I had a long
conversation with a friend today. It was a really meaningful conversation about
a lot of things of a spiritual nature. The
things we talked about have been rolling around in my mind, and I need to sort
them out. So, I’m turning to my favorite mode of processing – writing. I’ve
been grappling with a lot of things of a spiritual nature for a while now. I
haven’t lost my faith or felt estranged from God. On the contrary, I feel his
presence closely. But I have massive issues with a lot of the ways he is
portrayed to the world by well-meaning Christians. And I have been wrestling
with the fact that, being a bearer of God’s image, the way I interact with the
world around me matters quite a lot.
I think
this is where we often lose our way in our religious traditions. The thinking
goes something like this: “I profess to love God, so I have to be perfect.” Or
maybe this, “Getting my religious beliefs correct is so important that I have
to dissect the Bible repeatedly until I am CERTAIN that I am doing all the
right things. Then I can tell everyone else
what all the right things are and ‘hold them accountable’ to the things I have
determined are right. You know, for their sake.” Or maybe it sounds like this, “Jesus
died for me, so I owe him a life that is free from sin.” And in our desperation
to be “Godly,” we somehow manage to make ourselves God. In our mad dash toward
righteousness, we can actually lose what makes us most like Jesus, the ability
to see people as whole and beautiful just as they are. And I am afraid that what
happens often is that we grow up learning how to manage our images instead of how
to manage our hearts.
How many times have you heard
someone say or even said yourself, “He just seemed like such a nice guy” or “She
always seemed like such a Godly woman,” when someone’s harmful life choices
have all of a sudden been unveiled? How many people have you known or heard
about that attended church faithfully, taught Sunday school, or maybe even pastored
a church that lived a double life for YEARS that no one knew about? How does
this happen? We learned how to manage our images instead of how to manage our
hearts. When what is harped on in your church or your home is sin, and a list
of what constitutes sin, and how angry sin makes God, and how people who love
God don’t sin, and how you better know what is and is not a sin, and how sin
will get you thrown into eternal torture (even though we also teach that grace
is all-encompassing, go figure), you form expectations of yourself that are
unrealistic. And when you fall short of those expectations what happens? You
experience crippling shame and fear.
When you are taught from childhood
by your parents, your church, or others that you are not allowed to make
mistakes, guess what? You have no choice but to develop two personas. This may
eventually come out in finding out the pastor has been having an affair for 10
years. Or it might come out in a diagnosable mental illness from so many years
trying to live two lives – the one where you are perfect and sinless and the
one where you are an actual human. Is harping on sin and perfection actually
counterproductive to preventing the hurtful behaviors we are trying to prevent?
I think so. Maybe the shame spiral and the lack of self-compassion that accompany
these modes of religion are, in fact, a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts that
leave us miserable trying to live up to the “expectations” of the God that actually
lives within us. Maybe we behave miserably
because we are miserable in our shame and imperfection. If we would only accept
that we innately bear God’s image instead of trying to earn it, might we live
in ways that are healthier for ourselves and everyone else around us? I say,
absolutely. I have gone through my own transformation and realization of how
legalistic thinking caused incomparable damage in my life. And now, I sit in
therapy sessions and listen to clients talk about how much shame they feel and
how they can’t forgive themselves or love themselves. These deeply ingrained
beliefs about themselves came from a harsh interpretation of a good and loving
God. And it just breaks my heart.
What does it mean to bear God’s image?
It is not a heavy weight that one has to carry on your back. It is the thing
that makes you feel so light you could fly. God’s image is not restraining. It
is freeing. It is so freeing. What have we done to God’s image that we should wear
it like handcuffs? Oh, that we could unravel our doctrine and look at God’s face
for just one minute. Everything would change. We would never be the same.
