Our inaugural show! Thanks for checking it out. On this episode, we introduce ourselves and Jeff shares why he’s enthusiastic about this project based on childhood stories. Then in the second segment, we discuss an article by Donald Capps that classically set out some of the reasons why there is a connection between religious education and trauma. Finally we respond to a listener call about leaving a religious group.

TW: We discuss the tormenting nature of religious education and discuss physical abuse in church contexts briefly. If you need to connect with a kindhearted helper, keep the Crisis Text Line handy: just dial 741 741 and someone will be there to walk you through a tough patch. You can also use RAINN’s sexual abuse and misconduct line at 1-800-656-4673 (HOPE).

Here are the three theses we mentioned:

1) Bad religion causes trauma.

2) Even truth taught in a bad way causes trauma.

3) People who have been subject to such trauma can be more susceptible to future trauma.

Here are the resources we cited:

Philip Greven, Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse (Knopf, 1991).

Donald Capps, “Religion and Child Abuse: Perfect Together,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 31.1 (1992), 1-14

The following are the primary ways in which trauma manifests itself, as taken from Capps’ work:

repression or amnesia regarding the experiences that were so traumatizing;
mind-splitting, where the threatening experience is cut off from the rest of one's thinking processes and not incorporated into them;
withdrawal of feeling or affect, a blandness or roteness in thought processes associated with the threatening experience; and,
the loss of confidence in the testimony of one's own perceptions and senses regarding these and similar experiences - that is, when the subject is discussed, one tends to defer to others and to their perceptions and judgments.

Capps quotation: “… shame, along with the fear, are the most common experiences of torment caused by religious ideas.” (8)

S1E1 Introduction & Overview