Fear that I have to be the kind of Christian my parents are comfortable with or else my family will fall apart
Warning this is a lengthy thought dump, I have been anxious and maybe could use some support. It at least felt good to type this out.
I've been low contact with them for a few years due to college and living far away, but they've known I haven't been attending church the whole time and am dating a non-Christian.
I don't want to rob my parents of their beliefs. But their beliefs in Biblical inerrancy really put me in a bind. I feel like unless I live as they live and make visible efforts to share Christ/evangelize, I am a threat to their belief system. It feels like a huge weight. I have even developed anxiety that my partner's lack of Christianity and his Muslim family would be enough to cause my parents to deconstruct, which in my mind translates to me robbing them of their religion. The two fears I have is that this will wreck one or both of my parents' mental health due to the kinds of grief thay comes with losing their religion or losing parts of it, and that it could cause them to divorce. For example I fear robbing my mom of the belief her and her mom will reconnect in Heaven in literal new bodies. I fear disruption of the view that the Bible is inerrant and infallible will cause her to lose that comforting belief.
To give some insight into the situation, my dad is an Assemblies of God pastor. Back when I was still adamantly professing my Christianity to my parents, my dad expressed some kind of confused frustration that I didn't post anything about God or Jesus on my social medias. The reason I offered at that time was that just wasn't how I used my social media, but it was pretty clear he wasn't satisfied by this.
I feel like I could manage if the expectation was that I just believe and profess Christ, but I want to also live freely and not have to give Biblical justification for all of my actions.
For example my partner and I are in a longterm relationship but aren't married. My boundary is I just don't discuss this with my family. They know I don't think it is sin. Any time my dad has caught wind that there's some conflict between us, he indicates that it's because we're living together but aren't married.
I stress that one day they will start questioning their own beliefs about Biblical inerrancy because of me, they'll start deconstructing, and I will have robbed them of a belief system that pretty much works for them. I know it isn't my responsibility but I also know how disruptive faith questioning can be for families. I don't want to be to blame. The reasons I think I could be are because if I am close with them, they will be exposed to how different my life is and wonder why I am not trying to convert everyone, especially my partner and his family. And also they may start questioning whether conversion (Christian idea of salvation) is even necessary.
Posted Jan 15, 2024, 4:07 PM UTC