If we’re afraid, they’re in control: Why the church misuses “Fear God”

What is religious trauma?

Dr. Laura Anderson defines it 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.”

My friends and I discuss our religious trauma on the reg. We were all taught, across the country in different churches, to be afraid.

We were afraid of being sent to hell to be eternally tortured…

Afraid of a rapture that could happen at any moment…

Afraid of God’s good memory and harsh judgements…

Afraid of making a mistake before asking for forgiveness before death.

That sort of thing.

Most Sundays growing up, they’d preach about positive topics like love, peace, and joy, but underneath every lesson of goodness was fear—of ourselves, God, and how this whole system works.

These fear-inducing lessons sounded like:

You are bad, and there is nothing you can do about it. Actually, you can do something about it, but you better do it right.

And even if you do, when you die and stand before God’s throne of judgement, you never know what He’s going to bring up, so be diligent. 

There is an invisible lion prowling around, so never rest. Stay cautious and alert.

Or, if they were speaking clinically:

Allow this fear we’re embedding into your psyche to put you into the Stress Response Cycle every day.

That way, your body will start to believe that the lion is always chasing you, and the threat will be too great not to listen to us and do as we say.

Unfortunately, all that cortisol and adrenaline will have adverse effects on your physiological functioning, but that’s a small price to pay for cosmic safety.

This is the sound of fear-mongering religion.

And all of us experienced it differently.

For kids like me, these lessons only soaked in so much.

When given two options within my puritanical religious culture, pure obedience or outright rebellion, I went with rebellion.

But people like my husband, Zach, who took things literally and seriously, believed in the unsafe state of his soul. 

Even as a child, his daily decisions were said to have eternal consequences, so he was always on high alert. He was having panic attacks as early as 6th grade, worried about the rapture, hell, and God’s judgement of him and his non-Christian friends.

And if we’re honest, his response is the most sane response to a threat like that.

If the world could end at any second and we could be called to harsh judgment, shouldn’t we be anxious?

If the universe isn’t a merciful and safe place and eternal torture exists for so many, shouldn’t we panic?

If we cannot trust ourselves, shouldn’t we be afraid?

Zach is still recovering from his religious trauma because existing in that state of stress for so many years has physical, mental, and emotional consequences. 

But all that fear kept him “good” and obedient, pleasing the religious authorities in his life, because he took the threats made from the pulpit seriously.

Our generation is feeling the effects of the fear.

All of that church-led fear-mongering in the 1990’s and early 2000’s bred a whole new generation of adults processing and healing from religious trauma.

We struggle with anxiety and panic disorders, control issues, self-hatred, despair, and other negative psychological outcomes. 

What we know now is that inflicting this kind of perpetual and intense fear on people, in the name of God or anyone else, is a form of violence.

A friend of mine, Bethany, was subjected as a child every year to a theatrical performance called “Death Night” that her church produced. 

On Death Night, the youth group actors would portray their own deaths in myriad ways, and just after death, they’d face a judgment so harsh that all the children would come to fear what awaited them. Of the actors, some ended up in heaven, but many ended up in hell when they were expecting heaven—the greatest fear of all.

The children in her church watched these actors taken into hell by Satan, and they saw the beginning of an eternity of torture with terror in their hearts.

Seriously.

Bethany’s church wasn’t the only one exploring theatrical themes like sudden death, judgement, punishment, retribution, and torture in front of children. I saw at least a dozen of these plays growing up in South Texas. It was everywhere.

As a child, I learned that God was to be feared.

Now I know that, if I was afraid, then they were in control.

Fear as a means of control isn’t a new concept. 

Our survival hinges on belonging, and power structures have always abused our fear of being cast out.

Religion isn’t the exception, but we have perpetuated this type of abuse for thousands of years.

The earliest polytheistic religions had angry, judgmental gods who were often unhinged and ready to condemn, and as monotheistic religions emerged later in human history, those same attributes were applied to one God.

And those in power learned that, if God is a punitive, retributive deity who is more interested in revenge than mercy, people will do as they’re told.

When we’re afraid, we usually behave.

But the prophets rebutted that description of God, their fear evolving into love as they waded deeper into their understanding of the Divine. 

Ultimately, the message of Jesus countered this view too.

In the New Testament, every reason we should be afraid is countered by a hundred reasons why we should be at peace and know that we are safe and loved.

And yet, God is Love has continued to be an idea that’s “too good to be true.” 

I wonder if this is why I am seeing more and more of my peers who grew up in fear-mongering religion walk away from spirituality entirely. We’ve seen firsthand how those is power can utilize our fear to keep us obedient and controlled.

But religion doesn’t have to be that way.

We know better now.

We know that, even though religious leaders have attempted to manipulate the masses with fear, the Bible itself tells us over 300 times that we don’t have to be afraid of God.

We don’t have to be afraid of death or the unknown because God is trustworthy.

Father God isn’t punitive. Mother God isn’t vengeful.

And they certainly don’t need us to comply in their universal vision for the salvation of the earth and humanity.

Every knee shall bow, and Love will win.

And while this mythic-era perspective of a God who needs retributive violence more than mercy is still alive and well, we’ve come a long way. 

We know that responding to violence with violence only produces more violence. Jesus was pretty clear:

…all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

A new, nonviolent era is emerging where we’ll embrace the mythic as essential metaphor, and with that, we’ll find that fear was never the plan. 

God doesn’t need fear to draw us into Love. 

We only need to see His goodness to follow. We only need to hear Her voice to listen.

And one day, fear will no longer be a part of the Christian story, and we can start focusing on loving people into healing instead of scaring them into conversion.

But doesn’t the Bible tell us to fear God?

It does, but not the way we were taught to fear.

One scholar explains the imperfect translation of Yir’ah (יִרְאָה) as “Fear” as we understand it in our modern context:

Sometimes it refers to the fear we feel in anticipation of some danger or pain, but it can also mean “awe” or “reverence.” In this latter sense, yirah includes the idea of wonder, amazement, mystery, astonishment, gratitude, admiration, and even worship, like the feeling you get when gazing upon his creation…

The “fear of the Lord” (Yir’ah Adonai) does not denote a cringing terror of God but a reverential awe at the glory of His Presence as He daily condescends to be involved in our lives.

Now tell me…

Who benefits when we mistranslate and misuse the word fear in a religious context?

Whoever is in power.

And when fear works so well to keep people under control, why offer alternative, better translations for Yir’ah?

In the earliest centuries of Christianity, there was no center of power. We met in homes and small groups, trying to go undetected by authorities.

But about 300 years in, we established a formal church with formal power structures, and the way we understood some of the most nuanced theology was influenced by these power structures.

Some things take one or two thousand years to dismantle. 

People in power don’t let go easily.

It’s time to begin teaching that God is trustworthy.

The new focus of our messaging around fear comes from the New Testament. 1 John 4:18 says:

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

The conflicting messages about fear from the Old Testament and the New Testament become congruent when we allow for a broader translation of the Hebrew word Yir’ah.

We can be reverent and unafraid.

But we can’t be afraid of God and experience God’s perfect love.

This is how we know that God is trustworthy.

We can trust that a Father God is not angry, vengeful, or interested in making us fearful of punishment, but He is powerful enough to overcome even our own misuse of His name. 

We can trust that a Mother God has held us in her womb and in her hands from the very beginning, and She will hold us unto death and beyond it.

God is trustworthy, and the use of fear to control us was never God’s plan for the church.

We know this is true—despite religious authorities trying to scare us into conversion and control—because John, who knew Jesus pretty well, wrote there is no fear in love.

Which is good news if I’ve ever heard it.