Quitting Church…?

I thought that title might get your attention. If you’re reading this, odds are that that is one thing you would not expect to see out of me, an outspoken Christian and former college minister. “It’s just clickbait, he’s not actually saying he’s quitting church, right?” Well… we need to talk.

If you have read any of my writings, you’ll know that two of the main things I write about are religion/spirituality and mental health. This isn’t my first time to make the connection, but the two of those things often end up going hand in hand, whether for better or for worse.

I’m pretty open about my mental health struggles with anxiety, depression, and the like. I think there has been a wrongful stigma against mental health issues for too long and that mental health issues are much more common than we think or will admit. Mental health is something that we as people have not given much attention until very recently, but I believe should be given just as much priority as our physical health. A healthy body with an unhealthy mind can’t fully function and enjoy life, and a healthy mind with an unhealthy body will not have nearly as good or as many years to experience that life. “What does any of this have to do with quitting church, though?” Don’t worry, we’ll get there. Let’s talk a bit about trauma.

The Wikipedia entry for psychological trauma defines it as “damage to a person’s mind as a result of one or more events that cause overwhelming amounts of stress that exceed the person’s ability to cope or integrate the emotions involved, eventually leading to serious, long-term negative consequences.” Some people who have experienced a majorly traumatic event may develop a condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder where some event or action will cause them to relive their traumatic experience. They may be aware that they are not actually reliving that experience, but their bodies react as though they are, often bringing anxiety, a feeling of impending doom or dying, and the urgent need to take some sort of action.

PTSD is most commonly talked about in relation to veterans who react and feel as though they are back on the frontlines of war when they hear loud noises like fireworks. The sources of PTSD go far beyond going to war, though. Anything traumatic from experiencing or witnessing violence, sexual abuse or rape, or even a traffic accident or other near death experience can cause lasting effects on a person in the form of PTSD.

There’s another form of PTSD, though, that is less commonly talked about: C-PTSD, or Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What makes C-PTSD “Complex” is that it is not caused by a majorly traumatic event like war or a car accident, but rather by a long standing series of connected events. The tricky thing with C-PTSD is that people experiencing it as well as those around them may not even be aware that it is happening. Children who suffer physical abuse from their caregivers can go overlooked unless a teacher at school happens to see bruises on their bodies. People in emotionally or mentally abusive relationships and marriages may be fully convinced that what they are experiencing is completely normal or that they deserve the treatment that they are receiving, so they never even think to reach out for help.

Here’s where religion comes into play. Similar to how PTSD can be caused from unintentional or nonmalevolent sources such as a car accident or watching someone be severely or mortally injured from improper use of construction equipment, C-PTSD can be caused from external sources that may not have the intention or even the awareness of what they are causing.

I’ve talked before about some of my anxieties that I’ve had since childhood of living in constant fear of a God who saw me as wicked and worthless and only wanted to torture me in hell forever. Anyone who knew me at that age can tell you that I had absolutely no reason to believe that as a small child. Though people may not have known that my drive to follow the rules and stay in line were extremely fear driven, they would be able to vouch for those efforts. Sure, I’m not saying I was perfect, but there’s no reason I should have been living in fear of hell and eternal torture as a child.

So where does something like this come from? Nobody directly approached me and told me that I was wretched and on my way to hell, but nobody had to. The source of my trauma was not people or individuals but rather from theology that I now see as toxic and unhealthy. Obviously, not everyone who had a childhood similar to mine came out like this. In the same way, not every veteran who returns from war is unable to stay calm around fireworks and not every person who is in a car accident becomes afraid of riding in cars. While we can’t always make a blanket statement or observation about why certain events do or don’t cause trauma, the fact that some people walk away from those experiences with trauma while others don’t should cause to stop and pay attention.

Now, I want to pause and say that what I’m sharing here are my experiences, how certain theological beliefs shaped me, and why I no longer hold to those beliefs. While I would have delighted to engage in theological debates in the past and try to prove why my beliefs were the “right” beliefs, I’m not looking to do that here. I know not everyone will agree with me and where I am at, and that is fine. This is just me sharing my story and experiences, so please keep comments and remarks civil. You are always free to write and share your story as well, but I’m not forcing anyone to read any of this.

Also, along with how I’m not here looking to start a debate, this is not meant to be a theological thesis paper. I have landed where I am now after years of reading books and listening to podcasts about the historical context of scripture and studying the beliefs of other Christian traditions throughout the centuries. I would be glad to point you to some of the sources I’ve used for study over the years, but nobody wants this to be as long as several books, myself included.

