God Didn’t Fix Me
Growing up, I was taught that God would solve all of my problems. That I, by my nature as a born-again Christian, would be continuously molded into this perfect creation. For decades, I waited and earnestly worked towards that goal.
But that promised perfection never came.
I was still a human. A boring human, filled with intrusive thoughts, obsessions, depressions, and anxieties. I still experienced the lows of the human psychological experience despite promises that God would one day fix it.
But I kept coming back because it seemed to work for everyone else. Why didn’t it work for me? It must’ve been my fault. I’m not living up to my part of the bargain.
It all shattered when I learned that this model didn’t work for anyone at all. Everyone is just pretending, everyone is just spiritually side-stepping their own issues.
What is Spiritual Bypassing?
This phenomenon has a name. Spiritual Bypassing, as I understand it, is the use of spiritual beliefs or practices to avoid addressing psychological issues, emotions, or personal problems.
It is not the idea that spirituality or spiritual ritual is inherently bad. But it can become a cover for our uncomfortable emotions or thoughts patterns that we would rather not be there.
How Do I Know If I am Spiritually Bypassing?
The line between Spiritual experience and bypass can be a little fuzzy. I believe evaluating two common evangelical talking points can allow us to at least understand what it is in a few of its forms:
- God will take away your burdens.
This is one of the most common ideas of evangelicalism that is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Do not worry about x, y, z, because God will deal with it.
But what happens when he doesn’t deal with it? What happens if the burden you are facing is not simply an external issue but an internal hardwired problem?
Growing up, being a hormonal boy of average intelligence, it was impossible not to be attracted to girls my age (if only I wasn’t so deeply closeted that I could’ve explored my pansexuality growing up).
Add the complication that evangelicalism teaches that all attraction is lust and impure, and you have a recipe for disaster.
I prayed over and over for that desire to be taken from me, sometimes it worked.
But eventually, as I got older and puberty continued its work, no amount of praying and supplication did anything to assuage my completely normal feelings.
We will ignore the second half of this journey for another post. Unpacking my teenage and young adult mental flagellation will have to wait.
The spiritual bypassing was hoping that God would take away my feelings, when in fact, he is not capable of that. No amount of prayer and supplication will cure an issue like depression or anxiety.
Inevitably, when my depression developed into suicidal ideation and drinking, I did infact go to a therapist. Where I learned I had to accept and welcome my emotions rather than try to “defeat” them. Coincidentally, I am a much more put together person.
- Spiritual Warfare
If you are unfamiliar, there are many evangelical communities that believe that their inner turmoil is a spiritual battle between God and the Devil. Everything wrong with their thoughts is from the devil, everything right with their thoughts is from God. I think we can see the issue quite quickly.
If all of your bad thoughts come from the devil, whatever those thoughts may be, you are actually not accountable for your thoughts and your subsequent actions.
You can blame your depressive episodes on the devil harassing you. If you are a part of the LGBTQ+ community and still stuck in the idea that you are wrong for being so, you can blame it on the devil.
The bypassing in this case is refusing to accept various uncomfortable thoughts as your own. Depression isn’t your fault, it’s the devils.
(While depression is, in fact, not your fault. It is due to chemical imbalances that require medicine or therapy).
If you decide to act on these impulses, you have effectively absolved yourself of any culpability. To avoid personal discomfort with your misdeeds, you can claim temporary possession to the whims of the devil. You can find such claims fairly common with pastors and priests who get caught violating children.
Brief Resource Tangent
I will not go into the misreadings of Scripture that cause these various beliefs because that is no longer what this blog is about, and I fundamentally disagree with putting the Bible on a pedestal it has no business standing on.
If you wish to find reputable sources on this, I recommend Dr. David Bentley Hart for a more spiritual perspective, or Dr. Dan McClellan or Dr. Pete Enns for a more academic approach. There are many others, but they are a good place to start.
What is genuine spiritual experience?
We have discussed what spiritual bypassing is, using evangelicalism as our lens for understanding. But we have yet to see what some examples of spiritual experience can be to help us through life.
In my opinion, spiritual experience ought to help us learn about ourselves, others, and the world we inhabit. We seek spirituality not to squash certain elements of ourselves that we may find distasteful, but to enflame our love and joy in other areas.
Using myself as an example, when my deconstruction away from evangelicalism, and christianity at large, was mostly complete praying suddenly felt like a worthles exercise. (if you find it valuable, don’t let me discourage you). Not to mention I still carry the baggage of constantly prostrating myself to an invisible, silent ghost.
Now I try to experience spirituality in everyday life. Instead of spiritualism being an escape from reality, I want it to enhance and enrich it.
I’m not looking for a transaction in which some distant divinity or indwelling ghost will magically make my life better. I am looking to deepen my connection to others, nature, and the universe beyond.
I am now experimenting with meditative practices, I recently got a cheap set of beeswax candles to try out candle meditation. I feel like watching a little flame dance around will help my ADHD focus on something rather than my brain going a million miles a minute. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Share your own story in the comments
There are various introspective and meditative practices that you can do that can enrich your life rather than suppress it. If you want a good compendium, a brand new book by Jeremy Steele called “Rituals for Heretics: Transcendent Rites for Atheists and People who aren’t sure about God.”
We love long subtitles here. It contains both ritualistic practices from various traditions, as well as meditative practices.
I am still at the beginning of this new journey. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going. Feel free to offer your own experiences in the comments on what meditative or ritualistic practices have been beneficial in your own lives.
I am eager to start as many conversations as possible on what people find beneficial. I want to learn from as many walks of life as possible.
If you are evangelical and think I am going to hell, kindly keep it to yourself.
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