Religious Trauma

What is Religious Trauma and Why Does it Matter? 

The Global Center for Religious Research defines religious trauma as: "Religious trauma results from an event, series of events, relationships, or circumstances within or connected to religious beliefs, practices, or structures that is experienced by an individual as overwhelming or disruptive and has lasting adverse effects on a person's physical, mental, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being." https://www.gcrr.org/religioustrauma

The Religious Trauma Institute defines religious trauma as: "The physical, emotional, or psychological response to religious beliefs, practices, or structures that overwhelm an individual's ability to cope and return to a sense of safety."

This site further defines "Adverse Religious Experiences: Any experience of a religious belief, practice, or structure that undermines an individual's sense of safety or autonomy and/or negatively impacts their physical, social, emotional, relational, or psychological well-being." https://religioustraumainstitute.heightsplatform.com

The study of religious trauma is relatively new. Religious trauma is not limited to Christianity and can happen in any religious system. These sites offer training and videos that are free or low cost and can help you understand religious trauma more fully. 

Religious Trauma matters, because for some people the trauma is so severe that attending a church or worship service or being around scripture and religious music, creates a panic experience and overwhelming feelings of being unsafe. Not all people who have experienced religious trauma will leave their faith communities, but many do. Leaving their faith community can be isolating and extremely difficult, because they are leaving the only support system they may have know. Some people completely lose any faith relationship with God and have no desire to remain in relationship with a religious community. 

For religious leaders it is important to learn more about the beliefs and systems that can traumatize people. Trauma goes deep. It affects our nervous system. We cannot simply give people new definitions or theological constructs and expect people who have been traumatized to feel comfortable in a worship or faith community. Yet without community, many find themselves struggling. Online non-faith communities have been reported in the training videos from the RTI. 

Everyone's nervous system is unique. Some people will not feel the same experience as traumatic. This is why it is important to not judge or dismiss an individual's experience. RTI reminds therapists that having to explain the trauma can be re-traumatizing and is working on a list of therapists who have some knowledge of trauma and high demand religious communities. 

I have not grown up in a high demand religious community. As I talk to relatives I have found that there are times when we say the same words but seem to mean entirely different things. Reading the book Hijacking History: How the Religious Right Teaches History and Why It Matters, by Kathleen Wellman, is extremely helpful. In this book she compares the curricula of the most popular High School home schooling and non-denomination Christian Academies curricula. I encourage people unfamiliar with the religious right to read this book. As a professor of History, she is able to point out where these curricula are different from the history public schools and academia teach. She also points out how the curricula changes the meaning of words commonly used in politics and religion.