With that all in mind, I want to start with the first problematic theological belief that I faced in my journey: the rapture. If you grew up in the 90s, it’s hard to not at least have some understanding of the belief of the rapture as it was portrayed in movies and books like the Left Behind series. At some point in time, the world will become so wicked that God will teleport all of those who are real Christians to Heaven, and then 7 years of apocalyptic horror will begin for everyone left on earth who did not believe in Jesus.

This belief was the start of my anxieties before my fear of hell even started. I remember having frequent nightmares of riding in a car with my family and all of them suddenly disappearing, leaving me alone in the car to careen off the road. My only hope at that point to escape eternal torture would be to resist the Anti Christ and become a martyr to redeem myself before God. Keep in mind, this is what was going through my head somewhere around the ages of 9 to 12 or so.

Here’s a bit of history on the belief of the rapture that I learned which began to change my view on it later down the road. The idea that there would be a rapture before a great apocalypse wasn’t really a thing in the Church until the 1800s when an Englishman named John Darby developed and popularized the view. Before that, there were different ideas about the end of days that ranged from Jesus returning at the end of the big apocalypse to the idea that the whole apocalypse and the Anti Christ was a metaphor describing the Roman Emperor Nero who attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in 70 AD, which brought a shift from the age of Judaism to the age of the Church.

The main thing to take away from all of that is that the beliefs reflected in popular Evangelicalism of the rapture are not even that old of beliefs, and the beliefs of there even being a great apocalypse at the end of Earth’s time was not the only belief held within the church throughout history. Since the popularization of this view of the end times, it has been used to persuade people to convert to Christianity in hopes of avoiding the great apocalypse and the horrors it would bring. Instead of the love of Christ being what drew people into Christianity, it was fear was being used. Not only was this not the attitude that Christ held towards the people that He reached out to in His life on earth, but you don’t have to go far through history to see that when people are controlled and policed through fear and threats, the ones in charge are rarely seen as holy or as saints. I don’t know about you, but that does not sound like the God that I know, and the God I know does not have some sort of split personality, either.

“So Shane, what DO you believe about how the world will end?” You know what? I honestly don’t know, and I am 100% okay with that. I don’t believe it’s going to be some chaotic and destructive apocalypse. Here’s the thing. Too many people have made an idol of having certainty in knowing their beliefs cannot be wrong. The Bible is FULL of stories of people who had no clue about what God’s plans were but they had faith and trusted. Faith is not “having complete certainty and proof that your beliefs are fact without a doubt.” Rather, faith is the “evidence of things unseen:” it’s a belief in something that you don’t have proof or certainty in, it’s trust. I don’t have to KNOW how things are going to play out to know that I trust God with myself, and that trust is based completely in love, not in fear or threats.

While we’re on the subject of fear, let’s move on to the next theological belief that I had to unravel before it unraveled me: hell. This is a much meatier topic to try to wrestle with than the idea of the rapture, but it’s also not as straightforward or cut and dry as I understood it in my youth. The view of hell that is most popular in modern America is that of Eternal Conscious Torment: the idea that the souls of the people who have rejected God during their lives on earth are forcefully kept alive for eternity to be tortured and punished, either by literal physical torture or some sort of metaphorical mental or emotional torture. This view has actually been around for a majority of Christianity, but it is not the only view that has existed or can be supported by scripture.

It’s not very difficult to understand how a view of hell like this to a child along with the idea and fear of God being ready to send said child to hell (and being completely justified in doing so) could lead to constant anxiety or trauma-like responses if it was dwelt on for very long. Obviously many people would argue that that is not taking the view of hell or eternal conscious torment responsibly or with a full understanding, to which I would respond by saying “exactly, and if you hand a child a knife or fire without teaching them how to handle it properly, don’t be surprised when they get hurt.”

I want to pause again to clarify something else. As I am explaining or critiquing these different theological views and pointing out how they can be harmful or traumatizing to children, I in no way believe that pastors or church leaders and teachers have had a malicious intents in what they teach. I know that these people have only taught what they genuinely believe to be the truth, and believe that the truth should be taken seriously. I do not point to individuals or people as the sources of my trauma, but rather a broken system, one that has missed the mark of what it means to understand the love of God. The answer to my healing and freedom can’t be found in addressing or confronting people, but these beliefs. With that all in mind, let’s jump back to different understandings of hell.

