Religious trauma doesn't really exist? Tell that to the young girls who were forced to marry men as old as their grandfathers, the young men who are disowned every year for refusing to serve missions, or the eight year old who thinks it might be better to die before they're baptized so they'll go straight to the celestial kingdom.

The comments are interesting too.

https://www.deseret.com/2022/8/1/23271694/perspective-dont-believe-the-headlines-few-people-suffer-trauma-from-religion-in-childhood-baylor

'Adult men and women who attended religious services at least weekly at age 12 were more likely to report that they were currently “very happy,” more likely to report that they receive “a lot” of attention from others, and less likely to indicate that they were frequently bored, when compared to those who attended less frequently or not at all.'

I find this to be true in my own case; however, I was actually miserable in my teenage years and it was directly because of what I believed and the society I was in, but I never would have admitted it while the Lord was watching and while I was afraid that damnation was a real looming threat over the doubters. Taking what people report at face value does not mean you're getting an accurate picture of a religious community's mental health. For example, think about how silly it is when the LDS church said it had the gold standard for protecting women and children from sexual abuse. They just say that crap without thinking about it, because they have to defend the dignity of their religious system above all. These belief systems are not optional when experienced from inside the skull of someone who actually believes in it: they are authoritarian. You may be well adjusted to these conditions and well connected within your religious community, in which case you will probably be happy; but you may also be depressed and afraid to express it honestly because you're not really at liberty to question the faith substantially without incurring severe social consequences. So you just sort of shrivel on the inside while maintaining outward appearances. It's a big problem with many religious communities, going back as far at least as New Testament times, because that's also how Jesus lambasted the religious culture the Pharisees were trying to create.

"Some claim that this faith factor is merely the result of communal integration and should not be attributed to spirituality or belief in God. However, the fact that religious people are less bored as adults suggests that there is something more personal and meaningful about their religiosity, since its effect extends beyond their personal happiness and relational integration, all the way into their engagement with daily activities. Perhaps their beliefs, fortified in the bonds of religious community, have also contributed to making their lives more engaging and exciting than it would be otherwise."

Well-adjusted, well-connected human beings are healthier than socially-isolated human beings. Also, human beings who keep the cortisol of loneliness and existentialism at bay are fairing better than people who are struggling not to feel that way. Finally, human beings who under the impression that their childhood hopes and dreams are actually true probably never lost that spark and continue to find deep meaning in their adult lives which they can trace back to how they were raised: be it attributed to God or some other special theme you are fond about.

I lose nothing as an postmormon atheist by admitting all these facts, because here's my actual problem with Brad Wilcox....

I don't get to control which facts are true.

Nobody gets to control that: the best we can do is attempt to manipulate our impression of reality by controlling which facts we get exposed to and the impression of the inconvenient facts we already know, and that actually is not a healthy way to exist spiritually. Wilcox just sidesteps the actual issue that Mormonism as it has been taught in living memory and as it is codified in the curriculum cannot stand in light of evermore readily-available facts that more people are aware exist. It's hard to feel warm fuzzies during the block as you listen to testimonies when you know these people are all asshats willfully ignoring reality. This feeling is actually rather sickening, because your deep social connections to these souls impels you to place in their hands the relevant facts out of respect for their dignity as autonomous thinking human beings.

However, when we actually attempt to do this, we quickly find ourselves marked and avoided and eventually socially isolated... at least from those people specifically. There are other people on the planet, but creating a community from scratch is hard. What makes being a postmormon so hard is that we were not raised, we were not taught, we were not given any clue, how to mingle with the gentiles as pass as one of them. We were culturally isolated from nonmormons as a matter of policy. It is a wise policy in terms of institutional and cultural preservation of the Mormon religion and identity, but it's a terrible policy in regards to the mental health of the Mormon people.

