Hello my friends,

I hope you had a wonderful, peaceful week.

As I went to write this week's newsletter, I found myself still reflecting on the theology I wrote about last week. So, I wanted to write a bit more of a personal take on how my view of myself was impacted by holding similar theology myself since I was young, especially when it came to the concept of self denial. I hope you will find it helpful in your own thoughts on this as well.

Before we get into it, here are some resources I have found to be helpful on this topic.

Resources to Consider:

-Religious Scrupulocity, otherwise known as religious OCD, is a modern-day psychological problem that echoes a traditional use of the term scruples in a religious context, e.g. by Catholics, to mean obsessive concern with one's own sins and compulsive performance of religious devotion. if you think you might deal with these, here's a helpful video from a licensed clinical social worker who walks you through what it is and some ways to get started confronting it.

-Dr. Laura Anderson recently sent me her new book, "When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion." In it, she takes an honest look at a side of religion that few like to talk about. Drawing from her own life and therapy practice, she helps readers understand what religious trauma is and isn't, and how high-control churches can be harmful and abusive, often resulting in trauma.

-Many of us who are navigating away from the religious hurt of our past, yet still want to maintain our faith as parents wonder how to parent our kids in helpful ways. My friend Meredith Miller has a wonderful book called, "Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From" that is so helpful navigating this question.

-We just went through a seminar as a church staff with pastoral psychologist Karen A. McClintock, who wrote, "Trauma-Informed Pastoral Care: How to Respond When Things Fall Apart". He workshops and writing is very helpful, not only to recognize where we might be dealing with traumatizing situations ourselves, but helps to equip faith leaders to respond appropriately to trauma.

-Lastly, I have recommended her book before, but it bears repeating here. My friend Janyne McConnaughey wrote "Trauma in the Pews: The Impact on Faith and Spiritual Practices." In it, she combines personal stories, insight and current research to equip readers to recognize the effects of trauma on the brain and body, understand the impact of trauma on common spiritual practices, and support the healing of those who have been impacted by trauma.

Okay, onto today's content.

Self Denial Is Not Self Hatred

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." -Jesus (Matthew 16:24)

My theology was deeply shaped by Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christianity all throughout my childhood and teen years. One of the central components to this theology was "self denial."

No one can question that this element has been a major part of Christianity since Christianity began, yet what we must question is how this notion is interpreted and implemented, not just by us individually, but by our particular Christian culture collectively.

In the theology of my past, humanity was viewed as evil by nature. The human heart was totally depraved and hopelessly damned. A person needed to deny themselves and Christ needed to be accepted if they hoped to ever be saved.

Add to this narrative that what is sinful and evil is hated by God and therefore must also be hated by you if you seek to be faithful. So, if your heart is evil and totally deprived, then the only natural response is obviously to hate yourself. This is what "self denial" looked like within this kind of theology.

How this played itself out in my own journey looked like being hyper focused on my inner thoughts and desires at all times. I was constantly terrified by the idea that I was listening to my "evil heart" rather than listening to God. I eventually concluded that anything that I wanted to do must be distrusted and the things that I was being encouraged to do, but I didn't want to do myself, must be from God.

Especially when it came to authority figures, instant obedience was my goal. I wouldn't even consider my own feelings and desires. Why would I? They were "evil." These people were in authority over me. They had been walking with God longer. I was young and my heart was evil. Even if it hurt or was painful, I simply needed to obey and things would get better.

I would fall asleep at nights so terrified that the rapture would happen as I slept and God would leave me behind because I had a mean spirited thought against my brother or because I let my mind wonder and I had accidentally questioned if God was really "all powerful."

This mentality would only intensify as I got older. I was so deeply suspicious of every thought and every feeling that would come up that I would spend agonizing hours in prayer, begging God to just give me a clear path, to take over my mind and my heart so that I wouldn't be at risk of choosing myself over God. I am no psychologist, but I cannot help but think the extreme anxiety, depression, ADHD I had developed as I entered adulthood was linked to this hyper preoccupation with needing to be sure I was following God and not myself. I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing. I was trained to distrust myself.

Every failure, every rejection, and every mistake in my life, I blamed myself for. It didn't matter if I had done everything right, if the outcome was a negative one, it must have been because of something I had done wrong that I wasn't aware of. I would then annoy everyone in my life I looked up to for answers. I would constantly ask them, "what is wrong with me? What did I do wrong? How can I do better?!"

I eventually came to a breaking point in 2016 when I had my first encounter with suicidal ideation. With the life saving therapy and counseling I have received since that day, it has caused me to realize how much I was hating myself, yet calling it "self denial" and even "faithfulness."

