Childhood Abuse, Spiritual Abuse, and the Need for Emotional Intelligence

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

An analysis of my Twitter feed would indicate an odd dichotomy that speaks to the very complicated relationship I had with my father. Unofficially, about 48% of the feed is dedicated to news about the sports teams I’m interested in and the other 48% is dedicated to voices that speak for those who have been spiritually abused by Christianity. The remaining 4% would be categorized as “other”. 

Childhood Abuse

A plethora of studies have indicated that adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) (e.g. emotional, physical and sexual abuse or neglect, and family dysfunction) (Rawlins et al., 2020, p. 590) or childhood emotional maltreatment (CEM) (abuse and neglect that is typically associated with persistent and extreme denial of a child’s basic emotional needs) (Lassri et al., 2016, p. 504), have the ability to negatively affect a child’s mind to the point that when they become adults they continue to make choices that are extensions of the abuses they endured. Those choices can then turn into enduring relationship patterns (Lassri et al., 2016) or even lifelong struggles that are plagued with negative symptoms like depression and anxiety (Zhao et al., 2020). Studies also indicate that adults lack the cognitive abilities to realize the direct relationships between mom and dad’s mental health issues and their own (Kuijpers et al., 2014), which then leads to continuously perpetrating cycles of abuse by simply neglecting self-care. 

Practically speaking, the pattern works this way. A child experiences ACE’s or CEM from a parent or caregiver who most likely experienced the same from a caregiver of their own. To be specific, I’ll use the emotionally abusive pattern of constant criticism. Most people are familiar with the developmental phase known as the “terrible-two’s”. It marks a time during a toddler’s life when they begin to differentiate between themselves and their parents and they do so by seemingly responding “no” to every request made by a caregiver (Green, 2013). Understandably, most caregivers see this behavior by their children as defiance that needs to be treated with varying tactics labeled as discipline. In homes where parents are simply reacting to behavior rather than understanding it, there is a potential for these disciplinary tactics to mirror those used by their own caregivers without much thought given to the potential long-term ramifications of those tactics (Green, 2013). 

In homes where emotionally abusive tactics are used, like constant criticism, the child repeatedly receives messages about the deficiencies of their behavior and how their behavior is a burden to the caregiver. Keep in mind that these experiences become some of the earlier building blocks for a future sense of identity which means that a child who is constantly criticized for exercising a sense of autonomy, will soon become hypercritical of everything they do (Green, 2013) (Lassri et al., 2016). Show me an adult who is constantly berating themselves for mistakes they’ve made and I’ll show you a child who was never “good enough” for mom or dad or grandma or grandpa. Another pattern that emerges, is that the individual fails to see the deficiencies in the person who is criticizing them (they tend to accept the emotionally abusive person was always perfect) and then they end up in relationships with people who have the same kind of emotionally abusive profile (Lassri et al., 2016). 

Earlier I opened with an unscientific anecdote about my Twitter profile. I mentioned how it reflected my complicated relationship with my father. There’s a lot of stuff about my life that I could say reflects different aspects of my abusive relationship with my father. Some good, some bad. My love for sports is one of the good things, what used to be an obsession with sports would be the bad. There was a time when sports was easily 90% of what I used Twitter for. But then I fell victim to spiritual abuse and things changed. I changed. I’ve healed. But first, I had to learn the hard way how my ACE’s and CEM’s set me up to accept spiritual abuse as something that was an acceptable part of my identity and an acceptable part of who my God is.

Spiritual Abuse and the Link to ACE’s and CEM

Spiritual abuse can be defined as the “misuse of power in a spiritual context whereby spiritual authority is distorted to the detriment of those under its leadership” (Lang & Bochman, 2016, p. 57). I first learned about spiritual abuse while earning my masters degree in 2011 while enrolled at Trinity International University (TIU). I didn’t accept that I was a victim of spiritual abuse until I began to experience symptoms that I describe in a previous podcast titled A Woman and a Robe. Even though those symptoms began in 2012, I continued to find myself submitting to varying spiritual authorities until the pandemic sent most of us home in 2020. It wasn’t until I read Diane Langberg’s book Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church, when I finally understood the degrees of spiritual abuse my wife and I had endured and why I had become so distant from God even though I was active in varying ministries all throughout those years. I would pray, and read the Bible, and preach, and teach, but would feel very little. I had moments here and there where I felt like things were going well but overall; I knew something wasn’t right.

My home life bred in me an identity of compliance and submission. My dad’s drinking, drugging, adultery, and pedophilia, required my silence. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what I saw or what I heard and somehow, speaking about what was evil would result in me becoming equated with him. Anytime I did try and speak up about what he was doing, I would break down in tears and find myself embarrassing the family and ultimately bringing shame on myself. I learned that when men, specifically powerful men, are acting in ways that are abusive, the only acceptable way to act was to stay quiet and to take it. I was living proof of the research mentioned above. 

So even when I finally left my home church, I ended up in my wife’s home church, only to experience abuse there. There were signs of abusive and toxic behaviors everywhere: tales through gossip, rumors, sexual innuendo, jokes, etc. But it wasn’t as bad as the place I just left. Plus they gave me responsibilities, they gave me the pulpit and opportunities to teach, and none of the “bad stuff” really affected me; until it did. Then we moved on to another place. My wife was the first to voice her concerns but again, silence, submission, and compliance was my identity. Those were the building blocks formed by my ACE’s. Again I rationalized: they gave me responsibility, opportunities, they didn’t really seem that bad, and none of those things really affected me. Until it did affect me…and then the pandemic forced us to go home, I read a book, and finally my eyes were opened.

I strongly suspect that many people could link their patterns of ACE’s and patterns of CEM to the abusive situations they find themselves in at church. In fact, some research has been done on this subject and the authors refer to the concept as “distorted spirituality” (Lang & Bochman, 2016, p. 57). Specifically, distorted spirituality is defined as “rule-bounded, performance-oriented, graceless Christianity that trivializes the gospel and misses the richness of a deepening relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ” (Lang & Bochman, 2016, p. 58). In the study, the authors go on to explain that people with a distorted spirituality end up basing their view of God on fear and shame which in turn roots their faith in performance and judgement (Lang & Bochman, 2016). So not only do they have trouble connecting with God on a deeper level based on love and grace, but they also have trouble connecting with people as they constantly judge others for their failures and lack of ability (Lang & Bochman, 2016). In other words, the spiritually abused become spiritually abusive, an ironic twist that I must also repent from. 

The Need for Emotional Intelligence

I know it can be overwhelming parsing through all of this information and not finding answers; especially for those who are still struggling to connect with God in a meaningful way. For those who still attend church services but don’t want to be there and for those who read Bible passages or pray but wonder why they even bother to do so. People who have been spiritually abused get to a point where church hopping isn’t good enough anymore. Talking to people about their problems isn’t good enough anymore. Reading articles and books aren’t good enough anymore. I do have an answer but it does require some work. 

It starts with what’s called emotional intelligence which is the “ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions and to identify and use this information to guide one’s own thoughts and behaviors” (Zhao et al., 2020, p. 2022). In other words, emotional intelligence is the competence to sit down and break down the feelings one has, as they experience them, and to note the situations that draw them out. Traditionally, emotional intelligence has been divided into five parts: empathy, self-knowledge, regulation of emotional conditions, self-motivation, and regulation of interpersonal relationships (Hartanto & Helmi, 2021). Working together, the parts enable a person to manage emotions of both themselves and the people around them. Developing emotional intelligence is actually easier than most people think it is. The approach I take with students and/or people I’m working with, is to start with an emotions chart like the one pictured below. They’ll go through the chart and check off any emotions they identify with at the moment. Then they’ll write or we’ll talk about anything that might have happened that contributed to those feelings. Sometimes it’s necessary to distinguish between emotions like frustration and anger. Or sadness and depression. Or anxiety and shame. Building up a database in which one can identify emotions correctly, develops emotional intelligence which then functions as a protective factor against depression and anxiety (Zhao et al., 2020) and has been strongly linked with greater life satisfaction (Hartanto & Helmi, 2021).

Why is it that I believe that emotional intelligence can help with those who are struggling to connect with God at church or through reading the Bible or even through prayer? Well, as mentioned before, studies have shown that people unintentionally find themselves in environments that are psychologically linked to ACE’s and CEM’s. So the truth is that those negative and abusive experiences at home become models to follow for future relationships and enviroments. Using emotional intelligence, I believe one can break out of spiritually abusive environments (as well as abusive relationships and abusive work environments) and find way to connect with God. Here’s how. 

Practical Use of Emotional Intelligence

Have a running journal with dates and times and learn to distinguish between anger and frustration. Between sadness and fear. Between anxiety and shame. It may sound like busy work but learning to identify your emotions and the connection between those emotions and the situations in which they arise, is the first step in becoming an emotionally intelligent person. As mentioned before, it’s been proven that emotional intelligence can help to mediate the negative experiences associated with ACE’s and CEM (Zhao et al., 2020) and so it stands to reason that it can help to tease apart those negative experiences that one might be having with a pastor or a church. 

For example, a pastor starts reading a Bible passage and strong feelings start to rise up. Take out a journal and note the feelings. What are they? Need help identifying them? Use the emotion chart. What is the passage? Is there a memory associated with it? Was there a previous interaction with the pastor that is interacting with the current interaction? For instance, if he’s reading a passage about loving neighbors but you remember he posted something on Facebook that was hateful, then your mind and emotions are feeling a conflict about his hypocrisy. Maybe the passage is linked to a memory with another spiritual authority like a caregiver or a Sunday school teacher.

Or suppose the strong emotions you have are when you have your quiet time. Perhaps it’s when you are sitting in bed with a Bible open and you are flipping through the pages looking for something to read. Take out the journal and start writing. Are there memories associated with this particular practice of “quiet time”? Was it something prescribed by someone in your past you had negative experiences with? Maybe a youth pastor who taught you to do it but then abandoned you in some way? 

Sometimes what we need is a fresh perspective, a new way to connect with God. Another way to use emotional intelligence is to focus on positive emotions like joy, happiness, peace, and laughter. I have absolute peace when I sit in my backyard, under my string lights, in the late evening, with items I won’t describe here because of the judgment of others. They bring me peace, joy, and delight, and so I invite God into this space because it isn’t associated with the ways my mom or even my dad used to force spirituality into my life. Something I can share, is that sometimes, when the house is empty, I grab my djembe, put on worship music at full blast, and play along as loud as I can and just sing. I’m not very good at singing or playing the djembe but I have so much fun doing it, and I know my God is there. 

