What is religious trauma? Well, I would say that this term refers to any scenario where one’s religion either causes or contributes to traumatic events in one’s life. For instance, in my job I encounter women whose religion contributed to the dynamic of their abusive relationships and/or caused them to stay in abusive situations far longer than they otherwise would have. There are plenty of other examples. Maybe your religion told you that you were inherently and hopelessly flawed, so you spent 30 years of your life hating yourself. Maybe your religion told you that if you tripped up and had sex before you were married you were like a dirty rag or a partially eaten candy bar, so you always viewed yourself that way after that one night and therefore decided you should settle for any spouse who would accept you in your dirty state. Maybe someone told you that you were going to hell because you liked boys and not girls, but you had no idea how to make yourself like girls. So, you lay awake at night as a 12-year-old terrified of burning eternally. If that’s not traumatic, I don’t know what is.
My supervisor in my internship
often said that the real long-term effects of trauma don’t come from the event
itself. They come from the beliefs a person forms as a result of the event. For
instance, if a woman is assaulted and forms the belief that all men are
dangerous and no space is safe, it is that belief that will cripple her in the
long run. Religious trauma is unique because it often instills the traumatic
belief on the front end. Some examples might be “You are inherently bad and
dirty” or “You are supposed to be subservient to men” or “If you do anything at all wrong
you are in danger of hell”. People then live their lives out of those beliefs.
And the consequences can be traumatic. For people who have experienced this, it is
nearly impossible to not link the pain of their life experiences to the
religious teachings that led their decision-making processes. When a person
goes through the healing process to recover from devastating life events, it
can become nauseating to be in the same religious environment where those guiding
beliefs were learned.
I think religious trauma is hard
for some to understand because some people haven’t endured the type of jarring
life experiences that expose flawed beliefs. If you ascribe to a set of beliefs
and life goes swimmingly well, then there is not really a reason to question
them. However, when you traipse through the dark wilderness of trauma and pain,
you are forced to consider what led you down this path. Oftentimes people find
that their religious beliefs were a major player. This is religious trauma. And
then there is the more obvious form of religious trauma where churches publicly
shame or even disfellowship members who step out of line with their doctrine.
This has happened to too many domestic abuse victims to count. They finally got
strong enough to file for divorce, and the church called them sinners and cast
them away – often supporting the abuser who claimed he wanted to change or
denied the abuse altogether. Human beings are created by God for community.
When a person invests years of their life into a community and is banished (for
whatever reason) from that community - it is traumatic.
“Tara, what are you saying? Do you
hate the church?!” No, not at all. I love it. The idea behind church is
beautiful. A community of people who love and support one another and build
each other up like the one in Acts is amazing. Like I said, I firmly believe that
we were created for community. The church has given me the beautiful gift of
community at so many times in my life. But it has also given me religious
trauma that makes it hard for me walk through the doors right now. Like so many
things in life, the good and the bad coexist and can’t be untied. However, when
it comes to church, I think that the vision Christ set out for the church is so
different from where the majority of churches find themselves today. In
America, we run everything like a business. Churches too. And it is a problem.
There is a balancing act that occurs within church leadership to keep the money
coming in (that keeps the church running) that is complex and exhausting.
The other place where we struggle
is in deciding what church is supposed to look like. I don’t know how many
Christian denominations there are, but there are a lot! How did we end up with
so many different versions of the same religion? Well, have you ever played the
game “telephone”? You sit in a circle with a lot of people. One person whispers
a long message to the person next to them. Then that person whispers it to the
next and so on. By the time you get to the end of the circle, the person who
repeats the message usually has a very different conglomeration of words than
the one who started out. It is the nature of the transmission of information.
It’s not necessarily anyone’s fault (though occassionally it is malicious).
Usually, they really tried. The church has had centuries of “telephone”. Peter
got his say. Paul got his. Constantine, Augustine, Calvin, Luther - they all put in pieces. Over time the idea of church as a
community of believers who gathered together and supported one another became
an institution with a list of rules. Which community has the right list of
rules? Whichever one YOU are in of course. Who can be in the community? The
people who agree to follow these rules. Who made the rules????? A lot of
different (mostly male) humans. You see the issue.
“But, Tara, what about the Bible?
Are you saying it isn’t correct?” Okay, again, “telephone”. Do I love the
Bible? Yes. Do I think it is useful and informative about the nature of God and
the life of Jesus? Yes. Do I think you can take every word literally and make a
perfect book of rules using it? Nope. Even if you had the original transcripts
of the Bible, you would have to make assumptions as to what a writer means at
times just like you have to with any writing. But with our English Bibles, they
have been put through a many-tiered translation process. I’m so thankful for
that process because it gave us access to the Bible. But it also means that there
are certainly things that are not exactly on par with the original. And even if
we were to assume that every word of our English Bibles was absolutely in line
with the original transcripts (it’s not), it contradicts itself on basic
factual information in several places. What am I saying? People have used
literal interpretations to shame and punish people for a really long time. And
they choose which ones to use. “Women are to be silent” – that one is forever!
“Don’t braid your hair or wear pearls” – well obviously that’s cultural. “God
hates divorce” – obviously an overarching statement for all marriages for all
time! “If you look at a woman with lust you are committing adultery” – well
obviously he’s exaggerating. You get the idea. It’s a double bind, and people
get caught in the crossfire. And lives get damaged.
I want to touch on something here,
what do you do with the people who taught you the things that ended up hurting
you? After all, they were your community. They invested in you. Well, I guess
everyone’s experience and level of trauma is different. For me, I truly believe
that the unhealthy messages I learned came (for the most part) from people who genuinely loved me
and were doing the best they knew how to do with the limited information and
experiences that they had. They were a part of the same institution and system
that I was bought into. And there is so much fear instilled within those systems,
that people truly believe that the only way to love someone is to build the
same walls around them that they have built around themselves. So, for me, I
choose to love and accept those people who unknowingly hurt me and be thankful
for the positive things they gave me. I find this the most freeing and healthy
way to live. I myself am certain that in my 20s I taught things to the teenage girls
at my church that would make me shudder now (and I have apologized to at least one of
them). We all grow and learn over time. But here’s the thing – choosing to have
a loving and forgiving attitude toward the people who perhaps misled you doesn’t
mean that you have to stay in that environment. YOU CAN LEAVE and still love
them. YOU CAN SPEAK UP ABOUT THE HARMFUL PARTS and still love them. YOU CAN BE
HONEST and still love them. YOU CAN ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR EXPERIENCE and still love
them. And if they truly loved you all along, they will still love you when you
go down that path and they will want to hear you out.
Religious
trauma is real, and it is heavy. It hits at the most core part of the human
experience. Every aspect of life is affected by spiritual beliefs. If you have
experienced it, I highly recommend therapy to help you work through it. EMDR
therapy can help you reprocess the beliefs that hurt you. And if you know
someone who tells you they are dealing with religious trauma the best thing you
can do for them is to be safe and nonjudgmental and have open arms. Kind of like,
um, Jesus.
