When "Christian" teaching does harm

[DarkLight]

This is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. I grew up in an extremely conservative protestant denomination. Many of the social teachings were, on the surface, correct. Yet I also experienced a lot of harm from them, and I know of others who would say the same. My issue is, when I bring up my background, I often hear things like “it’s good to know people are still holding to the truth” or “wouldn’t it be wonderful to have such high standards”. I remember it as an environment steeped in guilt and shame. But I’ve been at a loss to explain how what on the surface seemed like harmless rules could be such trouble. Especially as young adults…I know we were technically free to leave, but everyone was telling us if we didn’t follow all the rules we’d end up strung out in a gutter somewhere. Close friendships outside church were discouraged because you would be corrupted.

How do you explain all this to people? How do you tell people higher standards, longer hemlines, more prayers, aren’t necessarily better?

 

[JaredR]

We all have varying degrees of empathy. Not everyone will be able to understand you when you explain how your upbringing affected you. This is one of the frustrating and humbling experiences of life. I’m sorry.

 

[DarkLight]

I’m not really looking for a huge amount of empathy. What I’m looking for is a basic, quick way to explain why more standards and rules aren’t always a good thing, in the face of prevailing attitudes of “Well what can it hurt?”

 

[JM3]

When standards and rules put up a barrier between you and those you are trying to bring to Christ, then they are harmful.

(is this what you’re looking for?)

 

[robwar]

This is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. I grew up in an extremely conservative protestant denomination. Many of the social teachings were, on the surface, correct. Yet I also experienced a lot of harm from them, and I know of others who would say the same. My issue is, when I bring up my background, I often hear things like “it’s good to know people are still holding to the truth” or “wouldn’t it be wonderful to have such high standards”. I remember it as an environment steeped in guilt and shame. But I’ve been at a loss to explain how what on the surface seemed like harmless rules could be such trouble. Especially as young adults…I know we were technically free to leave, but everyone was telling us if we didn’t follow all the rules we’d end up strung out in a gutter somewhere. Close friendships outside church were discouraged because you would be corrupted.

How do you explain all this to people? How do you tell people higher standards, longer hemlines, more prayers, aren’t necessarily better?

I think there is a difference between high standards out of love and high standards out of fear. did you come from a fundamentalist background? Likewise, I think it is confusing o say social teachings were correct (which I am assuming mean political like abortion etc) and teachings that had a lot of rules like wearing long shirts, no movies, no modern music, no tv which aren’t social teachings but over extened rules which isolate one from general society. Maybe you could point to an example like Katy Perry who grew up in a strict fundamentalist home and left when she started singing. she claims she had no childhood and now seemingly has left the Christian faith for now. I’m not quite sure how to help you except having a number of restrictive rules out of fear not love can be very harmful.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

How do you explain all this to people? How do you tell people higher standards, longer hemlines, more prayers, aren’t necessarily better?

They are better if they are true.

Protestantism is not true.

 

[Contarini]

This is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. I grew up in an extremely conservative protestant denomination. Many of the social teachings were, on the surface, correct. Yet I also experienced a lot of harm from them, and I know of others who would say the same. My issue is, when I bring up my background, I often hear things like “it’s good to know people are still holding to the truth” or “wouldn’t it be wonderful to have such high standards”. I remember it as an environment steeped in guilt and shame. But I’ve been at a loss to explain how what on the surface seemed like harmless rules could be such trouble. Especially as young adults…I know we were technically free to leave, but everyone was telling us if we didn’t follow all the rules we’d end up strung out in a gutter somewhere. Close friendships outside church were discouraged because you would be corrupted.

How do you explain all this to people? How do you tell people higher standards, longer hemlines, more prayers, aren’t necessarily better?

Well, I come from a “Holiness” background, so I get what you are saying. At the same time, I’m not as unremittingly negative toward my heritage as you are toward yours. This may be because I experienced more genuine spirituality and charity in my youthful religious environment than you did, or it may be because I’ve had different experiences in life since, or it may be because I’m older than you and have had time to get over my initial anger (I’m 39–I have no idea how old you are, and you may be quite a bit older for all I know), or because I have a different personality, or for some other reason. In other words, I’m not trying to tell you that you shouldn’t feel the way you do. My family were actually somewhat disillusioned with the conservative Holiness movement themselves, though I’d still say that our beliefs and practices were basically Holiness, had we contact with a lot of very strict Christians belonging to very different kinds of groups: more conventional “Holiness” folks (both Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal), fundamentalist Baptists, conservative Mennonites and New Order or Beachy Amish, various kinds of charismatic and post-charismatic house-church groups, “Gothardite” large-family homeschoolers, etc. While in some ways I found some of these folks (especially the conservative Mennonites) to have a more stable and reasonable approach to a strict lifestyle than my family did, on the whole I found most of them to be more irrationally strict and to have less commitment to the genuine spiritual principles behind their strict rules than my family. So I can easily believe that you had a worse experience than I did.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I’m not really looking for a huge amount of empathy. What I’m looking for is a basic, quick way to explain why more standards and rules aren’t always a good thing, in the face of prevailing attitudes of “Well what can it hurt?”

