Better News — Part 3
Part 3 — The Bible is My Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth
Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
The Bible tells me so
~ “Jesus Loves Me,” Anna Warner, 1860
The “Jesus Loves Me” song was the first song I remember learning as a child. This may be because I was too young to remember the lullabies of infancy and toddlerhood, or maybe it really was the first song I learned. In either case, my memory brings me to this song when I think about childhood. What that indicates to me is just how early and all-encompassing the bible was in my life, even as a young child. The words themselves, when sung, don’t seem particularly troubling and are written to a comforting tune, which makes this church hymn a top choice for early childhood indoctrination. So, what exactly is the message here? A literalist would say it’s obvious: Jesus loves me. They would say that this is a beautiful hymn that describes just how much God loves his little children. What they might gloss over is the fact that this song also drives the point home that we belong to god and that we are weak. How do we know these things? Because the bible says so. The first memory I have of song in my life teaches me that I am weak and belong to another being and I know this because the some other ultimate authority tells me this and I have no say in the matter.
We’ve discussed in detail in the previous chapter how literalist evangelicals view the bible as the ultimate authority. This belief has monumental implications for how an individual views themselves and how they will live their life. In fact, it is not uncommon for a literalist to use the acronym that is the title to this chapter as a description of the Bible: basic instructions before leaving earth. Clever, right? Maybe so, but what exactly are those instructions? If you have ever tried to assemble an item at home, especially one whose instructions have been translated from another language, you might understand that some instructions are not actually that useful and in some cases those instructions will lead down a path to eventual failure to complete the assembly and you have to tear it all down and start from scratch.
Assembling Instructions For Life
There are a myriad of instructions in the bible and there isn’t a book on earth that could contain them all. The bible, after all, has been around a long time and interpreted by a lot of people and applied to a lot of lives in a lot of cultural contexts. As such, I have chosen only a handful that are directly related to today’s American evangelicals and literalists in particular (because this is the only sect I can speak intelligently about).
It is not exhaustive, but I do feel it is representative. We will be taking a look first at the principle that a literalist’s personal value system is given to them by god in the bible and they are expected to live their life by it. If they deviate, then they are not living according to the will of god. Relatedly, we will take a look at the second principle that their purpose in this life is defined by god, and that the adherence, study, and application of the bible’s message in their life ensures that they can know and live out his purpose for their life while they are on this earth. Thirdly, we will look at how literalists can know who they are as individuals from the “truths’’ communicated in the bible. Their very identity is bound up in christ. One of the bible’s core messages, in the new testament especially, is that we are all defined by our relationship to and with god. Lastly, we will tackle the critical issue of how literalists decide what feelings are “good” and “bad” based on what the bible says and what their community affirms.
We will also look at how each principle directly undermines the basic psychological needs that we established all humans have in order to attain the motivation to pursue the ultimate goal of our time here on earth, self-actualization. To jog our memories, those needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. At the end of the chapter, we will also take a look at some new principles that we can live by that are more supportive of that endeavor.
The Bible Dictates My Personal Values
Merriam Webster defines a value as, “a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.” How we behave and what we see as important in our lives is considered a value. If honesty is a value, for example, then that implies our behavior towards others would be honest and that would take a high priority in our life. Generally speaking, our values are primarily taught us by our parents and secondarily by other important figures in our lives. We also have the ability to decide our own values, but that’s skipping ahead.
Despite a desire to not be like our parents, for some of us, we can’t escape the fact they have a tremendous impact on us in our formative years and we are quite observant at that age. If our parents value honesty, we are likely to follow them. If our parents value dishonesty in a life philosophy that says, “you have to look out for yourself because no one else will,” then we are likely to care a little bit less about honesty and more about self-preservation. And if our parents value a rigid adherence to the authority of scripture, then we are also likely to do so.
At first glance, this might not seem like a big deal. The bible, after all, is full of good advice and moral principles. Its moniker is “the good book” after all. As an aside, I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine whether this moniker is deserved.
There is a multitude of not so good advice in the bible and this is problematic for personal development at best and psychologically traumatic at worst. If you add to this the idea that deviation from the principles laid out in the bible equates to living contrary to the will of god, what you get is someone who is effectively forced to live their life in a way that potentially contradicts their own internal value system (what Deci and Ryan would say is the antithesis of autonomy). This dissonance causes both guilt (because of the desire to not violate our own values) and shame (because of the very real and deeply rooted evolutionarily-adaptive human tendency to conform to the norms of the group). You can hopefully see how this would lead to an individual with a great deal of repression.
