Religious Trauma and How To Deal With It
Have you experienced religious trauma?
By religious trauma, I mean the pain caused by or in the name of religion, religious leaders, or those bearing religious doctrines (maligned as they may or may not be) in their hands and breast. It can be as devasting to the soul and spirit as other forms of trauma such as covert incest or emotional incest.
An Example of Religious Trauma
My first brush with religious trauma happened early in my life.
We were living in suburban Minneapolis, at the time. Dad was the Associate Pastor at the large Lutheran church across the street. We had been members there for eight years and enjoyed the parish and people very much, when one evening Dad and Mom sat the six of us kids down in the living room where we had spent many Christmases and countless other family events, most of which somehow tied into the life and times of that church across the street, as is the case in most parsonages. This evening would be no different.
While I don’t recall much of the specific conversation, the main point was clear.
The Senior Pastor, whom everyone knew to have a hefty ego and grand ambitions, but was, to this point, a rather jolly, likable fellow, had announced to the Church Council that my father was being asked to resign, as soon as possible. Though he (my father) had engaged in no bad actions and stepped afoul of no one, as he was a simple man from farm stock, who was committed only to serving his flock and being a kindly man, he just didn’t fit in with this new Senior Pastor, who had been there but a few years. He didn’t fit the grand plan.
There was much griping among the five brothers and sister; one struggling to discern whether the Senior Pastor’s house should be met with a hail of eggs or dog excrement. But, in the end, we ate it. Dad ate it, his pride understandably wounded, and now forced to live across the street from this church that had turned its back on him. (Mom and Dad had purchased the parsonage from the church, years prior, and would go on to live there another 25 years, or so.)
The shock of that night, as well as all of us having to subsequently witness Dad’s barely hidden wound, for several years after, and his struggle to find a new place in life, as he had become disenchanted with the very work of parish ministry that he had done for roughly 30 years, at that point, impacted all of us.
In short, the healthy skepticism Mom and Dad had already bred into us (yes, even the pastor taught his kids to question religion, church, God, and the whole shmear), had now turned to bitterness and animus. Dad would never return to parish ministry, instead taking a few years to dabble, before landing for his final 15 years as a chaplain at the Veteran’s Hospital in Minneapolis, where he was very happy, as his primary responsibility was simply to talk and pray with, and offer counsel to, veterans.
Today, my parents have been deceased for years. Four of us siblings attend church regularly. Two do not. I was a pastor, in different capacities, in five different parishes, for over 15 years, but have not been in religious ministry for roughly the same amount of time.
Religious Trauma: No Religion Is Exempt
As a pastor and soul counselor for 30 years, I have heard many stories of religious trauma, first-hand, from clients, friends, parishioners, family, and acquaintances:
A friend, growing up with absent parents, upon the invitation of her older sister walked down to a small church, one Sunday, as an eight-year-old. Feeling welcome, they stayed, not long later become trapped sex slaves, for years;
A father overseas reached out to me, recently, seeking just a conversation, because, in the last year, his son had been killed in the Hamas-Israel conflict, and he feels as though his God does not hear his entreaties;
I, personally, was squeezed out of two parish ministry positions for my published stance supporting gay rights, specifically the rights of gay clergy, in one case a full decade before our religious denomination took an official stance of support. I also got thrown out of the ordained ministry pipeline three times by superiors in my denomination for my stance on gay rights, and, perhaps more significantly, my groundbreaking, radical book, at the time, Spiritual But Not Religious, having been the first author to both name and delineate what would decades later become the largest spiritual-religious movement in US history, and have been cited by Wikipedia and other sources as such;
A client, decades ago, had been very poorly treated by her husband, and it always came from him in the name of their religion and God; she has been an atheist since;
A friend told me of growing up in the US South, in the 1950s and 60s, and remembering her African-American church being set ablaze, and the profound hatred it stirred in her, as well as a gnawing fear of going to church;
Another very dear friend, told me recently of his fear of going to synagogue in the US, after all that is going on overseas;
An imam tells me of mistreatment by his superiors and the effect of souring him to both his religion and, at times, his God;
An Indian-American client told me stories of being expected by his parents to practice their religion, even though he suffered teasing at school and later abandoned religion because of it;
Don’t even begin to ask me the number of clients I get every year, to this day, even in the 2020s in America, Canada, and the supposed civilized world, who live in a house where all manner of vile sh*t is perpetrated in the name of religion or some God, whether by a spouse, a parent or by their own hand. Don’t even begin to ask me the number of conversations I still have – TODAY! – about the ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ clip from Judeo-Christian Scripture. (As an aside, the confirmation students my Dad used to teach in the 1950s through 1980s would often hear him say, “You can get the Bible to say just about anything if you take a small enough amount of it.” ….God bless that man!)
Lastly, there’s the good ol’ fashioned religious hypocrite person(s) we’ve all experienced in life who put on a good show of their religion and are forever talking religious jargon and highfalutin ideas, but who are mean as a snake or two-faced beyond belief behind closed doors, leaving you with both a bad taste and a distrust for anyone religious or anything having to do with religion.
