry was in my sphere, and I was heavily influenced by Childrenʼs Ministry in the Way of Jesus by David Csinos, which emphasizes ministry with children, not for children. One Sunday I preached a sermon entitled Kids Matter, and I arranged for the children to serve communion. Not take communion, serve it.
It wasn’t enough for me though to simply have the kids serve the bread and wine/juice to their elders. No, this called for the kneelers. I wanted the adults to get down on their knees (as they were able), to look the children in the eyes, to observe the world from the vantage point of three feet tall. To humble themselves like we’re always demanding that children do for us.
In the podcast Kelsey mentioned the four quadrants system for parenting styles, and it’s only the second time I’ve ever heard about that, the first also being recent—when the (Re)thinking Faith podcast interviewed Dr. Chris Hanson about his new parenting book Open and Relational Parenting. (Which I also havenʼt read yet but am also excited to read! The podcast interviews are doing their job, folks!)
Kelsey and Chris (and the research consensus) agree—the authoritative style (high responsiveness, high expectations) is best. I love the name that Chris uses in place of authoritative: nurturant. (Authoritative sounds so much like authoritarian, you know? And authoritarian parenting—like authoritarian governing—is not good! Also, demandingness? I donʼt like that. Expectations is so much better.)
Chris, a theologian and a pediatrician, argues that the way we see God (our theology) impacts how we parent. (There is sociological research backing this up). He associates a theology with each of the four parenting styles, though I’m only going to discuss two of them here, you’ll have to listen to Rethinking Faith or buy his book for the rest!)
1) We know what authoritarian God is like, sadly. This is the God of the upper left quadrant and the God of Christian nationalism and IBLP and Doug Wilson and Gary Ezzo and John Piper and “shepherding a child’s heart” (talk about a deceptive title). They say this God is good, but his main feature is power. His whole jam is authority. Instant obedience or else. Heʼll kill his own kid “for you.” High expectations and little to no connection. Fear, not love.
2) The God of the upper right quadrant is the nurturant God. The nurturant God is a nurturant parent: a shoulder to cry on, believing in you when you don’t believe in yourself, seeing you and knowing you, pushing you to reach your potential, honoring your boundaries and her own. Love and aspirations, not control. Chris equates this God with Open and Relational theology (Check out Thomas Jay Oord if youʼre scratching your head right now).
(Also, I am physically incapable of saying nice things about God if I don’t use she/her or they/them pronouns. I just can’t).
If Kelsey and Marissa are right in their book—and I think they’re absolutely right—that we should have high expectations for our kids, but also be highly connective, and if we should deconstruct our parental authority…then shouldn’t we also deconstruct God’s authority? Perhaps God kneels down, too.
Don’t we fall into authoritarian parenting because we believe that God is an omnipotent, sovereign, cosmically-in-charge, “loving” authoritarian?
Thanks to books like Kelsey and Marissa’s, more and more of us are rethinking our parenting—or healing from how we were parented. Thanks to books like Chrisʼ, we are also being invited to connect the dots between how we view God (in sociology-speak, our God image) and how we parent.
Like Kelsey wisely said, how we parent is largely how we think about authority.
When my kids joined the others to serve communion at our UCC church, it wasn’t the first time the older two had had the honor. Once upon a time my husband planted a church. At one service our 3yo gave him Christ’s body, our 5yo Christ’s blood.
The first shall be last and the last shall be first.
Halley, this is so lovely. I'm all heart-eyes over your communion set up. Thank you for sharing the podcast, I'm glad it got you thinking and I hope it encourages your readers as well! 🩷
Beautiful. I sometimes give myself a hard time as a parent because I feel too permissive. I don’t feel right forcing my will on someone so when my kids push back, I usually cave. I think the point here is that I need to be sure that they absolutely know my expectations in the situation and convey my disappointment when they make a choice I don’t like.
I am sure this is related to my theology. I primarily relate to God as Mama Spirit, who breathes life, encourages, comforts and dares me to do big things with my life.