Religious idolatry for us Christians, at its core, is when we love our beliefs about God and people more than we ever actually love God and people. – Ben Cremer
Has this happened to you? You get blasted by someone from your “faith group” because the way you showed up (in person or on a social media post) didn’t meet their expectations of what a “good Christian” should be. It happened to me just this week. It could be about something you’re wearing, eating, or drinking, or about some “code language” you used … You’re attacked by someone who, as Ben Cremer notes, loves their beliefs more than they love you. You just encountered someone with a Religious Addiction!
Like all addictions, Religious Addiction (RA) hurts both the addicted person and the people around them.
I have good news (and I have bad news) about Religious Addiction!
First the bad news:
- RA is possible, it’s real, and it’s quite prevalent.
- Like all addictions, RA distorts life and complicates relationships.
- Like all addictions, RA can turn something good into a destructive process.
- Addiction always links a legitimate problem to an illegitimate apparent solution.
- Like all addictions, RA is built on an illusion, the illusion of control and certainty.
Now the good news:
- Addiction always links a legitimate problem to an illegitimate apparent solution (yes, that’s both bad and good news!)
- Like all addictions, RA points out our places of “arrested development.”
- Giving appropriate attention to our arrested development helps us grow, heal and thrive, and brings unexpected joy.
- Recovery is possible, desirable, and makes life better, for us and for those around us.
- Recovery is both inside us and in healthy, vulnerable, and trusted relationships.
- Recovery involves love and overcomes fear.
- Recovery helps us stop MISUSING a good thing, returning it to a state of mutual blessing for us and those around us.
Definition of Addiction:
“Addiction is a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.” (American Society of Addiction Medicine).
Let’s notice these keys:
- There are “substance” addictions that involve both legal and illegal substances like drugs and alcohol; these are the kind of addictions we’re most familiar with, where someone can’t stop using something others can “take or leave” as they choose.
- There are “behavior” addictions (“process addictions” is another term) where someone can’t stop doing a behavior that others can “take or leave” as they choose.
- Both types of addiction involve chemistry, specifically our electro-chemical “brain circuits;” people experience both a “high” and an anesthetic effect related to the spiritual/emotional/existential pain in their life; the point of this pain is where the “arrested development” lies, usually grounded in fear and/or trauma.
- The clear difference between addiction and non-addiction is NOT the use/non-use of a substance or behavior; it is the fact that the addicted person can’t stop in spite of the negative consequences of the substance or behavior. The non-addicted person can adjust their action according to the consequences.
As a healthcare chaplain specializing in Behavioral Health (addiction and psychiatric treatment) for 40+ years, I have come to understand that “the taproot of all addiction is control,” or more specifically fear and anxiety related to the sense of being “out of control,” feeling powerless and/or being extremely uncomfortable with “uncertainty.” I understand this personally as well as professionally.
While I was in training, my Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor wrote in one evaluation “Glenn lives and thinks and acts as if every little decision carries eternal consequences of ‘being or not-being,’ [you could read ‘heaven or hell’ or ‘salvation or damnation’ here] as if he has to be right or suffer the consequences.” That was really difficult for me to read! But it was also life-giving, because it pointed to a place of “arrested development” in my spiritual/emotional life: I had not learned to “love myself” and therefore could not “love my neighbor as myself” either; I had to disagree with others if I thought they were “wrong” about something!
That painful discovery started a “new life” experience for me; I was “transplanted” from living “grounded in fear” to being “grounded in love” from the God “who first loved us.” The beauty of this is that it brought unexpected joy to my life, and even more, it brought joy to others around me as I began to channel love to them instead of dishing out judgment. Could this be what Jesus meant when he said “By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another?”
Religious Addiction is a puzzling and elusive addiction. Religion is considered a “good thing,” about which there is commonly a “more is better” belief. No wonder people who feel powerless turn to religion for comfort rather than to self-love. Those most uncomfortable with “uncertainty” are most attracted to religions that create the illusion of “certainty” with encompassing belief systems, high parochial boundaries, specific behavioral “standards” or expectations, and definitive prophetic/apocalyptic visions of a certain future storyline.
I’ll conclude with wisdom I treasure from two psychiatrists and a psychologist who each came to study, appreciate, and teach healthy spirituality.
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth … because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it … Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them? What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one. Indeed, it is because of the pain that events or conflicts engender in us that we call them problems. Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.” Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled, p. 1.
I cannot prove to you that God exists, but my work has proved empirically that the pattern of God exists in every man and that this pattern in the individual has at its disposal the greatest transforming energies of which life is capable. Find this pattern in your own individual self and life is transformed. – Carl Jung
The most important ministries require suffering, because it is through suffering that we acquire the capacity to help others who suffer. – Leland Kaiser
Glenn Sackett is a Seventh-day Adventist ordained minister and Board Certified Chaplain. He lives in Denver, Colorado. Email him at: [email protected]
