Ensuring Good Intentions Help Instead Of Hurt (A Spirit Of Religion)

Last week I talked about using motivational memes in the right context so they don’t do any harm. This week I want to talk about using religion in the same way. After the multiple, cumulative, conflicting issues I went through for many years, I now really understand the spirit of religion versus a spiritual relationship with God.

I saw the spirit of religion so strongly in the church of my youth that I left Christianity for a while. I’ve talked some about my youthful Christian experiences, so those who follow this blog have probably already figured out there were harmful aspects. I will share one of the final stories that led me to leave the church.

I was in my late twenties, and I became very ill. My symptoms were puzzling, and it took me a while to find a diagnosis. During those last weeks before I found a diagnosis, I had to miss a lot of church. I was very involved in church, and one of the ways I was involved was teaching Sunday school. The Sunday before I found the diagnosis, I had to cancel teaching for the third week in a row. The class coordinator blessed me out when I called to tell him.

Let me explain the phrase bless me out for those who don’t understand. It is a way a Christian person with a spirit of religion cusses you out without using a single cussword. If you are part of the culture, you know what the words mean and that they were said to give you a profane tongue-lashing.

By the next Saturday night, I was really bad. My roommate and my fiancé took me to the emergency room. We were there all night. When we got home the next morning, my roommate got me tucked into bed while my fiancé took my dog for a walk. Someone from the church saw my fiancé walking my dog on their way to church that morning. The rumors that he had spent the night with me in sexually immorality were spreading like wildfire before Sunday services were over. I am now convinced that these rumors had an aspect of revenge for me being too sick to handle the responsibilities I hadn’t been able to handle for three weeks -- combined with the general dysfunction of that church. The dysfunction of that church also led to them denying that I had been in the emergency room all night, even after my roommate and I presented them with my release papers. I now understand that is called cognitive dissonance.

I’ll probably tell that entire story in a future post. For now, let me just say it was a reason for me leaving the church. After wandering aimlessly for a while, I met someone from another religion. Their faith seemed to align with the culture of the Appalachian Mountains my family are from, so I joined their faith. I will probably also tell that story more in a future post. For now, let it suffice to say that I saw the same spirit of religion in the new religion even though it wasn’t directed at me this time.

There was a woman in that group who had a neighbor with lung cancer. He coughed a lot, and his coughing got on her nerves. She would go to the fence between their yards and yell at him through the window of his sick bed room. I ignored it for too long (and that is my guilt in this situation) until something happened in my own personal life that reminded me how abusive she was being to that man. The next time she did it after that reminder, I stood up to her.

The next morning, she talked to me about it in front of two witnesses. She was so embarrassed by her behavior that she told me she was going to leave the group it happened in. I encouraged her to stay – in front of two witnesses. By the end of the day, she was spreading the rumor that I asked her to leave even though I encouraged her to stay. The same cognitive dissonance protected their dysfunction, refusing to hear what the witnesses had to say just like the church had refused to acknowledge hospital release papers. A little over a year later, this group was plastered all over the newspaper due to places this dysfunction had led them. I have wondered every since if they regretted not dealing with that dysfunction earlier when they had the chance.

The point in telling these stories isn’t to make the people involved look bad even though it probably looks that way. The point is what I learned from those experiences. I learned that I didn’t need to change religions – I needed to change me. I was a doormat, and I’d been a doormat in those situations. In a previous blog post, I told how I had asked someone why they did something to harm me. They answered that they saw me like a baby gazelle separated from its Mama on the Serengetti and the temptation was too much to resist. The woman who said that to me was the woman who yelled at the lung cancer survivor and started proxy abuse against me when I finally stood up to her. I realized I needed to stop being that baby gazelle.

Shortly after that, I miraculously met the pastor who led me back to Christianity. He also led me to the best friend I ever had in my life, Linde Grace. I believe the Holy Spirit led me to that pastor because of the way everything worked out and the way Linde Grace helped me learn, step by step, to stop being a doormat. I’m sure I’ll tell that story in a future blog post.