There is no shortage of stories in the world of abuse, atrocities, and abhorrent behavior all done in the name of one religion or another. History is littered with them.
Yet, history is also gilded with many great and good acts, as well as virtuous and kind people from these same religions. Thus, the conversation is never a simple one. But, there can be no dispute that the prevalence of religious trauma is everywhere and that the long, dark shadow it throws can last years, even decades for an individual, family, or group.
My Quick Take on Religious Ills: Two Words
I have been asked many times, while appearing on TV or radio, speaking on podcasts or to groups, as well as magazine interviews and dinner parties,
“Sven, if you could change one thing in the world, cure one ill, what would it be?”
I’ve thought about this, as I suppose we all have, for decades. My answer is always the same, “Two words. I would change (or add, as it were) two words to every religion or belief system in the world. Somewhere in their creed, I would insert the two words, ‘… for me.’”
“My religion is the best religion in the whole world… for me.”
“We are the one true people, of the one true book, of the one true God… for me.”
“My God can beat up your God, but he won’t, because he’s just perfect… for me.”
I believe that it is the pompous absolutizing of religion and religious experience that has done more hardcore effed-up damage in the world and continues to do so, than any other force in human existence.
And yes, I believe it has done even more damage than avarice, even creating the very infrastructure for said avarice, not to mention patriarchy, wars, genocide, misogyny, slavery, and all manner of sexual predation.
We as humans get sooo full of ourselves when it comes to religion, because too many people and too many sacred books claim to have been gifted to humanity by the gods themselves, and therefore have every right to force themselves on others in both a metaphorical and none-too-literal spiritual rape.
How much suffering would be solved if we could get out of the arrogance too often stirred into the cocktail of religion and its doctrines?
So, What is Religious Trauma? And, Who Carries it?
It’s not a tricky thing to understand, really.
As I mentioned at the top of this article, religious trauma is pain caused by or in the name of religion, religious leaders, or those bearing religious doctrines (maligned as they may or may not be) in their hands and breast.
Or, in terms a bit more crass, “It’s the sh*t that gets left inside someone when some religious f**ker does some sh*t they shouldn’t be doing and like their own religion likely condemns, oddly enough.” I mean, it takes no small amount of theological gymnastics to assert violence when your God and his spokesman son claim, “Love, love, love.”
It could be argued we all carry religious trauma, to some greater or lesser degree, dependent upon the degrees of separation from the trauma-inducing event.
Do/did I carry religious trauma (now healed) from what was done to my father, and the aftermath?
Yes. And I had to heal that in the years subsequent.
Do my children carry religious trauma from that event, as well as from my numerous time of being ousted from pastoral ministry?
I think so, because I stopped going to church, and neither of them presently do.
Will their children carry their grandfather’s or great-grandfather’s religious trauma?
Well, at the very least, it’s unlikely the children will go to church, if their own parents don’t, right? Is not that the residue of religious trauma in its mildest form?
Perhaps your religious trauma, or that of someone you know or love, gets triggered upon passing a religious building or seeing religion depicted or discussed on TV. Then all sorts of emotions get stirred up inside, almost as if you can’t shake the event.
It persists until we have the courage to go inside, into the pain and assorted feelings, and pull them out to discuss them, even if only with our journal. It’s to begin to no longer carry the emotional charges associated with that trauma but to flush those charges out.
Pain that gets passed from one person to the next
Religious trauma is the pain that gets passed from one person to the next, and the belief system that both delivers that pain and the new belief system that takes root in the gut of the receiver. For inflicted pain always sows seeds of strange fruits, such as, “I’m dirty,” “I’m worthless,” “I don’t matter,” “Nobody really loves me,” “There is no god, not if he can allow that,” etc. And again, until those messages and the pain that drive them are walked into and addressed, they will continue to generate hurt inside and potentially onto others. For, hurt people hurt people.
How Does Religious Trauma Manifest?
Religious trauma can manifest in forms of lost sleep, ongoing anxiety, depression, difficulty interacting with others, bitterness, and extreme sarcasm (particularly towards religion and religious people), and other forms of hurting others, hurting self, pulling away from others, or disconnecting from engagement in life.
It becomes so easy, when we’ve been hurt, to turn an angry eye and acerbic tongue against others, against humanity, and against life itself. But then the trauma wins, then the pain wins, and then your lowest self wins.
To live in a world that we strive to make better and be a presence of love and support in, to live a life that you not only feel proud of but actually enjoy means to have the courage to not let the pain drive you, but to go into the pain, fears, and BS beliefs you’ve come by that cause you to be bitter and hurting, and to drive them out of you by discussing, detailing, and deliberately bringing up and out of you all that hurts.
To change the world in the biggest ways
Requires changing who I am and how I walk in this world.
It is to have the brass balls to go into my own pains inside,
Heal them, flush them incessantly, until I am a clearer and kinder vessel
And instrument of love, support, and kindness in the world.
To come back to the spirit of love that has always dwelt inside you
At the bedrock of your soul
Is what it means to live from your Source, from centeredness…
To live life from your soul.