Final Thoughts

The most important aspect in all of this is to be patient with yourself and to take your time. Know that God isn’t in any kind of rush and the reality is, He can do a lot in just a moment. You don’t even need a Bible or a song or a book. All you really need is honesty. It wasn’t too long ago when I was telling Him that I hated Him for giving me the worst dad in the world. I hated Him for giving me a girl that shattered my heart into a million pieces. I hated Him for making me feel alone, depressed, and suicidal. I hated Him because I knew that if I killed myself He still wouldn’t leave me alone. Honesty led to realness. Realness led to exposure. Exposure led to healing. Healing is still happening.

I’ll be reviewing this material in my next podcast. Until then, feel free to contact me on social media or the contact page on the website with any questions/comments you have. 

References

Green, C. (2013). A Sense of Autonomy in Young Children's Special Places. International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education, 1(1), 8–31. https://eric.ed.gov/?  id=EJ1108047

Hartanto, H., & Helmi, A. (2021). Meta-analysis of the correlation between emotional intelligence and life satisfaction. Anatolian Journal of Education, 6(2), 63–74. https://doi.org/10.29333/aje.2021.626a

Kuijpers, R. M., Kleinjan, M., Engels, R. E., Stone, L. L., & Otten, R. (2014). Child self-report to identify internalizing and externalizing problems and the influence of maternal mental health. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(6), 1605–1614. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-014-9964-x

Lang, J. A., & Bochman, D. J. (2016). The lived experience of distorted spirituality: a phenomenological study. The Journal of Youth Ministry, 14(2), 56–83. https://www.aymeducators.org/journal-youth-ministry/

Lassri, D., Luyten, P., Cohen, G., & Shahar, G. (2016). The effect of childhood emotional maltreatment on romantic relationships in young adulthood: A double mediation model involving self-criticism and attachment. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 8(4), 504–511. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000134

Rawlins, B., Brooks, M., & Khan, R. (2020). Posttraumatic stress symptoms mediate the relationship between adverse childhood experiences, avoidant personality traits and resilience. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 33(5), 590–601. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2020.1768532

Zhao, J., Xiang, Y., Zhang, W., Dong, X., Zhao, J., & Li, Q. (2020). Childhood maltreatment affects depression and anxiety: The mediating role of emotional intelligence. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 19(6), 2021–2030. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00297-x

Source

The Blessing of Love, Faith, and Hope

Depiction of the Inner Man

Scenario 1:

While reading, a child mispronounces a word they should know and a parent asks: “What’s wrong with you?”. The child can’t answer that question and so the parent retrieves an item like a wooden spoon, a hanger, a belt, etc. The parent looks into the child’s eyes and with an air of calm tranquility, while holding the item in the child’s view, simply asks: “Read it again.”. (Shame and Fear)

Senario 2:

A mother accidentally spills her child’s milk all over the kitchen counter and she says to herself: “There you go again, making messes and wasting money.”. She finally gets things all cleaned up, takes what milk is left to her child who subsequently drops the cup and spills the remaining milk. The mother immediately shouts “What’s wrong with you!” as she hurries off to the kitchen for a towel and a sponge. (Shame)

Senario 3:

A father is trying to work while his children are playing in another room. In the father’s ears they sound like they are getting louder and louder and soon he’s not able to focus and so he rushes over, opens the door, and shouts: “I’m trying to work in here! Shut up!”. He then slams the door and yells “Don’t make me come back in there!”. (Fear)

Introduction

In each of these scenarios one can identify how parents use the Curse of Shame, Fear and Pain to “discipline” their children. I put the word discipline in quotations because true discipline is when people learn by the means of correct teaching how to navigate through the mistakes they make while living in this world. One can see how this Curse-based discipline is centered around the desire to control behavior through the power of shame, fear, and pain which in turn only teaches children how to navigate through this world with the same Curse that was introduced to mankind in the Garden of Eden after the first humans sinned. So as the cycle continues, more and more evil patterns emerge (like people who whip children with extension cords or those who lock children in cages), and as a result, the foul stench of death continues to soak our existence.

I ended my previous article by introducing the curse of shame, fear and pain. In this article, my purpose will be to discuss the blessing of love, hope and faith. As mentioned in the previous article, when Jesus hung on the cross, He purposefully endured the curse of shame, fear, and pain so that He could remove it from mankind. But the story doesn’t end with Him dead and separated from God and everyone else forever. The story continues with resurrection.

The resurrection is well known to believers but not well experienced. Jesus is resurrected from his grave which indicates his true power over death and the curse of sin which means that shame, fear, and pain no longer need to be states of being that describe human existence on Earth. Neither should it be used in our systems or by people for the purpose of gaining power and control over others. The removal of the curse of sin comes with a replacement which I believe is found in the culmination of Paul’s teaching on the glory of the Spirit of God in 1 Corinthians 13. He explains that there is a process to maturity and while not all things are revealed in this world, there are three things that stand out: faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13:1-13). Notice the depiction of these three above and how love is represented by a larger side of the triangle than the other two. That’s because Paul explains that there is a hierarchy to these three and that love is at the top. He continues in 1 Corinthians 14:1 about the importance of pursuing love which should remind the reader about his exposition concerning love being greater than faith and hope in the early verses of 1 Corinthians 13. When these three replace shame, fear, and pain they also replace the inner position or state of being of anger with peace, a kind of peace that surpasses common sense (Philippians 4:6).

Part One: Love

So the obvious question is: how exactly does love, faith, and hope replace shame, pain, and fear? The first thing to realize is that true love, true hope, and true faith is authored by the One from whom it originates. In other words, we cannot manufacture these three inside of ourselves, they must come from God directly and be defined by Him. It’s a tricky thing though because so many use love, hope, and faith within a framework of the Curse and that’s why many of us don’t experience the peace that we should. For example, people often declare “if you love me then you would (fill in the blank)”. The wording may not be exact but the concept is clear: love as defined through the prism of the Curse is selfishly conditional. In direct oppostiion to that kind of love, Jesus commands his followers to love each other the same way he loved them (John 13:34-35). The immediate context of this command was washing his disciples’ dusty and dirty feet (the dust being impure because it was the thing that held the spit, urine, and dung of both animals and man) and his arrest which he doesn’t fight against so that he can be lifted up on a cross. Love then is defined by his actions (the humbling of oneself into the role of a servant and laying down one’s life for the sake of another) and commanded through his words.

One of the traps of loving one another as Jesus loved his disciples, is believing that affection and love are the same thing. Many Christians are aware of Gary Chapman’s book titled The Five Love Languages. While I agree with the content of Dr. Chapman’s book, I find it more helpful to label it the five languages of affection rather than love. Love is something that can only be spoken in one way: the lowering or humbling of the self for the purpose of lifting up the other. Thus the example of washing nasty feet as mentioned before. This kind of love is unconditional which means I am to love those who I like and I am to love my enemies (Matthew 5:44). Loving our enemies means to bless them when they curse you, speak well of them when they speak evil of you, pray for them, fast for them, and if necessary forgive them as they murder you. Affection is a good word to describe those good feelings you have toward the people you like or have peaceful relationships with. When the mood or occasion strikes, you may want to buy them a gift, or call them up to talk or hang out, help them out when they need an extra hand, encourage them with positive words, or grab them and give them a big old hug. Those are examples of what Chapman called the five love languages, but as I said before, I think they better describe the languages of affection. Certainly I can understand not wanting to show affection to my enemy. But I can love my enemy by lowering myself for their sake. The truth is that this kind of love isn’t even human. It can and only be defined and given by God and so when you see it in the world you better believe that it came as a gift from Him.

Human love, a.k.a. Cursed Love, uses shame, fear, and pain to produce loyalty and sacrifice. Indian culture is adept at operating through cursed love. Great shame is brought upon those who do not sacrifice their desires or needs for the sake of the family. Failure is met with the fear that the love of one’s family will be lost due to one’s inability to live up to the standards set by parents or older siblings. Pain is often used to extract obedience from children while parents indicate that their love for the child is the only reason why punishment is meted out with a tree branch or a wooden spoon. Some parents do not use physical pain, but they are especially adept at manipulating feelings through emotional and psychological pain instead. I suppose many from different cultures can relate to this paradigm because it is what we know as human love. There will always be variances in the expression of human love but as long as it isn’t the love from God, you will find it to be defined by these three: shame, fear, and pain.

Re-imagining Scenario 1

While reading, a child mispronounces a word they should know. The parent is amused by the failed attempt and encourages the child to slow down and try again. After pronouncing the word correctly, the parent kisses the child on the forehead, and enthusiastically says “There you go!” or “I knew you could do it!” and they continue their lesson.

Part Two: Hope

Hope is something that has been twisted and then marginalized by the Curse. I like to define “marginalize” as the act of taking something off the main text and sticking it in the margins as something that isn’t quite as important as what is written on the center of the page. The intent is to consider what is on the margins later but intentions never truly line up with convictions that lead to actions. We marginalize hope (and for that matter, love, too) when we overuse the word for events or things that diminish its meaning. For example, one might say “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow so I can go to the beach”. While this statement may be a true intention for expressing a desire through hope, it’s interesting to note what happens the next day. Whether it rains or doesn’t rain, does the person realize the relationship the event had to their use of the word “hope”? In other words, if it does rain, does a person say “sheesh, all my hopes for today being a beach day are lost” or do they simply shrug their shoulders, maybe experience some disappointment and come up with new plans while putting off their beach day for another weekend? Whatever the approach to lost hope that one might take, eventually a person will learn to stop saying “I hope for this or that” and instead start checking weather forecasts and start planning their future on their own. In other words, people put a concept like hope on the margins and focus on what they can control on their own. Whenever they come across something that does require some hope, they usually have a hard time finding it from the margins and placing it back into the main text. Hope then is lost and one learns to trust in themselves or simply let go of the things they can’t control.