I was absolutely miserable, yet I blamed myself for that misery, because that is what my theology had taught me. All along the way, I would have family, friends, and professors tell me, "you just need to be more confident" or "you just need to believe in yourself more."

Not only would I reject these sentiments as "worldly," I would also say in moments of desperation, "people keep telling me to do that, but I don't know how!"

All I knew was that I wanted to follow Jesus and that meant to deny myself and I was doing that as I was taught through my theology.

I am now in my late thirties and I am still struggling to understand what "confidence" and "agency" even means. I look back over my life and I don't know how to tell if the major decisions that formed my life were made because I wanted them or because I was told I wanted them and just obeyed. It is a really scary and lonely place to be in to realize where you are now in your life may have been out of a desire to please those in authority over you, especially God, with no thought or even the ability to know how to understand what you actually wanted. Did I choose my calling or was I told that I was "called" and just obey? I can only answer these questions the more I get to know who I am.

The glory of God is humanity self-actualized.

I was talking to a friend of mine who was raised in a very similar environment as I was about this. He also happens to be a counselor. During the conversation, he said something really powerful. He said, "that culture prevented us from being able to self-actualize."

I had never heard it put that way before. I asked him to expound on that and he said, "the basic definition of self actualization is the realization or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it is the highest level of development, where personal potential is fully realized."

I felt this to my core. The theology and Christian culture of my past actively worked against my self actualization. My talents, my potential, my needs, my drive, and even my worth were not things to be enjoyed, discovered, or loved about myself. Rather, they were things to either be denied or directed and defined by the authorities over me and the Christian culture around me. They all needed to serve a "greater purpose."

I have also witnessed and heard so many heartbreaking stories from so many others who have expressed that they believed they even needed to abandon and hate themselves in order to be accepted by the church and by Jesus. Then, when they did start to eventually accept themselves and even begin to try to love themselves and assert themselves, that is when they began to be pushed out of their communities. Ultimately, they were not only left with not knowing how to love themselves, they have now been abandoned by a community that would only accept the version of themselves that didn't accept themselves.

I'm still very much on the journey of learning how to know who I am. Learning how to love and appreciate who I am. Having confidence in myself outside of what it might mean for pleasing Christianity, the church, or others.

Along this road, I am discovering that Jesus never meant for us to hate ourselves. I'm discovering that one can deny selfishness and still very much love themselves at the same time.

I think that is such a better picture of the life Jesus calls us too.

So much of the theology I was raised with would never emphasize you are "fearfully and wonderfully made" or "you are created in God's image" or "when God made humanity, God said it was very good" or that "God delights in you!"

You see, it took me forever to realize that self love is assumed in Christ's greatest commandment. Matthew 22:37-39 says, "Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself."

Love your neighbor as who? Yourself. This is implying that you are to see your neighbor as an extension of you and treat them accordingly. If you hate yourself, shame yourself, and condemn yourself, that is how you are going to treat your neighbors too. We are called to love. Love God. Love others. Love ourselves.

In this call to love, self denial takes on a different participation. It is to deny a selfish way of life, which seeks only your own interests, your own needs being met, while ignoring and even living at the expense of others. Denying selfishness is a call to the generous and compassionate life we see in Jesus. But it is not supposed to be self hatred. It is supposed to come from a place of loving yourself well. Because when you minimize and ignore your own needs, and perpetually condemn yourself for even having needs in the first place, not only will you begin to do that to others, you will become to see misery as a central part of our relationship with God and our neighbors.

This isn't a "new" theology. St. Irenaeus of Lyons once wrote that "the glory of God is humanity fully alive." That was during the second century. Jesus even said "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10) It isn't humanity hating itself, but humanity experiencing and enjoying the fullness of life is glorifying to God.

I share this ongoing journey with you in hopes that it may help not only give language to your own, but also that it might give you the confidence to start unlearning that harmful narrative in your belief system if you have it. You really are loved by God and you are worthy of that love from others, including yourself. Jesus isn't seeking for you to hate yourself. The exact opposite is true. Jesus is seeking you to experience love in all ways, including from yourself. For love is the only way we can experience "life abundantly." Only love can produce love.

Now I'd like to hear from you.

What have been some of the most helpful ways you've found to navigate this topic of self denial? Are you finding yourself untangling from that kind of theology as well? Send me a message if you'd like to share!

Reminder: I have written a daily devotional for this year's Advent season that is intended to reflect on scripture and challenge us to prepare our hearts by thinking through what Jesus' arrival into the world at Christmas means for us and our world today. You can find out more details about this and a way to sign up for it here: Arrival: Daily Reflections For The Season of Advent. ​

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As always, thank you all for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every week.

I truly appreciate you all,

Ben

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