Another somewhat popular view throughout church history goes by the name Annihilationism, which is the idea that when people who have rejected God during their lives on earth die, they face judgement for their sins and instead of facing an eternal and infinite amount of punishment, they face a finite and temporary amount of punishment, after which God ceases to maintain their existence and they are “annihilated.” This comes from the understanding that all life comes from God and that nobody outside or separate from God can actually have eternal life of any sort. This view also argues that a finite punishment is more appropriate for a finite number of sins and sees the view of eternal conscious torment as portraying God as a Sadist, or someone who derives pleasure from inflicting pain on others.

If you are someone who has had trouble grasping the severity of Eternal Conscious Torment and have always thought there was something that reflected God more accurately based on your views, Annihilationism might make sense to you. There is a theologian by the name of Edward Fudge who has written a very thorough book called “The Fire that Consumes” which looks through scripture at depictions of Hell as well as Church and Jewish historical context to understand hell from an Annihilationist’s viewpoint. If a theological textbook is too heavy for you to digest, you can find a video lecture on YouTube given by Mr. Fudge that gives a pretty thorough overview of this viewpoint within about an hour.

Annihilationism is what helped me begin stepping away from eternal conscious torment and to break down my views that all God wanted to was to torture me for merely existing. There are other views of hell as well, but they aren’t as relevant in this discussion since I am trying to explain theological views that have caused me issues throughout my life.

After my understandings of hell had started to be worked through, I was then faced with the problematic question of “what exactly is the Bible?” The short answer to that would be “the Word of God.” Here’s the thing, though: so many people have different understandings of what exactly that means, and that very much matters. People are quick to say that the Bible is easy to understand and live out, and yet, throughout the centuries, the Bible itself has been used by people to justify actions, or should I say “sins,” like slavery, genocide, and oppression. Most people will respond to that by saying that those people were obviously not real Christians, but here’s the thing: even if that’s true, many of them were totally convinced that they were in the right for their actions. I’m not so sure the Bible is as clear and simple to understand as people say it is.

So why do so many people understand the Bible differently, then? To better understand that, we need to define a few words first that are often used to describe the Bible: Inerrant, Infallible, and Inspired.

To describe the Bible as inerrant is to say that it literally does not have errors in it. Because it is the Word of God, nothing in it can be off. If there seem to be contradictions or errors, they must have come from the human process of translating the texts from the original languages that they were written in. Here’s the thing, though, there are plenty of places where the Bible contradicts itself, from describing events differently, giving different locations where events happened, and such. I’ll take a moment to repeat here that I’m not writing a theological thesis paper here; if you are curious about this, feel free to do your research to find these contradictions and then fact check them with your own Bible to see whether or not things actually disagree with each other.

The word infallible is related to inerrancy but has to do more with how the Bible was written rather than what is written in it. Saying that the Bible is infallible means that God basically chose to speak to the writers of the Bible and tell them exactly what words to write down for scripture. There are looser understandings of this that state that God did not tell the writers exactly the words and phrasing to write but rather all of the important concepts and necessary details, meaning the all of the content of scripture is correct, but each writer used their own unique voice and way of speaking as they wrote. Sometimes this is used to explain some of the more insignificant contradictions that don’t actually cause a problem with the overall message of the Bible.

The last word, inspired, refers to the fact that the overall message of the Bible came from God and was intentional. It wasn’t just a random happenstance of writings that we got lucky to have. This word is one we use often, so explaining it in the context of scripture doesn’t take that much effort.

Here’s the thing: I do not need the Bible to be 100% perfect/accurate/etc. to see it as trustworthy. The fact that there are contradictions in the Bible does not make me uncomfortable. It does, however, start to inform how I do see the Bible, though. God is limitless, perfect, flawless. It can be argued that He is the only person or thing that truly meets this definition. The Bible is the Word of God; it is not, however, God. It was created by God. Saying “it was created by God” is most people’s short explanation of why the Bible has to be perfect. I would say that that is the very reason it cannot be perfect.

Look at humanity, the thing made directly in God’s image. From the very beginning we have shown ourselves to be imperfect. But that did not stop God from calling us good. God works through our imperfections to change and grow over time to become better people and to be more like Him. Human life is messy, both separately as individuals and collectively as humanity. Nobody looks at a newborn baby and expects them to have a stable well-paying job the very next day, but even as helpless and unstable as babies are, we find ourselves loving them and wanting to give them everything we can to see them thrive.

How I understand things, the Bible is the Word of God, as told by imperfect man. It’s a beautiful reflection of man’s pursuit and search for God, and God actually showing up. As kids, we tend to misinterpret the meaning or intention of life lessons that our parents are trying to teach us. We get general idea and strive to live it out, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some course correction along the way. Sometimes we try to write down or share these imperfect understandings of the life lessons to others in hopes of helping others out as well.

