God’s Love is a Mother
A palpable, undeniable reckoning is happening. Many of us who were raised in Evangelicalism are sick with grief watching the pastors, teachers, and parents who taught us to “love thy neighbor,” parrot MAGA talking points about “toxic empathy” as they support state-sanctioned violence and family separation, abuse cover-ups, racism, and Christian nationalism in the name of Jesus.
Fundamentalist Evangelicalism is critical of the exodus of young people from the church because they think it is a rejection of Christ, when actually, it is a rejection of hypocrisy and the harm that is perpetuated in Christ’s name. That exodus is a narrow road following the path of peace and righteousness and the way of Jesus. We want something better for our children, and we know we have to protect them from the harm of high-control religion.
Like other Evangelical kids, I was raised in a home that taught me the Bible. But I didn’t learn the way of Jesus from the loudest Christians in my life. I learned it from my mother. Her legacy has always been love, and that love formed my conscience. It motivates me to advocate for children just as fiercely as anything I survived in Evangelicalism, because I know in my bones that every child is deserving of love—my mom made sure of that. This is the standard, not the hope.
My mom has led an extraordinary life, and at every point in her life, she has chosen the way of Jesus over the way of fear, power, or hate, even when that meant dissenting from the prominent religious and/or political voices.
When my older brother brought home homework in the ‘70s that required him to write about indigenous people as villains in the American story, my mom went to the school and told them ABSOLUTELY not.
When the Vietnam War began, my parents organized against it; we still have a photo of my brother as a toddler in fig leaves, leading a peace march.
When my sister was 7 years old, dying of cancer, and asked to be baptized, our Baptist pastor wouldn’t do it because she couldn’t safely be immersed in water, and he didn’t believe in sprinkling (more on this crazy story another day). The local Catholic priest wouldn’t do it because she wasn’t Catholic. My mom opened the phone book and started cold-calling pastors one by one until someone agreed to drive 30 minutes to our rural house to baptize my sister.
When my mom was a “new Christian,” her church friends gave her a James Dobson book and told her she needed to spank us. She threatened me with a spanking (halfheartedly) one time, and I looked at her and said, “No, I’m gonna spank YOUUUUUU!” And she laughed and threw the book away.
When one of my best friends got pregnant senior year at our Christian school and wasn’t allowed to walk at graduation, my Italian, Naples-born mom called the school board the Gestapo. It got back to the principal. He confronted her in the hope that she would back down. Narrator voice: She did NOT back down.
One adjective Evangelicalism loves to use to describe people is “Godly.” What a Godly man! What a Godly woman! But so often it is just code for people who hold up systemic and structural authoritarianism.
But if God is actually love, I don’t know that I’ve ever met a more truly Godly woman OR man than my mom. Not the Christian school leadership. Not the pastors I was raised around. Certainly not the current president or his administration.
As a teenager raised by a single mom after my dad died, I was sometimes jealous of the suburban Christian school kids who went to church every Sunday and didn’t pay for groceries with food stamps. But as I watch the Evangelical facade crumble in real time, I’m left with something indestructible: my mother’s love. Any semblance of faith I have, I owe to her.
ALL of my work, my advocacy, mt fierce obsession with justice—it all comes back to a mom who took me seriously as a child, who loved me, who pointed out injustice, and who followed Jesus even when it was costly. And she was raised by a mother who did the same.*
Recently, I was talking to my own adult children about how unusual it is for them to have a Christian grandmother (they call her Nonna) who hasn’t been seduced into Christian Nationalism. My daughter said, “I don’t think she’ll ever have any idea how much I love her.” My daughter is in school studying social work because she can’t look away from the injustice and cruelty of the world around her.
Love begets Love begets Love.
And Love is every child’s birthright.
May it be so.
*When my mom started school in America, her teacher changed her name from Elena to Elaine. One day, my mom asked to go to the bathroom, but couldn’t remember the English words. Her teacher would not let her go until she asked in English. My mom peed her pants, ran home to her mom, who then marched straight back to school and yelled at the teacher in Italian. We come by it honestly;)