Coping with Religious Trauma: Finding God Outside of Fundamentalist Dogma

Alright, we are going to talk about a bit of an uncomfortable subject today—religious trauma and lies that have conditioned us! And, as I am writing this on Easter Sunday, a holiday celebrated by many churches, I think it is a fitting time to discuss the realities of many people’s experiences and dispel some common religious lies. But first, I want to start with my own story.

I was raised in a family that represented a religion best explained by the denominations of Baptist and Mennonite, with no set rules except for the ones my father concocted and then fed his family as “God's law” administered by the God appointed head of the household. From an early age, I remember attending different churches and how my parents often left the church after finding fault with the pastor. In one such establishment, my father reprimanded the pastor publicly when he found the pastor was divorced and remarried. He then left the church. Thus began my experience with the religious people who placed themselves on a higher level of perfection than God himself. Another way to put this would be that they believed themselves to be better than everyone around them. They took the verses about consulting one another in love when that brother or sister was sinning, to mean they needed to critique every area of their friends’ lives. Since they lived a perfect life, this was easy to do. Just as Jesus said, let him who is without sin, cast the first stone. My parents were often able to cast the first stone without a second thought.

After I married, and later realized that my partner was highly abusive and dysfunctional, I left him. This caused not only an uproar in my own family, but for many churches to turn their backs on me. One couldn’t handle me because my abusive ex threatened their church. Another, because my son had a disability; they admitted that going on mission trips was of higher importance than caring for the individuals in their flock who were going through tough times, Actually, the issue with my child and his illness proved to be the biggest hurdle for many of these churches. No one knew how to handle him, so instead they just ignored him, and therefore me. I remember many Sundays sitting in church, crying, feeling the weight of the entire world on my shoulders, as the pastor preached about things that were nothing compared to what I was going through. I often felt as if these pastors should have been required to go through hardship of their own, to speak to an entire group of people who were often facing big challenges, such as divorce or mental illness.

Now let’s talk about some of the lies that churches often buy into and the ways they support unhealthy behaviors like abuse. Divorce, for example, is often overlooked by churches, due to the mixed message some versions of the Bible give about it. Many religious groups don’t know what to do with people who don’t fit in the mold. The Bible doesn’t talk a lot about abuse or infidelity in marriage, and, depending on the translation, some have found justification for these behaviors, from the Bible itself. Thus, from the standpoint of many pastors, it is easier to say that, if a man is “leading his family” then doing so through abusive and controlling tactics is fine. Maybe these religious groups aren’t explicitly approving of it, but by turning their backs, isn’t that the same thing as supporting it? My perspective is that of a woman who was told to stay in abuse, because “God hates divorce” and that we are meant to come here to Earth for the purpose of living through trials, aka a bad marriage. I talked about this extensively in my book Becoming Strength. I have heard from many people who were judged by their church friends for leaving an abusive relationship. I have witnessed many women who were afraid to leave an unfaithful partner, because he was a member of the church, and she would be the one “breaking up the family”. “Would you really want your children to grow up in a broken home?” well-meaning God-fearing people ask. But isn’t a broken home the one in which parents do not honor the sacred bond they have created through their marriage?

In many cases, the church turns their back on these touchy subjects. Many people stay in churches like this, because we were taught that church is the key to God. If we leave, we feel guilt. When I left my ex-husband, and therefore my father, who, to me, had always been a direct link to Gods teachings, I thought at first that I was turning my back on God. I remember saying “If this is what it means to have a relationship with God, I don’t think this is the God for me anymore” I felt that I had to choose between God and freedom from abuse. Eventually, I found my way to God without the confines of organized religion. I realized that many peoples view of God is warped specifically BY churches, which are often money-making schemes that specifically support abusive relationships, dogmatic beliefs, and living in a fear-based mentality. Any church that tells you that if you don’t follow a specific, pre-ordained set of rules, you will go to hell, needs to be questioned.

When I worked with kids teaching ABA techniques, we would use different strategies to help the kids learn good behavior and social skills. We were almost always to focus on a positive reward instead of the negative consequence. The goal was never to use fear of what they could lose to try to convince anyone to live a specific way. But in so many churches, it is. We believe that, by choosing freedom for our souls and escaping abuse, or having financial prosperity and abundance, or any other thing that we have been conditioned to believe is the pious choice, we are forfeiting our ticket to heaven. This is a warped view of the world, God, and our spirituality. It is based in fear. In truth, we need to rethink these subjects.

God never wanted us to live in fear. The deeper that I go with my own connection with God, the more of this conditioning I am led to release. The goal of living an evolved life with daily connection to a living God, not just someone who wrote a book thousands of years ago, is to release the fear. It is to trust that God wants us to live fulfilled lives. This doesn’t mean focusing on worldly pleasures like one-night stands and getting drunk (although, if this is you, there is a deeper reasoning behind it that can tell you a lot about where you may be hurting and need healing). Those things, instead of just being “sin” are unfulfilling to the soul, a sign of someone who needs a deep healing and a lot of compassion, NOT judgment.

What I mean by a fulfilled life is truly finding happiness by creating an abundance filled life. It means allowing God to give us a partner that fulfills us, (yes, even if you are divorced), working to build a career that brings us joy (and yes, having a lot of money is a BLESSING from God) and finding healthcare that helps us thrive on every level! We weren’t programmed to come here and die painful deaths through choosing not to seek medical care. None of these things that many religious groups praise, are even of God! They are fear-based lies. When we get to the other side, if we have fallen into these things, we will see what opportunities we threw away, and that we did so, for nothing!

So, if you are reading this and realizing that you have chosen to live in fear, to not live a fulfilled life because you were programmed to believe this is what following God looks like, I challenge you to reconsider. I challenge you to seek answers. Not from asking your pastor what he thinks of my blog post or if he thinks you are living a perfect Christian life, but by going to God directly. I challenge you to pour out your heart to Him, to tell him if you feel repressed by religious lies that have been spoon-fed to you since a young age. I challenge you to bring Him your grief, if you, like I, have been hurt instead of helped by traditional religion. I challenge you to lay your pain at His feet, and for once, take the religion out of the equation. God is so much more than a church, a book, or a human with an agenda. God is real, and He wants to know you personally. He wants to help you strip away the illusion and get to the truth of who He is. Reach out and let Him in, friend. Be prepared for it to look different than what you always thought it would. In closing, I invite you to leave me a comment or question if this has resonated with you. Share it with others! As always, much love.—S