No Anxiety Like Religious Anxiety

If God is Love. (1John 4:18) And if the Son of God is innocent. (Luke 23:4) And if the Son is more than a messianic robot programmed to simply die for our sins. (John 10:8) And if we mistake our troubles for his. (IS 53:4) And if he is a “friend of sinners.” (Luke 7:34) And if he forgives before he dies, even during the agony of his own death as he did with the criminal hanging beside him. (Luke 23:43) And if God desires mercy not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6) And if the story is good news. (Mark 1:1) 

If these things are true, then by logic (as if Love is logical), you could say God authored neither our tension nor the remedy of our tension. To recognize the importance of this statement, we have to have eyes to see what this might mean.

First, the tension, which I think I’m right in saying is the anxiety over the perceived separation from God. Perceived, as opposed to real because in spite of the American Christian’s “four spiritual laws,” we are never separate from God. Good grief, where could one even go to distance themselves from Love? (PS 139). I speculate that the anxiety is “the lack” we feel in the presence of Love. This Love is so great it leaves us feeling overwhelmed and unworthy.

Second, the remedy of our tension. Filled with anxiety, we overreach, press, take things into our own hands, and “reach for the fruit” to make ourselves worthy. But, of course, we’re operating from the wrong premise, that is, the tension of being separate from God. And the power of that misguided premise becomes too great to hold. It doubles down, spilling out onto others in projection, which propels us down a whole needless rabbit trail of more overreaching, that is sacrificing, in shaming others. As unhealthy as all that sounds, it doesn’t go far enough, for the efficacy of these practices is forever interlinked with their ability to convince us that we are justified in shaming and sacrificing. I mean, look at those people. Look at their problems. They’re obviously guilty.

Never mind that their glaring problems are our glaring problems 

This plays out notoriously with the preacher who slams his fist in outrage over the sexual sins of others, all the while secretly engaging in similar acts himself. Or the presidential candidate who runs a campaign pointing out the current president’s lack of integrity while participating in shady and clandestine practices at home. 

And it plays out in a million other ways that we don’t like to talk about as much. Consider the mom who has never found peace about certain indiscretions from her youth, overreacting to her daughter’s minor indiscretion. Or the daughter (yes, this can get complex quickly) who grows up resenting people who overreact. The daughter complains to her friends over a coffee about the hypocrisy of the preacher’s moral outrage only to yell at the barista for taking too long to make a latte. 

(And all of this must be thought about in my own life as well. Is it possible that my asking the denomination to think more graciously toward gay people was an attempt to assuage my own guilt over not treating gay people more graciously in my youth? Or generally being a more gracious person? Yes, it is possible. So, it’s something I keep in mind, pray about, and ask my therapist to ask me questions about!)

When we see the problem of the other, it stirs up anxiety we have about our own and often very similar problem. It can encourage us to castigate the other. But isn’t it possible that what we’re really doing is castigating ourselves? 

All of this keeps coming to the forefront in my life in recent months. More than one well-intentioned Christian has talked with me about the sexual sins of others by starting their discussion with that ever-contemporary phrase, “I’m not perfect, but…” Oh, that we would all just stop at, “I’m not perfect.” There’s no reason to add the conjunction. None of us are perfect. Let’s leave it at that. No one has asked us to be perfect. And before you cite Matthew 5:48, please consider the English word perfect to be a “less than perfect” equivalent translation of the Greek word telios. Telios is about the maturity and movement toward wholeness and completeness, not about behavioral mastery. I do not believe Jesus is asking us to be perfect in a quantitative sense, but rather, a qualitative sense.

So, in the general way we use the word, no, no one is asking us to be perfect, though I suspect we seek perfection. Then we can feel worthy of love. But, of course we fall short. Then we become angry at ourselves because it might jeopardize our worthiness. Anger is almost always suppressed. Suppression turns into repression. Which only serves to layer our inner world with more anxiety, the toxicity of which is released upon the next person that reminds us of ourselves. Wow, it’s exhausting being a sacrifice-driven, religious human.

But God doesn’t need our perfection. 
God doesn’t need us to punish ourselves when we fall short. 
God doesn’t need sacrifice. Why not? Because God is Love.

If God is Love. (1John 4:18) And if the Son of God is innocent. (Luke 23:4) And if the Son is more than a messianic robot programmed to simply die for our sins. (John 10:8) And if we mistake our troubles for his. (IS 53:4) And if he is a “friend of sinners.” (Luke 7:34) And if he forgives before he dies, even during the agony of his own death as he did with the criminal hanging beside him. (Luke 23:43) And if God desires mercy not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6) And if the story is good news. (Mark 1:1) If these things are true, then by logic (as if Love is logical), you could say God authored neither our tension nor the remedy of our tension.

Love doesn’t demand perfection. If it did it wouldn’t be love.