Mormonism could perhaps be saved in a communal sense, but there are significant quantities of core-base members who would never accept major changes in doctrine even if the church leadership marched all the evidence before their eyes. The modern church has a unique problem where it has to choose between being honest and protecting its membership from the facts for as long as it can while subtly admitting it all to the rising generation in sufficient quantity to inoculate them against the shock of learning it from antimormons. One path is honest, but it destroys the community, as the RLDS community discovered. The other path is despicably dishonest and goes against everything the religion itself teaches about being honest in all your dealings with your fellow men, but it protects the mass of believers from sudden shock and exodus, although it puts a greater burden on the few people who are only guilty of learning the truths the religion would prefer them not to know for easier control of their minds. I personally cannot get over the fact that the church admitted in a clandestine essay published on a corner of its website in 2014 that Brigham Young was wrong from the beginning about black people, that fence sitter theory was never a revelation but his own racist idea promoted as doctrine, and then the following GC lambasted critics of the church and mocked people who left as though there never was a good reason even though they admitted there was. That, I cannot forgive, especially as those mf'rs cost me key moments with their constant alarmism about dissentors with my own family members where I might have otherwise found common ground, had constructive discussions, and forged deeper connections with them that transcended our growing philosophical and religious differences. The church does not care about families first and foremost as much as it cares about retention and controlling the narrative for as many people as it can.

From a particular point of view (and I stress *particular* in the sense of peculiar), it is in the interest of a Mormon's mental health and social connections to place his head firmly up his own ass and stop his ears by any means against information that threatens to bring his worldview down. Given how hostile the environment inside the church is to critical, independent thinking, you almost can't blame them. Many do this, and we don't like to admit it, but they are happy. Some people are happy doing that. Most people who had a religious upbringing, who spent their formative years in the church weekly attending and daily having their thoughts formed by the curriculum and who have only known this one church, are probably going to stay there and most of those probably honestly report that they are happy. Many many others are not. No human being except those in the throes of Stockholm Syndrome enjoy being lied to, and even those ones don't -- they just spin it as a positive for their own sanity's sake as it happens to them and adjust their expectations to excuse it. That is, however, psychological captivity, and nobody wants that. They will choose it, but only in denial, and when there is no excuse left and cost of leaving is less than the cost of staying, the shelf breaks.

Brad Wilcox is trying to plug holes in the church's leaky membership, and it shows. Perhaps if the church had an open door policy like its every building suggests -- "Visitors Welcome" -- many people would prefer church society to the society outside simply because it's familiar. Perhaps if it was more tolerant of dissenting opinions, or at least more honest about why it has so many vocal critics, and trying less hard to control its membership as though it views them as a financial asset and attempting to use its vast wealth to make the community a place people want to stay because it's their family and their home that meets all of their needs better than their other options, people would opt in -- no coercion, no hiding of the facts, and no desperate pleas from washed-up apologists necessary. I mean, the statistics do show that well-adjusted, well-connected people don't wander far, but that isn't what the this church about. It is a cult, and it wants to control you by any means you will grant it or that it can take from you.

"Adult men and women who attended religious services at least weekly at age 12 were more likely to report that they were currently “very happy,” more likely to report that they receive “a lot” of attention from others, and less likely to indicate that they were frequently bored, when compared to those who attended less frequently or not at all."

I also find this to be true in my case, mostly because I left the church. The answers to questions that the study used to determine benefits of religion and religious trauma are odd and don't really correlate at all in my opinion.

For me, the trauma I felt with Mormonism was sort of a delayed reaction. It was like wearing uncomfortable shoes all day and not realizing that they were rubbing my feet raw. It wasn't until I took the shoes off that I noticed that my socks were soaked with blood.

When I was in the church, there were things that happened to me and I saw happen to other people and at the time I just considered those experiences to be uncomfortable and not necessarily traumatic. It wasn't until I left the church (and removed the uncomfortable shoes) that I was able to see things with clarity and understood the trauma that the LDS church can cause.

What so no one religious is stressed and traumatized about what their next life will be like because of what they are doing today? No one is traumatized by being called sinners and bad people? No one is traumatized by promises of blessings that are less a sure thing than a slot machine or a lottery ticket?

The emptyness of defending organized religions is infinite.

