Healing

Jenna Barnett 8-09-2023

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

As director of teaching and care at The Allender Center, which offers care and training to help people heal from trauma, Rachael Clinton Chen knows that abuse has many forms. And when sexual violence is committed by a faith leader, it’s often accompanied by another form of violence that’s harder to define: spiritual abuse.

Matthias Roberts 8-02-2023
An illustration of a blue woman hovering in the air with an abstract drawing of her nervous system glowing a translucent yellow-green through her skin. She is superimposed over an abstract drawing of a stain glass window with black thorns surrounding her.

Illustration by Ryan McQuade

THE FIRST TIME I became conscious that I was carrying the effects of religious trauma, I had just moved to Seattle and was sitting in a church, sweating.

My heart was beating fast; I couldn’t understand what was happening. This church, one I had chosen expressly because of its progressive, LGBTQ+ affirming stance, was supposed to be safe for someone like me, a queer person who deeply valued my faith. But I didn’t feel safe. I looked at the faces in the room with suspicion, searching for any indication of a bait-and-switch, and left the building quickly once the service was over.

Despite what I knew about the church — they welcomed LGBTQ+ people at any level of leadership, were committed to anti-racism work, and weren’t afraid of doubt or theological exploration — my body told me another story. As I sat in the cold folding chair, I tried to reason with myself, repeating these facts to calm down. But I didn’t feel calmer; I felt worse. I sat on my hands, legs shaking, as I waited for the service to end.

Because I had moved to Seattle to work on a master’s degree in counseling psychology from an institution that specialized in trauma, I soon learned what had happened: In that moment, my body had experienced the effects of trauma. Even though I cognitively knew the church was supposed to be safe, my body couldn’t discern this church from all the churches I had been in before — churches filled with people who weren’t afraid to tell me I needed to become straight for God to save me from hell. My body was sending warning signs: Be careful, environments like this aren’t safe. Despite the years of work I had done to detach myself from the rigid belief system of my youth, despite the ways I had fought to find a more life-giving approach to theology, I was beginning to reckon with the reality that changing my beliefs didn’t mean I had healed from the environments in which I was raised.

Now, years later, I see more people waking up to the realities of lingering religious trauma. When I scroll through my streaming apps, I see documentaries such as Shiny Happy People, Pray Away, and Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed that detail different forms of religious harm. I think this growing awareness of religious trauma is part of the driving force behind “deconstruction,” a buzzword that describes the process of reevaluating, changing, and sometimes abandoning one’s beliefs. But what I don’t see as often on Netflix — or on podcasts or on social media or at church — is honest talk about the process of healing. And as someone who now works as a therapist helping survivors of religious harm find healing, I know there is a lot more to say.

An illustration of a red cartoon heart with black streams flowing from it against a blue backdrop. Diamond-shaped stars and circles in green, red, yellow, and purple sparkle all around the heart.

Muharrem Huner / iStock

SOON I WILL be stepping away from the church I co-founded 15 years ago. After the beautiful struggle of seeing it get rooted, Metro Hope Church remains a small but vibrant, justice-minded, multicultural community in the heart of East Harlem. Our reach continues to extend beyond our neighborhood throughout the city and to other parts of the country.

My reason for stepping away isn’t, thankfully, some scandal or health concern. Nor is it burnout (I’ve been there) from the pressures of keeping a church sustainable. Nor is it managing the diversity of cultures and personalities, nor even the heartbreak of seeing people leave. Nor is it even how pastors must, at the same time, draw from the resources of theology; management and leadership thought; and diversity, equity, and inclusion — all while navigating a dicey political climate.

Pastoral expectations can be flat-out overwhelming. But my reason for stepping aside is simply because the time feels right. Today, I’m able to pass the baton with much hope through a community that will continue to live out and pursue the good news of liberation and wholeness.

Abby Olcese 12-29-2021
A young boy wearing a white surplice stands before a wall of stained glass

From Procession

IN WHISTLING IN the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary, Frederick Buechner writes of the power of art, “If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes ... like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces.” All art can be a sacred space to share an artist’s experiences and needs. At its very best, it can generate empathy and healing.

