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Embracing Sobriety in Spiritual Practice – An Interview with Elizabeth Esther

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on June 9, 2016.

Another blogging friend, Laurie Works, introduced me to Elizabeth Esther’s blog back in 2014.

Recently I ran across her top ten signs of a spiritually abusive church YouTube video and I was so, so glad someone finally mentioned the dangers of “independent fundamental” churches like the ones I attended when I was a teenager, where most of the experiences that I write about came from.

Her more recent posts about the need for art to change as we get further and further out of that system have also been healing for me. Self-care is so vital and it’s not something cults encourage.

I didn’t reply to her survey last summer for Spiritual Sobriety because I wasn’t really in a place to do that yet, but I found her questions compelling and I couldn’t wait to read the book when it released this spring.

My friends and I who got out are healing and growing, but there aren’t many resources for people like us. Most people who shared our experiences are still on the inside. That’s why I was so excited about Elizabeth Esther’s new book and I wanted to know more. She and I did an interview for the release.

Here’s our conversation.

First, I’d like to ask you what specifically prompted you to write this book. What was the tipping point that made you realize that an unhealthy relationship between spiritual practice and addiction exists?

A lot of it was my own experience. I began to see similarities between the ways I used God addictively, in the same way that alcoholics rely on booze to escape pain, enhance pleasure and escape reality. I was sick of using God as a kind of “vending machine” to get what I wanted out of life. Knowing God is different than “getting things” from God. But when I began searching for a “sober” way of relating to God, I found that many churches only offered emotional experiences or magical thinking. Many churches were enablers!

Probably most of us have heard sermons interpreting Ephesians 5:18-20 to mean that we should be drunk on God the same way that you can get drunk with wine. How do you view this now, after writing your book?

I’m not gonna mock someone’s ecstatic experience with God. But I am going to suggest that too often we mistake “intoxicated” religious feelings for love of God. If love is real, it will be manifested in our actions—not just in how many awesome, amazing, WHOA worship/preaching conferences we attend. Scripture also tells us that we will know each other by the fruit of our lives. So, a lifelong journey of Christianity isn’t really about our conversion experience so much as everything that comes afterward. Are we kinder, gentler, more joyful, peaceful, patient, self-controlling? Those are the fruits of the Spirit. THAT’S what defines a true faith practice.

When you hear songs about giving all for God or being on fire now, what is your reaction to them?

I think those songs have a time and place and can be especially meaningful for brand new believers finding God for the first time. But those songs don’t do anything for me, personally, anymore. I don’t think those songs are SUPPOSED to define our entire faith experience. Because, like life, faith is a journey. I’m so glad I’m not a teenager anymore! I don’t need the hyped-up feelings because I know those can lead me into addictive burnout. When I hear those songs now I feel sorta like: “awww, that’s so cute.” But my tastes have changed. Or matured, maybe. I’m not really interested in the grand gestures or the huge, meteoric displays of passion or “giving it all to God.” I want something sustainable. A relationship that lasts a lifetime, not for one amazing summer. I know now that God doesn’t ask me to burn out for Him or to neglect myself to the point of a health breakdown. God likes me and delights in me and I’m just doing the best I can today, trusting that God will take care of the rest.

For those who have been spiritually abused and want to return to church attendance but are wrestling with reconciling their new perspectives and insights with the old memories, do you have any advice on where to start?

Start where you are. Take the pressure off. You have a whole lifetime to figure it out. There’s no rush. I would only suggest to keep trying. Even if that trying means giving up. Sometimes giving up is the best way to start! Here’s the good news: God isn’t going anywhere. You’re not going to “miss out” on God just because you don’t attend church. God is big enough to find us anywhere. Start where you are and let God find YOU. 🙂

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You can order Spiritual Sobriety here on Amazon. I’ll be posting my review soon.

Dreams and memories

I woke up this morning after a vivid dream that I’d gone back to my former church. Apparently in the dream I was working a different job and two different people from other churches had come into my workplace and asked directions to the church. I gave it to them, amused that they didn’t realize I used to attend, even though I was dressed just like them.