It was coined by a professional named Marlene Winnell. Here is her website. https://journeyfree.org/rts/

The purpose of coining this term is not to encourage a mass exodous from organized religion in and of itself. Brad Wilcox seems to be under this impression. The purpose of talking about vanilla PTSD is that many people have it and if not properly counseled and attended to, it can lead to suicide and other social ills. Well, it turns out there are certain themes or ways in which human minds can be traumatized that are distinct and similar enough and also treated similarly enough that it is useful to talk about those subsets as their own kind of trauma, whether or not the APA ever puts it in the DSM. Winell's claim never was that religion inherently damages people. She claimed only that religion damages some people and it is important to address their specific kinds of trauma.

So Wilcox is only debunking a misunderstanding that people inside deeply religious communities often have about why the outside world keeps criticizing them, but he does this without mentioning that it is a strawman of what Winell is trying to do by coining this term. The point is simply that religion doesn't work for everyone the way the its teachers intended it too. There are cases of abuse, especially sexual abuse, but trauma can also be incurred by the fear of hell itself. When you teach people that a cosmic dictator watches everything they do and if they can't keep all his impossible commandments they will be tortured for eternity in some sense without the possibility of parole... that has an effect on minds raised in an environment where every cultural impression is given that these are real possibilities to be worried about. Victims of sexual abuse need special attention, and victims of toxicly-internalized indoctrination need special attention, and often sexual abuse victims also have toxic indoctrination which makes accepting help and believing counsel very difficult which makes their trauma exponentially complex and damaging.

Downplaying these realities because you misheard the point and defensively jumped to prejudices about the atheist community coming to pick off your sheep for a life miserable isolation is such a dumb, stupid, unhelpful thing to do.

The majority of students getting anti-depressants from the Student Health Center at BYU are only struggling from massive amounts of guilt and extreme self-criticism because they think they're the only ones who wank. This is exacerbated by social media peer pressure, I'm sure, but still. I saw this with my own eyes as a soul tormented by my demented, sexually-repressed authoritarian indoctrination ham-fisted into my mind whether or I willed it not by parents and religious community who were similarly treated in their youth by their parents and etc and etc. What is the first thing they say about people who leave? "So... how long have you been jerking off?" Jesus, everyone does that, especially when they're young, it's the most universal sin even if it is a sin, but some poor bastards were never told that and cannot infer it from others. What this can do to someone like me who is autistic or someone who is otherwise socially isolated and prone to mental illness is abuse, plain and simple. Let them stew in the impressions you deliberately fostered in them from birth, and the symptoms are not different from other forms of an abused soul.

Utah had the highest drug overdose rate between 2013 and 2015. Prescription drug overdoses that end in death specifically has risen 400% since the year 2000. Most of these people are Mormon, obviously, and only 1 in 10 gets the treatment they need.

Sources cited in the article below:

https://www.alpinerecoverylodge.com/utah-drug-abuse-statistics/

Despite these facts, it is also true that Mormons self-report as happy at higher rates than anyone else in America. You can work out how this contradiction works for yourself without much effort: they're trained like Pavlov's dogs to say certain things whether or not it is true, whether or not it registers with their brains what they're saying and how it applies to their own life as it comes out of their mouths.

https://nypost.com/2016/11/03/are-mormons-the-happiest-people-in-america/

To take a leaf out of Wilcox's book, this is not to say that most members aren't happy enough, but there are a lot of miserable people in the heart of Mormondom, and the closer you get to the center, the more pronounced the effect seems to be, which leads one to believe that Mormonism is not, actually, a healthy religion for everyone to live in. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's f'ing great if God so made your temperament and desires to fit the one-size-fits-all mold the church pushes, but we are not all the same, and even if we want it to the church does not always meet our needs. Alcohol is tightly regulated in the state, but there are other accessible means of self-medicating to paper over the emptiness inside, and that's consistent with what we find. I once read something on fairmormon[dot]org about the high altitude causing these statistics somehow and in highsight I'm astounded at how complete the indoctrination is over that community. Even if it was killing them from the inside out, some people will not deny the faith, because if they did their social lives as they know them are over because of the way the culture is constructed and encouraged by official policy. The church cannot indirectly kill hundreds if not thousands of people through negligence and make tens of thousands more miserable by the perfectionist culture it fosters and just absolve itself of what it did. If it is not directly responsible for these tragedies, it is by default ethically responsible to do all it can do to save the lives over which it asserts complete, total domination, especially when these people won't turn to any other source of information to help themselves.

