The "God" Card

In out-of-control Patriarchal families, one of the worst abuses that happen is what I am calling "The God Card." This is the worst because it mixes emotional and spiritual abuse and can at times end up in physical abuse.

Basically, this happens when the parents put on the mantle of a Spiritual Mediator for the children. My mother was telling my little brother today that without her (her in general, but more specifically her training, discipline, instruction, etc) he would never be a success in life. The children are told that God will lead them through their parents. For girls, the verse in Deuteronomy about vows is used to prove this.

Parents will try to "break the will" of their children by refusing to let them express contrary opinions or have freedom of thought. They might prey on the child's conscience by equating fear with the Holy Spirit. For example, once when my little brother was really angry he told my mom that he wanted to hit her. He didn't do it, and she said that it was because the Spirit in him held him back from being violent. However, watching the altercation I could only see that it was because he was too afraid of the consequences to do anything.

Another use of the God Card is in evaluation of the child's emotions or heart. A child with a “bad attitude” towards work has a lazy spirit. A child who is contradicting or speaking back to the parents has a proud heart and a stiff-necked spirit like the Israelites had. And God punished them for it. Parents might force the child to repent in their presence, or send them off to write out Bible verses about the wrong attitude/heart condition until the parent deems that change has occurred. If the child persists in such behavior, removal of privileges such as food may occur, or the child is punished by shaming or long sermons/talking sessions.

An older child will be made to feel guilty for not being “spiritual enough.” Lists of sins present and past will come out and behavior patterns through time evaluated. The young person will be pressured to “do what is right” by changing the way they act in order to comply. In many of these young people, firm convictions are formed merely because they were drilled into them with no other backing than “It is the right way” or “This is what the Bible teaches” or “your father/parents have studied the scriptures long and hard and this is the only way to understand this passage.”

On a personal level, I upheld parental theology with fervor simply because I figured it had to be right. When in doubt, I had only to turn to them and ask for the right verse reference or line. Other views of scripture, (when the rare dual interpretations could float at the same time) were seen as a little too “head in the clouds; pie-in-the-sky.” I remember hearing my father expound on other's insight and say that though they might/could apply, his was right. No further discussion, nothing. They were excused because they did not fit with how he saw the passage.
When discussing theology and Bible passages with him, he would stop me from contradicting him (on the rare occasions that I did) because he had spent years and years studying the Bible and he told me that when I was as qualified as him to interpret I would see things the way he did.

Parents who play the God Card may or may not realize that they are using it. In many ways, it fits so well with the Patriarchal model that it seems intrinsic. The father is god of his household in the same sense that God is over the world. Children under this system are not only brainwashed, but intrinsically blinded from ever seeing or realizing that they are because of the largely underhanded way these cards are played. Reading scripture, they can only hear their parent's interpretation. Hearing a message contrary to what they have been taught, they hear only their parents warnings about heretics and people who twist the scriptures to fit their worldly or lazy behavior.
Even when cornered and without further argument they resist all sense because to give up what their parents held, to turn on their ingrained teaching is to turn against God. And even more ingrained than the teaching is the sacredness of their religion.

The fatal truth is that parents who play the God Card are gods in their children's lives. No matter how much emphasis is placed on other things, the children grow up subconsciously placing the parents as their final authority. No matter what is said about religion, the children subconsciously become priests in the family cult. The house becomes a temple to the dominant parent, with the other parent in the heady role as High Priest and oracle.
To break with the order is seen as betrayal, complete despotism, and as a straight path to hell.

And few are those who find that freedom.