In a Part 1&2 combo, Christa and Sarah discuss Christa’s ‘deconstruction’ blogpost that she wrote and posted during the pandemic. They discuss the problem of institutions v. individuals, and how difficult it can be to address systemic issues when there is a gap between good intentions and actual result. Problematic is the lack of recognition and space to discuss that scripture is contradictory and therefore individual interpretation and out-workings of faith vary widely. Church inadvertently creates an insulated “safe space” for itself by not addressing conflicts, contradictions, or discomfort; yet what would actually be safe for processing life would feel unsafe: a place that allows room for processing these discomforts, contradictions, and conflicts without the intent to control, correct, and dominate.

Additionally, they address how the continuous messaging of “God is always present/God is always clear” drives believers into secrecy about the struggles they’re having when God isn’t present and isn’t clear, and how they often feel blamed for God’s absence. Because of many pat answers and sayings and this aversion to “division”, deep issues remain undiscussed and therefore unacknowledged and the grief of losing community because of this gap is potent. Christa proposes that what is needed is kind, humble, “unsafe” spaces that allow for pointy edges, friction, and sharp ideas.

Christa’s Blog for reference and further reading: The Despicable Church

Christa and Sarah continue the conversation around the C-PTSD response of “fawning”. They discuss the shame cycle built into the theology of being born a depraved sinner; how difficult it is to question ideas when the standard you’re handed as a child is divine and infallible; the resultant need to continually hustle to perfect your faith and learning to regain a sense of self.

They cover an article found in Medium written by an ex-pastor named Emily Hedrick called “Fawning of the Flock: Trauma Response in Ministry”. Hedrick covers how, in Christian spaces, fawning often looks like good Christian devotion, where the individual self is subsumed by the demands of God or the larger community, and failure to meet these standards results in self-loathing, doubt, and fawning in attempts to be better to meet this divine standard.

“As a toddler, [a child] learns quickly that protesting abuse leads to even more frightening parental retaliation, and so she relinquishes the fight response, deleting ‘no' from her vocabulary and never developing the language skills of healthy assertiveness…Servitude, ingratiation, and forfeiture of any needs that might inconvenience and ire the parent become the most important survival strategies available. Boundaries of every kind are surrendered to mollify the parent…'

When God is the abusive parent, fawning looks like good Christian devotion: constantly praising and adoring God, feeling guilty for getting angry or doubtful toward God, surrendering critical thinking skills in pursuit of believing correct doctrine, trading individual sense of purpose for ‘being used by God,’ and submitting to the belief that anything about you that doesn’t fit the prescribed script demanded by your religious group (sexuality, thoughts, lifestyle choices, experiences, etc.) is your fault and requires self-loathing as penance.”

https://medium.com/interfaith-now/fawning-the-flock-trauma-response-in-ministry-4bcef6c3edbc

Sarah and Christa discuss the Fawn response – one of the complex post traumatic stress disorder reactions that is largely unaddressed, especially in comparison to the more dramatic C-PTSD responses of Fight and Flight. Often referred to as ‘people-pleasing’, this response encapsulates the deep fear of stepping out of place, anticipation of needs, failing perfection, and subsequently worrying about being outside of the church community’s acceptance or, ultimately, God’s salvation.

“'Fawners’ are typically individuals who were raised in a dysfunctional or abusive system and were ‘trained’ by their primary caregivers to repress and deny their feelings, thoughts, and needs. Such children learn early on in life that their true self-expressions and natural impulses are not acceptable to those they depend on for survival and that their self-worth must be extracted from those around them in a never-ending quest to feel ‘okay’, accepted, valued, and loved.”

• https://www.pacesconnection.com/blog/the-trauma-response-of-fawning-aka-people-pleasing-part-one 

In a mere 31 minutes, they talk about “Betty” taking care of problems that should be addressed and dealt with by Christians themselves, the pressure to conform to a surface “good Christian” communal standard, the lack of space for doubt and long-term struggle, and of course…baking. 

Christa and Sarah talk about marriage, biblical interpretation, and harmful sexual messages perpetuated by the church. In the context of health, they touch on two research papers that discuss abstinence and pleasure and talk about the mixed messages they received around their bodies and women’s sexuality.

Articles referenced: Beyond abstinence and risk: A new paradigm for adolescent sexual health, Why Pleasure Matters: Its Global Relevance for Sexual Health, Sexual Rights and Wellbeing

Christa and Sarah continue their discussion of deconstruction: unpacking closed boxes, the formulaic Christian to-dos meant to prevent doom, and rejection of the ‘good enough’ baseline. They delve into Job, God’s “divine plans”, and how church places human suffering in an end-justifies-the-means framework that disallows proper discussion and marginalizes those suffering. Towards the end, they muse about what post-evangelical spaces might look like, and some factors that prevent structural change.

Christa and Sarah talk about some origin points that led to questioning the religious frameworks they had accepted and fully believed, from profound loss and divine absence, to just plain failure of “truths” about the nature of God. This episode marks the start of their discussions around learning to ask questions, trusting their paths, and being unafraid to wander into the areas they had always thought doomed.