I can't begin to describe what it feels like to immerse oneself in the book of mormon to the point of mania because if the answer isn't in there then there is no answer worth living for. I was committed in an unhealthy way to making the church the only answer, and it affected me deeply in ways it didn't have to if someone, anyone, had noticed sooner and given me permission to broaden my horizons or at least to be kinder to myself.

If any true blue believer is reading this: I know you hate me and distrust everything that I say about the church, but if your testimony and your standing in the church is the most important thing in the universe to you, then heed my words lest necessity compel you to follow in my footsteps. Be kinder to yourself. Let yourself be happier by any means. Maybe that means you fudge a few scriptures so you can magnify others. Interpreting the scriptures to promote your own mental health is sometimes a conscious decision you have to make, and if you don't do it you will fall into apostasy or perhaps take your own life. Killing yourself will not redeem you from your sins according to your own belief system, and it won't make the pain hurt less either. For after this world, the doctrine says, you will awake in the spirit world under a bright rememberance of all your faults but without the advantages of a body to do anything about it and a realization of your awful condition will smite you. You can't improve yourself morally by self-deprication. That just doesn't work. You are created in the image of God, aren't you? You are his offspring. Take dignity in that. Remember the great two commandments? Love the Lord with all your might, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. If you are worshiping the Lord in a healthy way, your countenance will shine brighter. If not, then make adjustments, hard as they might be, to be healthier. Surely the Lord does not require you to love your neighbor MORE than yourself. How can you love your neighbor any more than you are able to enjoy your own being? The gospel then necessitates a minimal attention to your own mental wellbeing before ought else, doesn't it? God wants you to be happy: this is his work and glory, isn't it? He doesn't want you to descend into a living hell while you yet breathe because of something you heard at church, although that happens sometimes. If God-worship is killing you from the inside out, something is off. You have his permission to take a path where you actually improve. For me, that was to leave the church and follow my own lights, but that's just me. A lot could have happened differently and who knows what would have happened: I just want to happy and live and move and enjoy my being while I can. This is no sin. Men are that they might have joy, and that verse does not say that if you found it outside of Jesus that you must willfully immiserate yourself to repent. Love yourself like Jesus loves you; honor yourself as the offspring of the Father, and take care of your own mental health first like you deserve, and you do deserve it. People who don't care deeply about what is morally right don't fall into these perfectionist traps. You're worth it. Fight the good fight for your own life -- whatever path that takes.

That is all I have to say for now.

The fact they published this article tells me they are having to deal with the truth of religious trauma and want to downplay it is happening.

I think this is like the "accusation is actually a confession" denial behavior we commonly see. It's an admission they know they are actually contributing to religious trauma, IMO.

They know darn well that young gay people have committed suicide due to their religion. They know full well how they alienate, exclude and divide families over apostates. That's just for starters.

Nice try, DN. Your attempt to deny this tells more than you think.

Religious denial is a river in reformed Egypt.

It does some damage i will say that much. Being a lost boy definitely earns its title of leaving an ostracised boy as totally lost and traumatized for a long while after having to disown religion and family.

I would say the article is probably right in that people who go to church weekly are more happy. But the trouble is that the current focus by the bretheren on the temple covenant path isn't suited for quite a large demographic of society. People have a lot of problems. And the brethren don't seem to recognize that not everyone is in a traditional family.

Some not so kind statistics are that 1 in four people live alone. 50% of females over 30 don't have babies yet. The median income from a wage of all individuals who work is only $36,000 a year. Houses cost like million now. 61% of Americans live pay check to paycheck and could be in serious trouble all the while there are 13 million millionaires who have plenty of money because America rewards those who are smart and believe in capitalism (freedom just doesn't work for most people).

But weekly attendance probably leads to happiness for those who can make it work, the 'talented 10%' as Debois use to categorize the special people who do so well in life. God's gift to the rest of us.

> 50% of females over 30 don't have babies yet.

Yes, because no female is happy who doesn't have babies.

I know, right?!
Maca's ego has a huge problem with women.

Women are only fully 100 percent people when they have a fetus to make up their difference.