In the new Netflix documentary Procession, filmmaker Robert Greene works with adult survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, as well as trauma-trained advocates and therapists. The six men featured in the film collaboratively create dramatic scenes to process physical, emotional, and spiritual traumas. Their journey highlights the value of supportive communities, and the restorative potential of creative expression.

Though directed by Greene, Procession is credited as “a film by” everyone involved. Top billing goes to the men whose stories the film highlights: Joe Eldred, Mike Foreman, Ed Gavagan, Dan Laurine, Michael Sandridge, and Tom Viviano. While Greene may be the one behind the camera, ownership of the film belongs to the subjects.

Illustration of strings tied around a history book pulling it in different directions

Illustration by Michael George Haddad

DESPITE THE FACT that critical race theory (CRT) is a complicated academic theory that some scholars use to examine disproportionate outcomes in the criminal justice system, school board meetings across the U.S. have erupted in passionate debates with parents demanding it be banned.

Ironically, CRT cannot be taught to children because it is not age appropriate for K-12—just as we would not teach advanced nuclear physics to schoolchildren. Yet the strategic placement by far-right activists of a narrative that CRT has crept into K-12 education is causing dramatic outbursts of racial anxiety. All this passion could be rerouted to address an important question that everyone cares about: What should children be taught about race and racism in the United States? This conversation, if done well, could actually move our society toward much-needed racial healing.

Lisa Sharon Harper 1-04-2021
An abstract figure of a human dancing.

Illustration by Matt Chase

FOUR YEARS of verbal abuse. Four years of draconian policies that eviscerated the dignity of people who were not white, Christian, male, or citizens; of police-involved fatal shootings of Black men, women, and children with impunity; increasing climate disasters; government corruption; Russian bots and “fake news”; “very fine people on both sides”; families ripped apart; the white church’s loyalty to whiteness, not Brown Jesus. Four years of betrayal. Four years.

And one year of COVID-19, of disaster coupled with a disastrous response, of hibernation. One year of death.

We are a traumatized nation. As the U.S. enters the next era with a new administration, it is tempting to do as our foremothers and forefathers were taught: When they returned home from a war or survived domestic abuse, they were counseled to put it behind them. They didn’t talk about it, and the wounds grew scars, and the scars took over the bodies of our family systems.

Rev. Sharon Risher 5-06-2019

I had worked with so many patients and families who had suffered trauma and crisis, especially families who had lost someone to senseless gun violence, but it appeared my training didn’t come into play for myself. I walked around my apartment, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, in agony. Then my chaplain hat popped up. I told myself, “Sharon, you know hours of waiting to hear news about someone usually means the patient is dead.” The reality of it all was shattering.

A woman gestures as she stands on rubble of damaged buildings in Raqqa, Syria May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Aboud Hamam

Our findings are alarming: 1-in-3 men and women screen positive for PTSD (similar to the lifetime prevalence in Vietnam War veterans), nearly half show a high level of depression, and half exhibit high anxiety. Half of children show high anxiety. Nearly 80 percent separation anxiety in children restricts their ability to go to school and explore their new world. The number one concern expressed by teachers is their difficulty attending school because of high separation anxiety. This is especially critical because cumulative research shows serious negative effects of untreated childhood trauma on mental and physical health in adulthood.

Kathy Khang 4-25-2018

THERE IS THIS unsightly patch of spider veins behind my right knee. It started out years ago after my body had carried to term the weight of three pregnancies and endured the recovery associated with childbirth. A little spider vein turned into a few, which turned into a patch that eventually went from simply visually unappealing into painful and bulging.

I had hoped an injection would take care of both the pain and the patch of blues and greens. However, after closer examination via ultrasound, I learned that a larger vein, which to my untrained eye had nothing to do with that painful patch, was actually the key to treatment. We couldn’t start on the surface. We had to dive deeper.

Now there’s an analogy.

It hasn’t been enough for the church in the United States to talk about racism and sexism. Building relationships across racial divides is good, but it isn’t enough. Your new black, white, Asian, Latino, or Native friend doesn’t give you a pass. Sure, it’s a great photo op or church story, but deep down inside it will take more than everyone making a new group of friends.

