Final Retreat, Day Two--Escaping a "Borderline" Religion

I had an experience earlier this week that forcefully reminded me of just how painful it was for me to be in the Evangelical faith, and just how painful it was for me to leave it. It reminded me of how emotionally violent the Evangelical concepts of hell and salvation feel to me now.

I chose this particular retreat spot precisely because I have been here before--years ago--and during that retreat had been surprised and awed at how powerfully I encountered God's love for me. In my retreats this summer I have been focusing on God's abundance, on God's goodness, on God's presence and love, trying to heal from my internalized images of God as abusive, borderline mother. As I walk the paths here, I am reminded of being here years ago--how I chose the retreat center at random and called last minute to see if there was any space for a retreat the next day and was told by the nun who answered that usually they're booked weeks in advance, but that someone had just cancelled. I got to the site, driving through winding roads, through canyons, through forest, having no idea what to expect. And I found a three story log house. It was simply furnished, but gorgeous--honey-colored wood, a deck, a balcony outside of my room, a jetted bathtub. Best of all, as I walked in to the living room I saw floor-to-ceiling windows, and out of them a stunning view of miles upon miles of forest.

As I walked in the forest during my two days, I could feel and hear my heart beat. As I listened, as I sunk into the quietness of the forest around me, I felt intimitately connected to God, sustained by God; I felt that God's life and love moved through me, made me up, and and sustained just as fully as my blood did. I felt loved lavishly, felt as if I was hearing God tell me--insecure, self-hating me--that He (back then, God was definitely a He to me) really, truly, utterly, overwhelming loved me, found me worth lavishing with a weekend in a gorgeous peaceful place.

And so I came back to this place to help me remember...and to rejoice in the presence and the love I've encountered so fully this summer.

But nearly as soon as I left my house I started thinking about this experience--this experience that reminded me of the worst parts of my Evangelical experience. I often struggled with a sense of God's absence--even during (perhaps especially during) my most fevent Evangelical days. I often experienced God as abandoning, as unpredictable, as, in short, a lot like my mom. And once I finally got up the courage to leave my Evangelical faith, I really feared that God would stop showing up, that I would never experience God or God's love again. And certainly that's what I'd been told--God was only available to those who subscribed to this particular Evangelical understanding of Jesus' life and death, of sin and salvation, and everyone else was on their way to hell, to infinte and eternal separation from their Maker and from all that is good and loving.

As you may know, my mother has borderline personality disorder. There's a lot that can be said about the disorder, but it is perhaps most obviously characterized by narcissism and an inability to think in "gray" categories. Someone is either all-good or all-bad, and when someone in the "all-good" category does something that feels disappointing or like betrayal to a borderline, the "all-good" person is suddenly "all-bad." So relating to a borderline can be totally baffling and crazy-making. One minute you're connected and loved and it's all hearts and roses, and then suddenly you stumble upon one of the borderline's triggers (perhaps entirely unbeknownst to you) and next thing you know, BAM, you are evil--the embodiment of all that is awful. And such was my experience with my mother--a year of close mama-newborn interaction and then my brother is born when I am 1 1/2. My mother is gone at the hospital for a week and when she returns, I won't let her hold me. It's a typical reaction of an insecurely attached infant--I didn't have "object permanence" and thus had no way of knowing that my mother hadn't disappeared forever. I went into the infant-equivalent of depression. Healthy moms can help their infants recover from this with just a little bit of patience and steadiness and love, but my mom was not a healthy mom. She experienced my withdrawal as abandonment and rejection and began to hate me. She projected all of her previous abandonments (her father's suicide, her mother's mental illness, her step-father's sexual abuse) on me, and, let me tell you, tht's a lot for an infant to suffer under. As I grew older, our relationship recovered some, and I have many years of lovely memories (marred by a few moments of mom's screaming rages, calling me a selfish brat or the like). Mostly, though, I have memories of reading together, making-up stories together, going on walks and examining spider webs and flowers and rain drops together. And then BAM. I turned 10. I began the work of separating from my mom. I argued. I expressed my disagreements. I became interested in clothes and earrings and make-up and my friends and their opinions. And, again, she experienced my separation as abandonment and rejection. And for the next 10 years I have almost no pleasant memories of her. She raged at me verbally, and a couple of times physically. She disappeared emotionally. She rejected my affection and often literally pushed me away when I reached for her. She could see me as nothing but the sum of her life's disappointments and abandonments. In many ways it was like she died. The loving, affectionate, patient woman who had acted so lovingly toward me had disappeared. The woman who had made me feel loved, special, connected now treated me as if I were, in fact, horrible, unloveable, abandoning, cruel, dangerous--worthy only of rejection and anger and cruelty.

It's really no wonder God seemed similar to me. We do tend to extrapolate out our experiences with our parents and apply them to God. But I realized on this retreat that it's not simply my projection onto God. The faith I grew up in really did teach me to believe in a God who seems to suffer from narcissism and borderline personality disorder. And it's no wonder that when I left that faith I found myself certain of God's abandonment.