Hope authored by the One who perfects all things works differently because it is rooted in Him and is rooted in a time that is yet to come but has already been fulfilled. The Coming Age is a time that most Christians know about but don’t hope in. In fact, instead of understanding what it will be like, most argue about how it begins, or how long it lasts, or they simply don’t think it’s important to dwell upon. When Jesus begins his ministry, he preaches a gospel which isn’t the same gospel we preach today. New Testament writers knew that the gospel is good news about one singular event: the Kingdom of God descending from Heaven and then being established here on Earth. Jesus preaches this message as one that is being fulfilled by Himself and in His day (Luke 4:18—21). While he continues his ministry, the Kingdom grows as he sets free the oppressed, gives sight to the blind, and releases captives from their prisons. But ultimately, he is rejected and is put to death, but then he is resurrected. Is the Gospel that Jesus preached now dead? Is it replaced by a hope for heaven by salvation through his death, burial, and resurrection? Absolutely not! His death, burial, and resurrection provides the necessary ingredients for God to fully enact His plan to establish His Kingdom on earth. Those ingredients are atonement and power. Atonement for the sins of mankind against the most Holy God and power to conquer the curse of shame, fear, and pain and to conquer death. Jesus adjusted the hope of the Coming Age to the work of his followers and to His Second Coming and that hope is still defined by all the prophecies regarding the Coming Age as described by Moses and the Prophets. In other words, as his students, his disciples were to go into the world preaching the same good news regarding God’s kingdom and they were to be performing works even greater than he did throughout the earth (John 14:9-14). So while we endure the afflictions of this present age, we do the works of God while preaching the Kingdom of God and we hope for a New Age when the highly exalted will be brought low, the oppressed will be set free, and there will be no more tears for those who have their names written in the Book of Life.

Why don’t we see this happening today? There are a lot of reasons for that but one huge factor is that the gospel was reduced to events that happened over three days, hope was shifted from God’s Kingdom on this earth to some nebulous belief in heaven, and then it was preached not through faith, hope, and love but through shame, fear, and pain. People groups across the world were literally killed if they did not convert and so the “gospel” was first redefined and then weaponized and that fact is still true today. Youth groups, people at revivals, and the general public have been threatened with questions like “What if you die in this very moment? Would you go to heaven?”. So millions have accepted the gospel out of fear, not hope, and as a result, life on this earth becomes something I need to control or breeze through with little concern because my eternity is set. But as struggle, and pain, and hurt, and persecution sets in, how does one cope? There’s no hope because what was sold to them was bill of fear satisfied through what has been dubbed “fire insurance”.

With true hope, we live differently because we understand that we are agents of the Kingdom, not passive actors like extras in the background of a mildy entertaining play. We faithfully act as Jesus and the disciples did (as described in the book of Acts), having a purpose and mission that isn’t defined by me going to heaven but instead it is defined as heaven coming to earth through me. Along with this belief, we understand that many will reject the message, persecute us and even kill us, but those actions would only result in the return of the King which is our greatest hope. Hope then isn’t marginalized or relegated to a place outside of the framework of my mind, but it is kept in the forefront of my mind and heart everyday until He returns.

Re-imagining Scenario 2

A mother spills milk and says to herself “Whoops!” and begins to clean up the mess. She’s grateful she had the means to buy the milk in the first place and offers thanksgiving to God for his provision. She cleans up the mess and gives her child the remaining milk which the child promptly spills. She playfully says “uh-oh! Oh man, I just did the same thing!”. While cleaning up the second mess, she repeats to her child her attitude of thankfulness and realizes that God has already provided the means to purchase more milk.

Part Three: Faith

I don’t believe that faith is marginalized the same way hope is. In fact, I see it placed directly into the main text of society’s narratives. But I do believe it is incorrectly defined and incorrectly understood just like love is. The writer of Hebrews defined faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of realities not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, TLV). I like this translation because it defines faith as the thing that produces hope, instead of being the the product of hope. Faith then is a set of principles that when understood, produces hope and it even allows the individual to have experiential proof for truths that are otherwise hidden.

But sometimes faith can hit near a bullseye but not actually be a bullseye. In other words, faith can be close to 99% accurate but that 1% that someone is off can lead to a hope that is ill-defined and a love that is misguided. For example, in Matthew 14 Peter begins to sink in some lake water and upon lifting him out Jesus famously asks about his little faith and his doubt. But another way of understanding what Jesus was asking is “Peter, Oh you off-the-target faith, why did you miss?”. As one reads through Matthew (or any of the Gospels really) one can see how Peter and the disciples were all guilty of “off-the-target faith”. They believed in Jesus as God’s Messiah. They also believed the Kingdom as prophesied by those of the past was going to be ushered in by Jesus once he entered Jerusalem. The clearest evidence of this misunderstanding or off-target faith, is found in Matthew 17 when Peter, James and John witness Jesus’ transfiguration and witness his interaction with Moses and Elijah, and Peter responds by wanting to build three tabernacles for each of them. Serious students of the Scriptures would realize that Peter wasn’t caught with his foot in his mouth (as I was taught in Bible college). Instead they would recognize that Peter was referring to the festival or appointed time called Sukkot which is known in English as the Festival of Tabernacles or Tents. This specific festival is one that is celebrated after Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and symbolizes and memorializes the time when God dwelled amongst his people in the wilderness. The festival also serves to provide hope for the coming age when God will once again dwell with his people. So Peter was asking: “Can we start celebrating because the Kingdom has finally arrived on earth?”. God then interrupts Peter and implores him to finally listen to his Son who then tells them, again, that first he must be betrayed and then suffer (Matthew 17:12). Jesus had already been teaching this fact to the disciples but they continually missed the point and didn’t get it until after his resurrection.

For years people have used the “little faith” argument against people who fail to experience miracles in their lives. Other people use the “little faith” argument in terms of failing to obtain correct doctrine. In other words, failures to experience or understand what we see clearly in the Scriptures is blamed on the individual. Sounds like shame to me. The truth is that “little faith” is simply a misunderstanding of what Jesus was saying. That misunderstanding falls squarely on those the church has entrusted to teaching them about the faith. The problem is that instead of teaching us the Faith Jesus Authored and perfected, they prefer to teach us doctrines created by other men. There are even those that teach Paul over John or New Testament over the “Old” Testament. Jesus simply wanted Peter to have a targeted faith, one that hit the bullseye, or hit the nail on the head, or any other countless clichés that try to communicate the importance of having the absolute truth.

I admit that this process has been challenging for me because the teachings of Western theologies have permeated everything one can read. Many like me are going through a process called “deconstruction” (a word sometimes used with derision) where we are no longer interested in the traditional teaching of the institutionalized church because we see the hypocrisy and lies that exist in those who lead it. They are incredibly off-the-target with their patterns of abuse, lies, manipulation and greed. One source that has helped me discover deeper insight into Jesus’ true teachings is the Messianic community. While I don’t agree with everything they teach, I believe there is tremendous value in understanding how people of Jewish faith also believe in Jesus as the Messiah. The disciples after all would fall into the same category. The most helpful input from this particular faith-tradition is the emphasis on learning the theological beliefs of what’s known as the Second Temple Era. In reading more of those sources I’ve come to a more “on-target” understanding of Jesus’ teachings.

For example, most people agree that when Jesus said that whole thing about cutting off hands and feet or plucking out eyes (Matthew 18:8-9), he wasn’t being literal. If anything, he was using hyperbole to make his disciples realize how seriously they should approach sin. But what exactly did he mean if he was being figurative? The sources that we have that explain Second Temple era teachings bring clarity. They indicate that “hand” was an expression for power. So Jesus was saying that if your power leads you to sin, then give it up. “Eyes” was an idiom for perception. So he was teaching, if your perceptions or beliefs lead you to sin, then you should get rid of those perceptions or beliefs so that you won’t sin. I’m not a man of power, but when it comes to perception or beliefs I was convicted upon learning this on-the-target truth from Jesus’ teachings. I realized that certain beliefs I held led me to compromise and sin and so the sis was rooted in that perception. So I cut it off. I didn’t try to re-work the belief or try to figure out how to still believe and not sin. I had to simply stop believing in it and then the sin stopped.

Rightly targeted faith does take some work. Each of us has to find a teacher that has also found it and learn from them. We must study on our own as well. When we gain on-target faith, we will find ourselves having on-target hope and on-target love. Then we just might find ourselves competently walking on water.

Re-imagining Scenario 3:

A father is working from home when the noise of his children playing starts to become a distraction for him. He realizes pandemic life is hard but it also a blessing so he decides to take a break and play with his kids (an opportunity that will eventually cease to present itself). After taking about 10-15 minutes to play, he gets up and gently asks them to try and be quieter so he can get all his work done and they can go out to a park. The kids look forward to playing with dad, so they obey and move on to quieter activities in anticipation that more fun with dad is coming.

Part Four: Peace Through Forgiveness

The final piece of this puzzle is replacing living in constant anger and rage with peace. A lot of people seek peace and they try everything from ignoring the noise, to meditation, to substances like marijuana or alcohol. But anger continues to burn within them and the anger is the roadblock to peace.

Does that mean we don’t ever get angry? Not at all. What it means, though, is that we get angry a lot less than we used to and certainly a lot less than the world around us. Sometimes the anger we experience is righteous anger, that is, anger that is perfectly in line with God’s concerns and His Kingdom (think of Jesus clearing out the temple). Sometimes we feel anger because the shame, fear, and pain still lingers. Whatever the connection might be, the believer’s sole responsibility to feeling anger is to cope with it in a healthy way and ultimately set your cognitive and emotional heading towards forgiveness. When it comes to righteous anger, we forgive and understand that vengeance is a special benefit that only God has a right to experience. But reader please note: we can forgive the things that trigger righteous anger and still pursue justice for the wrongs committed against us. Seeking justice is not excused by the act of forgiveness, it’s just moved into a healthy framework so that when justice is received, the offender is not healed by justice but is instead vindicated by it. I believe that healing from shame, fear, and pain caused by others only comes through forgiveness which is sometimes accompanied by reconciliation and other times is met with justice.

This truth is illustrated by the tree Jesus hung on as well. Notice that after all he experiences, he forgives those who don’t realize what they are truly doing (Luke 23:24), but he is not reconciled to them. Justice isn’t withheld either. Eventually God enacts his vengeance upon those who wrongly accused his Son and Jesus is vindicated by God’s act of justice. [Tradition holds that Pilate was exiled and then committed suicide. Caiaphas was also believed to be exiled at the same time (he loses his priesthood) and apparently lived long enough to see the temple destroyed in 70 AD.] Some may have realized the weight of what they had done and then asked God to forgive them. In that scenario, I believe God would reconcile with them and withhold vengeance and His own need for justice because He would consider the death of His Son as a covering for those sins.