You might be wondering what these values from the bible are that are so potentially contrary to our own internal values. It turns out that there are as many as there are people. Since internal values are dependent on the individual, by definition, it makes intuitive sense to us that there would be potential conflict in many different ways. As such, I am only justified in speaking about my own and hope that there are those who relate. For me, there are three very important values that I hold that are contrary to what is described in the bible. One, that I am fundamentally good and capable of good things. Two, that I have my own life and get to choose how to live it. Three, I decide what relationships are valuable to me and volunteer to be a part of them, or not. Let’s take a look at each in turn.
I Am Fundamentally Bad
Part 6 will deal with this concept in depth, so consider this section a teaser. Some quick context is that this idea that humans are inherently bad is what’s called total depravity in theological discourse. This is a specifically protestant doctrine, which is derived from the larger christian belief in original sin. The doctrine of original sin can be traced back to Augustine, who drew upon earlier church fathers, the story of Adam and Eve, and some mistranslations of Romans 5 to develop this doctrine. Romans chapter 5 verses 12 and 19 say, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned…For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” So, the interpretation here for protestants, which evangelicals fall under, is that every human being that is born here on earth is born into sin. From birth. Sinful. Bad. Broken.
Being born sinful means that even if you live your life perfectly, which you can’t because the desire to sin is actually irresistible, you still cannot meet the standards of god because you are tainted simply by the fact you were born. You might imagine that this type of belief has a rather significant impact on an individual’s view of themselves. I can remember as a child, and still struggle with this almost four decades later, that I believed I was fundamentally bad. That no matter what I did, I was always going to be bad and god would never accept me as I am because I am inherently sinful. And not to get too dark, but I’d be lying if I said the question had crossed my mind before of: why did god let me be born at all, if I was born to be so bad?
This belief is contrary to what I have wanted to believe about myself my whole life. Namely, that I am actually a really good person. That I care about others. That I desire others to be happy. That I desire to be happy. That I am honest, kind, and respectful. I try to be all of these things as much as I can because of my own self and not because of divine intervention or inspiration. Even though these are my core values, I have lived a life of believing that those internal values were untrue and I should actually believe that I am inherently sinful and incapable of good without Jesus in my life. You might imagine the type of guilt and shame I, and literally millions of others, have lived with our entire lives.
My Life Is Not My Own
Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We will address this again in a later section of this chapter, but right now let’s focus on this idea that the very message of the New Testament is that after someone accepts Jesus as their personal lord and savior they are no longer who they once were. They are called to “die to themselves” as the saying goes (even though this phrase isn’t actually in the bible). The evangelical is divinely called to destroy their very identity. And what is that replaced with? Living only for Christ.
The putting away of an individual’s desires and living only for the desires of god is a major theme in christian self-help books. Books like Come And Die: Dying to Self and Living for Christ are everywhere in brick and mortar christian bookstores and the major online retailer Christian Book Distributors (cbd.com — no, not what you hoped it would be, huh). This belief is an insidious one because the very idea that you might have values (or even desires) that are contrary to the word of god becomes self-invalidating. If I am supposed to live only for god, then having the internal value of being free to decide how to live my own life is contradictory and I must then put that away, keeping me ensnared in a cycle of guilt and shame and repression.
As an aside, a literalist response to the above argument that I am not actually free to live my own life would be something along the lines of, “God doesn’t force anyone to follow him, he allows us to make our own choices, but we bear the responsibility of those choices.” Quick question for that — if the consequence of freely choosing to not surrender my life and identity to Christ is an infinite amount of time burning in the Lake of fire, is that really a choice? Put differently and more relatably, if a sociopath puts a gun to my head and says I have the choice to eat a vegetable that I don’t like or die, is that a real choice? God does force people to surrender their identity. And to put a finer point on it…that was his choice. An omnipotent god would not be forced to create that system.
God Is The Most Important Relationship In My Life
Part 4 is entirely about this idea, so again, this will just be a precursor. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, his response in Mark 12:29–31 was,
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
God is the most important love of our life. More than our other relationships. And, yes, that even means more than our families. You might think, “no, literalists can’t actually believe that their love of god is supposed to be greater than the love they have for their children or spouses.” Maybe not all evangelicals. But literalists? Yes. Just ask my dad. Here is a man who believes in the authority of the bible so strongly that when he reads Matthew 10:37, which says, “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me,” he takes that seriously. This is the reason why he owns more bibles than memorabilia from his youngest son, why he can quote more verses from the bible than he can offer up happy memories about times we spent together, and why when I told him that I wasn’t going to speak with him anymore his response was, “Forrest, do you still read your Bible?”
This may sound like it’s about my familial trauma. And it certainly is. But don’t let that fact muddy the reality that it is also about the trauma of literalism, which impacts far more people than me. Why did my father believe these things? Why did my father say these things to me? Because he believed that the bible was his instructions for life on this earth and they came with the authority of god and if the bible said in “plain” language that he was supposed to love god more than his own son, then that is damn well what he was going to do. And just so we’re clear, this is a common belief among literalists. I am not alone. There are, in fact, millions of literalists that believe this and millions of individuals who have suffered from this trauma. And if you’re reading this and you relate to this trauma — I’m so sorry. You’re a good person and you deserved better.
