{"id":12077,"date":"2013-04-23T12:04:02","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T16:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=12077"},"modified":"2013-04-29T16:45:46","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T20:45:46","slug":"confessions-of-a-preachers-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2013\/04\/confessions-of-a-preachers-daughter","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a Preacher\u2019s Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

She\u2019s the star of \u201cThis Is Our Time.\u201d She played Kirk Cameron\u2019s wife in the surprise blockbuster \u201cFireproof.\u201d But she grew up as the pastor\u2019s kid at a megachurch. Was Erin Bethea the stereotypical fast-driving, hard-drinking, boy-teasing, cigar-smoking preacher\u2019s daughter? After all, in \u201cFireproof,\u201d she played an angry, bitter wife looking for the drama of an illicit affair. Is that the sort of teen she was back at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia?<\/p>\n

\"fireproof\"<\/a>
Erin Bethea and Kirk Cameron in “Fireproof”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI hate to disappoint you,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cFor a while I dated a boy that my parents didn\u2019t like, but I think everybody kind of goes through a little bit of that. For me it was different than many preacher\u2019s daughters. I didn\u2019t feel resentful or neglected because my dad was out there caring about everybody else. He was my best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

But so many preachers\u2019 kids live in a sort of Twilight Zone in which they are viewed by the gawking congregation as either very, very good little examples for the other children \u2013 or else awful little hellions suspected of shocking naughtiness behind the baptistry. There\u2019s no in-between.<\/p>\n

Erin says her parents helped her avoid that. She never felt like she was growing up in a fishbowl. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Erin<\/a>
Erin Bethea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI never had to put on a show of being the perfect child. My parents were brilliant about that. They just let me be a child. Somehow, they guided me so that I didn\u2019t have anything to be extremely rebellious about. I just felt better doing what was right, so that\u2019s what I did. I never felt driven to find the bad crowd to hang out with. I had a great group of friends and we were all really involved in church. It sounds a little bit goody, goody, cookie-cutter, but you know, we had a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut most of it was because I have such a great family and we\u2019re really close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can she identify a time where she began to feel like her faith really wasn\u2019t hers \u2013 just her parents\u2019?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it happened for me at the same age that it happens for a lot of people,\u201d recalls Bethea. \u201cAt college, I realized that for the first time I wasn\u2019t living under my parents\u2019 roof. So who is going to know if you aren\u2019t doing right? That\u2019s where I had to decide who I was going to be Continued on page 2<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She\u2019s the star of \u201cThis Is Our Time.\u201d She played Kirk Cameron\u2019s wife in the surprise blockbuster \u201cFireproof.\u201d But she grew up as the pastor\u2019s kid at a megachurch. Was Erin Bethea the stereotypical fast-driving, hard-drinking, boy-teasing, cigar-smoking preacher\u2019s daughter? After all, in \u201cFireproof,\u201d she played an angry, bitter wife looking for the drama of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[923,184,2165,102,2166],"tags":[2204,2220,2167,586,2168,2308,587,1726],"class_list":["post-12077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chrislam","category-entertainment","category-erin-bathea","category-feature","category-kirk-cameron","tag-christian","tag-entertainment","tag-erin-bethea","tag-film","tag-fireproof","tag-kirk-cameron","tag-movies","tag-sherwood-baptist-church"],"yoast_head":"\nConfessions of a Preacher\u2019s Daughter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2013\/04\/confessions-of-a-preachers-daughter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Confessions of a Preacher\u2019s Daughter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"She\u2019s the star of \u201cThis Is Our Time.\u201d She played Kirk Cameron\u2019s wife in the surprise blockbuster \u201cFireproof.\u201d But she grew up as the pastor\u2019s kid at a megachurch. Was Erin Bethea the stereotypical fast-driving, hard-drinking, boy-teasing, cigar-smoking preacher\u2019s daughter? 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