It's in the Code ep 143: “Don’t Throw Out the Baby”
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Advocates of high-control Christianity often admonish those undergoing faith deconstruction not to
“throw out the baby with the bath water” as they level their critiques against high-control religion. The suggestion here is that, no matter what it’s faults might be, high-control Christianity offers something so important to its adherents that the cost of giving it up is simply too high consider. What is it that high-control Christianity is thought to offer its adherents? And how do partisans of high-control Christianity leverage this to coerce individuals into remaining within the high-control fold? Check out this week’s episode to find out!
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As always, welcome to It's In The Code, a series as part of the podcast Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Dan Miller.
Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College, delighted to be with you as always.
As always, I want to thank you for listening, for supporting us in all the different ways that you do, especially to the subscribers who help us keep doing everything that we're doing, putting out the content we're putting out.
I thank you.
And as always, with this series in particular, welcome your insights, feedback, comments, ideas for upcoming episodes, responses to these episodes, sort of on and on.
This is a series that works because of you.
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Daniel Miller Swaj, Daniel Miller SWAJ.
Let me know what you think.
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And I do try to float around there and take a look from time to time.
I want to dive in.
We're continuing in this series that I've been calling sort of Who's Afraid of Deconstruction?
And what this is, again, is continuing our ongoing discussion that we've been having for several episodes now.
of negative responses from within high-control Christianity to so-called faith deconstruction.
And again, these are responses that represent or reflect efforts on the part of high-control religions practitioners to gaslight those undergoing deconstruction, to discredit them, and to insulate high-control Christianity from the criticisms and critiques they raise.
Over the past few weeks, we've been considering dismissals that really focus on the strategy of insulating high-control religion from those critiques.
Efforts to argue that those criticisms don't affect, you know, Christianity as such.
They're not really about Christianity as high control.
Christianity envisions itself.
They're not really about core doctrines and so forth.
And we've talked about those.
Here and in the last few episodes, as we're coming up on the end of this series, I want to shift gears a little bit as I think the nuances And of some of this oppositional strategy kind of shift.
And the strategies like the one we're going to look at today are not so much about defending the heart of high-control Christianity as about suggesting that, you know, despite its flaws, high-control religion still provides something meaningful and necessary for those who are a part of it.
And this takes shape in the admonition, this is what I'm calling this episode, you know, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
And basically...
The idea is that, yeah, there are some problems with, you know, maybe even Christianity, but certainly with our expression of it and so forth.
But there are some real things that we gain from being a part of religion.
They'll just say religion, being part of Christianity.
We can say high-control religion.
There are some real things that are gained, and the cost is just too high if you leave.
Okay? So the first thing to think about, And I think this is an interesting and complicated issue.
But the first thing to think about is what is the so-called baby in that metaphor?
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
So if we're not talking about core teachings, we already talked about that.
What exactly is at risk in this metaphor?
What is it that we're supposedly losing?
What precisely is it that we will lose?
What is the penalty that will be incurred if we critique or walk away from high-control Christianity?
And second, I think this criticism plays on real issues and fears and experiences that deconstructors undergo.
So I think it has significant force.
I think that this criticism and the examples I'm going to give present a strong pull back toward high-control religion.
Maybe, maybe, I don't know if we can quantify this, but maybe the strongest, at least in the experience of people that I've talked to, pull...
Back toward high-control religion.
And mixing my metaphors, it's a kind of counterweight to the points that are made by high-control, excuse me, by deconstructing critics of high-control religion, okay?
So one way to think about how this works, the dynamics here, is that high-control religion, think about it less in terms of what it teaches.
It has teachings, and it has doctrines, and it has beliefs.
Those are part of it, okay?
Set those aside for the moment.
Set aside for the moment the ways in which partisans of high-control religion place themselves in the role of mediator between humans and God.
I've talked about that a lot.
And think in this case more in terms of what does high-control religion give to its adherents?
What is the draw?
Because it's a mistake.
And it's a mistake common to those certainly outside of religion.
To think that high-control religion doesn't give things to or meet needs of its adherents.
If it didn't, no one would stay.
There would be no high-control religion if it didn't speak to the needs and desires of those within it.
I think that that's a really, really important point.
It's a question I get asked a lot.
Why do people stay in high-control religion?
