The apostate daughter.

WHEN MY MOTHER delivered her first sermon as pastor of Ambler Mennonite Church, my father was not in attendance. He spent the morning a few regional rail stops to the northwest debating a creation scientist on the origins of humankind. Where my mother affirms, my father argues; where my mother believes, my father doubts. My parents' marriage is a spiritual mismatch that has lasted thirty-one years--so far.

I am every inch my parents' child, and my "faith journey" has the sweep you'd expect given that both my nature and nurture derive from this odd couple's pairing. For years I was my mother's tone-deaf neighbor in the hard pews of Milford First Presbyterian. I side-stepped horse dung at live nativities, snuck out the sanctuary's side door to avoid the otherwise obligatory pastoral handshake, played "Morning Has Broken" on my violin during worship service, and learned to wield a slim brass candle lighter as an acolyte. At thirteen I became a confirmed member of the Presbyterian Church. I had misgivings at the time, chief among them that, as far as I could tell, heaven did not admit nonhuman animals. Worried about how my dog would spend eternity, I went through with the ceremony nonetheless: I mouthed the words and suffered a greasy cross to the forehead. But I stopped going to church soon after.

During my high school years I slipped steadily into what seemed like inevitable agnosticism. But it was my college boyfriend David--a half-Jew whose observance of his father's faith had fallen off precipitously following his bar mitzvah--who pointed out that I was in fact an atheist, whether I admitted it or not. He argued convincingly. David noted that while I was 100 percent sure of precious little outside the rarefied realm of mathematics--we were both math majors--I did not hedge on these manifold uncertainties. If a friend claimed that his mother was (literally) a giraffe, I didn't say "Well, maybe that's possible through a series of fortuitous mutations, or maybe genetic engineering was secretly going on two decades before the public knew about it." No. With nary a fear of betraying undue certitude, I'd cry, "Nonsense!" or "Yeah, right!" or deem the remark unworthy of verbal response and greet it instead with a disdainful sniff. My reaction to extraordinary claims offered without supporting evidence, in other words, was to disbelieve them--openly--until given a compelling reason to do otherwise. Why should claims about God be any different?

They shouldn't, I decided, and began identifying myself--if anyone asked--as an atheist. No, I didn't know there wasn't a God but, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I planned to proceed as if ours were a universe without a creator, overseer, or heavenly father. Which isn't to say my position was--or is--immutable. My worldview is open to amendment as evolving circumstances dictate. Firsthand experience of a burning bush with the gift of gab could convert me tomorrow.

When I moved to the District of Columbia after living in sin with David in Seattle for two years, my parents were glad to have their baby back on the East Coast. They came and stayed with me my first Christmas in the nation's capital, sleeping on the floor of my efficiency apartment. My mom wanted to attend services on Christmas Eve, so a little before 8 p.m. we three trooped over to Universalist National Memorial Church.

The sanctuary was cold when we entered but the candlelight playing across the building's gothic stonework and stained glass windows reminded me that, along with all the crusades, inquisitions, and violent jihad, religion has given the world some pretty amazing architecture. I cringed at the choir's discordant rendition of "Ding Dong Merrily on High," my father squirmed in a pew that failed to provide proper lumbar support, and even my mother seemed disappointed in Pastor Henley's "Christmas message," a trite recap of the year's events, neither profound nor inspirational.

Still, the evening proved provocative. On the way back to my apartment, one of the scripture readings had me thinking: it was Luke 1:26-38, in which Mary learns from the angel Gabriel that she is to bear the son of God. "But what if she didn't want to?" I asked as we walked. "Didn't God think to ask her first?"

A lively discussion followed. Since starting seminary my morn had become more open to talking about her faith, even with her avowedly atheist daughter. During one of my visits we faced off across the dining room table about abstinence-only education, my father regarding us in quiet amusement as we ranged over everything from the inevitability of teenage intercourse and the availability of condoms in developing countries to the ineffectiveness of so-called "purity rings." Another time I argued with some vehemence that what good churches bring to the communities they serve--charitable initiatives, support structure for members, someplace welcoming to spend a Sunday morning--could be as easily accomplished by secular organizations. Why not get a group of neighbors together and spend a few hours each weekend eradicating invasive plant species or cleaning up highways or staffing soup kitchens? Wouldn't such activities effect more positive change than flocking to energy-inefficient buildings to sing hymns? Couldn't humankind hope to achieve fellowship and compassion without ascribing to a mythical backstory? These questions may not have prompted my mom to join me in apostasy on the spot, but she didn't disown me either.

The day my mother delivered her first sermon after securing the pastorship of Ambler Mennonite, the day my father marshaled the armies of reason against the proponents of irreducible complexity, I sat in my DC apartment revising a short story inspired by that Christmas Eve service the three of us had attended together. Initially titled "Mouthy Mary," it began as an exploration of how the annunciation might have proceeded had Mary not started spouting magnifcats but instead resisted the immaculate impregnation planned for her. This premise alone would have been plenty ripe for sacrilege, but then the narrative took on a mischievous life of its own, one I had never--at least consciously--intended. In my hands the archangel Gabriel becomes a vain fop, a serial bungler of God-given missions who sees in the virgin Mary's peculiar combination of plump posterior and saucy irreverence not only an alluring sexual prospect but also the consummate means--or so he thinks--of sticking it to his divine boss. Intercourse ensues.

My mother was officially installed as pastor the week after she gave her inaugural sermon. The installation was a big to-do, with my grandfather and aunts in attendance, as well as past ministers and church friends. I heard about the event from my father, when he reminded me to call or send a card of congratulations. I did the latter, connecting my message to what my morn had told me was the theme of her first sermon. "In keeping with your sermon about the importance of not wearing masks," I wrote, "I'm going to be straight with you. I do not understand the connection you have with the church, nor do I hold the faith myself." I doubted the wisdom of my words even as I wrote them. I said I was nonetheless happy for my mother, that I was pleased to see her finally situated in a job well suited to her constitution and character. I spend a lot of time, I explained, looking at adults of my acquaintance and trying to figure out how they got to where they are in their lives and whether they're happy there. I hope you achieve happiness, I wrote, and I'm sure you'll deliver many eloquent sermons along the way. I told her that if she ever published an anthology I wanted a copy, and then signed the card, "Your apostate but still not morally degenerate daughter, Katie."

Even though I wrote that card, and that story--which she has read in all its various incarnations, each more blasphemous than the last--and even though I don't go to church or regard the Bible as the living word of an all-loving God, my mother still hasn't disowned me. And I'm pretty sure I know why. She recognizes the truth of the card's closing: She and my father raised me to be a good person, and I believe my morn would concede that, stance on religion aside, I am one. I think the same of her.

Katharine Merow lives in Washington, DC, where she is pursuing a master's degree in nonfiction writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her work has appeared in Moth Horizons, Imagine, Geek Monthly, Orion, and The Skeptical Inquirer.