Taking your children to church is ordinary parenting, not misconduct, and in the United States custody decisions generally turn on the best interests of the child rather than on a parent's faith. Courts are usually slow to restrict religious practice unless someone shows real, specific harm to the child. A co-parent's threat is not a court order, so get the demand in writing, read your existing parenting plan, and ask what harm is actually being alleged.
What is actually happening
Someone has told you that your children's church attendance could cost you custody. That threat is doing work no filing has done yet, because it moves you to stop on your own and call it cooperation. What it is fishing for is a voluntary surrender: months of you skipping Sunday, which can later be described as the settled routine the children are used to. It may also be fishing for an angry text it can print out.
The Custody Threat With No Filing Behind It · Rule 9. The threat of losing your children is more terrifying than the process itself, and the person making it knows that. Naming the worst case out loud and pricing it honestly drains most of its force. Unnamed fear is doing the heavy lifting here, not law.
What Scripture says
“And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7
What the book says · Chapter 18, The Mountain of Family: Protecting and Strengthening the Family Unit
“The family is a pre-political institution. It existed before the state, and it holds authority the state did not grant and cannot lawfully take. When Christians defend the family they are defending the first institution of God against the encroachment of Caesar.”
From Rules for Radical Christians, quoted exactly.
What the law generally says
Custody and parenting time in the United States are generally decided under a best-interests-of-the-child standard, and in many states judges are expected to stay out of doctrinal disputes between parents. Courts often will not limit a parent's religious practice with a child unless there is evidence of actual or substantial harm, rather than disagreement or discomfort. Where parents share decision-making, many states let each parent follow his own faith during his own parenting time; where one parent holds legal decision-making authority over religious upbringing, that often controls. Written parenting plans and consent orders are frequently enforced as written, so language you agreed to years ago can matter more than anything said this month. The specifics turn on your state and on your existing order, which is what Ask looks up.
The words to use
"I take our children to church because I believe I answer to God for how they are raised, and I am not going to stop. If you are asking me to change that, please put the specific concern in writing: what harm are you saying comes from it?"
Your move
- Ask for the demand in writing. A text or email saying exactly what is being objected to is worth more than an hour of argument on the phone.
- Read your custody order or parenting plan this week and find every sentence about religion, decision-making, and activities during your parenting time. Highlight them.
- Write down the actual worst case, then price it. Call a family law attorney in your state for one consultation and ask what it would take for a court to restrict religious practice here. Fear shrinks when it has a number attached.
- Keep going to church and keep your record plain: dates, who attended, how the children did. No commentary about the other parent.
- Tell two people in your congregation what is happening and ask them to stand with you. No family should face this alone.
- Document the threat itself, word for word, with the date. Save it somewhere you will still have it in a year.
- Ask for any expert opinion in writing too, with the name of the evaluation and who ordered it, before you respond to it.
- Do not use the children as messengers, do not coach them on what to say, and do not answer a provoking message the same day you get it.
Your situation, your state
This page is the general answer. Describe what is actually happening to you and Ask returns the answer for your situation and your state, with the law looked up and the exact words to use. Your first ask is free.
Ask about your situationNot legal advice. When it stops being a conversation, a lawyer licensed in your state is the next call.