Tag Archive | religion

Protestant Fundamentalism and Mental Illness in the US today

May15

Recently, I had a discussion with some friends and acquaintances via Facebook. The topic was how irrational extremist fundamentalists are with a discussion centered on a woman with 9 children who had 5 miscarriages, who then begged forgiveness from God for her pride, and who was “rewarded” with another baby.

The originator of the discussion item called this “Frustratingly idiotic.”

I replied that “[s]omeone noted that this particular form of religion completely destroys a person’s sense of self-worth. Everything good that happens is from God. Everything bad that happens is “my” fault. How can any human being end up with anything except a warped view of reality and themselves when that mantra is pushed at them every day of their lives?”

This brought up a discussion of mental illness in the US, along with PTSD.

Another person then asked, after seeing the above, “Have people been raised so poorly in the past few decades that a majority of our population is actually mentally ill with anxiety, depression, and various versions of PTSD, much worse than the natural anxieties caused by economic issues and the normal struggles of life? Why is America suffering from PTSD when Europe isn’t?”

Below is my response to these questions.

May I suggest we all turn back the clocks and take a good look at 1950s America. A lot of change was beginning at that time, including civil rights changes. The first really sane looks at sexuality and GLBT issues were just beginning. Racism was being addressed. And there were people who were terrified of change, and terrified of the communist bogeyman as well.

These same people linked the concepts of “patriotism” and “godliness” and added “Under God” to the pledge of allegiance as well as “In God We Trust” to our money. Yes, this all happened in the 1950s. From there you have several successive generations raised under the illusion that being patriotic is being godly and being godly is being patriotic. Further, these were simple minded people leading these movements, and they took many things very literally, including the bible. This was the beginnings of the creationist movement as a political entity. Before this, creationism was seen as a backwater, hick concept among people not bright enough to understand science.

This was also the beginning of the Republican Party deliberately choosing to court these people, in order to gain more political influence. So as the Democrats moved in a more progressive direction away from their racist past, the GOP, which had progressive members like Ike, began to move the other direction, embracing racism in order to win over the states in the south. After Nixon lost to Kennedy in 1960, he worked with Kevin Phillips to create and apply what is today known as the “Southern Strategy”. That strategy is built on racism, and that racism is built on Protestant fundamentalism and a deliberate misinterpretation of the “curse of Ham” which has been used in the US south since before the Civil War as an excuse for treating people of color as lesser beings.

The 1960s saw the Civil Rights Act and forward movement on issues for people of color. It also saw the beginnings of political organization in the GLBT community, sparked by the riots at Stonewall but whose seeds had been laid years earlier.

As these right wing racist fundamentalists began to flock to the Republican party to fight against people of color, they also began to attack GLBT people as well. But their primary fight was first against people of color. Slowly, however, they’ve largely lost that fight. And as they lost, they retreated and set new barriers, primarily against gays. That was the political work of the 1980s through now. And now they are also losing against gays.

So their last stand, so to speak, is now against transgender people. They lost against people of color because there were so many and as people began to learn that people of color are human beings too. They lost against gays as gays began to come out openly and show that they are just normal people too, not the monsters that the religious right accused them of. And they are beginning to lose against trans people, again using the exact same arguments they used against black women in white women’s restrooms, etc., back in the 1950s.

You are probably asking what does this have to do with the problems that you mentioned in the US of the last few years. And the answer is that these people have acquired, since the 1950s, enough political (they control the GOP) and media power (Fox News, right wing talk radio, Rupert Murdoch’s empire) that they now feed a steady diet of fear, uncertainty, and doubt to a large but gullible section of the American public. And that public is told, repeatedly, that the only hope is for them to retreat further into literal Protestant fundamentalism. And yet in retreating, as I noted above, they adopt a world view that tells them that they, as individuals, are worthless. That nothing good can ever come from themselves or other human beings. And that all good must come from their all powerful creator deity.

And that is how so large a section of the American population has become mentally ill. They have willingly listened to liars and charlatans and bigots whose livelihoods depend on fanning the fears and hatreds that allow their movement to exist. Yet in fanning those fears and hatreds of people who are different, also brings about all manner of psychological problems.

Many people don’t realize that we didn’t get here by accident and that all of this is caused by that faction that today identifies itself as Protestant fundamentalists and/or the Tea Party.

 

Some Religious Arguments Against Gender Surgery Addressed

Feb26

Recently I commented on an article about Trans Medical Treatment and Faith at Transadvocate. The article began with what one Christian transwoman said about her condition.