For whatever reason, I knew they’d be serving a meal that night before church so I decided to sneak in just to eat. Most everyone had eaten by the time I arrived. They asked me to help serve dessert, not recognizing me. So I did. The entire building was different in the dream, but several things were the same. As people started to realize who I was, I could sense their fear. The unasked question was, “Did you ask the pastor if you could come?”

They’d shy away from me, afraid to acknowledge me or meet my eyes once they recognized me. And yet there was a little hesitant hope in their eyes that I’d “pray through.” Then the pastor came in. Things were tense- would he recognize me? If so, he’d be furious that I’d come. I left at that point, satisfied I’d gotten my answer, and that nothing had changed. I walked the long way back to the car, watching the parking lot fill and people rush in, hurried and focused on that building. I walked, enjoying a starless night, at peace.

I haven’t been looking for any answers. I know what would happen if I tried to go back or attend anything they led. But it was odd. The fear and tension were thick. I wasn’t afraid, but they were. And they weren’t afraid of God or afraid for me, they were afraid the pastor would find out. They were afraid of his anger and his temper on themselves for not saying anything if they knew I was there without permission. Afraid he’d think they had something to do with me being there.

And in the dream I knew the reason I wouldn’t go back even to visit- a totally unbiblical attitude toward the pastor and the pastor’s expectation that someone who’d left had to call and ask permission to return. (There is a rule at church that if you leave, you must ask special permission to even come to a wedding or funeral.) It had to do with his temper and the anger that he expressed so often, that tension in the air, the fear that he’d blame someone for wrongdoing when they’d simply been kind, gentle or compassionate.

It was strange. The dream didn’t make me sad or angry, it was just there. But it was strange because the fear, the tense caution, and the rules on returning were so clear and solid in an otherwise wispy dream. It’s the first time that I’ve dreamed about church in years that I felt a calm reassurance when I woke up.

Purity Rings: How I reclaimed a patriarchal evangelical tradition

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 5, 2013.

I was one of those pre-teens longingly looking through the True Love Waits catalog back in the early 2000s. Wondering. Waiting.

Somehow, I wanted to believe that wearing one of these rings and promising to keep my thoughts pure and my body untouched would magically cause the man God had prepared for me to appear, just like Prince Charming of the fairy tales. I composed letters in my head to my future husband. I dreamed of the day when he would remove my purity ring from my finger and replace it with our engagement ring. I would save myself for him, and we would live happily ever after in the enjoyment of each other’s company.

My parents didn’t buy me a True Love Waits ring. Instead, on the Christmas I was 13, my dad gave me a simple tanzanite ring. I wore it until last year, when the gold band finally snapped.

I didn’t put it back on. And I haven’t repaired it yet. Someday, I probably will. But I was already questioning the thinking behind the purity movement of my teen years. Now don’t get me wrong. I still want to remain a virgin until marriage, and I think there is something to be said for seeking to live well. But now I have a different definition of purity.

Many Christian girls of my generation – including some of my closest friends – committed themselves to the “pure girls” movement, yet ended up wounded by it.

A blogger who posts under the pseudonym gracefortheroad explains it in a post called, “I don’t wait anymore.” She says, “A lot of girls were sold on a deal and not on a Savior” and ends with this thought, “I just didn’t want to wait anymore – didn’t want to live like I was waiting on anyone to get here. I already have Him … and He is everything.”

The Recovering Grace website has an article regarding the pitfalls of the emotional purity teaching prevalent ten years ago, which argues that if you have a crush, you are sinning and giving a piece of your heart away to someone or losing your emotional virginity. Believing these ideas caused me to become paranoid of hugging a guy friend or allowing myself to become attracted to a man.