So here's what I was taught: God loves everyone and wants to relate to everyone. But God is perfect and holy and can't stand to be in the presence of sin. Humans are totally saturated with sin and as such are repugnant to God (because the first humans ages and ages ago ate some fruit they weren't supposed to and "fell" from grace). We deserve eternal suffering because we are so sinful. But God is loving and didn't want to be separated from us and so sent Jesus to die a horrible death in our stead so that God could stand to be in our presence. Jesus paid our debt--died for our sins. And so now we can go to heaven and experience God's love for all eternity. Oh, but only if we "accept" Jesus as our personal savior, which means saying and believing that we are sinful and deserve hell (i.e, eternal torment and separation from the God who made us), that Jesus died so we wouldn't have to go to hell, and that Jesus is God's only Son and is divine. Also, God's love is unconditional. Nothing you do can make God stop loving you. No sin is too bad to be forgiven. Once you've been able to believe and acknowledge these things, well, then you're on your way to heaven and can experience the eternal, unconditional love (rather than the wrath) of God. Also, I was told, "we Evangelicals believe in GRACE. We're not like those Catholics who think you have to do a bunch of 'works' to get into heaven. God already did all the work...you just have to accept it."

Okay, so,
1. "God loves you, but you're really, really awful. You deserve hell" (hmmm...where have I heard something similar--oh, my mom! "I love you even though you rejected me. I'll just keep trying to love you even though you're always rejecting me, even though you're so hateful and argumentative and betray me")

2. God is holy. God is perfect. God's holiness and perfection are so important to him that he can't stand to be in the presence of anything less than perfection. The most important thing to God is God's glory and holiness and name. No sin should be allowed to mar that (sound like a personality disorder to any of you who study such things???)

3. There's nothing you can do to earn God's love or make God stop loving you. God is so great and so big that God loves you just for you. Oh, unless you don't believe the right thing. Or unless you stop believing the right thing and begin to doubt the ultiamte truth of this version of religion (i.e., atonement theology). Or unless you're one of those poor people who never get to "hear the gospel" and "accept Jesus". Then you'll be totally separated from God for all eternity and experience eternal torment. (Wow--so much like living with a borderline--"I love you, I love you, you're wonderful. Oops, stepped on my 'trigger'. Off to hell with you! Now you're evil!")

4. God's love and salvation are not to be earned. They're free. It's all grace. You don't have to "work" to be saved. Oh, except, um, there is one thing you have to do: you do have to believe all these things. You do have to figure out how to convince yourself that they're true (especially that bit about how you deserve hell and how Jesus died to save you). And you should pray the sinner's prayer. And you also need to read your Bible. And pray. And evangelize. And not have sex before you get married. And try to be like Jesus. But none of that saves you. Just making yourself believe something--that's really the crux. But, really, we're not like Catholics. We believe in grace not works. (And, once again, God is the crazy-making borderline. "What do I have to do to get you to love me?" I ask over and over. "Oh, nothing. I always love you. Oh, but don't hit my trigger. Do this. Do that. And remember that you deserve hell and only my great mercy saved you. And you'd better work your ass off to show me you love me; otherwise everyone will start doubting your salvation...But, really, I am prefectly loving and would never abandon you. You are the one who abandons me. When you think I'm not near, it's that you're too imperfect to understand my love. etc...."). God's salvation is free...just believe! (Can't convince yourself to believe? Can't force yourself to buy into a system that's riddled with flaws? Well, hell for you!)

5. As soon as you are "saved" by believing what you're supposed to and telling Jesus you're a sinner and need his payment for your sin, God sees you as perfect. Even though you still sin, God accepts Jesus' death in your place and gives you a "Christ-nature"--God thinks of you as perfect and holy like Jesus. (Ah, ha! You were all-bad, but now you're all-good! Like Jesus!) Oh, but stop "believing in" Jesus (i.e., decide the theology you've been fed doesn't make much sense and doesn't gel with your experience of a truly loving, present God), well, you're "all-bad" again. Now you're hell-bound.

So, when I left my Evangelical faith--even though I was really convinced that its portrayal of God was ugly and untrue--I really, really feared that God was going to leave me forever because I just could not do the work of forcing myself to believe anymore...And I think leaving and losing my Evangelical community was so much like losing my mom when I was 10--going from all-good, loving daughter, to all-bad, abusive cruel, hell-deserving daughter--that I re-experienced that trauma. I think this seriously contributed to just how awful my post-partum period was...How very awful: religion that promises healing and salvation so often instead delivers deepening trauma and abandonment and self-hatred.

And now I've been able to heal (largely) from life with a borderline mother, but on this retreat I am realizing that I still have much to do to really heal from living with a faith that fed me God as a borderline Father who says he loves me but who really thinks I am so despicable and evil that I deserve eternal torment and who might abandon me to hell if I can't do just as he says, can't force myself to believe in a particular theological system try as I might...