Many falsely teach that reconciliation must accompany forgiveness but that teaching is bred out a desire to control narratives and power. A victim of abuse will certainly need to work toward forgiving their abuser but that forgiveness does not require that the victim reconcile with their abuser and waive any claims to justice for the abuse they endured. Forgiveness is the very hard process of releasing someone’s debts that are owed to them, but that is done on a personal level. The offense dictates what I am willing to reconcile about and waive justice for. But forgiveness is always needed in order for healing to occur. So if someone’s wife bleaches their husband’s favorite t-shirt because she was angry that he spilled coffee on her piano, she didn’t forgive him, she decided not to reconcile, and she meted out her own justice. Even after all this has happened, the husband can choose to forgive, not be reconciled, and end the marriage. Sounds extreme but the illustration is meant to make you think. Let’s say a stranger steps on my brand new shoes. In the moment, I can get angry and yell and move on with my day and eventually feel bad for my reaction and ask God for his forgiveness but the stranger is left with my action of death on their shoulders. Suppose I’m the one who was yelled at for being “a blind, stupid idiot!”. I can go to my car, pray and confess to God my pain and shame, then confess to Him my desire to forgive the stranger. Is there reconciliation there? Nope, not needed. Is there vengeance there? Personally, I stopped praying for God’s vengeance to be visited upon people after studying Matthew’s gospel. I think it’s better to ask God to forgive them and call them to His salvation. But others might still want some kind of justice and that’s where you have to settle with the fact that the stranger’s sin is dealt with by Jesus’ death on the tree or will one day be something they will be accountable for when they stand before God. Ultimately, all sin falls into one of those categories for God’s judgement and vengeance is satisfied on the cross or in the next age.

But I’m not seeing people forgive each other readily in public or in their homes. Instead, I see the shaming, the fear, and the deliberate cause of physical pain which results in greater amounts of anger and violence and will cause death that permeates everything in our society. I believe that everything for Godliness and Righteousness has been given to us so there isn’t a magical formula to replace fear with faith, shame with love, and pain with hope. What’s needed is for the believer to strongly attach his or herself to the Head of the Body so that these ligaments and tendons can grow strong and last a lifetime. If there is some practical advice to be given, it would be to start practicing forgiveness with ferocity. You’ve heard the verse “slow to anger and abounding in love” (Psalm 103:8). Well humans are quick to anger and slow to forgive. As I said before, forgiveness doesn’t force reconciliation or excuse behavior. You can forgive and still keep people accountable. In fact, with the abuser, we must forgive and hold them accountable or we will discover that their abusive techniques gain control through false love.

You may be wondering “when is he going to cover peace?”. Well, it is my contention that practicing forgiveness is the path towards peace. It is also my belief that when we practice forgiveness, we begin to establish a pattern of living that revolves around healthy faith, hope, and love instead of the Curse of Shame, Fear, and Pain. When the believer lives a life that revolves around love and peace, then the believer is living by the Spirit as opposed to living according to the flesh and the believer is free from the Curse that Jesus died to remove (Romans 8). Is it really possible to have this peace? I believe so and I’d like to illustrate with a personal example that happened recently.

I’ve been dealing with a sickness (not Covid-19, tested twice) and so I haven’t been feeling well. But circumstances drove me to go to Costco to purchase an item before it was no longer on sale. After I parked, I walked to the front (took a while because it was busy and I parked far), and looked around for the large flat carts they typically have a ton of. There weren’t any but I looked up and saw an employee bringing one back and I approached him and asked for it. He stated that he already promised it to someone else and indicated where I could find another. He also offered to get it for me but I thanked him for the information and went to the other end of the parking lot to retrieve it. Once I entered the store I found the item but it was too heavy for me to place on the cart myself. I asked someone for help and they paged someone else who worked there. I waited about 10 minutes before she realized help wasn’t coming and she ended up calling in the same young man I saw in the parking lot. He helped me and I thanked the both employees as they apologized for the delay and went to the express lanes (there are three). While waiting in line, I was waved towards one of the registers, only to have another couple cut in front of me. The cashier was red-faced and embarrassed and when I finally got my turn, she began to apologize. My response remained the same throughout all these incidents, I simply said “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m not angry at all, I have too much peace to be bothered today.”. I finally got to my car where two employees helped me put the item in the back, I thanked them and drove off.

This whole time I was masked, uncomfortable because of the illness, and constantly reminded that I forgot to brush my teeth before I went out. But I never got angry, never grew frustrated, and never sought to shame anyone. Now I’m not a perfect person at all. I have many faults and anger is still one of them. So what carried me through all that with peace? To be honest, it was writing this article. The contents and the teaching have constantly been on my mind. The Spirit then has been using His Truth to redefine my “inner man” or who I am in the deepest parts of my being. On-the target truth, has developed on-the target faith, which has produced on-the target hope, and all of it is powered through on-the-target love.

My true test is at home with my wife and daughter. It’s way easier sometimes to be kinder to strangers than the ones closest to you.

Conclusion

It’s always bothered me that teachings about salvation are centered around “eternity” or “heaven”. People stress that the Gospel is about saving your soul in the next life but they never really talk about the practical implications for salvation in this world. Sure they might give you a list of things you shouldn’t do and a list of things that are acceptable. But that kind of teaching has actually led people to think that the next life will be “one long worship service” or some “boring time” where we don’t have fun anymore. But is this the message of salvation any one of us can see is taught in the Scriptures? Paul confesses the struggle of life in this world (Romans 7) but then he declares that freedom has been obtained through Jesus the Messiah (Romans 8). Most believers turn "Christian Living” into societal norms that are not always relevant or applicable. Others focus on spiritual practices like prayer, fasting, giving, and going to church.

But what I am proposing here goes much deeper than surface level actions. You cannot fake peace, or mask your anger and bitterness. It seeps through your Facebook posts, your Tweets, and through that veneer of WWJD bracelets and skinny jeans. It oozes from your mouth like sticky drool and appears as crust over your eyes as your continue to say and think and do the things that originate from a Curse. You can’t mask it with a weekly application of deodorant, the changing of underwear, and putting on clean socks over sweaty and stinky feet. The inner man is the inner man and in the time we live in, the inner man has come forth and spoken. Thank God for His indescribable gift! The removal of this Curse and the established Presence of His Mind and Spirit. It’s time beloved to live in peace. To pray and fast for your enemies, not ridicule them on social media and gossip about them behind their backs. To offer more than you have and to look upon each other with grace and favor not with lust or malice. To practice faithfulness through a perfect love that casts out fear, not through a fear-driven false love. To once again hope in the Kingdom and the implications therein, and to forever put aside greed, pride, and the lust that drives those who are of the world.

There is power to do so, given by the Spirit of God and actuated by the resurrection of the Son. It sits there in your hands, your feet, and your heart. Time to let it run.

The Curse of Shame, Fear, and Pain

Shame and Death

After focusing on praying for the Globally Persecuted Saints of God and observing a time of repentance, I’m happy to get back to what I intended to be a two-part series on understanding why there seems to be this rising tide of anger throughout American society. I write “intended” because I’ve realized that unless I want people feeling like they are reading a book, I better split this article into two and make the articles a three-part endeavor. In my previous article, I tried to provide some relevant examples of what this rising tide of anger looked like and then I tried to explain from a psychological perspective how the global pandemic and our responses to it have led to people feeling stigmatized, ostracized, and then shamed to the point of having a boiling rage that many people don’t have the skills to cope with. In this article I would like to delve deeper into some of the spiritual aspects also discussed in the previous article and I’d like to look ahead to my next article in which I’d like to cover how believers can respond differently to the stressors around us while modeling to the world a better way to cope.

Towards the end of my previous article, I discussed the immediate affect sin had on human functioning. I described how both of the humans in the Creation story, experienced sin by finding themselves confronted by four new states of being or existence which are: shame, pain, fear, and anger. Most of my life I have heard people teach that the immediate and main effect of sin was spiritual death. Spiritual death is commonly understood as being separated from God. It wasn’t until 2012 when I heard this concept expanded on and explained in terms of shame, fear, and pain, by the church leader who eventually officiated my wedding. I still remember being amazed at how simple and yet profound his understanding of Genesis 3 was (as he taught it to the youth group) and after that day I ran with it and its become a cornerstone of my teaching for the last 9 years.

The idea works this way: the humans sinned and then experienced shame, fear, and pain which are depicted for us in Genesis 3 and explained at the end of my last article. It is my belief and my contention that ever since that time, every human being has been afflicted by this curse. It doesn’t matter if you are Indian, Cuban, Nigerian, Chinese, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or Atheist. We all share this affliction and because it was not part of God’s original design for our existence and it is the result of sin; it qualifies as a curse. Every society, system of beliefs, or religion tries to offer solutions for this curse. They offer meditation, therapy, atonement by means of personal actions, or even philosophies that try to remove the burden of the individual parts of the curse. But the majority of human beings struggle to apply ideologies that give them victory over this curse and that struggle becomes the source of what causes so much hatred, division, war, and ultimately actions of death between us.

If you take a look at the image below you can see how I illustrate the way this curse functions in our soul (what I define to be both the heart and mind of people). Usually external triggers press upon shame, fear, and pain and result in the individual experiencing the emotion/state of being known as anger. For example, a person cuts you off in traffic (a very common occurrence here in Miami) and you immediately feel rage and react with honking your horn and speeding up to cut them off or even driving next to them so that you can express your anger with a particular finger. That may be due to fear but it can also be due to shame because that person essentially communicated to you that your space on the road isn’t as important as theirs. Or let’s say your child is jumping around and knees you in the groin (yep, that one has happened plenty) or pulls on your hair. Most people react with anger that’s demonstrated with forceful words and sometimes with forceful actions. These responses in turn become triggers for the individual who first triggered us and so they also respond with anger of their own.