The Bible Sets My Purpose
For most people, secular and religious alike, we struggle with purpose. There is a reason Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life has sold around 50 million copies in 85 different languages as of 2020. Humans desperately want to know that their life has meaning. According to something called terror management theory, humans inherently need their life to have meaning because meaning creates a legacy that lasts longer than our mortal lives. This is important because, as far as we know, human beings are the only animals that have the intelligence to understand and ruminate on the idea that death is a certainty, yet we also still have the evolutionarily-adaptive mechanism of striving to survive. How does one strive to survive if you know you are 100% going to die and you don’t know when? A meaningful life that leaves a legacy gives us a sense of immortality and assuages this terror of certain death. A good example of this might be from the movie Troy. As Achilles readies to battle Boagrius, the messenger boy tells Achilles, “I wouldn’t want to fight him.” Achilles’ response is, “And that is why no one will remember your name.” Legacy equals beating death.
Evangelicals are human too and have the same basic psychological need to assuage the terror of death. This mostly comes through the idea that if they are saved by Jesus, then they get to live forever in heaven. But the bible makes it clear that that is not where the journey of god’s purpose for one’s life ends. In fact, it’s only the beginning. Romans 12:1–2 says,
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
This passage is critical for literalists. I won’t go into too much depth on it because whole books have been written on just this verse, but there are several components here that I’d like to dig into.
Paul is talking to believers, thus the word he uses is “brothers.” Those that believe in Jesus are supposed to live their lives in such a way that they “sacrifice” themselves. This has many implications, but the main one is that a literalist would read this as saying we are supposed to put aside any desire we have and instead live our lives in a way that prioritizes god, specifically as his will is laid out in the bible. “Holy and acceptable” furthers this idea of “sacrifice” by making explicit that believers are supposed to be striving towards holiness, again as laid out in the bible. This holiness and acceptability in the eyes of god would obviously lead someone to live in a way that is different from the rest of the world. This comes from a “transformation” of one’s self. As has been extensively studied, the greek word here is metamorphoō, which you might be able to tell is where we get the english word for what happens to a caterpillar when it emerges from a cocoon as a butterfly (ie, metamorphisis). A literalist’s life is expected to be radically altered from one form to another, so that their entire life is lived with purpose for god.
Throughout my time in literalism I struggled mightily with what the purpose of my life was. Clearly, it was supposed to be for god. But, how? Well, I was supposed to find it in the bible. So, I read it. Then I read it again. And again. Then I studied it in church and bible study. And again in bible college. And again in seminary. And even more times when I became a minister and taught it to others. I never did figure out my purpose. That’s because I was looking in the wrong place.
The solution here is that it is me that decides what my life’s purpose is. Rather than combing through texts, praying for guidance, and studying passages of the bible until I could effectively predict what passages were going to be used to support someone’s main point in sermons, I simply choose what my purpose is. I do. Me. Because, as it turns out, I am a human being and I have the basic needs of autonomy and competence. My frustration was actually not in failing to understand what god’s purpose for my life was, it was in the fact that my basic needs were being frustrated by a rigid adherence to the bible as the highest authority in my life and not being allowed to decide what my life’s purpose would be. I wasn’t allowed to because I had neither the freedom to do so nor the understanding. I was supposed to sacrifice myself for god and god knew me better than I knew myself anyway.
KO By Submission
There is enormous pressure in literalism to “submit” to the will of god, removing an individual’s autonomy and competence completely. Autonomy is threatened because the freedom of determining their own purpose is either:
- completely prohibited, as in the case of some of the more extreme forms of charismatic evangelical churches where a “prophet” tells you what god’s purpose is for you and if you do not adhere to it then you are violating god’s will, or,
- partially restricted, as in the case of those that may have desires that lay outside the guardrails of a particular church’s faith.
A literalist doesn’t have the freedom to choose. Which, in and of itself, is fascinating given that the evangelical response to why god created a universe with sin in the first place is that “freedom” is more important. A common refrain is that “god did not want a bunch of robots, he wanted people who would choose to love him.” This is a mind-bogglingly illogical statement, but is widely employed in churches all over the country. If god is all-knowing, doesn’t he already know who will choose him? If he does, then why not just create those people? Why go through the trouble, and the maliciousness, of creating people that he knows will never choose him and instead will be punished and suffer eternally in hell? But, I digress. An individual’s basic psychological need to know that they are free to choose their own path, that their life is theirs, that their journey towards self-actualization is completely within their own agency, is utterly rejected within literalism.
