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Leaving an authoritarian group is possible only by paying a very high price, including the loss of family and all other support networks. At the same time, it is made very hard or impossible to escape the clutches of the group. The authoritarian culture of many of churches call members into a state of passive acceptance of obedience to what the leaders tell them. Being told to obey the will of God at every turn can easily sap any sense of self-determination. The long-term message that many children have been left with after a fundamentalist upbringing is to have a profound sense of worthlessness. The effect of having to internalise the message that all the viewers were wicked and destined for hell was highly traumatic. The undeveloped brains of children were not able to process the horrors and the trauma of the film.
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Children who watched it would wake in the night screaming because of the raw fear aroused by the themes of the film -Armageddon and damnation. The film that circulated widely among evangelical believers called Thief in The Night had an enormous effect. She first focuses on the effect of teachings concerning hell and damnation especially as they impact small children. We are familiar with all of these from earlier posts. Marlene presents us with many examples of the pastoral situations she has dealt with as a counsellor where individuals have been badly affected by damaging or toxic beliefs. By some extraordinary coincidence I received today a phone call from a woman in the Midlands who had also suffered at the hands of a Pentecostal congregation seeking to ‘heal’ her eating disorder. It begins with personal testimony of how the author, seeking help for bulimia from religious leaders, was expected as a teenager to solve the problem with the help of prayer and faith alone. My reading of the first lines of the article hit me with a strong sense of synchronicity when I started to read it on Friday morning. The article contains useful references to earlier literature and articles on this theme. Much of what I have to say here about RTS is taken straight from an article on the website. The author of the study that gives rise to our helpful descriptive phrase is Dr Marlene Winnell. Just because there are examples of truth, goodness and beauty in the religious systems that we encounter in our world, we also have to be armed with the thought that religions can sometimes do harm. As one involved for a long time in the world of religious abuse, I have of course known for a long time that such a notion is a false one. This is counter-intuitive and it goes against our long-held assumption that religion is inevitably a benign force. Why am I attracted to the term which I first met today (Friday)? I find it helpful because without any further explanation it is allowing us to suggest that religion and religious ideas can in some situations cause harm. The expression is Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS). Something similar has happened to me with another expression which has been current for a couple of years in the States. I went away and thought about the implications of the words and then fitted my thoughts and ideas around its possible meaning. Someone else used the expression in an online conversation, without defining precisely what they meant. A week or so ago I came up with the term ‘institutional narcissism.’ I would like to be able to say that I invented the term. TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains mentions of religious, sexual, and physical abuse.Words are powerful things and the same can be said for pithy two to three word designations of certain phenomena. Marlene Winell in 2011 that describes the common symptoms those with religious trauma experience along with some of my own experiences with the symptoms to help you better identify your own experiences. In this episode, we explore the syndrome identified by Dr. Knowing what we’re experiencing also helps us seek out help instead of heaping more shame onto our shoulders as we move towards healing our wounds. You may also experience nightmares, dissociation, flashbacks, or other symptoms common to PTSD. When we know that the grief, anger, confusion, fear, loneliness, and sense of feeling displaced are all common when you’re experiencing religious trauma, it can make it easier to be patient with ourselves throughout the experience. Sometimes one of the most helpful tools for healing is understanding what is going on.