But not all anger looks the same. Some people express their anger outwardly, while others bring it into themselves. So when I yell at my child, in my anger, for hitting me in the groin, I can see her feel shame and I can see her curl up in a ball or retreat to her room with her tablet and close the door. The internalizing of anger (if it happens enough) will eventually manifest in psychopathology which includes disorders like anxiety and depression. Some internalize and then explode with violent outbursts, and so however we look at it, we can see that this curse of shame, fear, and pain truly does bring death. Not just a separation from God either. It brings death in our marriages, our relationships with our children, with other family members, and with society at large. So it is my teaching that the curse of shame, fear, and pain is the best way of understanding what God meant when he told the first human that if he were to sin he would die (Genesis 2:17). In other words, he would become the agent of death rather than the agent of life he was created to be and we’ve been killing each other and ourselves ever since.

It is usually at this point in my classes when I move to the account of Jesus hanging on the stake to illustrate the true and only hope we have for conquering this curse and finding healing and life. A close look at Jesus’ experiences leading up to His crucifixion and His time on the cross will show us that He experiences the curse of death in every facet. The most obvious is pain. He has his beard plucked out of his face, he is repeatedly hit on his head and face to the point where he is no longer recognizable as a man (Isaiah 52:14, Matthew 27:30), and then he is nailed to a Roman cross. Shame is also something he experiences as he is repeatedly mocked, stripped naked, and ultimately hangs while people hurl insults at him for several hours (Matthew 26-27). He also experiences fear in the garden of Gethsemane and also on the cross when he cries out to God ““My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?”  (Matthew 27:46, TLV). Some may argue that He never experienced fear because fear is a “sin”. Nope, that’s just wrong. Fear is a result of the curse of sin and without His ability to experience everything about our curse, He wouldn’t have been able to fully remove the curse. In simpler words, He experiences the entirety of the curse of sin because it is the only way for the curse to be removed from us. Paul explained it this way “Messiah liberated us from Torah’s curse, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’)” (Galatians 3:13). He then experiences the finale of the curse when he is declared dead and buried in a grave.

This curse of shame, fear, and pain is not only a problem for individuals. One can very plainly see it in play in the systems that society uses for everything from commerce to government. Universities use fear to drive students into turning their work on time by utilizing point deductions or grade penalties. Businesses use fear as well in trying to motivate their employees to work. There’s even a system at grocery stores that uses the fear of shame (a terrible combo use of the curse) when you are admonished for having 12 items in the express lane. Ultimately, its fullest and most devastating use is in the home when parents use pain, shame, and fear to “discipline” their children. The reality is that any system that uses that specific model to function is a system that breeds death.

The past few months of this pandemic, I have seen (and regrettably participated in) this system all over social media regarding approaches to the virus and its presence in society. People are shamed into wearing masks or taking them off. People are scared away from vaccination or scared into them. In doing so, we have created a cycle of angering each other and the killing of relationships, all in an effort to perpetuate the same curse Jesus died to remove. Systemic sin goes beyond recognizing patterns of racism or misogyny, one must see the larger work at play and that is the very curse that sin first introduced to us and how it somehow reigns in us (the Body of Messiah) despite Jesus’ removal of that curse on the cross. I contribute to that same system when I call someone a “beta male” for wearing a mask or tell them they don’t have enough faith to conquer fear about the virus (ironically using shame to induce fear so I have control). It works the same way when I believe that those who are sick now are at fault because they didn’t get vaccinated or didn’t wear masks at some event that I saw them post about on Facebook. How do we really expect to bring the light of God’s kingdom to people by using the same tactics a demon would?

There has to be a better way. There is one. That will be the subject of my next article.

Image referred to in article above

A Rising Tide of Anger: Is it Real or is it the Creation of “Fake News” Media?

According to a Press Release by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a Zero-Tolerance policy was enacted for what was described as “unruly and dangerous behavior passengers”. These behaviors included incidents that can be described as verbal absue and physical assault as the result of flight attendants trying to enforce rules such as not allowing passengers to drink their own alcohol to the failure to wear a mask. The aforementioned press release stated that out of the 2,500 complaints, 1,900 of them were about the failure to comply with federal mask mandates.

Recently, three widely reported events that could be described as acts of anger and abuse occurred in the sporting world as fan attendance was allowed to increase for the first round of the NBA playoffs. In one event, a fan in New York allegedly spit on Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young, and was subsequently banned indefinitely from the arena. In another event, a fan in Philadelphia allegedly dumped his popcorn onto Washington Wizards star Russell Westbrook as he exited the court to head to the locker room with an apparent ankle injury. More recently, a fan in Boston allegedly threw a water bottle at Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving, and he has now been charged with a felony.

Here in Miami, there have been multiple shootings in just a few days. So many, in fact, that Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo, has spoken out against the violence by requesting that politicians come together to find a way to make it harder for criminals to acquire guns by “requiring universal background checks and making burglaries at licensed gun stores federal crimes with mandatory sentencing”. These events come just days after it was reported in the New York Times that gun sales during the pandemic set records, a fact that was hinted at by the Brookings Institute amidst the protests of the Spring of 2020, when they reported a large spike (about 3 million) in background check requests being made to the FBI by licensed gun dealers. Just over this past weekend, brawls have been recorded at Miami Marlins baseball games. I saw two such fights on social media and it was enough to negatively influence my decision on attending a game myself with my daughter.

Add to these anecdotes, the videos any of us see on social media of people confronting others about picking up dog poop, or a man pulling down Black Lives Matter signs, or another man tearing down a cross from a church in London, and you have to wonder: what the heck is going on with people?

Some would say: “there’s nothing unusual going on, it’s just people being people”, while others would give credit to the ability of social media to popularize normal and mundane events. Others would blame the media for sensationalizing stories and even creating what they call “fake news”. While I think there may be an element of truth to each of these positions, I think there’s more that needs to be said from a psychological perspective and then from a biblical one.

Psychology

In an article by (Chew et al., 2020), the authors endeavored to review the psychological impacts of past infectious disease outbreaks such as Ebola, the severe acute respiratory (SARS) outbreak in 2002/2003, the (H1N1) influenza outbreak in 2009 (most commonly remembered as the Swine Flu), and the Middle East respiratory (MERS) outbreak in 2012 had on multiple countries and communities. Their goal was to then examine coping responses used by those populations and then try and predict what can be expected as the entire globe enters and then exits a global pandemic due to Covid-19. I believe their findings help to explain why we are seeing this rising tide of anger and why it’s very real and here to stay. The following is a list of the common themes they found across infectious disease outbreaks. These themes usually coincide with what clinicians and therapists like to call “maladaptive coping skills” which is a nice way of saying: the wrong or unhealthy way with dealing with stress or the things that hurt.

1. Anxiety and Somatic symptoms: A common presenting feature for those who endured Ebola, SARS, and the H1N1, outbreaks were anxiety and somatic symptoms (Chew et al., 2020). Somatic symptoms in this case were anxiety-related physical problems and the most reported issue was insomnia. Another article seeks to remind doctors that the current outbreak can induce or exacerbate some chronic disorders such as functional gastrointestinal disorders which would be an example of another somatic symptom related to a psychological outcome due to the pandemic (Nozari, 2021).

2. Depressive symptoms: Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, which are cognitive (thought) features of depression were present in those communities that experienced SARS and Ebola (Chew et al., 2020). The reasons most associated with these symptoms were the following:

   a) inability to return to their usual routine of life

   b) the contagiousness of the disease

   c) lack of information regarding its route of transmission

   d) stigma (more on this one later)

   e) proximity to the epicentre of the outbreak (Chew et al., 2020).

   Along with the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, people reported increased feelings of anger and irritability with younger and middle-aged adults experiencing the highest levels of these feelings of any other group. Their feelings were mostly attributed to a lack of conflicting information regarding the disease and the stigmatization they experienced and that persisted even after the disease had dissipated (Chew et al., 2020).

3. Post-traumatic stress symptoms: These symptoms were experienced mostly by survivors of SARS and Ebola outbreaks. Survivors were confronted with flashbacks or intrusive images of corpses and/or other details related to the outbreaks that caused great loss and grief (Chew et al., 2020).

4. Stigmatization, abandonment, and isolation: Feelings related to these symptoms were experienced in seven SARS studies, one H1N1 study, and in all Ebola studies.

   a) Stigmatization was experienced due to the following

   i). One’s identity as a survivor of the disease or having had a relationship to a survivor

   ii). One’s nationality

   iii). One’s place of residency (Latinos were particularly stigmatized as Mexico was determined to be the epicenter of the SARS outbreak)

   iv). One’s health status prior to the outbreak (this feature led to particularly discriminatory attitudes during the SARS outbreak) (Chew et al., 2020).

   All of these factors were affected by media portrayals (Chew et al., 2020).

   b) Feelings of abandonment and isolation often result from experiencing discrimination and stigma (Chew et al., 2020). People who survive outbreaks (meaning they caught the disease and then recovered) report feeling abandoned by healthcare services because of the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and they report those feelings due to the fact that people in their communities ostracize them for being or becoming sick.

   c) Feelings of isolation were invoked due to the need to quarantine even though most people knew about the necessity of quarantining while sick. These feelings also extended to those who had to quarantine while not having the virus; especially those who were vulnerable due to circumstances like mothers from their newborn babies (Chew et al., 2020).

There’s a lot of information to digest there and in the coming years we will get a clearer picture as to what affect this specific pandemic had on people throughout the world. But just by using some of my own experiences as a professor/counselor and what I think is a little bit of common sense, I think it is safe to say that the symptoms presented in other virus outbreaks in recent history have been evident in society during the Covid-19 outbreak as well. From the outset of this pandemic, those of us working in various mental health fields have been talking about how much stress this time period was going to have on people and we have been discussing with each other the best ways to try and encourage people to process what they are going through. But add to the pandemic the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protesting, the already toxic political climate in the United States, and the rising use of social media as simply an echo chamber to hear yourself say the same things you already believe in (Luzsa & Mayr, 2021), and it felt like trying to help people cope in a healthy way with the pandemic was like trying to make a sand castle out of chia seeds. It was impossible.

Now that we find ourselves going back to live sporting events, flying in airplanes, and maybe even taking a trip to Disney, how do we navigate through crowds of people who at any given time might be experiencing the lingering affects of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, stigma, abandonment, and isolation? Any or all of those symptoms will be present because all of their related causes in previous outbreaks have occurred during this one. Here are two examples.