A literalist also lacks the competence to know what the purpose of their life is. The assertion is that god knows the individual better than they know themselves, as well as knowing what the future will be. Both of these assertions come from the doctrine that says god is all-knowing, called omniscience. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 139:1–3,
You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
God knows everything about us, so who better to set our purpose than him? We clearly aren’t as competent as god, so we better let him do it. And if we think we know what our purpose is, we have to check and make sure it is in line with the accepted theology of literalism. The horrifically traumatic part of this is that if we truly do feel that we know how to create a meaningful purpose for our lives, but then others within the church disagree with our assessment, a literalist would be shamed into rejecting their own desires. This invalidation would come from the community as well as the self. Self-invalidation of our own feelings is a learned behavior and used frequently by literalism to keep people within the bounds of the dogma of that particular sect. It’s also one of the most traumatic things that can happen to a person. The invalidation of feeling is at the root of all manner of trauma and is a self-reinforcing cycle that is extremely difficult to claw one’s way out of. I would know.
The Bible Tells Me Who I Am
We previously introduced how the belief that the bible is the basic instructions for living this life leads to a situation where an individual’s identity is not their own, but is instead defined entirely within faith in christ. To a literalist, faith in Jesus is not just a personal religious belief, it is their identity. Who they are. What they think. Why they act the way do. The entirety of their existence is bound up in the idea that they are, first and foremost, a servant of christ (substitute “child of god” or “part of the family of god,” etc. — same thing, just more palatable). This is enormously important. What happens to individuals who may want to leave the faith? Not only are they faced with the reality that they will be leaving their community and considered an “outsider,” which humans have a natural disinclination towards, but they are actually faced with an existential crisis. Who are they apart from christ?
When I decided to leave the church, I hid. I did not contact anyone from my previous life and I ignored emails and text messages, until they went away. The shame I felt in leaving the community I was a part of was so enormous that I had no interest in facing it. As difficult as that was, it was nothing compared to the years of unraveling of my life that occurred after that. Everything from my career, to my political beliefs, to my marriage, all began the process of starting over. I switched careers from ministry to software engineering. I switched from a staunch republican to about as left as it gets. And, unfortunately, despite years of trying my best to make things work, I ultimately decided to leave my partner of 16 years. That was the most excruciating decision of my life. I honestly had moments where I felt like the life insurance she and my children would get if I killed myself would be preferred over the harm I would have caused by leaving her holding the bag with four kids. Quick but very important aside, if you are in this or a similar situation, DO NOT DO IT. Your life is precious. Call 988 right now. I know the pain. I know it hurts. But I promise life improves. I’d like to give a special thanks to Drs. Jacobson and Schlotterback, as well as the advent of modern medicine with its anti-depressants that I started during this time. Literally saved my life.
My partner was not a bad person and I didn’t leave because she did anything wrong. She herself also underwent a religious transformation, actually. But what went unnoticed was that without the unifying belief system that said once you got married you were not allowed to get divorced unless someone cheated, I found that I actually no longer wanted to be married. I had become a different person, and so had she. So much so, that we simply were no longer compatible in fundamental ways. And that’s OK. Despite initial anger and sadness and tremendous pain, we were able to remain amicable and have a friendly co-parenting relationship now. As my best friend would say, “sometimes, two good people just don’t get along.”
Beautiful Suffering
Being a literalist is about more than just going to church. It’s about more than just showing up and paying your tithe. It’s about more than praying or reading your bible or being a generally “good person.” Being a literalist is about centering your entire life around devotion to christ and living your life in a way that puts every need or want you have second to that of “the lord.” The reason for existence is to serve Jesus and that is validated through rigid adherence to what is written in the bible. Matthew 10:38 says, “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 16:24 says, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” Luke 14:33 says, “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” The list goes on and on. The words of Jesus himself indicate that if someone wants to follow him, they have to give up everything they have and everything they are. This process of denying oneself leads to suffering, as self-invalidation does, but this suffering is intended.
Suffering is common among literalists and it is lauded. It is noble to “suffer for the lord.” And this manifests in a lot of different ways, including the idea that by being asked to “not pray in school” or be “forced to bake a cake for a homosexual couple” and then get sued for it, is considered suffering. We will deal with this more in part 5, but for now it serves as a good example of how easy it is for literalists to become victims and celebrate the “suffering” that they have to endure while living in the here and now.
Even apart from things like this, it is a common idea among literalists that suffering to the point of martyrdom brings “glory to god.” Martyrdom, of course, is when an individual dies for the cause they believe in. In our context, a christian martyr is someone who dies “in the name of jesus.” A modern example would be John Chau, an evangelical missionary who, in 2018, illegally tried to contact the people living on North Sentinel Island, India. His intention was to convert them to christianity, no matter the cost. The details of his death are unknown because the only two witnesses were the two fishermen who brought him to the island. They dropped him off and saw the islanders drag him away and when they returned the next day they saw his partially buried body on shore. His body was never recovered because the people of the island are protected and uncontacted.