Why are they drawn to it?
And those two issues that come up are related.
Of high-control Christianity that are presented as being of lasting value and significance, they're chosen because they get real experienced desires and needs on the part of those who are on the fence about leaving.
In other words, when somebody looks like they might be leaving, they're raising real questions or whatever, and in come the partisans of high-control religion on their white horse to convince people to stay or to insulate the tradition or whatever, they will give some examples.
Yeah, you can leave, but here's the cost.
Here's what you're going to lose.
What they choose to identify there as the loss, they choose that because it speaks to real needs and desires of the part of religious adherence.
And we could probably come up with an extensive list of what keeps people who leave high-control Christianity within it.
And I invite you, this is something I'd love to hear from you about.
If you have thoughts on what kept me in high-control religion, or what keeps my family members, or whatever, I would love to hear that.
Let me know.
We don't have time to go into a lot of them.
I've picked just a couple for today, two that I think are really significant, but I know there are others.
I'd love to hear more from you, okay?
The two that I've identified, one is essentially social, and the second one is what we might think of as more sort of existential in nature, okay?
So I want to start with what I think is the more social of the two, and it can be summed up in one word.
It is community.
What this one seeks to capture is the argument that one will encounter that if they leave high-control Christianity, They do so at the cost of their community.
They lose their community.
This is a primary feature that is lost if they walk away.
And the presumed logic behind bringing this up is that regardless of whatever shortcomings might be experiencing in high-control Christianity, it nevertheless provides a community for its members, and the cost of giving this up is greater than any possible benefit in leaving or continuing to challenge or rocking the boat about its institutions and its practices and so forth.
And this one by itself is complicated.
There are multiple dimensions to consider in thinking about this claim that if somebody leaves, they will lose their community.
And I'm going to start with the most obviously coercive and high-control dimension of this response on the part of the high-control religionist.
When you sit down with that church pastor, and he knows that you're thinking about leaving, and he says, you know, you're going to lose the community that you've built over years, and so on and so forth.
Let's start with what's really coercive about that.
And it is this.
That is a threat operating in multiple dimensions that is aimed at coercing would-be deconstructionists into remaining within the high-control fold.
When high-control religionists tell deconstructors that they will lose communities
This isn't a descriptive statement.
It's a description of what they will do if the deconstructor, in fact, actually leaves.
Whether done formally or informally, it is common for the partisans of high-control Christianity To move their congregations, to effectively shun those who leave, to make sure that they effectively lose their community.
Sometimes this is really explicit.
Sometimes there will be instructions given to congregants to steer clear of those people who've left, usually for their own good, that they'll lead you astray or that they've gone down the path of Satan or they've fallen to the world or whatever.
Protect yourself.
Stay away from them.
More often, the mechanisms of this shunning are informal and unspoken, and they're essentially sort of just written into the practices of the congregation.
For example, one of the concrete ways that this works, high-control congregations often make significant demands on the time of their adherence.
That is, to be a part of the group, you have lots of volunteer time, you have lots of church services, just sort of on and on.
So much so that...
Maybe outside of maybe work or school, this is one of the only social domains that allows for the possibility of relationships to develop.
In other words, most of the people that individuals within these high control contexts know are going to be other church members.
And most of their free time is going to be dedicated to church activities.
So when someone leaves, just concretely speaking, it is difficult to maintain contact with members even if somebody wants to.
Then you layer on the concern that those members have that, you know, you're sinful, you're fallen.
It's like a kind of a contagion that might rub off on them if they start talking to you.
And that goes to the discrediting of the deconstructors and everything else we've been talking about.
Okay? And that brings up the second point, which is that that's usually one of the main teachings within high-control congregations.
Quote-unquote, unbelievers are considered a threat.
Non-Christians are a threat.
And people who choose to leave the tradition are kind of the worst.
They're the cautionary tale of everything, all the threats that we as Christians, we as good Christians in a dark, sinful, fallen world face.
This is what happens.
Look at them.
They wandered off.
They left the faith.
They strayed away.
They become the cautionary tale.
And there's an active impulse to steer clear because, again, of this sense of contagion.
So when the partisans of high-control religion tell deconstructors that they will lose their community, what they mean is, we will take your community from you.
That's the really coercive and high-control dimension of this.
It's not the only dimension.
