Warning: I’m going to say something controversial today.
For some people, Religion is Toxic.
It kills. It harms. It hurts. It robs.
No, I’m not talking about the Brand of your Religion. You could be Catholic or Born-Again or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu. And still have Toxic Faith, no matter what brand you carry.
It’s not the brand, but the way we carry out our religion.
In fact, I believe wrong religion worsens our hidden addictions.
There are a significant number of religious people I know who have sex addictions, anger addictions, food addictions, and obviously, religious addiction.
Why?
What is Toxic Faith?
How do you know if you have Toxic Faith?
Here is the main symptom…
Do You Have A Distorted Image of God?
One day, a man came up to me and said, “Bo, I’ve been feeling guilty. I feel God is angry at me today…”
“Angry at you? Why?” I asked.
“Because I missed my prayer time today. I’m afraid that He’ll punish me.”
Friends, I knew that feeling very well. Because for years–decades–I used to think this way.
Yes, I once had Toxic Faith. (And if I’ll be honest, I still feel its residue in my soul.) Toxic Faith is based on a distorted image of God. For 20 years, I worshipped a judgmental, wrathful, vindictive, vengeful, and legalistic God. Even if during that time, I was preaching on God’s Love!
Why? Because our intellectual image of God is very different from our subconscious image of God. The latter is much deeper and more difficult to change.
A person with Toxic Faith will imagine God telling him, “Aha! You missed your prayer time today. I will punish you…”
I used to pray daily because of fear.
Do you know how absurd this is?
Imagine a father calling up his son by phone and growling, “Ingrate! You don’t visit me anymore. I’m warning you. I’m going to put a curse on you if you don’t visit me right this minute. Do you understand?” What kind of father is that?
And yet we imagine God to be like that.
Today, I still pray daily, but I do so because I love to pray. He blesses me, nourishes me, and fills my heart with love. If I do miss my prayers, He doesn’t throw lightning bolts on me.
Do You Worship The Judgmental, Wrathful,
Vindictive, And Vengeful God?
According to Toxic Faith, God is a judgmental, wrathful, vindictive, vengeful, and legalistic God. If a person has a distorted image of God, your subconscious beliefs are as follows… (Check if you have any of them.)
· “God will love me only if I behave.”
· “God hates sinners and is angry with me.”
· “He wants to punish me.”
· “God is never satisfied with me.”
When you have Toxic Faith, it seems as though God ispreoccupied with your sinfulness, waiting for you to make a mistake. He’s also fickle and moody: When you don’t sin, He likes you. When you do sin, He doesn’t like you. He constantly shames you, humiliates you, so you will follow His ever-increasing demanding standards.
My Painful Past
The foundation for religious faith isn’t religious education but strong family bonds. If a child grows up WITHOUT close relationship with his or her parents, he’ll have the capacity only for learning doctrines, not a capacity to trust God.
My parents were Catholic. We went to Mass every Sunday. We prayed the rosary every night. God was important. But more than that, it was our closeness as a family that prepared me for faith.
By 1978, all of us joined the Catholic Renewal. And I was introduced to a personal God. As a 12-year old, I gave my life to live for Jesus.
Our prayer group was lovely–small, happy, simple. We did outreach work in the provinces. Our leader, Sister Aida, was a prophet who prophesied that I would preach and she raised me up to preach. She was always honest about her faults–her temper, her worries, her fears–and it made us honest about our faults too.
But something went wrong when I was 13…
That was when I joined another group. It was a tiny youth group led by a gifted leader who was a great preacher, a good singer, and a very friendly fellow. I enjoyed being with other young people. I was one of its 4 young “elders”. But one day, when I was 13 year old, he sexually abused me. When that happened, I didn’t share it with anyone. I couldn’t. I kept the dark secret to myself. How could I tell others? He was our leader. In some terribly convoluted way, I didn’t want to shake the status quo. You like the community, you like the group, you like your role in the group. I became numb to the pain, I buried whatever feelings of shame, anger, and fear that I felt.
It took a few months later when I was with another youth “elder”–and he asked me if our leader molested me. I said he did. He said that he too was molested. And that others were abused too. Our entire youth group was being molested, one by one. We heard that one of our newest members was taking a shower in our community center when our leader just came in and took a shower with him.
With all that unaddressed pain within, I became a religious addict. What better drug–a way of escape–than religion? Than reading the Bible? Than prayer? Than religious activities?
I prayed an hour a day, went to Mass daily, prayed the rosary daily, read the Bible daily, lived a life of poverty–all in an effort to numb the pain within.
And I became a religious leader. If a religious addict becomes a leader, he usually becomes spiritually abusive towards his followers–because I insisted to everyone that my spiritual regimen was the only way to please God. So I taught them my spiritual regimen. I also frowned on them when they thought their thoughts, felt their feelings, wanted their wants. I used guilt and fear to manipulate them to follow my teachings.
Today, I’ve learned NOT to use religion as my drug. I’ve learned to address my inner pain. I’ve learned to feel my feelings, think my thoughts, and want my wants. I’ve learned to love myself. I’ve learned to enjoy life and to find God in non-religious stuff, like family, like business, like just being myself.
I’m free.
And this freedom has made me love God and others more.
I pray that you receive this freedom too.
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez
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