Before we write off John’s death as an example of religious extremism, I’d like to call attention to the fact that his story is represented on the website persecution.com, which many evangelicals subscribe to (myself included when I was in ministry). It is the main website for the organization Voice of the Martyrs. This organization has several purposes, but the gist of it is that they want the world to know that people are being persecuted and dying in the name of Jesus all over the world and they want to “inspire believers to a deeper level of commitment to Christ and involvement in His Great Commission.” In short, they would like more people to suffer and die for Jesus. That’s certainly not how they would put it, but it’s also exactly what’s happening. Why else would there be a lengthy blog post on their website about this horrific tragedy of John Chau’s unnecessary death that ended with this line,
Whoever goes next, whoever is willing to risk his or her life to see John’s hope realized, should know that John has prayed for them. “Whoever comes after me,” he wrote in a prayer on the last evening of his life, “whether it’s after tomorrow or another time, please give them a double anointing and bless them mightily.”
I can guarantee you that the literalist community’s interpretation of that blessing is not a prayer for everyone’s future safety and well-being. Nowhere in the article is anyone discouraged from following in John’s footsteps (not even a footnote), rather it is a prayer that more will follow. Suffering, even to the point of death, is a feature of literalism and not a bug.
This feature completely subverts an individual’s autonomy. Was John exercising his own autonomy when he went to the island to die? Not according to his own journal. In the article referenced above, there is this quote from his diary:
If you want me to get actually shot or even killed with an arrow, then so be it. I think I could be more useful alive though, but to you, God, I give all the glory of whatever happens. I DON’T WANT to DIE! Would it be wiser to leave and let someone else continue?
To me, this sounds like an individual that wanted to remain alive. Someone who wanted to not suffer at the hands of an uncontacted people group with bows and arrows. The answer to his question should be obvious. YES! It would definitely be wiser to leave and go home, especially considering the morning before this journal entry he was already shot with an arrow, but the bible he was carrying stopped it. But that’s not what he wrote. Instead, he said, “No. I don’t think so — I’m stuck here anyway without a passport and having been off the grid.” Death over lost passport. This does not sound like someone exercising their own autonomy. Their freedom to choose life over death. It sounds to me like someone was taking verses of the bible very seriously and literally, as though the bible were their instructions on how to live, which came with the authority of god himself, and defined his very identity. John studied passages of scripture in the original languages and used exegesis and evangelical hermeneutics. Using these tools, John decided to die. Needlessly.
Let me wrap up this sad story with this: John was not some radical, extreme example of literalism. His story has likely been used in sermons in thousands of churches and heard by millions of people since his death. Not as a cautionary tale. But lauded as a hero. Praised as a martyr — someone who truly represented what it meant to be a christian. His identity had been completely overtaken by that of a rigid adherence to his literalist interpretation of the bible. I ask this: what is heroic about someone dying needlessly? What is praiseworthy? What is good? John would be alive today if he had not been taught that every word of the bible has the highest authority of god and is meant to be his literal instructions on how to live this life. He would be alive today if he was not taught to believe that he did not get to form his own identity, but instead received his identity, passively and outside of his own agency, from the bible. He would be alive today, if the literalist way of viewing the bible were not tolerated. How many more are suffering every day because of this? How many more have died? Our autonomy is not optional. It is essential. If that need is not met, there are dire consequences.
The Bible Tells Me How To Feel
Some of my earliest memories are not so much of events as they are of feelings. I remember feeling scared when I got lost trying to “go to the beach” and taking a lengthy stroll through the neighboring apple orchard (or was it a vineyard?) when I was 3 or 4. I remember feeling excited and not being able to sleep on Christmas eve as a young child. And I remember feeling angry and frustrated when I spilled some water at home after filling my cup. I then remember my dad telling me, “don’t let the devil get a foothold with anger.” Don’t be angry. Anger is bad. Ephesians 4:26–27 says, “In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” Being angry was bad because that’s when the devil would lead me to sin. Instead, I was supposed to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,” like it says in 2 Corinthians 10:5. These passages, and others, were used frequently in sermons and bible studies throughout my time in literalism to drive home the point that we weren’t supposed to feel anger (or frustration, or sadness, or fear, etc.) and if we did then we were close to sinning. Can’t have that. But it wasn’t just the so-called “negative” affects, it was also positive ones like sexual excitement (more on that one in the next part). The point here is that literalism is one of the most emotionally invalidating belief systems that exists. You are not allowed to feel anything that the bible says you shouldn’t and if you do, then you’re a sinner. You might see how this is problematic.