“Doesn’t the idea of the Bible not possibly being 100% perfect cause problems, though? How can we trust God if the Bible isn’t perfect? How can we know if we’re believing the ‘right’ thing or not?” I used to think these very same things. In my head, everything was 100% black or white: either the Bible is perfect and God is real and can be trusted, or the Bible is imperfect meaning God can’t be real or trusted. This is actually the opposite of faith. If faith is putting trust in something you can’t fully prove or see, then why can’t we have faith that even if the Bible isn’t perfect, God is still good and perfect and can be trusted?

Parents don’t try to make sure their kids completely understand what they’re teaching before they are able to share or talk about it with others, like why we should share or not hit other kids. We may share or refrain from hurting others for selfish gain, but that is better than the alternative of hoarding everything or hitting anyone who looks at us the wrong way. With continued practice, we can learn how to understand to live out those lessons for the right reasons.

Looking at all of humanity throughout history as God’s “child,” His perfection and love are not broken just because we are still trying to figure out what He’s teaching us. A child does not stop loving or trusting their parent just because they themselves misunderstood what was trying to be taught.

This all raises the question of “what is the main idea or lesson that God has been trying to convey to humanity since the beginning?” I would argue that that lesson can be summed up in one word: love.

“God is love.” “Love God and love others.” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”

God’s view towards us is unfathomable love. Somewhere along the way, we shifted it from love to displeasure. Instead of making a relationship with God about becoming aware of and engulfed in His love, we made it about how displeased God is with us, forcing us to earn His love. We’ve made His love conditional and gave it requirements. We made the focus about justice and retribution rather than kindness and forgiveness. And with all of this, we’ve shaped our understanding of what Jesus’s death on the cross was for.

The most popular view of why Jesus died on the cross in modern Evangelicalism is the Penal Substitutionary Atonement view which states that while God loves humanity, His wrath and justice cannot go unappeased for all of the wrongs done by mankind. Because of this, Jesus came to suffer the punishment and penalty for all sin.

While I do believe that God detests injustice and seeing people be hurt, abused, and taken advantage of, I feel like this view puts more focus on retribution than on love. We are taught that forgiveness means to no longer hold a debt over someone who has wronged us even though it hasn’t been repaid, and yet as powerful, infinite, and loving that God is, the only reason He is able to forgive us for getting angry and yelling at someone who didn’t make our cheeseburger right at McDonalds is because Jesus was tortured and suffered on the cross in our place. That just doesn’t add up to me.

There are many other views that have been popular throughout church history of why Jesus died on the cross. The Christus Victor view sees the crucifixion not as a necessary payment being made to an unappeasable God, but rather an overcoming of sin and all of the destruction that it has brought to mankind. The Ransom Theory view believes that when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit in the Garden of Eden, they transferred their ownership from God to Satan and the crucifixion is God’s act of paying our “ransom” to bring us back.

The last view is the Moral Influence which holds that not only is God all loving enough to forgive us of our sins without expecting some form of payment (even from Himself), but God is all powerful enough that He doesn’t need to “do” anything to free us from the curse of sin or ransom us from Satan. The crucifixion was God’s way not of “enabling” love, forgiveness, or freedom, but rather was the ultimate reflection of what already existed. Even in His last moments of torture and murder, Jesus said “forgive them.” It’s out of love like this which compels me towards God, not out of fear of being tortured for all eternity if I reject Him because I am wretched and deserve to suffer.

“Okay, so you’ve said a lot of stuff now that I may not necessarily agree with, but I don’t see any exact reason why you need to ‘quit church’?” Think back through all of these beliefs that I was challenged with and had to reevaluate: what was the overarching theme through them all? Fear: a fear that I now see as uncalled for and an inaccurate representation of the truth. Fear is actually too weak of a word to describe what I experienced internally throughout most of my life. Terror, paranoia, and trauma are all much more accurate words to describe it. Reaching a place where I really know and trust that when God says He loves me that it’s true has taken me years of work and effort.

Here’s the problem, though, and anyone who has experienced trauma of any sort can attest to this: while things do get better and easier to deal with, trauma more so goes dormant than completely leaving. Managing trauma is a lot like managing diabetes. While you can’t truly get rid of diabetes, by managing what you take into your body you can minimize the symptoms of diabetes, almost to the point of not noticing that it’s even there.

