Adverse Religious Experiences Questionnaire
Your soul is screaming inside you. Your gut knows something isn’t right, but you can’t put things into words. Your church, religious community or family, a spiritual leader or faith practice leave you asking questions but unsure if what you have experienced is healthy or not.
Signs of Spiritual Abuse in Children and Families
Spiritual abuse has long been veiled as Christian parenting. People just buy into the system hook, line and sinker. While it’s true spiritual abuse can have some physical features, it’s generally more subtle. Spiritual abuse first affects a person’s mind, moves into their core beliefs, and then informs their actions. Spiritual abuse intersects with psychological and emotional abuse in this way because spiritual abuse impacts mind, body and soul.
Trauma Bonding With the Church
Trauma bonding is widely known to happen in controling or toxic relationships such as within an unhealthy parent/child or husband/wife structure. The emotional bond occurs when the victim becomes dependant on the abuser in unbalanced ways. While this type of bond is prevalant in abusive one-on-one relationships, can trauma bonding happen in a person's relationship to their church community as well?
Spiritual Abuse And Seven Other Terms Defined
First off, spiritual abuse, religious trauma and other terms found in this article are not a new thing. Abuse within religious organizations, churches and leadership has been around as long as there has been organized religion…or people for that matter.
What’s the Deal with Faith Deconstruction?
If you are currently in a church, Christian family or religious community, chances are you’ve heard the word “deconstruction.” The term may have been presented in a negative light to you or perhaps you don’t truly know what it means. Or, if you’ve been on social media in the last few months and follow any prominent Christian leaders, your introduction to the word may have been through a heated video clip and thread. One thing is for certain, the term “deconstruction” and all it entails is a word stirring up much controversy in American religious spaces right now.
Why are people reacting so strongly to this word and the subsequent “deconstruction culture?” It’s complicated. In this post, I will do my best to help you understand why people are reactive to deconstruction, what deconstruction really is and how you can help. Are you ready for lots of information?
10 Tips to Surviving the Holidays With Religious Trauma
Let’s be honest, the Holidays can be rough. There are so many expectations - dinners to make, parties to attend, attire to select, gifts to buy, family to see, pictures to take, lawns to decorate and trees or tables to adorn. Add in the journey of faith deconstruction or religious trauma recovery and that “ho-ho-ho” might feel more like “woe-woe-woe.”
Are You a Recovering Fundamentalist?
Over ten years ago, my husband and I met with a couple for marriage counseling. We were struggling, really struggling. About halfway through our time together, the husband looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “You’re a legalist. Once a legalist, always a legalist.” This offended me greatly as I had been working so hard to overcome my fundamentalist roots and we were here to talk mostly about my own husband’s failings anyway.
8 Tips to Deconstructing Your Faith Without Losing Your Marriage
When you’re married or in a committed relationship, one of the hardest parts about experiencing faith deconstruction or a Spiritual Identity Disruption TM, is the toll it takes on that valuable relationship. Realizing you had been handed a toxic, controlling or abusive version of faith is hard enough, but what comes next as you process everything can retraumatize, devastate and potentially shatter and already fractured sense of self.
I Am a Survivor of the Bill Gothard Homeschool Cult
When I was six or seven years old, my family joined Bill Gothard’s program - the Institute in Basic Life Principles. I remember a hotel room and strangers babysitting me when we visited Oklahoma City for my parents to attend a training. I believe part of the reason my parents were attracted to the program was the support and community provided exclusively to homeschoolers.
Modest Is Hottest
Christian singer/songwriter, Matthew West, release a new song this week called, “Modest is Hottest.” In the music video, Mr. West is attempting to educate his two daughters as to why they should dress modestly. My social media has been full of praise for this “hilarious song with such a great message for girls today,” so I had to check it out for myself.
I didn’t laugh once. Instead, I cringed.
Deconstructing DNA
Many of the core revelations discovered because of DNA testing can be applied to the reasons why people are choosing to walk away from traditional Christian structures and faith altogether—abuse, hypocrisy, lies, and trauma.
Could it be that science and faith have collided in the quest for truth?
A High-Five to the Southern Baptist Split and Why it Matters
I woke up this morning to more news about the SBC and the saga which continues to unfold. I told my husband, “Well, the SBC is splitting, " he promptly gave me a high-five, then said, “I can guess, but why?” I told him simply, “The primary reasons are spiritual abuse, race and patriarchy,” to which he replied, “I thought so. Good.”
I was a Christian Fundamentalist Mom
When my parenting journey began, I was a Christian fundamentalist parent. I didn’t know any better, it was all I had ever known.
I was young and had waited my whole (brief) life to be a mom. Motherhood had been put on a pedestal and was the highest calling a woman could fulfill. It was what all Godly women do, they are fruitful and multiply being blessed with a quiver full of children who will arise and call them blessed. But becoming a mother is also what toppled me into questioning my faith and the religious formula and methods in which I, myself, had been raised.
With the waves of individuals deconstructing their faith, we tend to focus on the person experiencing the belief deconstruction but forget that behind that person are the parents and systems who raised them.
Here’s a little secret: Parents can deconstruct their beliefs too. I know, because I did.