This is by no means a full and accurate account of what transpired today with my parents about me questioning my faith and attending for the time being a Presbyterian church. However, I did feel like Luther before the Diet of Worms as portrayed in the recent movie Luther because I was not able to get a word in on my defense or on my behalf. When I was the "inquisition" simply laughed and scoffed at my appeal and reason and logic, saying that I was trying reading the Bible intellectually and putting my mind and reason over what the word says. I tried to respond that that is not what I was doing and was simply reading the Bible as well, but alas to no avail. So, here it is:
Well, I had “the talk” with my parents today and it was really, really interesting. I know one thing is that I am not able to “speak grace graciously” and I pray that I can have that capability sooner rather than later; however, the two things that stick out in my conversation with my parents was the fact that 1. they believe that I am treading on “dangerous ground” with the things that I am questioning and that because of that I am going to loose my salvation and that why would I want to raise my kids up in a place that doesn’t believe in the essential of baptism for salvation because the Bible says so. That was the major point that we argued over whether baptism is necessary for salvation or not. I tried to explain my side of it and all the things that I have perceived over the years growing up in the Church of Christ; they simply didn’t want to hear of it and talked of scripture and brought up analogy and when I tried to bring in Paul’s letter to the Romans, Dad countered with the fact that the letter to the Romans was written to Romans who were not Jews and who were not as “mature in their faith.” Dad also quoted that passage that “faith without works is dead” and I tried to talk about that if we are dead to sin then we are not going to want to live in sin anymore and instead of being slaves to sin we are going to be slaves to righteousness. The second thing that stuck out is that when I informed them of my struggle with pornography then they said that was good but they “wanted me to know something” that if I thought that I had hidden that from them then I was mistaken because they knew about it. Yet, I tried to explain that that is what I was talking about that now I had given it up because it is Christ who lives in me and turns me from my nature of sin and my fallen state and allows me to pursue His will for me. Mom was concerned that I was a believer in predestination, Dad thinks that I have something against the Church of Christ so I am trying hard to believe the Presbyterians and leave the “truth” and also that I am approaching the Bible from an intellectual point of view and that they were worried that I went to Lipscomb and that the “intellectual” ideas caught up with me, but the reason that they let me go to Lipscomb was because they believed that I was strong in my faith. However, I guess the icing on the cake was the fact that they said that since I am hanging out with Jan and Kara more, then I am being influenced by them and since they are there for me then I get to hear their side of it and I am being pulled into their way of thinking. That is the main reason that Dad and Mom didn’t want me to go to Prague this summer because they don’t want me spending a whole summer with Jan, especially because Jan’s parents aren’t married. Mom said that I now think that it is OK to not be married simply because I visited for two weeks a friend whose parents happen to not be married. How funny!
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