There are no sad faces in the insane asylum.

want2bx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Religious trauma doesn't really exist? Tell that
> to the young girls who were forced to marry men as
> old as their grandfathers, the young men who are
> disowned every year for refusing to serve
> missions, or the eight year old who thinks it
> might be better to die before they're baptized so
> they'll go straight to the celestial kingdom.
>
> The comments are interesting too.
>
> https://www.deseret.com/2022/8/1/23271694/perspect
> ive-dont-believe-the-headlines-few-people-suffer-t
> rauma-from-religion-in-childhood-baylor


Of course some have religious trauma. It sounds like more of the trauma comes from severely dysfunctional familial issues mixed in with religious extremes. Realistically speaking,how many people have family that would actually disown them for not serving a mission? Most parents Mormon or not, would consider anyone who even hinted at such a thing to be severely lacking in morality or insane..and I've known some crazy Mormons!

Of course those people exist, but they're most definitely part of a extreme minority.

I think I see your point and I believe it's actually the same point that the author of the article is trying to make...the most extreme cases of religious trauma are pretty rare and are generally caused by factors other than the religion itself. I think I have to disagree though. I believe that some religious beliefs and cultures within religions are the cause of widespread dysfunction on many levels, especially dysfunction in families.

I would say that most of the negative experiences that I have had with Mormonism don't qualify as the most extreme cases of religious trauma. But do they still qualify as traumatic? The DN article is trying to make the point that only the most extreme cases do. That the word "trauma" is overused and most experiences within religion are positive. Perhaps. But then I still don't know what to call the negative experiences that I had within the LDS church that have been life changing for me. Is it trauma? I don't know. All I know is that those experiences have altered my thinking and my life in a way that has been difficult for me. I have been out of the church for eight years and it's still a daily challenge to reprogram myself. If what I and others on this forum experienced as Mormons isn't really considered traumatic because our experiences don't qualify as the worst of religious extremes, then why do so many of us still need to rehash, unload and seek understanding and support for those experiences even many years after we no longer associate with church?

Freefromtheshackles Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Of course those people exist, but they're most
> definitely part of a extreme minority.
===============================
Even more fortunately these few people of the "extreme minority" may be written off as being personally defective, no?

Whew.
Collectively and individually the 'church' dodges yet another bullet of self-inquiry.


"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates

My wife suffered terribly and still has scars from the Mormon religious ennvironment she grew up in. Highly partiarichal, highly shaming, no valuing her, only obedience. I also grew up Mormon but my dad was more or less inactive and my mom just wanted a community, so it worked out ok for me. It was the community we benefited from not the dogma. My brother and I would go to churhc with friends and my mom, pass the scarement then come home and go golfing or skiing 1/2 day with my dad. My dad made sure we did get sucked into the mormon vortex. Sundays were good.

Gee. Good to know the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition caused no trauma.

Not to forget Salem and their witch infestation

"Religious trauma doesn't exist"

Don't you often wonder how some statements don't pound in the speaker's ears causing them to take a sec and rethink their words before sending them out into the ether after which it's often difficult to call them back?

Just on the face of it, that statement is so obviously completely wrong.

I'm seeing it more broadly than just applying to the LDS Church but the issues are the same. For example, here's a short article from Britain about religious trauma related to LGBTQ issues:

“Lives at Stake” - The Guardian (UK):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/04/sandi-toksvig-lives-at-stake-anti-gay-anglican-church-declaration-justin-welby

Excerpts:

“The lives of LGBTQ+ people are at stake, the broadcaster and author Sandi Toksvig has said, after the archbishop of Canterbury affirmed the validity of a 1998 resolution that gay sex is a sin.

“In a letter to more than 650 bishops attending the once-a-decade Lambeth conference on Tuesday, Justin Welby, who is also leader of the Anglican church, said the resolution, known as Lambeth 1.10, was “not in doubt”.

“It was a sin in 1998 and you just wanted to make clear in 2022 that no one in your finely frocked gang has moved on from that,” wrote Toksvig in her letter published on Twitter on Wednesday evening. “Seriously, with the state the world is in, that is what you wanted to focus on?”