1. Stigma over nationality? Yep, and it’s too easy to point out the attacks against Asians that have happened worldwide. In the United States, there are those whose sense of nationality is tied up with Republicanism, the flag, guns, and Christian Nationalism (as defined here). They have also been stigmatized during this past year as being “non-mask wearers” and “racists” and other terms that lead to feelings of isolation, abandonment and depression. Some may argue that these people should be ignored or that they brought this stigma and the resulting psychological symptoms onto themselves. Whether they did or not, it doesn’t mean they should then suffer psychologically; especially when their suffering could lead to a spiraling that can lead to a detrimental affect on the rest of society. We should pay attention to how they’ve been stigmatized and find a way to close the gap with them.

2. Stigma over health status prior to the outbreak. I felt this one personally. Before the Covid-19 outbreak I was somewhere around 272 lbs (my highest weight ever). Thankfully in 2019 I had started treatment for a thyroid disorder which is when I put on all the weight (I went from 233 to 272 from Jan 2019-May 2019). But I didn’t really tell many people about my diagnosed condition or my treatment. So when the pandemic started, I felt like if I died from the virus, people would just blame me for being fat or gluttonous. That stigma for being obese and vulnerable to the disease made it easier for my family to isolate ourselves but thankfully the stigma did not lead to feelings of depression, abandonment and isolation like it did for others as described above. But that’s only because of my own solid state of mental well-being going into the pandemic and knowing any stigma I might feel is the result of ignorance from other’s about the true nature of my condition. Not everyone was able to have that kind of perspective about their own experiences. I cringe when I think about the Surgeon General telling Black Americans that they needed to “avoid alcohol, tobacco, and drugs”, since they seemed to be dying at a high rate (at the time he made his comments). Statements like these lack perspective and create the stigma I’m explaining here.

Bible

In Genesis 3, human beings experience four conditions or states of being that they were never intended to experience. These conditions of living only entered into their bodies and their psyche because of their decision to enjoy something that was lovely to look at, even if it meant the knowledge it gave wasn’t lovely at all.

1. First, the humans realized they were naked and decided this state of existence was inherently problematic and so they covered themselves. When a person feels that something about them is wrong or simply not right, that feeling can be defined as shame. Shame is different from guilt in this way: guilt helps us understand that something we have done was wrong and that it will be met with negative consequences. Shame tells us that guilt exists and along with that guilt, we also feel that something that isn’t necessarily wrong is now tainted and must be covered up lest its exposure causes more problems for us. A practical example: a 4-year old is singing while dad is working on an email. Dad asks her to be quiet just so he can finish. The little girl walks away thinking that her singing is bad and annoying and so maybe she is also bad and annoying. That’s how shame works. Carl Rogers called this process the building of conditions of worth (Schultz & Schultz, 2017). Going back to the Creation story, God created the humans as two naked beings and that was good. But now…because of their sin and the resulting guilt, shame enters and forces them to cover themselves up in a way that God never intended because He meant nakedness to be good.

2. The second state of being that is new for the humans is fear. God is walking around in the Garden and the sound of movements cause them to hide. Again, this new state of being is tied up with the guilt they have which is in their psyche because of the sin they have committed. Fear is also related to their shame and the desire to control their shame. Even though they had made for themselves clothes out of leaves to cover themselves, they still hide when they hear God and tell Him that they hid because they were afraid He would see that they were naked or exposed. Hiding from God makes no sense but often fear drives people to try and control things that can’t be controlled and in ways that make no sense.

3. The third new state of being they experience is pain. Pain in labor for the woman and pain of labor for the man. This state of being is directly tied to the thing they were guilty for. But pain is so much more than physical for these and other humans. For example, think of that sharpness you feel in your chest when you know someone is about to give you bad news; especially news related to a break-up or a death. It’s why people use euphemisms like “I’m just not in a place for a relationship right now” or “I don’t have time to fully commit to this relationship and you deserve better” when they want to speak the words that cut your soul in half. God doesn’t mince words in this story and He places cherubim with flaming swords at the entrance so that there’s no doubt that the relationship they had is over. On top of that, God curses the human by telling him that he will return to the dust after he is dead. Do you see the irony in that curse? The human tried to ascend into a place like God’s (after God already made the human an idol in His own image and likeness) and God lowers him all the way down to the place he originally came from: the dirt. Ouch…talk about pain. That one still hurts.

4. Now, the text doesn’t explain this next point to us explicitly but it is there with the right understandings of the text. Robert Alter (2019), explains that “the human called his wife Eve, for she was the mother of all that lives.” (Genesis 3:20-21). In the commentary section of his translation, Alter (2019), then explains that the name Eve sounds suspiciously like the Aramaic word for serpent. (In his introduction, he explains his textual sources and why Aramaic should be considered when translating the Hebrew Bible). He posits the question: Is it possible then that the name for Eve was actually an attempt to forever label her as the mother of all sinful things (Alter, 2019)? I believe it certainly is possible. What state of being led to the human naming the woman something that would essentially forever associate her with speaking to the serpent? The answer is: anger. Anger for being kicked out of the garden, anger for having the soil cursed, anger for every new feeling of discomfort from mosquito bites to blisters on the feet to sweat burning his eyes. Was his anger justified? Many men would say yes, while many women would suffocate with the obvious implications of misogony in the question. My official position is: no, he was not justified in his anger because if he were, he would not have been cursed by God. Meaning, he could only be righteously angry if he himself was innocent. They both sinned and they both suffered just consequences for their sin.

This lesson from the Creation story informs me and anyone else who holds a Judeo-Christian worldview that the source of all the shame, fear, pain, and anger that people experience, whether caused by the pandemic or not, is actually sin. So, that leaves us with a very important question: how does one overcome something that seems to be hopelessly ingrained into our existence? I will attempt to answer that in my next article.

References

Alter, R. (2019). The Hebrew Bible: The five books of Moses: Torah: A translation with commentary (Volume 1) (1st ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.

Chew, Q., Wei, K., Vasoo, S., Chua, H., & Sim, K. (2020). Narrative synthesis of psychological and coping responses towards emerging infectious disease outbreaks in the general population: Practical considerations for the covid-19 pandemic. Singapore Medical Journal, 61(7), 350–356. https://doi.org/10.11622/smedj.2020046

Luzsa, R., & Mayr, S. (2021). False consensus in the echo chamber: Exposure to favorably biased social media news feeds leads to increased perception of public support for own opinions. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.5817/cp2021-1-3

Nozari, N. (2021). COVID-19 Outbreak and its Burden on a New Wave of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders. Middle East Journal of Digestive Disease, 13(2), 91–94. https://doi.org/10.34172/mejdd.2021.210

Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2017). Theories of personality (11th ed.). Cengage Learning.

A Look at How Cognitive Dissonance Can Impact “Christian” Identity.

the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change

Cognitive dissonance is defined as psychological conflict resulting from two or more incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously. In other words, you have two (or more) thoughts that don’t work together. For example:I want to lose weight and eat these two Whoppers…or I’m a Christian and I want to steal from my neighbor. Notice the use of “and” instead of “but” in those phrases. That’s because those beliefs and attitudes are in conflict with each other. That conflict should force people to choose one (preferably the one that does not harm self or others) and stick with it. But as most people know, that’s not what happens. People usually stay in that place of conflict or cognitive dissonance and as a result a host of problems can manifest. There can be passive aggressive behavior, anxiety issues, depression, and alcohol and drug abuse. Passive aggressive behavior as a result of cognitive dissonance can also look like something Freud called reaction formation.

Reaction formation is when a person has impulses they know they should not have and so they vehemently oppose those impulses in public. What I’m describing here is known in the church as legalism and hypocrisy. The guy who criticizes people for not being on time to church but is often late to work because “it’s just my secular job”. It’s the person who is always talking about how evil it is to view pornography while he often masturbates to mental images of the women he happens to come across in his life (including the “hot” wife of his best friend). Eventually this passive aggressive behavior of legalism and hypocrisy leads to a life that is divided. That’s when anxiety begins to build or depression starts to set in because nobody was meant to be split into parts. Drugs and alcohol are meant to treat the feelings of anxiousness and sadness the individual may experience but they only make things worse. 

While I was bullying people to tears in high school, I was also serving people in love at church. I was 15 when I spoke for the first time at a youth group. I was 16 when I spoke for the first time before a packed sanctuary. I’ve been speaking and teaching from the Word of God for a majority of the last 22 years. When I was a teenager, I was constantly praised for being willing to use the gifts the Holy Spirit gave me. I encouraged older people because of my youth and I motivated my peers for the same reason. I remember being called a “leader” for the first time when I was 16. Things were going great at church…but only there. One Tuesday night I shared the gospel at a weekly ministry we had going at the chapel. We would play flag football, take a break to share the Word, and then play until the night was over. That night I was really depressed because of something that had happened at school. 

I had worn a t-shirt to school that said “C.O.P.S.” in a font that was meant to resemble the television show. On the back, in really small lettering, was an acronym that I can’t remember. What I do remember is that the letter “C” stood for the word Christian. My Bully-Identity loved the shirt because it said the word COPS on the front. I thought it added to my intimidating persona. But for the first time my Bully-Identity was confronted by my Christian one. There was a girl in my high school who was known for her faith in Jesus. She was such a strong witness for Him. She loved Him a lot. I know because she NEVER stopped talking about Him. She sat behind me in biology class because our seating assignments were based on alphabetical order. The underlying reality was, that God had her sit behind me because He was going to use her to hurt me. On the day I wore that C.O.P.S. t-shirt, she tapped me on the shoulder and asked “Reggie, you’re a Christian?”. To this day those words pierce me somewhere deep in my soul. It was just a question on her part. She wasn’t trying to make me feel like crap. I felt that way because of what was going on in my heart. 

That  event created an intense level of cognitive dissonance that brought about the kind of sadness that could have been classified as depression. I was overeating, I was oversleeping, and I was always sad. In fact I didn’t play football that night I shared the gospel which is another symptom of depression called anhedonia or the inability to feel pleasure. I lost the ability to enjoy playing football! She really did hurt me! I only went out of obligation (it was my turn to share the Gospel) and out of a need to maintain appearances. While I was driving home from the church, I felt this overwhelming sense of guilt and shame that led me to decide that my life was not with living. I started to accelerate my car and I unbuckled my seatbelt. I knew that there was a stretch of the Florida’s Turnpike that I could easily drive my car off of. I remember thinking that it would look like I died in an accident. I remember thinking that my mom and the rest of my family would miss me but they would eventually be better off without me. The next thing I knew I was in my bed and I was crying. I honestly have little recollection as to how I got home that night.