Problematic is a massive understatement, actually. This idea of emotional invalidation is at the root of a host of psychological problems ranging from major depressive disorder to borderline personality disorder. Especially when occurring in childhood, invalidating the emotions of another person can have traumatic and lifelong effects. This is why Dr Bessel van der Kolk, in The Body Keeps The Score, makes the argument that until we feel what we feel we cannot move past our trauma. If this invalidation were occasional, as happens in our everyday lives when someone says something like, “don’t worry about it,” then we might be able to look past this feature of literalism. Unfortunately, for literalists, this invalidation is not occasional. It’s constant, persistent, intentional, and lauded. Especially in children.
God Loves His Children
If you’re not familiar, evangelical churches (and christian churches generally) have a program on Sundays that is specific for children (usually, birth through high school) called Sunday School. This program is intended to teach children basic lessons of the faith of that particular denomination in the hopes they will grow up to continue on the beliefs of that sect. Some might call it “indoctrination,” but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader. Many of the lessons of this program are noble: treating others like we want to be treated, giving to those less fortunate than ourselves, etc. Literalists, however, have additional lessons they like to teach. A common one is about “putting on the full armor of God.” This phrase comes from Ephesians 6:10–20 and is about the idea that God and Satan are in a battle and we are Satan’s targets, so we should be ready by putting on various metaphorical pieces of armor. One of those pieces is called the “breastplate of righteousness,” which helps us “stand firm” against the attacks of the devil, otherwise known as temptation to sin. You’d be forgiven for thinking this is a fairly innocuous lesson. But, remember what I just mentioned about being angry? What happens when you teach a child that anger leads to sin and that we are supposed to stand firm against sin? Tack on the understanding we now have from Piaget that children also think differently than adults and what you get is a child exercising some concrete reasoning and coming to the conclusion that they must stand firm against anger. A plus B equals C. That anger is bad. “Don’t get angry, Forrest.” Sure, ok, let me go ahead and tell my limbic system to just…not feel certain things. How utterly ridiculous.
Literalists encourage children and everyone else to deny their own feelings so that they don’t sin. I can hear their response now: “that’s not what we do!” Well, but it is. I know because that’s how I felt. A response of this kind is itself an example of emotional invalidation. That’s the cycle that is all too common in literalism. When confronted with the very real trauma inflicted by this belief system, the belief system relies on the tried and true method of invalidation to say things like “that’s not true.” As though it is up to them to decide which feelings are “true” and which feelings are not. Also sounds a bit like an abuser doing some victim blaming, doesn’t it? Interesting, but I digress. This, again, comes from a rigid adherence to the idea that the bible is the basic instructions for living. The bible is the literal word of god and the bible says that anger leads to sin and we’re supposed to stand firm against temptation to sin. Therefore, if I don’t want to be led into sin I should not be angry. It isn’t just anger though.
Sexy Times
The most obvious example of emotional invalidation within literalism is in human sexuality. Why God cares so much about human sexuality is a topic for another book, but suffice it to say, he cares a lot about it. This invalidation manifests as repression of all manner of sexuality, from homosexuality, to masturbation, to pre-marital sex. There are countless examples of tremendous suffering from members of the LGBTQ+ community at the hands of literalism. The fact that we still do not have universal protection of same-sex marriage is a monumental disgrace to our society and demonstrates just how deeply rooted into American politics literalism is (we will take a deeper look at this in part 5).
The level of suffering that individuals of the LGBTQ+ community have endured is unimaginable; the abuse at the hands of literalists unforgivable. Human sexuality is infinitely complex, yet it is reduced to a binary heuristic with dogmatic enforcement. Any deviation from the literalist standard of sex between one cis man and one cis woman after they are married and only ever between them is treated as against the will of god and sinful. Oftentimes, even sex within that context has rules. It is not unheard of for literalist churches, even to this day, to adhere to a principle that sex should be within certain boundaries even for a married couple. Kinks and exploration are frowned upon and even if the “rules” are not explicit, the couple likely feels some level of shame for desiring to explore sexual fantasies that fall outside of certain norms, even in something as simple as what “position” a couple takes during sex. Ever wonder where the term “missionary position” comes from?
If an individual feels a compulsion towards a different type of sex, even if it is self-gratification, there is monumental shame around it. Imagine being a 13 year old, with what Dr Emily Nagasaki would call a “high SES,” and have zero outlet for it? Literally zero. Too young to be married, deeply embedded within a literalist community, porn met with discipline and a removal of privacy (hi, NetNanny, we had some good times didn’t we?), masturbation resulting in massive amounts of guilt, shame and tears, and significant community consequences including ostracization, even excommunication, for pre-marital sex. My name is Forrest and I don’t have to imagine that scenario. And neither do millions of others. We lived it. If you think that this type of upbringing would result in sexual repression, you would be right. And I can’t articulate with sufficient accuracy the level of pain and turmoil this emotional invalidation has caused in my life and in the lives of many others.