I understand that “not all churches or church settings are the same or are bad.” I’m very thankful for my church here in Nashville. Ever since I began unraveling all of these theological views that have given me issues, though, I’ve noticed that many of the elements of church life such as worship music have been like eating just enough cookies to cause blood sugar to spike. If extreme anxiety is the trauma victim’s “health complication” that is caused from “high blood sugar” and the messages of fear are the actual “sugar” causing these health complications, then these elements of church life are like “bread, fruit juice, or pasta.” While these things are not bad for you in and of themselves in the way that overly sugary desserts like cake or ice cream would be, they can still cause some serious issues for blood sugar if you are a diabetic.

I’ve found myself in the middle of worship services unable to focus because of unprompted and unexplainable feelings of dread and worry coming over me. Instead of leaving a church gathering feeling encouraged, uplifted, or even healthily challenged, I leave feeling a dreadful funk without understanding why and having the rest of my day just not quite feeling right. It’s like the confusion that can come from having fruit cause issues for diabetes even though it is natural, healthy, and contains vitamins: “I thought this was supposed to be good for me?” What is not bad or even good for most people can cause a resurgence of anxiety in me as that old dormant trauma is fed.

It’s possible that over time with a carefully watched diet, someone with diabetes can manage some minor sweets with little to no damage being done. It’s also possible that life for a diabetic may just look different as they receive their nutrition through other intentionally chosen foods. For me at this point in my life, I am taking my mental and emotional health very seriously. I have not neglected my spiritual health, as I feel I have never been closer or trust God more in my life, but coming from a place of trauma, I have to be aware of how I am taking my “nutrients” in. It may be that down the road that I am able to reintroduce some healthy forms of “sugar” back into my life, but for now and the foreseeable future, I have got to go on a diet from church.

I will say that while I do believe many churches are serving up healthy bread and fruit juice (metaphorically speaking, not a communion pun), much of the American church is serving up slices of strawberry cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. That should not come as a surprise at this point, though. Over this past few years, some of Evangelicalism’s behaviors have pushed me to my sugary intake limit. With the election of Donald Trump, we have seen a rise in white supremacy, a lack of overall concern and care for others who are different than ourselves, and an obsession with both a man and a political party that cannot be described as anything else but idolatry.

Here’s the thing: the root of these sinful issues is once again fear: fear of others different than ourselves, fear of not having my way of doing things policed over others, fear that the world is just out to get you. I understand that “not all Evangelicals are like that,” but the fact that it is basically impossible to separate people who identify with these extremist stances from identifying as Evangelicals or even just as Christians is cause for concern.

Throw in the overall treatment of the church’s treatment of the pandemic and you’ve just dunked this already sugary slice of cheesecake into a vat of strawberry syrup. It’s a bit hypocritical that so many people see not wearing a mask as “not living in fear and trusting God” and yet they will wear a seatbelt when they drive or not be able to leave their house without their gun. Considering everything about masks being more of a protection for others from our own illnesses than it is a protection for ourselves, it all just comes across as utterly selfish.

Take a look at how churches handled large gatherings as well. Some churches like the one I’ve been attending chose to adapt and find other means for having church life together such as streaming weekly services and having small group gatherings over video chats. Our church only briefly opened in person with limited capacity for a few weeks in November and promptly resumed going all digital as cases began to spike again. I’ve seen so many churches that barely stopped meeting in person for a month or two at the beginning of the pandemic, and for what? The concern for our neighbors and putting the lives and health of others first is not important enough for us to find alternative ways of doing things? It’s not only selfishness, it’s sending out a false message that nothing our health officials say can be trusted or taken seriously. I don’t care if you believe that it has all been exaggerated so hospitals can receive more funding. More people have died and too many hospitals have spent too long at capacity to justify our selfishness as individuals because we just want things to be “normal.”

Even though I’ve not partaken in this “strawberry cheesecake delight,” just seeing how much “sugar” has gone into it has been enough to make me feel nauseous from a distance in remembering the “diabetic trauma” I’ve already gone through myself. I honestly feel like Evangelicalism in 2020 is what put me over the edge with managing my religious trauma. Instead of needing to completely cut out the sugar of church completely so to speak, I probably would have been at a place of being able to address the “blood sugar spikes” in a much less dramatic way. This is where I’m at, though. This is how history has played itself out. I alone am responsible for myself and I must do everything I can to take care of my wellbeing. What others think of me, what I think, or how I believe can’t keep hindering me from doing that. I know that what I think of others, how they think, or how they believe will not change them and should not be reason for me to not do my best to live out the love of God as I understand it to the best of my abilities.