Jesus Freaks: Sins of the Father

“It’s gorgeous,” I comment back, craning my neck to see as much of the expansive property as I can.

Second only to the endowment, Carter receives regular national attention from the megachurch—New Life Fellowship— that sits at the edge of its campus. Not a sanctioned part of the university, it’s a public facility that draws thousands…thousands of people to its services on Sunday, plus the hundreds that attend throughout the week for Bible studies, baptisms, and healings. Carter students are required to attend three church services on campus a week—which doesn’t include Sundays. That’s apparently a given, but on those Sundays students typically flock to New Life Fellowship.

From the outside, I have time to note because Mom has slowed the car significantly, the building looks like a state house with brick and pillars assembled to make your jaw drop before you enter. “Makes it easier for them to spoon feed you Jesus,” Mom had sarcastically remarked earlier in the summer. “Cram him down your throat” is what she’d actually said, but I talked her down. I’ve only seen the inside from pictures and TV, but I know it has a Colosseum-like appeal with rows upon rows of stadium seating focused on a stage where the Message is presented.

“Do you think he’s in there now?” I ask, momentarily forgetting our plans for the day.

Mom sighs yet again, growing more flustered by the minute. “I hope not, since he’s supposed to be coming back from Africa tomorrow, and that’s why he can’t meet with us in person before you start.” She grows quiet, and I ignore the comment. For now.

New Life’s charismatic pastor has, for the last three years, changed lives, rallied the spiritual troops, and gleamed brightly from the camera in the studio/sanctuary each week. His name is Roland Abbot.

And he’s my birth father.

At least once a year, Pastor Roland looks ashen as he takes the pulpit and discusses the mistakes of his sinful youth. I’m one of those mistakes. Kennedy Sawyer.

I don’t mean to sound dramatic; he’s never called me a mistake. Rather, the circumstances surrounding his college girlfriend—my mother—getting pregnant and Roland signing away parental rights before I was born have always been in his once-a-year confession. I wasn’t ever bitter about it when I was younger, and neither was my mom. They were young and stupid, she’d always reminded me. No, she was never bitter about it until he called one day, out of the blue, talking about finding Jesus and begging for forgiveness. My mom was so shocked by the phone call, she hung up on him and mumbled something like, “His repentance isn’t my responsibility.” I was eight, and didn’t hear anything more about him for another couple of years.

The difference in our last names and the court orders in place that have prevented him from parading my name or picture on TV are the only things I’m holding on to as a social buffer between me and the televangelist who is regarded as a celebrity among the co-eds and most people who clutch their Bibles tighter than their iPhones. We look so much alike it is frightening. My mom can pass as a friend or babysitter, but if Roland and I are ever compared critically, the recognition will be instant, I’m sure of it.

“You know,” I say, hoping to cheer her up. “I have half his genes, and half yours, but I have one hundred percent of your environmental upbringing. I’m just…examining the twenty-five percent of me I don’t know.”

She sighs. “A quarter is a lot, Dee. Try sitting down for dinner with a chair that’s had a leg sawed off.”

I look away from her and back out the window. I know how she feels and don’t need to see it pinching at her face.

Despite the sporadic meetings we had through my pre-teen and high school years, Roland will certainly know less about me than I do of him. He hasn’t watched me on TV every week for the last five years as I have him. Sometimes twice in a day if I bother to log in to the live sermon feeds. Mom knows I watch some of them, but cautioned me early on not to confuse watching him with having a relationship with him. I shift in my seat, flattening out the front of my skirt.

“Are you comfortable?” she asks, filling the sudden silence that’s overtaken the car.