English Literature Religion in the Parable of the Sower by Octavia Essay

English Literature Religion in the Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler - Essay Example In the novel, Lauren criticizes the American Christian tradition. Lauren, who is the daughter of a Baptist teacher, has lost faith in her father’s God, the God of Christianity. Her feelings are clear in the novel when she writes, â€Å"At least three years ago, my father’s God stopped being my God. His church stopped being my church† (Butler, page 7). According to Lauren, the Christian God is nonsensical regardless of the environmental and social problems. She, therefore, merges what she learnt from her biblical scripture as the truth due to her experiences of suffering, hatred, violence, and murder. Lauren’s way of thinking becomes understandable when she reflects on a storm that was raging in the Gulf of Mexico which claimed lives of hundreds of people. Lauren writes, â€Å"Is it God? Most of the dead are the street poor who have nowhere to go and who don’t hear the warnings until it’s too late for their feet to take them to safety. Whereà ¢â‚¬â„¢s the safety for them anyway? Is it a sin against God to be poor? We’re almost poor ourselves†¦.How will God my father’s God behave toward us when we’re poor (Butler, page 15)?† She inquires how the relations between poverty and suffering mirror her knowledge that it is the unfortunate who suffer most in her society. But she does not truly think there is a God in heaven that punishes the unfortunate. She considers the Christian God is just a justification for others’ poverty while others flourish. The blame for poverty and lots of suffering is put on God so that those in authority do not have to be accountable for it.Lauren continues with her criticism when she writes that the Book of Job â€Å"says more about my father’s God in particular and gods in general than anything else I’ve ever read† (Butler, page 16). Lauren summarizes the Book of Job as follows: â€Å"In the Book of Job, God says he made everything and h e knows everything so no one has any right to question what he does with any of it. Okay. That works.