Parable Of The Sower By Lauren Olamina

Lauren Olamina, the protagonist in Parable of the Sower. She lives in the walled town of Robledo, near Southern California in 2024, which is a devastated world caused by the environmental degradation and economic, governmental corruption. Lauren’s father was a Baptist minister, who emphasize Bible based religion and also raising her under an intensely religious belief. Though Lauren admires her father she

resent her father’s religion and call it a lie. The constantly disaster and collapsing world are the reasons she rejects the traditional Christianity and reflect herself growing a new belief, which she calls it “Earthseed”. What’s the differences between Lauren’s Earthseed religion and traditional Christianity that makes Lauren believe her

own God instead of the religion that raised her.
“AT LEAST THREE YEARS ago, my fathers God stopped being my God.

His church stopped being my church. And yet, today, because Iʼm a coward, I let myself be initiated into that church. I let my father baptize me in all three names of that God who isnʼt mine any more. My God has another name” (p.5). When she is baptized on her fifteenth birthday, the ceremony has meat nothing to her. She doesn’t believe the Christian thought about sin and salvation. For Lauren, the book of Job is the best description of her father’s God. “God says he made everything and he knows everything so no one has any right to question what he does with any of it” (p.8) Laruen thinks Christian God just like a super-powerful man, who is playing them like playing with his toys. “If he is, what difference does it make if 700 people get killed in a hurricane—or if seven kids go to church and get dipped in a big tank of expensive water” (p.8) For Lauren, the God of Christian is lack of ability to change the world or unable to make the action to help human. And they never ask people to actively recognize that they can control their own destiny, which makes them passive and only wait for the others to save them from their miserable

world.
Lauren’s Earthseed religion, her God is Change, which is the only thing that is constant in life.

“No one can stop Change, but we all shape Change whether we mean to or not. I mean to guide and shape Earthseed into what it should be” (p.90). Because of Lauren’s walled neighborhood, the family, community, deaths are changing all the time. Change has became pervasive, which she can foresight, plan and even prepare for its coming. She believes change is not easy to adapt or getting any more comfortable, but understanding the nature of change is a one of the required ability of living a good life. Lauren’s God, Change is an impersonal force that can be shaped by humans, it doesn’t have any personal attributes to prefer or dislike any individualism or racism. She describes her God, “My God doesn’t love me or hate me or watch over me or know me at all, and I feel no love for or loyalty to my God. My God just is” (p.11). Her journal also states, “God is neither good nor evil, neither loving, nor hating. God is Power. God is Change” (p.84). Different from Christian, Earthseed’s God doesn’t need to be worship. “Earthseed deals with ongoing reality, not with supernatural authority figures. Worship is no good without action. With action, itʼs only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, eases your mind” (p.75). For Lauren’s God, the best action is to directly response and to meet what the world’s need, the effort should be put into action to make change instead of just

praying. Earthseed is not a blind belief, it is an engaged, empowered way of action: a belief that make people change their own destiny of life by their action of “planning”, “doing”, “pray creating”, “teaching” and “reaching” (p.101).
Lauren’s Earthseed religion is contrast to her father’s Christianity belief, which promises reward of the afterlife through faith and suffer the life pain. But in Lauren’s world, her father’s God doesn’t act to end her tragedy world or to eliminate the chaotic and rotten phenomenon, which fails to offer any kind of help to humanity. Worst, people are more like a toy for the God to satisfy his desires, which totally fails Lauren’s trust. On the other hand, the God of Earthseed she believes is not about the reward but the forced action that makes people to take their responsibility and make their own choice and shape their life. Earthseed also offer the immediate and earthly needs of human survival. For Lauren’s religion, her God is not only change but address to resolve human suffering circumstances, which is they really needed.