It hasn’t been enough to talk about unity without addressing the cost of uniformity. It hasn’t been enough to research the most segregated hour of the week and then quote Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The unsightly and painful patch of damaged veins goes much deeper and requires far more than a single injection. The brokenness of the church requires surgery—amputation, transplant, transfusion, or a combination of all of the above. The healing of the church requires a Jesus that is not dressed in Sunday best because there never was such a thing.

April 12 marks Holocaust Remembrance Day. Each year communities and schools plan various events such as reading the names of Holocaust victims and survivors, forums of Holocaust survivor speakers, or panel discussions with historians. These events run through an entire week of remembrance.

Jessica Brown 3-07-2018

Losing a loved one to murder is unlike any other type of loss. Not only are we robbed of that person and of what could have been, we are robbed of peace, forever haunted by how our loved ones died. There is a level of brutality and fear that comes with homicide. When someone is sick, we can understand the illness and we usually have time to process and say goodbye. But homicide comes with so many questions and finding answers becomes a full-time job.
 

Students attend a prayer vigil for students killed and injured after a 15-year-old boy opened fire with a handgun at MarshallCounty High School, at Life in Christ Church in Marion, Kentucky, U.S., January 23, 2018. REUTERS/Harrison McClary

How does this happen in our hometown? We read about it and see it all too frequently on the news in other parts of the nation. But not here, not in our home. What are we to do with a tragedy of this magnitude in our community?

Sam Codington 7-11-2017

If we have learned anything from the past several decades, healing from a 500-year heritage of slavery will take more than a generation or two. I am humbled when I think of this because I realize that the relentless, demonic agony inflicted for 500 years will not be undone or healed by a single generation. My body will have flitted through the breeze as dust many times over once this 500-year heritage has been unwound and restitched. Healing takes more than just time.

Soong-Chan Rah 6-15-2017

The assumed exceptionalism and excessive triumphalism of the American church conflicts with the biblical call for humility as evidenced by lament. The practice of lament in the Bible confronts our American Christian assumptions. Biblical lament calls for honesty and truth-telling about the broken state of society and the individual. As such, the excessive triumphalism of American society has nearly quashed a necessary countercultural practice.

The core of the contemplative path is not just an individualistic process; it is about being a deeper part of the communal human family through the action of how we live out a just and radical spiritual truth, as Christianity was founded in the radical and revolutionary path of Jesus. The root of the Jesus story, of "becoming" his calling and path, is inherently about the integration of contemplation, action, and healing.

Focus on healing in movement spaces is often reserved for times of crisis — or is reduced to individual consumerist self-care like a glass of wine and a pedicure. In our leadership development, community cultivation, and organizing models, focusing on resilient, integrated, whole selves is considered extra — a fun and indulgent add-on to the “real work of organizing.”

Ryan Hammill 6-01-2017

Taizè prayer at St. Louis University. Image via Katherine Blanner 

Participants joined with local religious leaders and city residents to walk through the city, stopping at various places of worship to sing and pray, in a demonstration of unity. The Walk of Trust ended on the campus of Saint Louis University, where Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis, who first conceived of the meeting, spoke alongside the Rev. Dr. Traci Blackmon, a pastor in Florissant, Mo., and a leading voice in the response to Michael Brown’s death.

Joe Kay 5-15-2017

I arrived at the church and was heartened to see a full parking lot. People scurried inside with umbrellas as shields, determined to comfort Emily and her family. I’m right here for you, they seemed to be saying. Nothing's going to stop usWhere have we heard this before?

Jim Wallis 2-09-2017

Sojourners aims to be a nurturing, connecting, and sustaining place as we call for faith, resistance, and healing. We want to support and sustain all those who are using their many callings and gifts in multiple ways to push back against bigotry, protect the vulnerable, preserve our values, stand up for the truth, and keep the faith.

Cathleen Falsani 1-17-2017

Image via Cathleen Falsani.

Some of the boys involved in carrying out those acts in December we know, and we know their parents. The parents we do know are not frothing-at-the-mouth bigots. We can’t imagine their sons learned racist ideas at home.

But they learned them somewhere.

Racists and bullies aren’t born. They are made.