When Prodigal Children are Not Safe in the Father’s House

or when a generation of Christian parents ask, “When did it all go bad?”

For those of us raised in Christian pews, we are very familiar with Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. This story tells of a discontented son who asks his father for his inheritance, travels out into the world, and through reckless living ends up penniless, eating pigs’ feed. Super dramatic. When he returns to his father’s house, where he would be content to live even as one of his father’s servants, his father welcomes him with open arms and holds a feast in his honor.

I’ve heard in my four-plus decades several different interpretations of this story. As a teenage proselytizer for Jesus, I also taught this parable to groups of children for backyard Bible schools meant to lead them to Christ. There was a script. As a young, people-pleasing Christian good girl, I was very good at following scripts.

When listening to those wise grownups from my youth, the forgiveness and mercy of father god as exemplified in the prodigal’s father were always central. However, these teachers also loved to focus on the hedonistic wanderings of the prodigal narrative. Those wise grownups had this weird obsession with the folks in our immediate church community who had extravagant conversion stories. We loved to hear the testimonies of those who had wandered down that slippery slope into unbelief and sinful living. They were obsessed with how Jesus rushed in to rescue folks from themselves.

Jesus the great liberator. Jesus the good shepherd. Jesus the way, the truth, and the life that leads folks back to the father’s house with such tender care and devotion.

But for many of us raised in Christian communities, we learned through horrific experiences that the father’s house is incredibly unsafe. We discovered the hard way that while we could wander far…. being received with open arms was rarely on the table.

There is no room at many father’s tables for Christian children who have gone off script.

When Did It All Go Bad

This morning as I write from my front porch a flock of birds is aggressively chasing and attacking a crow. One large black bird, who was trying to access the little nest of a house finch couple, is feeling the wrath of the nesting parents and their flock as they chase him down the street.

Crows are a threat to eggs and nestlings. They are also a predator of smaller birds. It’s interesting to watch nature’s parents’ instincts to protect what they have built, hatched and tended to with such ferocity.

As a mom of many, I understand the instinct to gather close and protect the children we have been given. But I haven’t always been good at walking this out.

In our married youth and naivety, hubby and I stayed in places harmful to our young, growing family. When we recognized the cycling of abusive narratives and behaviors, we stopped. I apologize to my kids often for failing to remove us from toxic familial cycles and religious beliefs sooner because I was afraid to choose differently.

It was all we had ever known. It was also frightening to choose to step forward and parent from a fresh perspective. It often felt like we were winging it because we had never witnessed parents who parented outside a religious construct.

I grew up surrounded by many different types of Christian fathers. This was the Silent and Boomer generations of dads who held the Bible in one hand and their families in the other. They also had a hand holding money and material wealth, but that is a different story. They had learned early what their roles as providers and leaders in the church, homes, and communities were to be and we watched and bore the burden of consequences as they threw themselves into cycling some incredibly toxic shit.

It wasn’t all bad. But many of them chose to parent and lead from their rage instead of learning better ways, so we were left afraid of our fathers, resenting our mothers, in a co-dependent relationship with god while having no clue who we were and wondering what we did wrong.

When you have Christian parenting “teachers” like James Dobson and friends plus white supremacy, toxic masculinity, and religious authoritarianism preached from the pulpit, then add a twist of spiritual bypassing and purity everything…. it isn’t easy to parent from a place of wholeness and healing when you are immersed in the toxic swill of Evangelical Christian faith.

We inherited a pretty toxic view of ourselves, our kids, and the world around us (cue the harmful original sin narrative). It is no wonder so many of my peers have deconstructed or completely deconverted their faith. My prodigal child story is a not-so-extravagant deconversion story. The tender love and care of the reckless wanderers led me to a solid foundation of unbelief and a wholehearted, healing life. And while I wandered far from The Father’s house, I found safety in my parents’ presence which was hard fought and healing.

A Family in Crisis

A few years ago I received a call from my mother that you never want to get. What had been a routine medical procedure for my dad ended up being a whole lot more.

They had discovered something wrong. That is his story to tell, not mine. I can say with gratitude that he survived. He’s alive. This is also a reminder to get those routine check-ups because you never know what they might uncover. Taking care of yourself is okay. Dad has more specialists than he did a few years ago, but his body has healed itself. Modern medicine is amazing.

It was during this scary time when I was too far away to be fully present that I got an emotional call from my younger (only) brother. It was his long discourse on how if our father died, he would become the male head of our family.

And I laughed and I laughed and ok… it was maybe a little bit unkind but I laughed.

Then I gently informed the white, male soon-to-be patriarch of the family…. that he would never be those things to me. He isn’t my father. He doesn’t hold the same space as our father. And to be brutally honest, now that I am no longer hiding beneath the umbrellas of Evangelical Christian faith, I do not defer to male headship as if this is the only correct way our family must live and move and be.