“Responding to the latest knot the Church of England has tied itself into, Toksvig laid bare the facts, including that suicide is contemplated by young LGBTQ+ people at higher rates than their non-LGBTQ+ peers. She said she had faced death threats herself, and questioned the Church of England’s interpretation of Jesus’s views on homosexuality.

“The lives of LGBTQ+ people are at stake here,” Toksvig wrote.

“Jesus doesn’t mention sexuality at all. It clearly wasn’t a big deal for him.”

“Each and every one of those [death] threats [to Toksvig] has come from an evangelical Christian. Inevitably they have wanted to kill me on God’s behalf.”

“Ninety bishops, including eight archbishops, said LGBTQ+ people had “historically been wounded” by the church.”

---

Wounded by the church - wounds that equate to trauma, trauma caused by church.


The coup de grace (to Welby) in the UK article is delivered to the archbishop by - himself:

“The hatred and threats that you – and so many other LGBTQI+ people – have experienced in the name of Jesus Christ are a sin,” Welby wrote in a letter shared on Twitter.”


This is an example of the kind of contradiction that does my head in. Welby is the guy who confirms that “gay sex is a sin”. That teaching is a factor in creating the negative attitudes and violence that the LGBTQI+ community lives with daily. So the guy who promulgates the teaching on behalf of his church ends up saying that hatred towards their community is a sin. But he’s teaching the type of attitude that often results in violence. Does he not see that?

Dumb question I guess.

I remember meeting two BIC brothers when I went on a pilgrimage (so to speak) to SLC and we shared a meal together at a mutual friend's place. One of them stated that he couldn't go on a mission. Clueless convert [so-called - I didn't really ever convert but did jump into the font due to caving into unrelenting pressure] that I was back then, I asked why not. "I'm not worthy" was his reply, with no further explanation.

It was kind of shocking to hear that phrase, taught by the church I found out later, but coming from an adult male in the middle of a casual conversation, as if he'd stated oh, it's going to rain, or an equally mundane phrase. Someone told me later that he was gay. That's how I learned that the Mormon Church wants every male to go on a mission, but only if they measure up to the leaders' requirements, or at least seem to.

I've detailed here in past years some of the unfortunate exploits of missionaries I met but most of them got to return home "with honour" because they didn't get caught or the leaders swept things under the rug (actually the many rugs they would have needed to cover it all up) while other Mormons have to choose to live with the "unworthy" label all their lives in the church or else leave and risk losing family etc.

That all seems pretty traumatic to me. And there's a direct line from the trauma to its cause - their church and its teachings, whichever name the institution is known by.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2022 08:24PM by Nightingale.

Here's an update to the article I linked above:

“Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledges consensus is near-impossible after public criticism over declaration against gay sex”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/05/justin-welby-says-it-is-very-difficult-to-hold-church-together-over-sexuality

“The archbishop of Canterbury has acknowledged the near-impossibility of a divided global Anglican church reaching a consensus on issues of sexuality, after he faced sharp criticism for affirming a 1998 declaration that gay sex is a sin.

“The conservative Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches, which claims to represent 75% of all Anglicans, said it “cannot accept a plurality of views on essential truths”.

“Justin Badi, the archbishop of South Sudan, told a press conference on Friday: “We [the Global South] represent the global face of Anglicanism. We sound the clarion call to return to biblical faithfulness.”

---

Too many people settle into the notion that they are the ones qualified to determine what the “essential truths” and "biblical faithfulness" are. Many lose sight of the fact that a lot of our understanding comes from interpretation, especially when it comes to scriptures, as evidenced by the different takes resulting in the myriad of denominations around the world.

