Searching “Religious Trauma” online opens up a slew of heartbreaking stories of people who have been deeply wounded by various churches. When someone is mistreated by a religious community, it can seem evident to born-again Christians that the perpetrating community in question does not actually understand or teach scripture. However, saying something like, “It doesn’t sound like that church believes the gospel or knows Jesus.” Will often be met with, “You say that, but I’ve had bad experiences in all the churches I’ve been to. Christians are just toxic.”
It’s definitely worthwhile to reflect upon how healthy a church’s dynamic is and how they impact their community. However, it’s simply not true that all churches are toxic and dysfunctional. Why, then, does it feel that way to many people?
Churches are supposed to be safe places.
Many, if not most people expect churches to be safe places and it comes as a terrible shock when someone encounters wrong teaching or bad behavior from church members, especially ministers.
Ideally, smaller church congregations would operate as loving families, acknowledging other congregations as being united with them as part of one, global church. This is the dynamic shown in the New Testament with the first churches springing to life. When a church congregation or denomination tolerates sin or bad leadership, Christians may become disillusioned with their community and start having negative associations with anything relating to church.
Churches are made out of people, and people can be terrible.
Everyone is bound to hurt someone else sooner or later in any group of people; whether it be a family, a circle of friends, a workplace, or a church. That’s simply the nature of relationships. Granted, everyone should cut abusive relationships from their life, but it’s impossible to find a circle of people who always act like Jesus.
There are cases when someone is mistreated by a fellow church-goer, and the best course of action would be to simply, “let it go,” or else talk about the issue and seek reconciliation. Instead of that, sometimes a person may choose to hold on to the wrong done to them and allow it to skew their outlook on the church as a whole.
Many churches have genuinely gone off the rails.
It is a sad reality that there are many, many religious communities in existence who have lost sight of the Truth, relying instead on stale tradition or worldly impulses. Such communities are sure to breed immorality such as gossip, shame, self-righteousness, and never-ending conflict. There are churches which are cultic, run authoritatively by narcissistic ministers. These communities shouldn’t come as a surprise to us, however, because the Bible itself warns against them.
The proverbial “wolves in sheep’s clothing” comes from Matthew chapter 7 when Jesus said in verses 15-17, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.”
What are examples of good fruit from a church congregation? That would be “The Fruit of the Spirit” – the signs of the Holy Spirit at work.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
–Galatians 5:22-23
When people present themselves as Christians and abuse others, it can ruin a person’s perception of God, just like an abusive relative can ruin a person’s perception of family. If a church congregation is not centered on God, we won’t see the fruit of His Spirit. We’ll see a congregation constantly wallowing in everything contrary to the Holy Spirit: fear, hopelessness, anxiety, selfishness, evil, unreliability, harshness and intractability.
A person who has spent many years in an environment such as this may take many more years to un-learn what they have been taught to think God is like. Being immersed in a perverse community which taught them falsehoods about God and His word can be traumatic to a person, and they can only be approached prayerfully and with compassion. We may desire to speak truth to a religiously traumatized person, but we must be careful to do it in the right way with God’s love.
“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
–Ephesians 4:14-16
Responding in Love and Compassion
Once when I was a child, I was visiting a farm and another child provoked a rooster. That rooster lashed out at me and left a big gash on my knee. To this day, I still feel apprehensive around roosters. Someone could point out that I only ever had one bad experience with a rooster, but some level of anxiety still remains for me. Telling me that “Not all roosters will attack you,” doesn’t help.
Trauma can cause prejudiced or globalized feelings towards an entire group of people. Someone who grew up in a dysfunctional church may genuinely feel that all churches have unhealthy dynamics. Such a person may not be ready to hear about a healthy Christian community because even the mention of church spikes their anxiety. Telling them “your faith is in people, not in God” won’t take away their pain or negative associations with religious institutions.
Understandably, a person who has been sexually abused may struggle in maintaining a romantic relationship, or they may be apprehensive of sex. However, though countless people have been sexually abused, that doesn’t mean that sex itself is evil. Likewise, though someone may have been abused by someone in a position of spiritual leadership, that doesn’t mean that Christianity is something to fear. But it will certainly take time for an abuse victim to heal.
The greatest tragedy is when a dysfunctional church has skewed someone’s perception of God. If someone has had a traumatic experience in church, it’s not our job to “save” them. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. Trying to humanly convince a spiritually traumatized person that belief in the gospel leads to joy and freedom from shame will probably be a fruitless endeavor. The kindest things Christians can do for people who have experienced religious trauma is to offer a sympathetic ear and, above all else, pray.
Anna Sojourning 