When I got out of bed that morning, my mom asked how the message went last night and that she was praying for me to get home safely. I believe it was her prayers that night and a larger, but unknown plan by God that allowed me to have more time on this earth. Even though I was spared that evening I was going to suffer with depression and suicidal thoughts until my 28th birthday. But that suffering did something to me….it changed me…it turned me into someone else; someone who finally understood what it meant to be Abba’s Beloved. 

I understand that a majority of people don’t want to be confronted about who they really are. But if you have made it this far I want to thank you with sticking with my attempts to teach and story-tell at the same time. I believe that somehow, someway, you too will achieve cognitive dissonance about your current identity and choose to lay aside that which encumbers you. In other words, I really hope that you choose Jesus and find true healing and change. If you are feeling that cognitive dissonance, I ask you to sit with it. Experience the anxiety and the sadness and even the fear. Ask God to lead you to forgiveness and healing. He will find you. 

I felt the need to explain all of that because I believe that becoming one with your identity as Jesus Barabbas (see previous post) might be hard given my next proposition. In 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, Paul reports that he has been made aware of certain divisions that have been made amongst the people in Corinth. It seems Christians were starting to label themselves according to the teachings of different people like Paul himself, or Cephas, or another guy named Apollos. The strategy of divide and weaken is so good that it was actually used by God in Genesis 11. The civilization that began to prosper after the flood realized that the best way to avoid being flooded again would be to build a tower that was so high and so strong that no flood waters brought by God could ever bring it down. As God looked upon their determination and ingenuity, He decided the best way to keeping them from building their tower would be to divide them and so He confused them by creating different languages. The people were then separated, their tower was never built, and it took much longer (if ever) for them to achieve the strength they sought at the Tower of Babel.

Fast forward to the time after the Holy Spirit was poured out onto the first Church and satan sees the need to use God’s strategy. He also employs strategies he used against the people of Israel. He introduces false prophets, false teachings, false idols, and persecution. One of the many results of his techniques is creating false identities. Super fast forward to the present day and one can see evidence on these techniques in action. In my classroom I have seen people react to the Jesus Barabbas identity with false identities based on false teachings like “I’m only a sinner saved by grace”. Or false idols rear their ugly and demonic heads and sound like this “sure I’m a Son of God but I’m an American first and there’s nothing more important than protecting our freedom”. Even persecution doesn’t look right because when people talk about persecution in America they don’t talk about being persecuted for being Jesus Barabbas. They talk about being persecuted for their allegiances to false prophets (politicians and religious leaders), false teachings (political talking points), and their sin.

I believe that if you are sincere about the faith that Jesus the Anointed One Authored and Perfected which means you accept the identity He decided to bless you with as the Son of God, then you will experience Cognitive Dissonance and you will be forced to choose to live in His faith or die in a false one. There’s no time anymore for Yeshua Bar-Abbas to fight for the concerns of Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists, Plymouth Brethren, Republicans, Democrats, Americans, Indians, etc. That means there’s no time for arguments about Premillennialism, Amillennialism, Postmillennialism, Abortion, Gay Marriage, Marijuana, “Culture Wars”, etc. Why? Because there’s no time for division and no time for hatred and no time for huddling in small corners on a Sunday with 10,000 people who don’t feel like God sees them.

What does Yeshua Bar-Abbas have time for? Healing, prayer, forgiveness, devotion to God, serving the poor, the orphaned and the widowed. There’s really a lot more too. Once you know who you really are then you can really get to work. Think about it this way. If you’ve held a job you know what it’s like to be nervous on your first day. You don’t really know what you are supposed to do. That’s why they put you through an orientation, but that’s never enough. You really need those first few hours, maybe even a week or for some longer, before you get comfortable with your role. Once you know your role you settle in and do your job. You know what’s really sad to me? All churches have taught believers that their primary role is to sit, stand, participate, and pay. Jesus the Anointed One did not intend that model of “Church” at all. He empowered the disciples to heal diseases, cast out demons, teach with authority, and to ultimately seek and save those who were lost. He then told them to go and do the same with people from all nations. To disciple or transform people into Sons like He did with them. That is who you and I are Authored to be.

(Galatians 2:20, CSB) I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 

(Colossians 3:1-3, CSB) So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Jesus Son of Abba

For context please read Matthew 27:15-25. I’ll be referring to this passage soon.

The name Barabbas was a proper name transliterated from the Aramaic word bar which means “son” and abba which meant “father”. Most people who are familiar with the New Testament are also familiar with the word Abba. In Romans 8:15 the apostle Paul explains that believers in Jesus the Christ are no longer orphans but are now sons that can cry out “Abba, Father”. A common mistake people make about the word Abba is that they don’t understand the tone of the word and how it is culturally used. Usually people end up saying things like “Father God in heaven” or “Our Father in heaven” which is fine…Jesus did say “pray like this…our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). But to forget what the word Abba implies when referring to God is to forget what you mean to Him. Or in other words, you forget who you are.

As hinted at earlier, Abba means so much more than father. In the Romans passage, the Greek word patḗr is translated as “father” in English and it refers to the progenitor of a particular lineage. Abba refers to so much more than the progenitor of a particular lineage. I have often heard it said that any man can be a father but not every man can be a dad. Oftentimes men who simply see themselves as “father” demand respect based on what they did rather than who they are. For example, they would say things like “I brought you into this world” as justification for a certain level of respect and desired behavior. Fathers who think this way usually say things like “because I said so” or “I pay the bills in this house” to justify getting their way despite what someone else might want or even need. This style of parenting often results in a child feeling invalidated which results in shame, anger, and bitterness.

I have met a lot of angry children and they all have this one thing a common: a feeling that their personhood is worth very little to nothing in the eyes of their parents. In fact, when I was volunteering for Youth for Christ by ministering to juvenile offenders, I would often get rejected whenever I would talk about God as their father. So many of those young men hated their fathers and just saying the word father in association with God caused them to shut down and reject the message of the cross. When I realized what was happening I started to use the word “daddy” instead of father and I began to get a different response. Most of those young men remembered when their father was their daddy or they might have had another man in their life who took on the role of daddy. I personally referred to my father as daddy and I must say that despite the man he was and some of the evil things he did, the word daddy softens my heart when thinking about him. I believe that the main reason why the word “daddy” softened the hearts of those young men was because it would remind them of the safer, more endearing times in childhood. Those times when you were still unaware of dad’s darker side and you felt safe on his lap. He hadn’t abandoned you yet nor had he made you feel like you weren’t worth much. That happens later in life when we grow a little older and daddy turns into father and he can be a miserable human being to be around. He judges you and condemns you and ultimately He abandons you. 

Now come with me to the scene where Jesus is being exchanged for Barabbas in Matthew 27:15-25. You have the following characters: God, Jesus, Barabbas, Pilate, the religious leaders, and the crowd. In the past I’ve heard many well-intentioned followers of Jesus who look at that scene and identify themselves with the crowd. In other words, they say things like “if I was there I would have been shouting for Barabbas”. I understand the sentiment of that statement. People who say and believe that to be true, honestly believe that because they are a sinful human being, they would be going along with what the other sinful human beings were doing at that time. But I beg to differ. I believe that Pilate, the crowd, Barabbas, and Jesus all represent something specific. I understand this to be a personal application (understanding the nuances and rules of Hermeneutics) of the passage but nonetheless I believe this application to be theologically sound. 

I’ll start with the religious leaders. The religious leaders in Jesus’ day and Pilate had one thing in common: they wanted to desperately hold onto their power. Both John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth had gained the favor of the crowds and both had also turned down all attempts by the religious leaders of the day to join their ranks. Both were then arrested by the Roman oppressors at the direction of the religious leaders (I know John was arrested for telling Herod he was wrong for being with Herodias but it is also true that the religious leaders brought John to Herod’s attention because they didn’t like it when he called them a brood of vipers and said the Kingdom of God belonged to the poor) and both were then executed by the Roman government. I find that religious leaders wield the same kind of power today. They lay in bed with oppressive and human authorities while lording over the people they are supposed to care for with the burdens of financing their comfort and power. It’s no surprise to see them very publicly in bed with men and women who are morally compromised because the abuse of power creates such partners in crime.

I believe that Pilate represents the authority of this world. Jesus clearly lets him know that he wouldn’t be in his position of authority if it were not previously ordained by God (John 19:11). Paul teaches this same concept in Romans 13. But even though authority is given from above to rulers by God, authority doesn’t always rule in accordance with God’s will. This truth is why ultimately God will destroy all of human authority as depicted in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and interpreted by Daniel (Daniel 2). It’s also why Paul opposed the same government he wrote about in Romans 13 and even why Jesus called Herod a “fox” in Luke 13 because ultimately human authority is always going to be limited in righteousness because there is still a battle not against flesh and blood that is waged in the heavens that is very real yet not often spoken of (Daniel 10, Ephesians 6).

So in order to keep his own power, Pilate succumbs to the will of the people and the religious leaders who whisper in their ears, because of the fear he had that the people would riot if he didn’t give them what they wanted. There is no honor in Pilate and I believe there is no honor in government. I admit that I struggle to care about politics but what I do is pray for my leaders no matter who they are. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who really knows me if I’m telling the truth. I have also resolved to leave them alone and focus on the Bride whose garments should not be stained with those of the enemy’s.

I see the crowd as the people of this world who reject God. How can you put yourself in with that crowd if you are someone who believes in Jesus? That doesn’t make sense. The people in this world who reject Jesus and His message are the ones in that crowd. They do it even now. Don’t put yourself in there with them. You don’t belong there.