1. It can make it very hard to engage in proper moral reasoning, and this can actually lead to immoral behavior. The old joke about Baptists not approving of premarital sex because it might lead to dancing is not just a silly joke. It gets at a real problem. If you are taught to stay away from all alcohol because drinking one drop will turn you into an alcoholic, then once you drink one drop you may think “well, I might as well go the whole way.” And so on. I had the benefit of attending grad school with devout Christians of less strict persuasions (many of them Catholic) who modeled a reasonable, thoughtful, orthodox approach to Christian morality. But I’ve still struggled with my “all-or-nothing” moral instincts for years…
2. It tends to make you uncharitable to other people. There’s nothing wrong with having stricter standards; there is everything wrong with judging those who don’t hold to these standards. I remember arguing with my grandmother when I was a teenager that one of my female friends was not a slut (my grandmother didn’t use the word “slut”–she said “she’s obviously trying to attract men”) for wearing shorts, but simply did so because it was cooler in the summer. (Ironically, this girl has grown up to become much more right-wing than I am, and even then her family were by most people’s standards extremely conservative, but they didn’t have “Holiness” dress standards.)
3. It can reflect a kind of “Manichean” attitude to God’s creation. My family were very influenced by the Chinese Christian Watchman Nee, who taught that what is “natural” needs to be replaced by the life of the Spirit. Holiness teaching tends to foster this (Nee wasn’t Wesleyan Holiness himself, but thought along very similar lines). I remember feeling as if listening to classical music somehow made me less close to God (the opposite of how I feel now). It was hard to appreciate the good gifts of God when you were always being exhorted to “crucify” everything “natural” so that God’s Spirit could live in you, and always told to watch out for the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

These, I think, are the biggest problems.

I actually wish I had encountered the response you describe more often. In my experience, I’ve much more often had to explain why my family’s attitudes were not simply irrational legalism but actually had some merit.

Edwin

 

[stephe1987]

I think higher standards, longer hemlines, more prayers, etc. are good things. But the problem wasn’t the standards themselves but the way in which they were implemented. Teaching people to be afraid rather than learn about God’s forgiveness and the importance of growing closer to God by not sinning. Teaching the rules but not the reasons behind them. This will make people afraid and have a blind faith rather than being able to give reasons for their beliefs. JMO.

 

[DarkLight]

I think there is a difference between high standards out of love and high standards out of fear. did you come from a fundamentalist background? Likewise, I think it is confusing o say social teachings were correct (which I am assuming mean political like abortion etc) and teachings that had a lot of rules like wearing long shirts, no movies, no modern music, no tv which aren’t social teachings but over extened rules which isolate one from general society. Maybe you could point to an example like Katy Perry who grew up in a strict fundamentalist home and left when she started singing. she claims she had no childhood and now seemingly has left the Christian faith for now. I’m not quite sure how to help you except having a number of restrictive rules out of fear not love can be very harmful.

Semi-Fundamentalist, yes. That’s what makes it more confusing sometimes. Like, we could watch modern movies, as long as the rating wasn’t over PG and there were no bad words or even someone hinting at sex. Skirts had to be below the knee, but girls could wear pants as long as they were baggy. It felt like a lot of good things were blocked off out of fear. I was well out by the time I could try on clothes that I felt pretty or attractive in. I started being able to watch classic movies like The Godfather and enjoy them, when they would have been forbidden. None of what I did was wrong, yet it was forbidden out of fear it might lead to wrongdoing.

I think higher standards, longer hemlines, more prayers, etc. are good things. But the problem wasn’t the standards themselves but the way in which they were implemented. Teaching people to be afraid rather than learn about God’s forgiveness and the importance of growing closer to God by not sinning. Teaching the rules but not the reasons behind them. This will make people afraid and have a blind faith rather than being able to give reasons for their beliefs. JMO.

Sort of. I think…high standards get to the point where you’re just forbidding things that are good in themselves. Around modesty, I remember developing a lot of anger towards my own body. The pressure to cover my body combined with the harsh reality that a well-developed chest exposed me to harassment in the wider world created a quite toxic combination. Pushing a person like me who absolutely detests mornings to spend 30min every morning in prayer led simply to resentment and a habit of nodding off. There was very little notion of when it was ok to say “enough.”