“I am trans but also religious. Although I live as a woman, I was born with boy parts. In my opinion, to have surgery would imply that God made a mistake. I do not believe that God is capable of making a mistake, which means that I have the body I was meant to have. I believe that God gave me a challenge and that I am playing the hand that I was dealt. I am trans and proud, but I will not second guess the Almighty. I hope there is room for that, and I love and respect those who believe differently. We are all in this together.”

First, there is always room among us for one to live as they wish and if this woman does not wish gender confirmation surgery (GCS), then she should not seek it. But she should not avoid GCS for incorrect religious reasons. Her argument has several problems and I will dissect those here.

The first problem with this argument is it ignores that babies are born with medical issues every day. From cleft palates to club feet to intersex children to defective hearts to all sorts of other medical issues, the argument that “God doesn’t make mistakes” rings totally hollow. As a pastor I knew once said, this is a fallen world so all sorts of fallen things can occur, even in the womb.

But beyond that are actual Biblical passages that support people being born with problems, not even because of sin, but because that condition can eventually glorify God in some manner, and that Jesus himself accepted those who had voluntarily been castrated (feminized) which is a direct contradiction of the law in Deuteronomy that bans the castrated and their descendants from the temple of the Lord for ten generations.

Here was my comment to the article:

“John 9:1-11 and Matthew 19:11-12. Your Christian friend ought to read both those passages very carefully because they utterly destroy the basis of his argument and both of those passages are from Jesus Christ himself, assuming you accept the New Testament Gospels as accurate, which that person should.”

You need to read those passages to get the full impact but John 9:1-11 is about a man born blind from birth, and Christ reassuring that no one had sinned to cause him to be born blind but that he had been born that way for a purpose of God. Matthew 19:11-12 are about Jesus himself accepting the castrated (feminized) into the kingdom of heaven. So the argument that you shouldn’t do that to your body rings rather hollow when Christ himself accepted people who had surgically altered their genitals.

But beyond that was a wonderful comment from another poster that elaborated even further on this:

“Matthew 19:12 is a reference to Isaiah 56:5, which is clearly a refute of the very early single sentence prohibition in Deut 23:1 against damaging one’s testicles (important for all those Abraham-begets). But then the message in Isaiah and Matthew is again repeatedly referenced and played out very clearly in Acts 26-40. All three time periods, cross referenced. To a Biblical scholar, those three passages stand out as a clear instruction to specifically accept by name, people with intersex conditions, transsexuals and male eunuchs. To a historian, it’s interesting to note that the Church was accepting of eunuchs for much of its early history, even after they were replaced with virtual eunuchs (ie , the vow of chastity) perhaps a thousand years later. Castration’s feminizing effects had been known since the technique was first used on livestock possibly thousands of years prior; it clearly would have been the best available hormone therapy and surgery of the time. Almost as important, though, is that documented ‘eunuchs’ in Rome and elsewhere were recorded as living with the other women, as women. I’m fairly certain they used the (translated) word ‘eunuch’ differently than we do in our post-Freud world.

I’ve met several women who transitioned in the 70’s and 80’s who had their names successfully changed in their local parish Registry. However, that was before the late 1990’s / 2000 when anti-trans Paul McHugh was brought in as the Vatican’s “sex and science adviser”. And clearly before the Pope’s 2007 or 8 Xmas breakfast speech to the Curia regarding “protecting the human ecology”. Accordingly, the bishops have weighed in on issues such as CA’s AB1266 but followed the prior Pope’s position, not Canon, and we don’t know the new Pope’s views.

Perhaps, though, the pendulum is swinging back again:
Transgender Talks Hosted By Two Syracuse Catholic Churches
Parents of Transgender People Share Stories at All Saints Parish“

What the careful reader can learn and see very quickly is that the fundamentalist obsession with genitals was not an obsession of the early church or of Christ himself and that surgical alteration of one’s genitals was an accepted thing.

Christians who struggle with this question should, in my opinion, realize that Christ does not care if you have gender surgery or not. It’s not a Biblical issue to torment yourself over. Thus it comes down to one thing and one thing only – do you personally need to do this to be at peace with yourself. If you do, seek the surgery. If you do not, then skip the surgery.

But there is no Christian argument that I can see about gender confirmation surgery (GCS, sometimes referred to as SRS) that should give any trans person pause from aligning their body with their spirit and mind to achieve wholeness.

Whichever choice you make, make it based upon your medical needs, not upon someone else’s interpretation of religious doctrine. You are free to make the choice that you need, whatever choice that is.

Peace be with you, each and every one of you.