Religious Trauma is a Beast

 As I've mentioned before, I grew up in the church. I've wrestled through questions about religion and faith my entire life. I never felt that the church has limited or felt threatened by those questions, and therefore I felt safe bringing those questions to God as well. The church always felt like a fairly reliable plumb line in my faith.

My most recent church experience has changed all that. I've seen the leadership and body of the church do things that Jesus would never stand behind. We asked questions within our church community and got a lot of clean, white pieces of paper and neatly wrapped boxes full of fluff. When we continued looking deeper for answers our hands were slapped in the form of excommunication, shaming, and, eventually, being fired. "Not a fit for ministry." "Can't support your work in our church." "You make me uncomfortable and challenge my leadership, so you have to go."

The thing about religious trauma is that so much of religion is ingrained into your very core. Religion is all about BEING a certain way and being INFUSED by certain things. The whole idea is to make this who you are and not just be a "Sunday Christian." The goal is to live, breathe, and BE the Church. And that is all fine and dandy until the church is hurting people and not representing the God who we claim to love and serve. If everything was transparent - which it is to God - would he be proud?

I'm finding it incredibly hard to wade through this trauma and separate God - who I don't want to leave behind - with all the junk of religion and church - which I want to bury, put a match to, exile to Hell. I have experienced many beautiful things in my (spiritual) life, and I still believe that there is a force out there that is worth living my life for. But so much of my experiences have been in the context of summer Bible camps, church youth groups, Sunday schools, and Bible college. Is it fair to say that every positive experience was "God" and every negative one was "institution/religion"? It can't be that clear-cut. 

I wish with all my being that I could strip away everything that Jesus doesn't stand for and see clearly what he does. Jesus challenged people, but he didn't hurt people. Jesus welcomed people without demanding change. God is love. Love isn't gatekeeping and spreading rumours and ruining lives. But how do you keep an institution going without membership lists and rules and policies and leaders? Hmm...maybe you don't? Maybe that was the point of the curtain tearing when Jesus said, "It is finished"?

I feel stuck in a perpetual battle of fight versus flight right now. I want to fight for the community that we moved here to be a part of. I want to fight for the beautiful people who have joined us in meeting together to show people that church can be different. I want to fight for justice for those who are still in the harmful, institutional church structure and don't even realize what's going on around them. (I didn't know what people were talking about when they said "church hurt" until it happened to me and suddenly it all felt glaringly obvious.) Things are so messed up. And while I want to fight for all these things, I'm also so tired and so hurt, and I feel so broken. I want to buy a house where nobody knows us and start fresh. I want a clean start. I want to throw away all the junk that has happened in this season and just run away from it all. Staying is hard. But leaving is hard too. It's tempting to glamorize the idea of a clean slate somewhere else, but I know that starting over isn't easy either. I just want to feel whole again. I'm tired of feeling broken. I'm tired of having to constantly untangle and guard my heart against people and feel kicked while I'm down.

Religious trauma. So many people who experience it just walk away from God completely. It's tempting. I'm reading a lot of things about just focusing on yourself and deconstructing everything the church has built in your life and living your life for yourself for a change. Absolutely, deconstructing is necessary. And we aren't meant to function as shells of emptiness without paying attention to who God created us to be. But I don't want to turn my back on God. It's not out of fear - I don't think. I don't know who or what God is as clearly as I thought I did. But I think there is so much in the Bible and in the life of Jesus that models for us just a good way to live. Do I want to be a loving person? Do I want to be someone who is welcoming to people? Do I want to be someone who leaves the world a better place because I was here? Do I want to live in freedom and not in addiction or fear? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I do think living in LOVE is the way I want to live.

And so the work continues. I choose to heal. I choose to do the tedious task of piling the baggage of the church to the left and the truths of God/LOVE to the right. I will relearn who the safe people are. I will relearn what is good and true and right. And I will take many, many naps along the way.