1. It can make it very hard to engage in proper moral reasoning, and this can actually lead to immoral behavior. The old joke about Baptists not approving of premarital sex because it might lead to dancing is not just a silly joke. It gets at a real problem. If you are taught to stay away from all alcohol because drinking one drop will turn you into an alcoholic, then once you drink one drop you may think “well, I might as well go the whole way.” And so on. I had the benefit of attending grad school with devout Christians of less strict persuasions (many of them Catholic) who modeled a reasonable, thoughtful, orthodox approach to Christian morality. But I’ve still struggled with my “all-or-nothing” moral instincts for years…
2. It tends to make you uncharitable to other people. There’s nothing wrong with having stricter standards; there is everything wrong with judging those who don’t hold to these standards. I remember arguing with my grandmother when I was a teenager that one of my female friends was not a slut (my grandmother didn’t use the word “slut”–she said “she’s obviously trying to attract men”) for wearing shorts, but simply did so because it was cooler in the summer. (Ironically, this girl has grown up to become much more right-wing than I am, and even then her family were by most people’s standards extremely conservative, but they didn’t have “Holiness” dress standards.)
3. It can reflect a kind of “Manichean” attitude to God’s creation. My family were very influenced by the Chinese Christian Watchman Nee, who taught that what is “natural” needs to be replaced by the life of the Spirit. Holiness teaching tends to foster this (Nee wasn’t Wesleyan Holiness himself, but thought along very similar lines). I remember feeling as if listening to classical music somehow made me less close to God (the opposite of how I feel now). It was hard to appreciate the good gifts of God when you were always being exhorted to “crucify” everything “natural” so that God’s Spirit could live in you, and always told to watch out for the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

These, I think, are the biggest problems.

I actually wish I had encountered the response you describe more often. In my experience, I’ve much more often had to explain why my family’s attitudes were not simply irrational legalism but actually had some merit.

Edwin

These are good points, I think. The second especially. I was thinking with homosexuality…they would agree with the Church that homosexuality is wrong. They would further say that no homosexual could go to heaven. Then they would say that no Christian should be friends with or be seen being friendly with a homosexual person, lest they be tempted or lest others think they might have “compromised.” Somewhere in that slide they lost sight of grace.

 

[mommamaree]

This is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. I grew up in an extremely conservative protestant denomination. Many of the social teachings were, on the surface, correct. Yet I also experienced a lot of harm from them, and I know of others who would say the same. My issue is, when I bring up my background, I often hear things like “it’s good to know people are still holding to the truth” or “wouldn’t it be wonderful to have such high standards”. I remember it as an environment steeped in guilt and shame. But I’ve been at a loss to explain how what on the surface seemed like harmless rules could be such trouble. Especially as young adults…I know we were technically free to leave, but everyone was telling us if we didn’t follow all the rules we’d end up strung out in a gutter somewhere. Close friendships outside church were discouraged because you would be corrupted.

How do you explain all this to people? How do you tell people higher standards, longer hemlines, more prayers, aren’t necessarily better?

I am at a loss on how to explain it, too, despite the fact that it was my experience as well. I am sorry I can’t be of more help to you, but I do understand. I am still trying to explain it to myself. I usually don’t talk about it with others, since almost everyone would not understand. They would try to understand, because they are kind, but it is just so far outside their experience as to be almost alien. Only my husband understands me on this. Maybe, if you are able to find just one person who might be a close confidante, you can start opening up about your experience. Talking it out can help, but only if the confidante has some real understanding of your background. In the meantime, you can message me or talk to the fine folks at CAF for support. God bless you!

 

[St_Francis]

I can see where what you are talking about would be too much… but basically, it’s just really hard being a parent! Of course, I have the view that Protestants have untruthful basises (?) in their thinking, and I admit that there is a certain amount of that in US Catholic thinking because of the influence of Puritanical thinking in our general culture and also a strain of Jansenism…

But there is also the flip side: I remember reading in Dear Abby about a mother who put her daughter on the Pill when she was 13, “just in case.” Now, this is more understood by the geneeral population than your experience, but to me it is at least just as bad (if not worse). There are parents who go too far in the opposite direction, pushing their daughters to be popular, letting them have parties where there is drinking, etc.

Our parents are also on a spiritual journey and are going to make mistakes. They too have the residues of their background as well–that 13yo whose mother put her on the Pill may well grow up and be fearfully strict with her daughters as your parents were with you, simply because she too does not know any better.

But remember that in some cases it is not the *teaching *which is wrong but the communication of that teaching. Maybe it will help you to forgive your parents if you can sort all these issues out… like, it’s good to forbid a child to dress immodestly, but to leave her with a fear of her body was the wrong way to do it.

Another thing which seems to be missed rather frequently is the role of the wider society.As a generic example, it may be that a girl’s bad ideas about her body came more from her school friends than from her parents, and it was more the combination of the two differing messages which caused conflict in the child’s mind. We seem to assume that the general society’s message is correct, and parental messages which conflict with that are wrong, bit that is not always the case.