When Dysfunction Goes to Church and Leaves Unchanged
When Dysfunction Goes to Church and Leaves Unchanged
How dysfunctional ideas can survive simply by learning religious language.
Dysfunction can become surprisingly difficult to recognize once it learns religious language.
Fear can become discernment.
Avoidance can become waiting on God.
Control can become spiritual authority.
Poor boundaries can become submission.
Jealousy can become righteous concern.
An unwillingness to admit we were wrong can become standing on conviction.
Nothing necessarily changed.
The dysfunction just found a better explanation for itself.
And religion can provide a very convincing one.
It can give dysfunction a framework.
A vocabulary.
A justification.
And sometimes even a community that will reinforce it.
That is what makes it so difficult to confront.
Because now we are not simply protecting an idea.
We may believe we are protecting God.
The fear is still there.
The pride is still there.
The resentment is still there.
The need for control is still there.
The inability to receive correction is still there.
But each one can be explained in language that sounds faithful.
And once dysfunction has been given spiritual meaning, questioning it can feel like questioning our faith.
Or our obedience.
Or our relationship with God.
That is how religion can become a pillar for dysfunctional ideas.
It can hold them up long after they should have collapsed.
So the question is not only whether something sounds biblical.
We also have to be willing to look at what is underneath it.
What is this producing in me?
Does it require me to ignore what is plainly true?
Does it make me more honest or merely more certain?
Am I calling something faith because I do not want to confront my fear?
Am I calling something conviction because I cannot tolerate being wrong?
Am I using God to defend something in myself that I do not want examined?
Those are uncomfortable questions.
But dysfunction does not become healthy simply because we can explain it with Scripture.
Fear does not become discernment because we call it discernment.
Control does not become authority because we call it authority.
Avoidance does not become faith because we call it faith.
Sometimes the language changes while the thing underneath it remains completely intact.
And if we're not careful, we can mistake that for transformation.
The theology sounds different.
The dysfunction survived.
It just learned a new language.