Also, it’s all too easy to have an us v them attitude but the basics, to me, include the fact, from a religious viewpoint, that we’re made how we were made:

Psalm 100:3: “Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” (NIV)

To me this is reflected in this well known Anglican hymn:

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
'Twas God that made them all

Each little flower that opens
Each little bird that sings
He made their glowing colors
And made their tiny wings

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
'Twas God that made them all

The purple headed mountains
The rivers running by
The sunset and the morning
That brightens up the sky

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
'Twas God that made them all

The cold wind in the winter
The pleasant summer sun
The ripe fruits in the garden
He made them every one

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
'Twas God that made them all

He gave us eyes to see them
And lips that we might tell
How great is the Almighty
Who has made all things well

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
'Twas God that made them all



On another note, re ways in which religions and their peoples need to take stock and revise previous understandings and teachings, here’s an article about issues of racism within EV circles:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2017/12/red-and-yellow-black-and-white-evangelicals-miss-another-wakeup-call.html

The writer states:

“The very nature of evangelicalism, or at least conservative evangelicalism, is certainty—a belief that all of the answers have already been obtained. Many white evangelicals are so certain that they are not racist that they automatically close their ears to criticism. Their inclination toward interpreting criticism from outsiders as spiritual attack makes it only more difficult for them to engage productively with critique.”

“Evangelical missions work and Christian school curriculum has long been mired in stereotypes about peoples and groups that play up their “heathenness” and portray their cultures as dark and mired in sin. Again we see a problem of certainty—evangelical missionaries come into communities with the purpose of giving pre-formed answers to other cultures. They don’t come to listen, or to engage in cultural exchange. They come for something that goes one way. They come to preach, and to dispense wisdom.”

---

“The problem of certainty” – that insight goes a long way towards explaining why leaders in some denominations/churches are reluctant, slow or unwilling to change or at least consider other viewpoints, to be open to admitting past errors or adopt new understandings. Once you have taught for decades or centuries that “this is the way” (or “this is the place”) it’s difficult to backtrack. Understandable but unfortunate as it has led, and continues to lead, to so many negative outcomes.

It’s often a point of pride to be as immovable as a gigantic boulder. But what if you’ve made a mistake? Hard to admit when you’ve dug in so deep but it’s possible, with a will to be open to necessary change. I guess preaching infallibility, though, does place one firmly between the proverbial rock and the very hard place.


As an aside: I didn't realize until I read the 2nd article linked above that the Christian song the writer discusses is considered racist. I've heard it all my life. It's so familiar I barely hear the words, just the tune and the 'spirit' of it. In fact, I nearly quoted it in this post as an example of how our differences, whatever they may be, are God-given (if you're of the Christian faith, or that has been my impression of that faith). Colour me clueless, literally, as I didn't realize the colours in the song are referring to races or skin colours.

Besides, some of those lyrics are used as titles in one of my favourite book/TV series about the Yorkshire vet. So they're all warm and fuzzy, no?

Reading is good. You can learn something new at least once a day.

And now I can't get that chorus out of my head: "red and yellow, black and white".

Yow.

I know we're mainly discussing Mormonism here at RfM and the ways in which it traumatizes its followers, BICs and converts alike, as we can all testify to (sometimes literally). I find it useful too to see comparisons between religions and ways in which Mormonism is the same as well as different or even unique. Some of the main issues are similar and it can be instructive to see it in another place besides the one we are most familiar with. It can be comforting and helpful in some ways to see the wider scope of similar issues. I also find it useful to see the origins and roots of certain teachings, pronouncements, mandates, actions and outcomes.

For instance, it's kind of an aha for me to see "the problem of certainty" discussed because that alone explains a whole lot.


ETA: I meant to mention in there somewhere this phrase from the article as well: "Their inclination toward interpreting criticism from outsiders as spiritual attack..."

This happens frequently, as we know. It's a good explanation for the words, attitudes and reactions that occur when questions are asked or disagreement or criticism arises.

Between being "certain" they have the truth, the only truth, and reverting to an instant defence mode that perceived criticism (i.e. 'questions', in my experience) evokes, those two mechanisms explain a lot about the reactions one can get to simple "challenges" such as merely asking a question or mentioning a different idea or especially interpretation.

I have experienced these reactions both as a JW and within Mormonism, where in both places questions were met with negative attitudes and failure to respond in any way that could bring enlightenment or even just a simple, and true, response.

If questions are threatening that should be a sure cue to check things out.

Some of us have to learn that the hard way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2022 06:12PM by Nightingale.

"Religious trauma doesn't exist"

--"Ignore that man behind the curtain", 2022 edition

BTW, there are a lot of therapists in Utah making a fine living dealing with Mormon sexual repression. No religious trauma. Right.