Are you there, yet?
A Shockingly Frequent Trauma
The thing about religious trauma is that it’s the forgotten stepchild of traumas. We all know about it, but it always seems to take a back seat to sexual trauma, childhood trauma, emergency trauma, medical trauma, bullying, and all the other painful crud life can bring. For, on one hand, we often think,
“Well, I wasn’t molested by some priest and I don’t send those TV evangelist crooks my money. So, I don’t really have religious trauma. Doesn’t apply to me.”
While that may be true, what you might be missing are the subtle ways you are experiencing even mild religious trauma. Because it’s not always the biggest stuff that impacts us most.
Sometimes, it’s the slow drip of repeated interactions with small situations or certain people that burnishes an image or feeling deep into us. And, because of the commonality of religions, no matter what country you live in, it’s very common to have interactions with religious people and religions themselves.
In fact, the four first books I wrote (Spiritual but not religious; Rescuing God from Christianity; The 7 Evangelical Myths; and Badass Jesus), while I’m really trying to get the reader to deeper places of personal spirituality, the books are also a rebuke of the myriad ways religion, specifically Christianity in America, has hurt people and how people can heal from that and have highly productive and enjoyable lives.
Even Religious Trauma Requires Healing
And, it’s important to remember that while religious trauma comes with its own nuances and forms, depending on the type of trauma, it’s still necessary to do the work to heal from it.
And healing from trauma, of any sort, still requires the courage and tenacity to go into the pain and begin to look at it, feel it, and deliberately and actively put it into words about the experience and the feelings that accompany it, until the pain has fully been purged from you.
So, whether you are daily following the events transpiring in the Middle East with carnage on both sides, struggling with the seemingly forever intractable and endlessly labyrinthine religious wars, or are galled by non-spiritual actions of religious people in your own town, you may be getting peppered with, or soaked in, traumatizing experiences as a direct or indirect result of religion.
This means there’s work to do – on yourself! – if you’re going to live a happy life from a place of soul, love, and inspiration.
>> How To Do An Effective Soul Detox
Burned But Still Spiritual Despite Religious Trauma
Is it possible to still be spiritual if you’ve gotten pain inflicted onto you by religion or some religious person?
Well, obviously, that partly depends upon your definition of spiritual, or what I call a soulful life. See, I very much believe that a soulful life is very possible, regardless of whether you are religious, or not.
Whether you believe in a god or not, to live from your soul is to have removed the pains, fears, and BS beliefs that you were taught about yourself, way back in childhood, and to then live in and from a place of deep connection to your most authentic self.
It is to live life from a centered sense of knowing self and knowing when things feel right to you and when they don’t.
It is to live in a state of love and kindness, but also intensity, fire for those things that fire your spirit, and deep calm inside, amid it all.
It is live with a sense of ALIVENESS that is more than mere put-on-a-happy-face.
It is to have full control of the throttle of your life, such that you have more than two speeds (fully on and fully shut down); your energy and speed are not just binary but can be dialed up or dialed way up, or dialed back to full idle, or to any number of speeds and intensity level, in between.
It is to feel what you feel, in each moment, and to allow yourself that, trust the truths inside what you feel, and act faithfully from that inner certainty, fully willing to make mistakes, fully willing to admit fault, and fully enjoying the ride, come what may.
Religion and Your Love Cup
To live from a place of soul is to continually clean out the vessel that is your Love Cup from new and old pains, tired and encrusted beliefs that no longer serve you or others, and to seek to live with clarity and a sense of a clean heart. And, none of this requires religion.
Religion, done well, can actually enhance this, if that religion has beliefs that align with the dignity and truths of who you are. But, if your religion, past or present, does not breathe life into you, it is not your religion. And, you are allowing someone else’s belief system to tear you down and suck your life energy out of you. Truth be told, you can still choose to stick with that religion, even if it continues to rob you of life. But, why would you?
At what point do you no longer carry around the pains and bitterness, or beliefs and actions of religions or religious people who hurt you or maybe causing you to hurt others and your own doggone self? When do you finally dive in and begin the deliberate healing process to be rid of your own religious trauma?
Your greatest happiness and peace stand on the other side of your trauma, waiting for you to move toward them and soon embrace them!
Peace.
-- Sven Erlandson, MDiv, Is The Author Of Seven Books, Including 'Badass Jesus: The Serious Athlete And A Life Of Noble Purpose' And 'I Steal Wives: A Serial Adulterer Reveals The REAL Reasons More And More Happily Married Women Are Cheating.' He Has Been Called The Father Of The Spiritual But Not Religious Movement After His Seminal Book 'Spiritual But Not Religious' Came Out 15 Years Ago, Long Before The Phrase Became Part Of Common Parlance And Even Longer Before The Movement Hit Critical Mass. He Is Former Military, Clergy, And NCAA Head Coach For Strength And Conditioning; And Has A Global Counseling/Consulting Practice with offices In NYC, NJ, And Stamford, CT: BadassCounseling.Com