Our families and marriages were made for much more than the male headship script.

When I set aside religion, I set aside patriarchy and white supremacy - the dominion and deference to white, male authority is a “hell no” in my life.

I find that hierarchy incredibly deceptive, abusive, and harmful to women and children. While my father is the patriarch of our family as the oldest living male human, he is not my spiritual leader and head. He is my friend, teacher, mentor, and a wise man with wisdom words BUT he is not the final spiritual authority in my life.

I dug myself out of the toxic belief systems my parents handed me. I did that hard work and no male in our family line is going to be allowed to hand me a slightly prettier, younger package of the same damn thing.

I can be my own spiritual authority - no male participation is required.

Somewhere along the way while the sons of Boomers were attempting to dig themselves out of the chaos of being raised under suffocating boomer, Evangelical ideals… these sons also took up some boomer-lite tendencies.

They have a lot of work to do to dismantle what they inherited and too many have chosen to maintain the status quo - thereby engaging in spiritually and emotionally abusive practices that threaten the families they are building.

Fortunately, I am not married to that type of person. He is fully my partner. Not my child. Not my father. Not my spiritual head. I hope I offer him the encouragement to live his full truth. But we don’t live under male headship here.

I don’t defer to him. We balance, shift, and lean together.

Not one of us has more power or more sway. And when it becomes unbalanced, we shift to even out the power displacement.

So, my laughter at that moment was not from a place of cruelty by incredulity that another man was speaking into my life from a place of toxic ideologies attempting to define how my future would look with him in it.

The Father’s Who Shift with Us and the Father’s Who Do Not

For many of us, our father is a safe space. We know all the stories of the abusive dads who were never a safe place for their wives and children. But my dad is a safe space for my family. Did he and my mother hand us a toxic religion and belief system? Yes. Do they regret this? Yes. Did they provide the tools to navigate life from a place of wholeheartedness and emotional intelligence? No. Are they doing the work to shift and be emotionally and spiritually healthy adults? Yes. I bear witness to their growth.

However, I had to learn many things I needed to be whole and healthy on my own. Oldest daughter syndrome is alive over here.

As I began to shift and deconstruct even to the point of giving up my faith and belief in the god narratives - my parents never abandoned me or rejected me. They have given space for me to shift however I have needed to - receiving my hurt, shame, brokenness, and their part in those things - with openness and love.

I am fortunate in my deconversion story to have a dad who has consistently shown up. It is a rare gift.

Some Boomer, GenX, and Millenial dads are doing the hard work and learning. Other dads will never change to the detriment of their relationships with their adult children.

What does any of this have to do with prodigal children?

I know so many prodigal children who no longer find god the father’s house or their parent’s house a safe space. For the longest time, they thought the patterns hurting them were normal. It’s difficult to acknowledge the toxicity or abuse when you are immersed in it. But they are trying to heal and find wholeness.

I was never safe in god the Father’s house. No one was safe. We are just now beginning to see how many of those Evangelical leaders needed to be on a Peen Maintenance plan because they repeatedly were a threat to the women and children around them. Clergy Sexual Abuse is real. What many of them choose to define as a “moral failure,” “inappropriate relationship,” or “affair” was sexual abuse, rape, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse, and more.

This is not just a Catholic church issue, but a high control, toxic religion issue…

Unfortunately, the system has come up with wording that deliberately minimizes the harm while protecting the abuser/the perpetrator. It throws the blame on the child, the woman, or the person with no power in the exchange.

The systems in place around those wise, male leaders were not set up to protect women and children, but to maintain the status quo and protect the leadership, protect the cash flow. It’s not moral failures we are discovering - it’s the symptoms of a toxic, violently oppressive religion whose foundation is male spiritual headship, white supremacy, and bigotry with a side of female/child subjugation.

When women and children are viewed as property, a peen maintenance plan is required.

As a parent who is fiercely protective of the nest we have built and the people we have been entrusted to raise… I refuse to hand my children a script. We embrace them however they come. Their identities are significant. Their spiritual wholeness is essential. Their religious indoctrination is in the trash. We refuse to take them into pews and places where male leadership protects male headship. I would never raise my children in places where the people have consistently proven to be unsafe. This is family. This is the church. We encourage healthy skepticism and holy wonder. We are imperfect parents - forgiving what we have come from while hating what does not change. And we give them access to adults who see them and accept them.

There is no male authority here to promote harmful narratives of lack, shame, and fear. We are trying - as prodigals, among prodigals - to live with sacred awe.

So, this Father’s Day may be ugly for you. That is valid. God the Father’s house may be an incredibly unsafe space. Your parents may be a source of rejection, abuse, and harm. You are not crazy. You can find wholeness.

There is room for prodigal children who choose to build their own homes.

On a Sunday,

J.