Note: The Escape Route Series was inspired by messages from “religious survivors” who - as of June 2018 - were afraid to leave the church or ask questions they’d spend years avoiding. I hope my new friends find inspiration, solace, validation, and hope. Resources are available at the bottom of each post.
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This blog post is a copy of the Facebook Post I wrote on a Support Group Page for those who may have felt harmed by Scottsdale Bible Church in the 1980's and '90s:
I might lose some friends from this, but I think it's time to "come out of the closet."
When I heard the news of Les Heughey (my former youth pastor), I was not surprised. Anyone who has grown up in a mega-church has seen how sexual suppression and secrets fuel sexual addiction and lies. When conformity (social conformity, theological conformity, emotional conformity) is priority, when it trumps principles like honesty and compassion, then people inevitably suffer…
In my missionary years, I watched shame-based indoctrination, hidden under the guise of sanctification and self-sacrifice, irreparably break the spirits of many. I left the institutionalized church 10 years ago because I was one of those broken spirits.
I had a lot of self-harming beliefs that were instilled as a preteen, and encouraged by the evangelical culture at large. I believed God was glorified when I became small. I believed my sexuality was a weapon of mass destruction. I believed my role was to serve the men I perceived to be powerful. I believed I was responsible for their sins if I dressed wrongly. I believed my worth could be measured against my obedience to authorities and becoming a wife to a “spiritual leader.” I believed I was responsible for the salvation of loved ones and friends. Most importantly, however, I believed my essence - my core - was innately wrong...so wrong that I was destined to hell unless forgiven for having been born.
Let me be clear: I was not sexually assaulted by Les Heughey. But church trauma still happens; it’s systemic. The act of silencing religious-trauma victims by dismissing their pain has been an epidemic for generations (consider this recent article written by Pease of the Washington Post). Since this is a support page for those who attended SBC, I think it’s the proper time to tell my story, too. I want others to know there’s hope on the other side...
When it comes to cases like mine (those raised in church from childhood who eventually experience addiction, mental illness, trauma, family dysfunction, or codependency run amok), ignoring religious culture and focusing only on specific individuals is shortsighted. The power dynamics, covert silencing, and gender norms of evangelical culture is extraordinarily influential. It’s impact on young people trying to “find themselves” cannot be overestimated. Like most my friends, I went to church three times per week and committed my school lunch hours to groups like Bible Club and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I think it’s safe to say that evangelicalism had more to do with my upbringing than my own family.
I was an insecure kid who clung to the structure provided by the youth group community. I had also just moved school districts and needed friends badly. Things at church seemed predictable. People were nice. The hugs were free. The Jr. High “Night Spot” became home to those whose homes were troubled. It was there – in the safe-haven of God’s house – where I was first taught my pain was God’s plan, and he was glorified by my suffering. I believed them in the wrong way. Looking back, I wish I’d been taught that pain happens despite The Plan, and my suffering didn’t have to be a waste.
From age 11 to 23, I endured a monstrous eating disorder. I wanted to stop so badly, but I didn’t know how. Maybe God wants me to have an eating disorder – maybe it makes me turn to Him? I wondered. But isn’t this compulsion a sin? Aren’t I putting it before God? Doesn’t it block me from Him? If so, why hasn’t he taken it away? I must be unworthy. I should try harder.
While at church, I asked for help on a regular basis, from age 14 to 22. Not once was I directed to a mental health professional or female counselor with an actual license in psychotherapy. In attempts to get confidential help at age 16, I told my youth pastor about my incessant anxiety and the pervasive nature of this mystery addiction. In response, he asked me how much I was reading my bible and quizzed me on my prayer life. Anxiety, it was explained, was actually a sin because it demonstrated my lack of faith in God. After confirming I wasn’t making out with boys, he told me to pray for 21 days...just like Daniel. He believed my vanity was steering me away from service to God. Two hours later he got on stage and made jokes about gay people. I thought he was magic. Really, I did. We ALL did! I sat in the front row, we were standing on chairs singing songs by DC Talk, cheering for our friends who were soon to be covered in whipped-cream and fish guts. That’s how things were handled back then…
I went to all the events organized to make Christianity “cool.” And, like many of my peers, I never missed a summer camp, winter retreat, mission trip, or choir tour. I needed to make sure I was obedient and one of the favorites. I needed to be an example for Christ, because doing so demonstrated my gratitude for God’s sacrifice.
By age 20, I was an SBC intern while I prepared for a career with YWAM. I obeyed. I wore one-piece swim suits, put fish bumper stickers on my car, and read dozens of books: Brennan Manning, John Piper, Donald Miller, Shane Clairborne, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Philip Yancy, Max Lucado, Joyce Meyer, etc. I was also riddled with fears about perfectly following God’s plan. Panic attacks began around this time, and my bulimia was getting more and more intrusive. I was vomiting 5+ times per day and consulted a handful of elders for direction. In efforts to eradicate the eating disorder, I joined numerous prayer circles and accountability groups. Nothing seemed to help. I lived a double life: servant for God and closet-addict. As far as I was concerned, I was the most dishonest person I knew.
