Why “Religious Trauma” Is Usually A Valid Explanation—Even Though Not An Excuse

 In very few cases is “religious trauma” actually a cover for sin or at least a full cover. For example, many Catholic- and Amish-raised people experienced sexual and non-sexual abuse while being told, “You shall not hate your neighbor in your heart” and “Your shall honor your father and mother.” 

Some, e.g., Catholic- and Amish-raised people were indeed disrespectful brats, although many if not most lashed out because, e.g., their parish priests and deacon neighbors were sexually abusing them; and/or their parents were hypocritically telling them things like, “God doesn’t love you, you God-damned sinner. You don’t question what the church leaders say, no matter how much you think that you should be able to read the Bible for yourself. Who in Hell do you think that you are for wanting ‘a personal relationship with Jesus’? Jesus didn’t die for you so that you can do whatever in Hell you want. Do what you’re supposed to do—‘honor your father and mother’, and ‘do not speak against a leader of your people’—especially if you’re not Paul, and you’re without any reason to speak against a high priest.” 

After a childhood of such sexual and/or non-sexual abuse, a child may well be made twice as fit for Hell as the abusers because he or she engages in, e.g., homosexual activity after being raped by the parish priest or familial abuse after being verbally and mentally abused by his or her dad whom was an Amish bishop. The latter is, e.g., actually the case of Fannie Beechy Yoder—her son Eli frequently speaks about how her mindset is still even to please “her father, the bishop” or “please her daddy”; and she went on to marry the very-abusive Henry Yoder, whom himself was a target of child abuse. She herself went on to abuse Mr. Yoder as he began to turn his life over to Jesus and considered leaving the Amish, and even after he began to repent of his own abuse; and she continues to abuse Eli and his family simply because they talk about the Pseudo-Christian abusiveness within much of Amish culture. 

Therefore, there are less merely-spoiled brats and way more Fanny Beechys and Eli Yoders (and Eli himself perpetrated and perpetuated abuse until he became born again in 2017). 

PS I also have faced religious trauma, although I am aware that, that does not excuse my own sins; and I all the more I understand when Jesus warned the Pharisees about making people twice as fit for Hell—and especially Dad’s ancestors in recent generations faced trauma from Rabbinic Jewish leadership and from Pseudo-Christian leadership (Being born under fences around the Torah and with a distorted understanding of Jesus can cause Crypto Jews more trauma than either most Jews or gentiles realize or care to realize). If I did not work to understand where some of my own sinful behaviors over the course of my life have originated, I would be just as badly on a path as many of my family members. 

PPS I don’t need to talk about the Catholic part as much. If you followed my blog, write any of my other ratings, and/or know me personally, you very much understand why the Catholic Church caused me religious trauma—and caused me to understand why my especially father’s family still tries to hide our Jewish heritage when they’re not exactly open to the fact that I found out about it (Apathy or feigned ignorance is the least-hostile response which I’ve seen; and family on both sides have been markedly hostile, including in enraged denial, when I’ve brought up our Jewish heritage. Dad is not mixed, whereas Mom is; and while neither identity as Jewish, especially some of Mom’s relatives have been eager to point out that we’re mostly of gentile descent on those sides as well as from outwardly-Catholic and -Lutheran backgrounds within recent generations. One, Colleen DeBoy*, did so very publicly on my blog; and she is the only one who my will be mentioning publicly for that reason.

(*We are descendants of the mixed-blooded-Jewish John Adam DeBoy, a descendant of Catherine Peltz, and Ella Farrell, whose father was actually Jewish. How the Farrells were Jewish is not exactly clear to me to this day, although I’m still taken aback by the fact that the custom of omitting flowers was a Farrell custom, and not a Peltz custom that Pop-Pop DeBoy kept.)