Dominant discourses in the United States valorize individual choice and autonomy as key to happiness and personal expression (Bellah et. al. 1985, Manning 2015). American discourses also sacralize religious choice in particular, emphasizing freedom of conscience as both a civic right and a religious necessity based in Protestant traditions that emphasize sincerity and individual conversion (Wenger 2017). At least since the late 20th century, the American love of religious freedom has also been expressed in narratives promoting individual religious seeking, within or beyond one’s childhood tradition (Roof 1993, Madsen 2009). This cultural context would seem to pose a problem for religious parents: Should parents seek to raise their children in their own faith tradition, or should they encourage the children to explore and decide on their own? This paper explores how highly religious parents in a liberal Protestant tradition (the Episcopal Church) negotiate between the desire to transmit their faith to their children and the desire to encourage and respect their children’s freedom to choose.
The tension between children’s religious autonomy and faith transmission potentially faces all parents in the US (Smith et. al. 2020). But it may be particularly acute for liberal-leaning mainline Protestants, who tend to pride themselves on non-dogmatism and freedom of thought (Wellman 2008, Edles 2013). Moreover, mainline Protestants may be more likely to believe that Christianity is not the only path to truth or salvation (Wellman 2008), potentially making religious transmission, especially the transmission of specific beliefs, less of a priority. But this does not mean liberal parents do not care about religious transmission: prior research suggests that most religious parents feel religion will benefit their children and that providing their children with religious resources is important (Smith et. al. 2020). In this paper we will focus on parents who do say that they seek to pass religious beliefs and practices to their children, exploring how this desire interacts with ideas about pluralism, freedom of thought, and religious choice.
Our data comes from in-depth, face-to-face interviews with parents who attended 16 Episcopal congregations in a midwestern diocese. In all, we interviewed 144 parents and guardians. Since parents were recruited through parish youth rosters, the sample skews towards the more involved and religiously committed families in the diocese. Eligible parents had children between the ages of 10 and 18, an age at which they were beginning to have more autonomy, requiring the parents to decide how directive to be about religion.
The interview questions provide a wealth of data about parents' approaches to religious parenting, including aspirations for their children’s futures, strategies employed for religious socialization, and reflections about how directive parents ought to be. On aspirations, we asked parents to describe their “aspirations or hopes for [their child’s] religious or spiritual life,” with a follow-up question about specific beliefs or practices. We also asked them to discuss “how important is it to you that [your child] grow up believing and practicing the same religious faith as you.” The responses reveal what aspects of religion parents valued for their children, and illuminate the range of religious options they felt to be desirable or acceptable while also revealing normative pressures to promote children’s religious autonomy.
Information about strategies for religious socialization came from direct questions about strategies and indirect questions about family religious practices and conversations. The direct questions asked parents how they go about passing on their religious beliefs and traditions and what specific things they expect or encourage from their children related to religion. Beyond the specifics of what they did and didn’t require, these questions also elicited reflection on how parents thought about their approaches and how they work in practice. Together with the questions about aspirations, these questions let us see whether parents’ strategies for faith transmission match their stated aspirations and what we can learn from the potential discrepancies.
Finally, we asked parents how comfortable they felt being directive around religious participation and belief: “How directive do you feel you can be with [your child] when it comes to religion?“ To access more abstract ideals, we asked “Do you think parents should expect their children to accept and practice their parents’ religion? Or should parents mainly expose children to religion or religious options and leave the choosing up to the child?” These questions shed light on whether parents feel hampered in religious childrearing by cultural norms promoting religious autonomy.
Analyzing these questions about aspirations, strategies, and reflections will illuminate parents’ negotiations between their desire to equip their children for religious life and the commitments they may have to respecting their children’s religious autonomy. We will explore points of coherence and tension in parents’ self-understanding and uncover ideal types of approaches among liberal Protestant parents as they navigate tensions between children’s choice and parental direction.
Works Cited
Bellah, Robert N., Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
Edles, Laura Desfor. “Contemporary Progressive Christianity and Its Symbolic Ramifications.” Cultural Sociology 7, no. 1 (March 1, 2013): 3–22.
Madsen, Richard. “The Archipelago of Faith: Religious Individualism and Faith Community in America Today.” American Journal of Sociology 114, no. 5 (2009): 1263–1301.
Manning, Christel. Losing Our Religion: How Unaffiliated Parents Are Raising Their Children. NYU Press, 2015.
Roof, Wade Clark. A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1993.
Smith, Christian, Bridget Ritz, and Michael Rotolo. Religious Parenting: Transmitting Faith and Values in Contemporary America. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2020.
Wellman, James K. Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Wenger, Tisa. Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal. UNC Press Books, 2017.
Dominant discourses in the United States valorize religious choice, but parents often want to pass on their faith and guide their children to the benefits of religion. This paper asks how highly religious mainline Protestant parents negotiate between the desire to transmit their faith to their children and the desire to encourage their children’s freedom to choose. Using over 140 qualitative interviews, we analyze parents’ talk about spiritual goals for their children, strategies for faith transmission, and reflections on directiveness versus allowing choice. Do parents hope that their children will adopt the faith in which they are raised? Where do parents feel comfortable imposing religious expectations on their children, and why? Answers to these questions shed light on the complexities of religious parenting in a cultural context that values theological openness and inclusivity.