This was also the season I learned the Jr. High youth pastor (and my direct supervisor) was sleeping with one of our teen staff members. She was in high school at the time, and an acquaintance of mine. This pastor had a wife and family, my friend got pregnant. She kept this beautiful baby; obviously he resigned. You know what helped me trudge onward in the face of this obvious hypocrisy? Not just his, but mine as well? Do you know what I used to propel me into a future with ever-progressive mental and spiritual abuse at the hands of a decentralized missionary organization? I just blamed everything wrong with the world on the fall of man - on original sin - and used theological arguments to keep my brain “in check.”
Brainwashing is a slow, progressive change that takes an infinite number of micro-shifts in the psyche. When a concept like “Jesus had to die for your sins” is introduced to a five-year-old, it’s easy to hear “your sins put Jesus on the cross.” Today, I take responsibility for my naivety. For years, under the guise of “serving the Lord,” I ignored my intuition and gas-lit my own conscience. Doing so was easier than rebuilding my entire worldview from scratch. It was easier than asking myself the existential questions from which my fellow community members sheltered themselves. This was not anyone’s fault but mine. It took me four more years to leave a career in an evangelical environment that was saturated with (and controlled by) the unconscious, narcissistic abuse of many more authority figures.
At 23, I turned in my notice to leave a YWAM base in Los Angeles in order to get secular help for my bulimia and mental health. As a result, I was “dis-fellowshipped” from the community and told the devil was using me for his corruption. By breaking a two-year commitment to my California pastor (also a grandiose sex-addict), I had proven myself disobedient and disloyal. For a while I wondered if I was going to hell. By this point, my bulimia had become a tool for religious penance. I was vomiting up to 14 times per day; I needed to “get the sin out” whenever I made mistakes or suspected I had accidentally disobeyed God.
Don’t get me wrong - I don’t think church was the CAUSE of my eating disorder and self-hate. After years of therapy and self-reflection, however, I’ve concluded the youth group experiences I encountered from sixth grade onward contributed to and solidified the shame-based self-concept that kept me in bondage to addiction and religious perfectionism. It “groomed me” into patterns that prevented me from changing.
What is the point of sharing all this? I suppose I want say something to those currently suffering from addiction or religious trauma: there is hope.
Upon returning to Arizona, I entered intensive therapy and a non-religious recovery group for my problems. That was nearly 12 years ago, I can truly say I’ve been “reborn” and mean it. I was not reborn in the Christian sense. I was reborn into a whole, integrated person who trusts herself. This woman I’ve become, she believes she is innately good, that her sexuality is hers alone, and that humans are fucked up. All of them. We all have the propensity for abuse, regardless of our proclaimed obedience, admirable ethics, convincing salesmanship, theological accolades, electric grandiosity or mechanisms of denial. Everyone has to learn this at some point in their lives. And when we’re ready, we will learn to own ourselves rightly, and courageously follow “the Spirit within us,” rather than submit to the conformity demanded of us.
It’s no wonder to me that leaders like Les have been enabled for all these years. Whenever I discussed getting secular help for my problems, church counsel and loved ones advised against it. “Are these counselors CHRISTIAN counselors? Is the advice SCRIPTURAL?” Sometimes they feared for my salvation. I suspect - even if Les had sought help for his sex addiction or hypomanic liabilities - he would’ve received the same advice I did: "Keep your head down and pray harder. Just keep plugging away; careful what you say; be above reproach."
For over a decade (a decade!), most of my difficulties had been spiritualized away as “the flesh” rather than embraced as part of the human experience. They were labeled as proof of my sin-nature by people too prideful to admit they lacked the experience required to help. I was a sinner who’d fallen short, and I was nothing without the grace – and pity – of the same omnipresent God who was glorified by my pain.
This is insane.
About a year before I had the courage to leave evangelicalism altogether, I stumbled across a 12-Step program for people like me. I’d never experienced such honesty, vulnerability, and acceptance. Some of my friends didn't have physical addictions at all, but shared about their rigid control issues, isolating depression, or PTSD. We are comprised of corporate executives, truck drivers, priests, tech nerds, stay-at-home moms, pilots, bartenders and surgeons from an array of faiths and backgrounds. This unconditionally loving community gave me the strength to leave the fear-based message of bible-based fundamentalism; it offered me the safety and space to detangle my inner demons.
I may not be a Christian anymore - I’m not actually sure. I don’t believe in Hell, an anthropomorphic deity, or interventionist God. But I do know that a message of healing, hope, and restoration doesn’t involve original sin. It’s involves Original Love. God created the world and saw that it was good. You are good, to the core. Despite your failings and hardships and secrets and pain, your being is good.
I don’t care whether you think Jesus is God, or aliens stole your kidneys; there is a Divine Goodness inside you. You are a force of Something Majestic, a force of Life itself, simply because you breathe. So if no one has told you you’re Ok just as you are - with your secrets and dark sides and “sins” - I’d like to tell you now.
Continue your pursuit of this Love and Courage. Continue your pursuit of Truth. Sometimes we find it outside the church...outside the faith...and I think it’s just as much a miracle.
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Free Resources:
Podcast for those Questioning their Faith:
The Life After Podcast (interviews w/ people who've left fundamentalist Christianity)
Book on Spiritual Abuse & Leaving Fundamentalism/Religion:
Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists & Others Leaving Religion
Book on Spiritual Abuse for Christians:
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse: Recognizing & Escaping Spiritual Manipulation & False Spiritual Authority
Printable Workbook for those Harmed by Religion:
Free Religious Trauma PDF Workbook by Dr. Marlene Winell