Last year, my friend Anna G. shared a story with me called “The girl and the glass heart.” It confronts the lie that if I freely love, I am left with less to love other people with in the future. The lies that tell me that if I love and I am left heartbroken, I am tarnished and used up, unfit for another relationship. The Heart-Healer in the tale tells the girl:

“Only in brokenness can [your heart] truly be whole. …. Wholeness does not come from perfection. Wholeness comes from purpose. There is no purpose in a perfect heart. There is purpose in a broken one.”

I had forgotten about my old purity ring until a few weeks ago.

Last December, over Christmas break, I finally told someone about my history of self-harm throughout my childhood and my youth. For the first time, the darkest lies I believed and deepest wounds I carried flowed out of my heart in a 3 am chat powered by Mountain Dew.

Later, I bought two rings engraved with the words “Forgiven” and “Jesus” to remind myself of why I never need to punish myself. But when my friend Cynthia B. first saw them, she said, “Congratulations on your first real purity rings.”

I drew back and paused, then smiled. “Yes. They are my purity rings.” The rings I wear now are not to symbolize something I do or don’t do. They don’t have much to do with me at all.

Instead, these rings point to what He did. For me.

Breaking Pentecostal

I confess to knowing little about the Amish, but recently I watched the television series “Breaking Amish” with mouth wide open wonder. It is a reality show about young Amish and Mennonite people with one Mother thrown in. These young people have decided to go “English” as they call it. It means they will be throwing off their entire outer garb that declares them to the world to be in a religious sect. Off they go to New York City to “fit in” at last. But they can’t. After having been taught all of their lives the do’s and don’ts of their religion, some go completely wild, others shed their “look” but seem to hold onto certain beliefs, and Mom, well, she tries it all, but couldn’t make the switch.

Throughout the show, scenes are preceded by random Bible verses that the producers feel apply to the next scene. This series, these characters, and these scriptures taken out of context and made to apply to whatever they think it fits, reminded me of my time in the United Pentecostal Church. The religion portrayed here had no more to do with the teachings of Jesus than any other Bible based religion of rules and regulations. It was all about a group of people being controlled by a set of rules the leaders deemed necessary to control where they live, how they look, and what they can do.

It was tragic to watch as one young man went out and nearly ruined his life trying to live on the outside, then going back in to stay out of trouble, but then ultimately going back out because he has now become a misfit. The young couple on the show seems to successfully make a transition to “English” life. They throw off the outer garb, give up the horse and buggy, and drive a pickup truck but when push comes to shove, they revert back to the same old beliefs and expect others to live by them too. The Mom goes back to her husband to live in the community, despite the fact that she knows she will never be accepted by them again. She will also be expected to have nothing to do with her own “English” children.

Sadly, in my UPC, I saw all of these characters play out – those who go in and out, miserable in, miserable out, all the while their life never having purpose. There are those who leave but still hold on to the idea that they know “the truth” yet pick and choose which part they hold to and expect others to hold on to same. Then, there are those who stay despite the pull of the outside world because of fear. An unhealthy fear of God (He will get you), fear of the leaders and fellow members opinion, or because it appeases their family; no matter how wrong they know it is. When you are a member of a mind control group, if you stay or if you leave, your life will never be the same.

I am eternally thankful that I was able to make a clean break and no, it has not been easy. Sometimes it feels like I have clawed and scratched out every inch of the way. I got in as a young girl with only one of those taken out of context scriptures pounded into my mind by my grandma; so I was virgin soil in which to plant their brand of mind controlling, cookie cutter look, you better stay in line dogma.

I have learned since leaving what matters most:

Those of you who try to be put right with God by obeying the Law have cut yourselves off from Christ. You are outside God’s grace. As for us, our hope is that God will put us right with him; and this is what we wait for by the power of God’s Spirit working through our faith. For when we are in union with Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor the lack of it makes any difference at all; what matters is faith that works through love. Galatians 5:4-6 GNT

A Woman’s View On Spiritual Abuse

This is a video on spiritual abuse from a woman. She shares her experiences in a Pentecostal Word of Faith type church.