Today, my goal is to remind us that there are people who are spiritual and have a relationship with God and there are people who have a spirit of religion. I think it is called a spirit of religion, because they have a relationship with religion instead of with God. In my faith of Christianity, the bible tells us that we will know people by their fruit, and their fruit is their actions. This is what people mean when they say listen to a person’s actions and not their words. Watch a person’s actions and don’t go into denial about what they mean.

In Christianity, there are scriptures where Jesus tells the religious leaders of his time about their spirit of religion and how displeased he was by it. One of those scriptures is Luke 11:37-54. One thing he says in Luke is that they put heavy burdens on people’s backs and don’t do anything to relieve those burdens – just like that church put heavy burdens on my back and the lady in the other religion put heavy burdens on the back of a lung cancer patient.

Jesus tells people to live by the spirit of the law instead of the letter of the law. This is what Jesus was displaying in the Gospels when he protected the men who were picking grain on the Sabbath. It is what he was displaying when he protected the adultress from being stoned by saying the person without sin should cast the first stone. Putting the needs of people above sticking rigidly to laws like Jesus did in these examples is how we live by the Spirit of the Law.

That does not mean we let people get away with everything. There was an ancient tradition called the binding and loosing of the law that Jesus was referring to when he said to live by the spirit of the law. This means we live by the law (bind it) unless the human need is so great we will put heavy burdens on people’s back and do nothing to relieve them. It does mean we don’t put the law above hunger, like the soldiers who were going to arrest the men picking grain on the sabbath were doing. It means we don’t let men who are guilty of adultery stone a woman for the same crime just because it’s not acceptable for her gender. It means weighing situations with wisdom and fairness.

Too often people who live by a spirit of religion end up abusing people in the name of their religion. Whether they intend to or not isn’t my concern. My concern is helping those who have been abused to find the help they need to escape that environment if they haven’t already, so they can escape the abuse. After that, my concern is to help them heal.

The best advice I’ve been given is to listen to your gut. Your body will speak to you through your gut. Your mind can make justifications and excuses for bad behavior and lead us to repeat abusive patterns. Your heart can lead you to forgive without boundaries (and I’m not saying forgiveness isn’t important – I’m just saying boundaries are important). Your gut will let you know if your situation isn’t good for you. If you feel your gut talking to you in a way that lets you know something isn’t good for you, listen to that.

If you find yourself a victim of religious abuse, the following organizations can help you change you (like I changed me) so you can find a better fit and a safer place to practice your spirituality.

RELIGIOUS ABUSE RECOVERY

Any time you start to recover from anything, you may find yourself being scapegoated by those who are threatened by change. Please also see the section on Scapegoating in the Resource List for this blog. I recommend you see the Resource List to see more detailed information about the religious abuse recovery resources I share in this post as well as to see if there are any other resources on this alphabetical list that can help you. Here is the URL to take you directly to that list: https://ronisharp.wixsite.com/mysite/blog/resource-list-places-that-can-help-you-heal-your-beautiful-self

For people who have converted to Christianity or remained Christian after abuse:

GOODBYE ABUSIVE CHURCH - HELLO HOLY SPIRIT HEALER - EKKLESIA: https://www.facebook.com/groups/goodbye.abuse/ Ekklesia: Biblical Gatherings of Believers 1 Cor. 14:26: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1756282128027517/

Unchurching Group: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=unchurching%20group

For people whose church has told them mental illness in their family/loved one is a sin and want support without that judgment: FACEBOOK GROUP CHRISTIANS AND MENTAL ILLNESS: https://www.facebook.com/groups/christiansandmentalillness/?pnref=story

For people who have been ostracized because of divorce: DIVORCE HOPE: http://www.divorcehope.com/godhatesdivorce.htm For people who are not necessarily looking for a Christian focus, although a Christian focus is welcome: RELIGIOUS RECOVERY: http://www.religiousrecovery.org/