Frustration with religious-pushing
I normally try to avoid talking how triggering certain aspects of Christian culture are to me because a lot of people tend to assume that if something is triggering to a survivor, itâs something thatâs 100% acceptable and non-problematic that simply reminds one individual survivor of abuse and therefore causes bad reactions. Christianity-related triggers are not like the number three or glitter where I know nothing about those things is inherently wrong, but Iâm triggered by them anyway. Theyâre pretty different.
Some of the behaviors and attitudes I see coming from religious folk (particularly Christian religious folk) are ones that I find genuinely offensive and problematic as well as triggering. Iâll get to that in a moment.
My friend and I got bothered by Christian missionaries yesterday. Normally I just say ânoâ to people when they come around with that stuff, but these people opened by claiming they were just doing a survey of people who were hanging out at a specific hangout location we were at. I figured the survey would be about the place we were visiting, with questions about how often we go there, what we think of the place, if the place is clean/family-friendly, how old we are, what we think of the fries, if we like the rides, etc. It started off as a general questionnaire asking us how we felt about life and such, and then it started drifting toward spiritual questions. Somehow I still didnât get that it was about pushing Christianity on people. I figured that maybe these girls were religious studies majors who were trying to understand human spiritual variance. Nope. Just your average neighborhood religious pushers.
One of the most aggravating things about people who try to convert others to Christianity is that thereâs rarely a tone of âweâre looking for people who are interested in our particular approach to spirituality. Are you that kind of person? No? Okay, weâll keep looking!â Instead, they ask probing questions about your life and about your spirituality to try to punch holes in your argument and prove to you that âdeep downâ you really do believe in Christianity, but youâve just become too afraid of or confused by Christian doctrine to really commit yourself to it. They work on the fundamental assumption that everyone knows that Jesus is God and Christianity is the one, true, and right religion (unless theyâve simply never heard of those things) and that everyone who rejects Christianity simply misunderstands it.
You cannot say âI actually do understand what the religion teaches and what itâs about, I just donât want to follow the religionâ without deeply offending them. For their worldview to even work, it has to be that anyone whoâs really thinking about it/really making informed choices will agree with them. The thing that really aggravates me about this is that EVEN THOUGH they are totally convinced that everyone will see things the way they do if they âjust think about it,â they also push the idea of using faith to close the information gaps. How does that make sense?
Whenever Iâm around Christianity, I revert back into this âgood little girlâ morality wherein abusive parents are Right, nothing bad really happened to me growing up, and God is/was not an oppressive force that I have every right to want nothing to do with. If I were ever to be honest with people like the two girls I met yesterday, Iâd have to tell them a few things like:
âI do not CARE if my abusersâ behavior âisnât really what God wants.â If God is incapable of or unwilling to step in and say âwoah, wait a second, I donât condone child abuse, knock it off,â and Godâs followers are unwilling to look at how many churches cover for cults or cult-like people, then that religion is wholly useless to me. His âmysterious waysâ you quote are not a good enough excuse for me. If those facts donât make it useless to you, then great, but for me, anyone and anything that isnât actively helping me fight the âgood little girlâ morality of my childhood is hurting me, so please fuck off before I lose it.â
âFor me, Christianity is one and the same with this eat-your-bread, donât complain, act like a good little girl, like your parents no matter how much they hurt you, smile when youâre hurting, be grateful when thereâs no reason to be grateful, hide your anger, lie about what happened in the closet, etc.
The fact is, a LOT of abusive parents are religious parents. People who are going around spreading religion really need to understand that âoh, but thatâs not REALLY what God wantsâ is not comforting to people who have been abused by religious people. Moreover, pushing God on people who have been abused and are not comforted by religion actually reinforces self-hatred, blame, etc. It can trigger call-back programming for RA survivors, self-harm in people who do it out of feelings of guilt and worthlessness, etc.
I know for a fact that there are plenty of people who actually want religion in their lives but just donât know how to find it. FIND THOSE PEOPLE and help THEM. Donât assume that everyone who isnât religious is some kind of fugitive you need to find and drag back in.
AlsoâŠI really wish religious people would take an interest in finding out why so many abusers are drawn to religion and why it is so easy for religion to be manipulated toward justifying abuse. I wish theyâd ask what it is about the current culture surrounding religion attracts so many abusers instead of just saying âoh, well, thatâs not what Jesus wants, so weâll ignore the fact that thousands of people have successfully convinced their children and followers that it is.â Even if the abuse does not come from a weakness in Jesusâs word or Godâs word or whatever and only comes from a weakness in the culture surrounding religion, IT STILL NEEDS TO BE FIXED. If Jesus is against abuse, then what do you think he really thinks of people who see abuse happening in his name and donât question how the culture has gotten this violent?
If half of an army were to raid civilian homes, hurt innocent families, and so forth, the families would get a bad impression of that army. No self-respecting PR department would expect ânot all soldiersâ or âoh, well, the general doesnât support that, so this is just a whoopsie, whatever, thoughâ to make people feel better. People would likely demand an investigation into what actual orders the general gave, how those orders were interpreted, who interpreted them abusively and spread that message to the other soldiers, etc. The people who were hurt would want there to be an investigation into the source of the corruption and a change in the armyâs culture to prevent future tragedies.
Iâm just so tired of meeting people who are drunk on Godâs grace and uncaring about how much harm they cause by manipulating others, twisting their words, pressuring people who arenât interested, demanding a firmer ânoâ than most frat boys require to go away, etc.
I wish people actually learned about abuse and the way religion is used to justify abuse when they were being trained to be âwarriors for Christâ so they could use that message of love to fight abuse instead of triggering the fuck out of survivors.
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