What autonomy is there in this scenario? If an individual is not even able to express something as fundamental as their own unique, budding, and beautiful sexuality, then how can this person ever live a full and satisfying life? When they try as hard as they can to obey the rules, earnestly desiring to not “lust” and sin, yet can’t because they are human beings, they are left with the unmistakable and very real belief that they are incapable and bad. No autonomy. No competence. Only pain.
I hate to be the one to reveal this to any literalist still reading this, but your sexuality is from you being a part of the animal kingdom. It goes all the way back to our earliest common ancestors who reproduced sexually. It’s deeper than your ability to reflect on your own thoughts, deeper than your ability to decide how to respond to your emotions, and deeper than any religious ideals that you hold to. You can wish it was different until your ovaries are sore, but you can’t change this fact any more than you can change the fact that your eye color is what it is. Demanding a rigid and dogmatic adherence to a sexual norm that is counter to the very DNA of a human being is disgustingly abusive and the pinnacle of a fool’s errand. Human dignity, competence, and autonomy is vastly more important than your antiquated sexual ideal.
Wrap It Up
I am not a psychologist or trauma specialist, so I want to preface the end of this chapter (applied to the end of the rest of the chapters as well), with that. Also, if you are really struggling, please reach out. There are resources available to help people who are struggling and it’s so easy to get to them. The National Suicide Hotline is 988 and it is totally confidential. You don’t need to be actively suicidal to call it and everything is always confidential. Please use that without hesitation. Mental health is just as serious as physical health and the fact that we still haven’t caught up to that fact is infuriating. No one should ever be left wanting when it comes to their health, physical or mental. Ok, preface done.
The bulk of this post dealt with some major themes of how the bible is read by literalists as their instructions for living and how that detrimentally undermines their autonomy and competence. There are a couple of “I” statements that I would like to offer as alternatives to what we’ve seen so far, which I hope will be more conducive to affirming an individual’s autonomy and competence. They don’t come from a book or research, but from my own life. As you might imagine, I spent a great deal of time in a lot of pain. There was a lot of brainwashing to work through and it was unpleasant. One of the things I learned to do was develop mantras, “I” statements, that I could repeat to myself when I started feeling the old evangelical beliefs start to creep in. They aren’t deep and don’t require a lot of explanation and there aren’t a lot of them. But I think that’s a good thing. Rather than needing to rely on a belief system that requires hours of study and convoluted word-smithing to affirm, I like relying on a few statements that feel good and affirm my basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. So, here are two that I think are relevant for this chapter:
I Decide Who I Am
It’s not much deeper than that. I get to decide who I am. No one else. And nothing else. If I want to define who I am with reference to some common belief system or some text, then I can do that, but only if that belief system or text affirms my autonomy and competence to do so. The literalist belief of the bible does not do this. As we saw in this chapter, after a person chooses to accept Jesus as their savior, their life is no longer their own and their identity is now absorbed into christ. He says who you are.
Now, does a person have the autonomy to choose to define themselves in relation to christ and let that absorb them? They have that ability and that right, yes. Because they are free agents. Some evangelicals, and some christians generally, would argue that god predestines those who will choose him, so they may not even get the choice to do that. John Calvin summed it up in the phrase irresistible grace. If god chose you, you can’t say no. If that is your belief, I’m not sure there is much I or anyone else can say to you. If god chose you and you have to say yes, then, well, none of this book makes any sense to you. What’s autonomy? What’s competence? What’s relatedness? None of that matters. Only god and his will. And everything that happens is his will. Even the next sentence I will write. What’s it going to be…
Here is the rub, I would argue. A person can use their autonomy to reject their autonomy. Once their autonomy is rejected though, it becomes extremely difficult to get it back. I can attest to that. Years and years of therapy, hordes of mistakes, hours and hours of crying, a plethora of episodes of major depression, and thousands of milligrams of antidepressants later might get you there. Maybe. Some people simply just never come back. And that’s heartbreaking to me. And one of the main reasons I want to write this series. People don’t need to suffer.
You can be happy right now. You don’t need to define yourself by anything you don’t want to. Don’t want to define yourself by suffering and martyrdom? Then don’t. Don’t want to give up everything for the sake of christ? Then don’t. Want to stop tithing? Then stop! You have the ability to decide for yourself who you are, what’s important to you, what value system to live by. And if you do decide to stop letting a book that was written thousands of years ago define who you are, know this: you’re not a bad person.