Now here’s where things get really interesting. According to Bruce Metzger, the account of this scene recorded in Matthew included an extra name for Barabbas that was removed by the “early church fathers”⁠. That name was Yeshua which is translated to Jesus. So when Pilate presented to the crowd their choice, he was asking, who do you want me to set free: Jesus the King of the Jews or Jesus the Murderer and Insurrectionist (their names being the same, their charges being the only difference)? Metzger explains that an early church father named Origin is on record as having the position that a sinner like that should not be associated with the name of Jesus; especially at this crucial point in Scripture⁠.  But if the original author, the disciple known as Matthew who was also called Levi, purposely left that detail in his Gospel, then who is Origen or any other “early church father” to decide what belongs in the text and what doesn’t? It’s my position that the name Jesus Barabbas is a significant one and here’s why. 

Remember, above all else, that God was the one making the choice about who was going to the Cross and so God was the one interpreting the events and what God saw were the following two options: Jesus my Only Begotten Son, the One “I am Well-Pleased With”, the One Who has been with Me since before the foundations of the world or Jesus Who is also the Son of the Father. 

In this story, the believer is represented by Barabbas. The cross Jesus died on was his. It was also mine. It was also yours. Remember that the crowd didn’t choose you over Him. God chooses Him over you. Why? Because you are Yeshua Bar-abbas…Jesus Son of Abba. Imagine that God has only two children in all of existence. Jesus and you. You were going to die. His other child volunteered to die for you instead. Do not underestimate how much you mean to Him. In fact the price tag God was willing to pay for you was the life of His Beloved Son; the One whom He was well pleased with. As Yeshua Bar-abbas, you should realize that you have been set free and now your life is hidden in the life of the Anointed One (Colossians 3:3). It’s no coincidence that the only person in the story believers can identify with shares a first name with the One who gave His life for Him. God tells the most perfect stories. 

In summary, Jesus represents (as He always has) God’s exact nature (Hebrews 1:3). In obedience to the Father’s will, He demonstrates the Father’s love by taking on Himself our sinful selves (1 John 4:9-10). It makes a very “human” kind of common-sense to place your sinful self in with the crowd. But the miracle God accomplished at the cross was putting your sinful self on His Son and letting you, His other Beloved Child, go free. You are Jesus Son of Abba. I am too. 

A Woman and a Robe

Reaching for that Robe

The year 2020 has been a lot of things for a lot of people. It has been a year of great loss, grief, pain, turmoil, and heartache. It has also been a year of division, lost friendships, broken faith, disappeared norms, and confusion. Others have actually benefited and seen some economic growth, closer bonds, and even healthier bodies. If I had to summarize what the past year has been like, going from March 2020 to March 2021, and pick only one way to describe it all, I’d have to say that it’s been a year of discovering the faith that Jesus Authored and Perfected some 2,000 years ago. 

Like so many others who have gone by the identity “Christian” I have borne witness to the increasingly divisive political climate in the secular United States of America and it’s seepage into what I always believed was a separate entity called the Church. I grew up in a tradition (the Plymouth Brethren) in which the message regarding politics was largely apolitical, so during my voting years (ages 18 and onward) I never took voting seriously. One year I actually wrote in Roseanne Barr (which admittedly wasn’t the best joke) and another time I simply wrote down Jesus as my choice. Why? Because I was taught that the world is the world and the Church is the Church and never should the two mix.

But after the turn of the calendar in 2020 I started to see a shift amongst those I used to associate within the Plymouth Brethren tradition (all on social media since I stopped attending that particular tradition for reasons I’ll explain in Episode 0 of the I am Barabbas Podcast) where it was no longer enough to be apolitical but instead it was important to be stridently in support of a particular political party. I found the shift to be unsettling because the tradition I was raised in was always so focused on Jesus that it was never even permissible to call Him simply Jesus. He always has to be The Lord Jesus. Lord had to precede the name Jesus because He is the Head, and the Preeminent One, and no one was ever supposed to disrespect the name of Jesus by leaving out His Lordship.

Politics wasn’t just showing up on social media either. It was starting to display itself in sermons and in Bible studies at the Presbyterian-based church we were attending as well. It was getting so painfully obvious that eventually my wife and I decided that we wanted Jesus (Lord Jesus, Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, whatever one is supposed to call Him) more than the covert messaging we were receiving about why one political party was the “Christian” party and why another wasn’t. (Yes I know I used obvious and covert in the same sentence but sometimes things work that way). Eventually we found ourselves gathering as three (with our 5 year old daughter) on Sundays and continuing our small groups over Zoom while increasing the reading of the Bible, independent of church agendas. We eventually found a group of believers that did focus on Jesus and then I decided at the turn of the new year to pray and meditate (for at least 10 mins a day) in order to bring down my blood pressure and to also try to discern the Voice of God over the voices of the past.

It was during this time when I began to really discover the faith that Jesus had Authored and Perfected and how truly different it was from the one I was given from the time I was a child up until now. I suppose the crux of Thayil Thoughts will be the sharing of these discoveries over time but this particular writing will start with a story about a woman and a robe.

In Matthew chapter 9, there’s an account shared with the reader about a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years who was miraculously healed by touching the outer fringes of Jesus’ robe. Mark’s gospel tells the reader that this woman had suffered a lot at the hands of physicians and both Mark and Luke inform the reader that the woman spent every single penny that she had trying to have this medical problem fixed. Now the modern reader may not understand some of the cultural implications here so please allow me to explain. 

The Torah, or the first five books of the Old Testament, contained Laws that were meant to help the people of Israel have an understanding of the kinds of medical issues that could result in widespread illness. One of the common causes of widespread illness is bodily discharge. As a safety precaution, God had put into a place a system that ensured that anyone who had a discharge of any kind from their bodies (males or females) would be separated from certain household activities for a certain time period until those discharges were cleared up. In the case of menstruation, it was a time frame of 7 days. All of this information can be read in Leviticus 15. Now remember that at the time when God gave these instructions, there were no sanitary ways of controlling blood flow. So His laws were meant to protect people from the possibility of infection. I want to also reiterate that these laws applied to men as well. The same chapter outlines rules for the kinds of fluids that would discharge from a man’s penis.

The same chapter also speaks on the kind of bleeding that a woman might have that is not normal and continues without stopping which is what this woman in Matthew 9 is suffering from. The verses are found in Leviticus 15:25-27. A woman with this kind of bleeding is really caught in the worst of places because now everything she might bleed on is considered to be a potential source of infection. Now we are still going through this Covid-19 pandemic and we all know what it’s like to be thought of as the source of an infection. Every cough or sneeze in public is met with a sideways look and a few steps back. In 1st century Israel, I promise you it’s much worse. The religious leaders had such a grip on people through fear that they treated any source of potential infection or cause for impurity as a pariah. This woman went to doctors and spent everything she had to be cured for 12 years and nothing worked. In the meantime, anything she sat on had to be ritually cleaned. Any person she came in close contact with and might have bled on had to be ritually cleaned. She wouldn’t have even been allowed to prepare a meal or really hold a child or sleep with her husband (assuming she had any of that). She must have been the most lonely and isolated person in her community. 

Then news came to her about a man who had the power to heal. He lived in Capernaum and although he traveled often he was currently there and so she figured she could try his hands for healing. She had no more money but she did have some faith and a tiny bit of hope. She finally caught up with him but he was surrounded by a crowd of people and so she figured that if she could just touch the little tassel hanging from his robe then she would be healed and she could get away unnoticed. Then maybe the Healer wouldn’t be bothered by her and if he didn’t know that she touched him, he wouldn’t have to go and wash his robe since he would have been touched by an impure and unclean bleeding woman.

So she makes her approach, she makes the touch, and efforts to walk away, but then her heart stops because her ears are filled with the sound of a voice that asks this terrifying question: “who touched me?” The disciples, Peter specifically, wonders and asks Jesus “what do you mean, this whole crowd is pressing against you.” But Jesus had felt power go from his body and so he clarifies and indicates someone was healed and so the woman comes forward and both Mark and Luke inform the reader that she was terrified and falls before Jesus and confesses because she honestly did sin against him by touching him and making him unclean. But Jesus then calls her daughter and declares that her faith healed her and then he continues on to raise a little girl from the dead.

Now fast forward to Matthew 14:34-36. Here is where I learned something new, something about the faith that Jesus Authored and Perfected. Something that was contrary to what someone taught me in the past. In this passage Jesus goes to a place called Gennesaret. I was taught a long time ago that this was the same region where Jesus had healed two demon possessed men that resulted in a herd of 2,000 pigs running into the sea and drowning. When Jesus performed that miracle the men there begged Jesus to leave because they were afraid. I was taught that when Jesus returns in Matthew 14 they had a change of heart and there we see them finally receive Him and miracles begin to happen. Well I was taught wrong.

The text does say the men in Gennesaret recognized Jesus. But why? I was leading a Bible study and I was studying some maps looking to confirm my previous notions of this pig story but I saw that the two regions were on opposite sides of the Sea of Galilee. In fact, Gennesaret is not far from Capernaum which is Jesus’ adult hometown and the home base of his Galilean ministry. As far as I could tell, he had never been there though. So how did they recognize him? I ran out of time to prepare so we started the study and as it was going on and as some discussion was happening I started to look ahead and the Spirit of God spoke to me. He said to look at Matthew 9 and the woman and the robe. Why? Well, because the people in Gennesaret begged to be healed, but they wanted to be healed by touching the fringes on his robe. Now who else had been healed this way? Only one other person: the beloved daughter of Jesus who had bled for 12 years. Then it made sense. This Gennesaret had to be her home. She must had gone home and told everyone what had happened. Everyone had to have known her story. Bleeding for 12 years, doctors doing who-knows-what to stop it, maybe asking people for some money to help pay for the next treatment. Then all of a sudden she’s back home and she’s healed! “How did it happen, girl? Well, all I did was touch his robe…well, the fringes of his robe and then it was gone!”

The most wondrous thing about the whole event (to me anyway) is that Jesus doesn’t tell the people to forget touching His robe. He doesn’t correct her testimony. He doesn’t sit the crowds down and say “Listen here. The power is in me, not the robe. The robe is nothing. She got that part wrong… oh and by the way it’s Lord Jesus, not Jesus”. He doesn’t silence her voice. He honors it and gives power to it. Matthew tells us that as many as touched his robe were then healed. 

There are a lot of implications for this truth, too much to write about here. For that reason I’ll be recording Episode 0 of the I am Barabbas podcast with greater detail. But this is where I am starting. With a woman and a robe. Why? Because here is where the faith that Jesus Authored and Perfected separates itself from the one that Christendom has been writing and here is where Healing begins.