The second dimension, and it ties to that, but I think it's worth noting on its own, the second dimension is to consider...
How abusive this idea really is.
This idea that if you leave the community, or excuse me, if you leave the tradition, if you walk away from this congregation, whatever it is, you'll lose your community.
How abusive that is.
Because it's not only a threat to take away an individual's community, it is also a claim that individuals will not find another community outside of high-control Christianity.
It is a claim, essentially, that says, if you leave us, you won't find anybody else.
If you leave us, no one else will want you.
We accepted you.
The world won't.
And if we just think about how this kind of claim works in interpersonal relationships, we see how abusive it is.
This is the person who coerces their partner into staying by threatening to cut them off from people they know.
Yeah, yeah, you can leave me, but if you do, I will make sure that all of our friends stop talking to you.
I will make sure that everybody knows it's because you did this and this and this and this.
Nobody's going to talk to you again.
Hey, you can leave me, but I've loved you.
Nobody out there is going to love you like I did.
You're not a very good person, and I have bent over backwards serving you.
And when you leave, nobody else is going to accept you like I did.
If you leave me, you're going to spend your life alone.
No one else will accept you.
And we have known, many of us, people in our lives who have said something like that to us.
We recognize how abusive that is.
It's emotional abuse of the first order.
And when it happens in a high-control religion context, it is every bit as abusive.
This is one of the examples we're talking about when we talk about abusive religion or religious abuse.
And just as an interpersonal context, it's intended to coerce people into staying in abusive relationships.
Within high-control religion, when that discourse comes out, the intent is the same.
It is to keep people within an abusive spiritual framework.
So that's the first.
And there's more we could say about that.
There's more we could say about everything today.
We just don't have time.
But that's the social piece of this.
Let's look at what I'm calling this kind of existential piece.
So if the threat of losing community represents that social reason the partisans of high-control religion give, For why people should stay.
The loss of purpose, what I'm calling loss of purpose, or loss of meaning, is the existential reason.
And essentially, this is the claim that if people leave high-control religion, their lives will lack meaning or purpose.
Again, people often ask why anyone may be drawn to high-control religion, or why they would stay within it once they become aware of the kinds of things highlighted by deconstructionists, and there are a lot of reasons to that.
But one of the most common is that high-control Christianity does provide an account of the meaning or purpose of an individual's life.
Or even better, it just assures us that there is a meaning or a purpose to our life.
God loves you and has a purpose for your life.
I do not know how many times I heard that from the pulpit in high-control religion.
So, related to this...
It also, High Control Religion does, presents a kind of explanatory structure for people's lives and what they experience.
We've talked about this a lot on the podcast over the years.
Everything, in principle, can be explained by appeal to God and God's purposes.
Even if we don't understand why something is happening, if it seems meaningless, we can be assured that there's a deeper underlying meaning or purpose to it.
And High Control Religion does the kind of heavy lifting of providing and explaining for us Why things are as they are, how individuals should think about and react to the world, and so forth.
And as I've often said, high-control religion is totalizing in scope, meaning it's not just about a matter of belief.
It doesn't just tell us what to believe.
It doesn't even just tell us what to do.
It tells us what to feel.
It tells us how things in the world fit together.
It is what constructs a world that makes sense for us.
It becomes the mechanism.
That makes our existence coherent.
And so when people appear to be leaving high-control Christianity, its partisans will lean into this, and they will lean into this hard.
They will tell people that if they leave, their lives will be meaningless and lack value.
Reflecting back on that community piece, they will tell people, hey, if you leave, your secular relationships, your relationships with quote-unquote fallen people, with non-Christians, They're going to be shallow.
They're going to be unstable.
They're not going to be real.
They're not going to be fruitful.
They're not going to be productive.
Hey, if you leave, you will be leaving God's path for your life.
And without the guideposts and the path that God has laid out for you, you are just sort of condemned to an existence across the trackless wilds of a meaningless existence with no purpose, no value, no truth.
And this is significant.
The partisans of high-control religion make their living by claiming to speak for God.
Again, by constantly interposing themselves between people and God, by claiming that authority.
That's how it works.
And which means that they pass off their meaning and their structures and their values and their truths as divinely sanctioned.
And now...