I remember that for several months after leaving the church I had a persistent, constant, nagging voice in my head that said, “you’re going to hell, Forrest.” Or, my personal favorite, “you’re committing the unforgivable sin, Forrest.” If you are not an evangelical, the unforgivable sin is sort of like the theological bogeyman for christians. There is this passage in Matthew, chapter 12 verses 31 and 32 that says,
And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
I used to live in fear of this verse. And so did a lot of other evangelicals I knew. We used to argue about it in bible college. What does it mean? What’s the sin? Can a person lose their salvation? It works really well as an enforcer of good behavior, if all the other shaming tactics of the church do not. This is why it’s so important to tell anyone who is reading this that is even remotely convinced by any of my horrendous writing that maybe their particular brand of literalism isn’t good for their psychology and they should look elsewhere: you’re a good person. You get to decide who you are. No one else. No one fucking else. Cool? Cool.
My Journey To Self-Actualize Is Mine
In a similar vein as the above, your journey in this life is yours. Without condition. It’s yours. And you get to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Are there consequences? Absolutely! But, rather than consequences of eternal punishment, we’re dealing with consequences of the here and now. Want to have sex with a bunch of people? You can do that. Use protection and seek consent. Or you will end up with a child, an STI, or in jail. Why the focus on sex, Forrest? Well, if there is one thing I know about evangelicals, basically all of them, is that they are some of the most sexually repressed people on the planet. I know because I was one of them. And letting those people know that it’s OK to want and have sex is really important.
It’s not just sex though, it’s your entire journey. Finding out who you are, learning, growing, evolving, is the whole damn point of the human experience. And you get to decide how to do that and what feels right for you. There is no manual. There is just you. And you have the freedom and the ability to do it. You define your own identity. You decide for yourself what you will include in your life. You chart your own course on your journey to self-actualization. You get to be you and no one else has anything to say about it. You have all of the freedom in the world. And all of the abilities. You have autonomy and you have competence. It’s scary, but you can do it. I know you can because I did. And the truth is that if I can do it, anyone can.
One of the terrible things about being raised in the world of literalism is that I never learned how to make decisions for myself. Everything was supposed to go through the filter of the bible, which left me constantly frustrated and confused. After leaving the church I definitely went through an extremely difficult time period of existential crisis and general feeling of being lost. During that time I also had periods of feeling like I had made a mistake and should go back to the “loving arms of the church.” But that’s the real insidious part. It is very much like an abusive romantic relationship. And I suspect it was designed that way. The verbiage is even similar:
- You are nothing without me (John 15:4–5)
- I am everything to you (Phil. 1:21, Jas. 4:4)
- You are bad, but I am good (2 Cor. 12:9)
- I know you more than anyone (Ps 8:3–4)
- Even though I know how bad you are, I still love you (Eph. 2:1–5)
- Everyone else will hate you (John 15:18–25)
Not exactly the healthiest form of relationship, I would say. I feel so much freer, so much happier, and so much more myself than I ever was when I was in literalism. Your journey to discover who you are, your journey to self-actualize, is yours alone. No one else gets to tell you how to walk through that journey. No one.
No One Else Gets To Tell Me What To Feel
This is one of the most important “I” statements that I say to myself. I remember when I first felt this. Really felt it. It was one of the most freeing moments of my life. It came during a very dark period of time after my separation. I had spent years feeling like I wanted to leave my marriage, but I could not bring myself to do it because I could not tolerate the idea of what other people would think of me if I left my wife of so many years holding almost all of the responsibilities of raising four young kids and owning a home while I went off to “find myself.” I felt shame, anger, sadness, and I also felt rejected.
That was the one that got to me. Why did I feel rejected if I was the one doing the rejecting? That didn’t seem fair. That must mean that feeling is “wrong.” In my head, I saw the multitudes of all literalists everywhere, standing in an amphitheater, pointing at me and yelling, telling me what a horrible person I was for leaving my wife and kids, screaming at me that I should be ashamed of myself for choosing my own happiness above my commitment to my wife. I saw all of these people shouting, “how DARE you feel rejected!” Then, after some therapy, talking with my friends, and lots of crying I realized something: I don’t choose my feelings.
Feelings are a part of what Daniel Kanheman would call the “fast brain.” They happen faster than any cognitive process that we have and that’s by design (evolutionary design, not intelligent design — nice try, literalists). Emotions are supposed to act as messengers to our cognitive processes. If we are walking through the woods and we hear something make a loud noise behind us, our limbic system is activated and we respond behaviorally by facing the threat, taking a defensive stance, poised to bolt in the opposite direction. This is a good thing and makes sense. It makes sense because how many of our ancestors do you think survived who did not respond that way? “Oh, I heard something, that’s interesting. Maybe I should turn and look to see what…” They’re dead now because the snake slithering towards them was able to catch them. Emotions first, then cognition. The point I’m making here is that I learned that if I can’t control what I feel, then how can anyone else tell me it’s “bad” or “wrong?” I can’t choose my feelings, only my behavior. No one else gets to tell me what to feel. I’m not responsible for the feeling. Just my response to it. It’s the same for everyone. Your feelings are yours and no one else gets to tell you what to feel.