What my father and I don't talk about

What we still share, and what I'll never understand

My father has been a fundamental Baptist pastor for over 30 years. For many of those years, I was a pastor too, and we had plenty to talk about. Even though I wasn’t a fundamentalist, we could still find common ground in the trivialities of church life—“What are you preaching this week?” “How was Easter Sunday?”

But these days, there’s a lot we don’t talk about.

My girlfriend recently recommended a book of essays called What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About.
“You should write something like this,” she said. “But with your dad.”
Hmm. Sounds painful, I thought. Which meant she was probably right.

Politics and religion, obviously, are off-limits now. The family group chat is buzzing these days as my brother and sister trade barbs with our parents. The same fractures in our country are mirrored in my family. When I see the words “vaccine” or “flooding our southern border” or—oh God— “Hunter Biden” pop up in the family thread, I wince and swipe away.

I don’t want anything to do with it.

You might be surprised—I’m outspoken online, after all. But my siblings are actually more confrontational than I am when it comes to our parents. I’ve grown quieter. Not because I don’t have things to say—I obviously do! I say them loudly on Instagram. I make videos responding to the latest outrage from Charlie Kirk or Mark Driscoll. I have no problem speaking out with my whole chest, naming their exclusionary ideology for what it is: spiritually impoverished, fear-driven, anti-Jesus.
And maybe it feels so satisfying to put those jokers in their place because I can’t say any of this to my father.
And maybe I wish I could.
But more than that—I wish I didn’t have to.
I just want him to be better.