They tell those deconstructing that to call their religion into question is to call into question the very meaningfulness and coherence of their lives.
And friends, let me tell you, that's a scary proposition to stare that down when that feels real.
My life, like, to leave this tradition, I'm not just leaving this congregation.
I'm not just even maybe leaving people that I care about and that I've had relationships with.
Nope, that's not all that I'm leaving.
I am giving up.
On the idea of a meaning and purpose and value to my life.
That's a high cost.
So these are the two.
This kind of social dimension of losing community.
This what I'm calling existential dimension of losing meaning or purpose.
And we could say more about all of this.
And I think we can multiply these examples.
As I say, I would love to hear from folks again.
What were those things that kept you within high control religion?
I know for some people, especially people of a more sort of cognitive bent, It might be the doctrinal teachings.
For many people, it is the community.
For some, it is the loss of meaning or so forth.
Some people, it's financial.
It might be any number of things.
I'd love to hear from you, okay?
But we don't have time to talk about all that further.
We've got to wind this down.
So I want to make just one general statement.
And it's this, that the strategy of appealing to either the loss of community or meaning and value and purpose, that strategy is highly...
Effective in keeping people tied to high-control religion.
And I'm drawing some of those insights from my work with clients, my work helping people resolve and process religious trauma, people who have left high-control religion.
It is probably the single biggest struggle that my clients have, and I think that this is true across the board.
The one that comes up the most often, the one that they struggle with the most, the one that is verbalized, the one that they feel is...
That loss of community.
And that's because this gets to the truth.
The truth is, and lots of people have noted this, like in society and so forth, and in terms of mental health, there aren't many spaces of meaningful community in our society.
There just aren't.
And for a lot of people who leave high-control religion, it does mean leaving community.
And not just in a generic sense.
It often means effectively losing family members, friends, other loved ones.
It's really significant.
And so that's a huge pull.
Holding people within high-control religion.
And people also struggle significantly, mightily, with this notion of meaning or value or purpose.
I can't get into all of this, but I am convinced that even within a religious framework, we, human beings, are still the primary authors of the quote-unquote meaning of our lives.
We are still the ones who find and create Meaning and value and so forth in myriad ways, and we could do a whole thing about that, okay?
What high-control Christianity does is it actively masks that, right?
It takes human meaning and values and purpose and masks it as God's meaning and value and purpose.
And what it does is it means that it socializes people within high-control religion.
In such a way that they are not equipped to undertake the work of meaning-making on their own.
They are often sort of stunted when it comes to moral reasoning or reasoning about meaning and value and so forth.
They don't know how to do that because they haven't had to because they've always had answers handed to them.
So when they do leave, they are often ill-equipped.
To do those things, to go into a world where that meaning isn't sort of pre-made for them and to find it and to learn, you know, what does it mean to make ethical or moral decisions?
What does it mean to find purpose?
You know, what does it mean to have a purpose and so forth?
They're not equipped to answer those questions.
And then what happens is that then the predictions of high-control religion has essentially become self-fulfilling.
People do, in fact, feel that there is no meaning, that there is no value, that there is no way to...
To make a decision between one choice and another or to determine, you know, here are things that I think are right and good and here are things that I think are wrong and should be avoided and so forth.
And this is another thing that I've dealt with on a number of levels.
I've dealt with it personally.
I've dealt with it sort of academically speaking.
I also work on this issue with my clients.
So I've hit this in a lot of different ways.
But this is real.
So I guess out of a lot of the things that we've looked at in this series, of these responses to faith deconstruction, I think that these, the threat that you will lose community, or you will lose meaning or purpose, they have a real weight, and they hold a lot of people within high-control Christianity.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The cost is too high, and I've talked to people who say, yeah, I don't know if I believe the core teachings, I don't know, but I just can't fight it, I can't leave it, my whole family's there, I grew up there, I don't know how to come up with other answers about, You know, things in life, whatever it is, I'm just going to stick it out.
And I hear that from folks, too, and I get it.
It's one of the most effective responses, this response to faith deconstruction.
As I say, we need to wind this down.
Again, I want to say thank you for listening.
I know I'm well aware everybody listening to this could be doing something else, and you're choosing to listen.
To our subscribers in particular, thank you.
If you're not a subscriber and that's something you're in a position to do, I would invite you to consider doing that.
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