“TOXIC FAITH, HEALTHY FAITH” (Part 2)
“Can We Be Addicted to Religion?”

This is the second in a series of messages on how to distinguish healthy faith from poisonous or toxic faith - how to tell the difference between belief systems and religious groups and leaders that are hurtful on the one hand versus those that are helpful. Last week we looked at how the Bible can be used by those who are involved in hurting and poisonous faith, but usually the Bible is twisted to manipulate and control people.

Toxic faith can be tied to religious addiction. You may ask the question, “Can people be addicted to religion?” The answer is yes. What are addictions? Addictions are when we give ourselves over compulsively to something - so that when we talk about religious addiction we’re talking about giving ourselves over compulsively to a belief system or a religion rather than a relationship with God. And this belief system or religion controls our life. Often it’s a way of escaping reality or responsibility. Or this dependency on religion can be used to alter our mood, or avoid pain, or give us a quick fix or an emotional high. Let’s look at a few examples of what we might call religious addiction.

Compulsive religious activity. Being involved in a church can be a very healthy and good thing. In fact, involvement and interaction with other Christians is a very important part of our growth in the Lord Jesus Christ. But on the other hand there are people who feel compelled to be overactive in a church and they’re in just about everything going on. Every time the church door is opened they’re there. We might call them “churchaholics”, because their life revolves around church work, just as an alcoholic’s life revolves around drinking. Underneath this compulsion to be always involved in the church is usually one of two things: Either it’s a compulsive attempt to earn God’s favor or else it’s a means of escaping one’s pain.

For example, let’s say somebody’s in a marriage that’s just going nowhere. It’s sort of coming apart. Then, all of a sudden this person begins to show up in church all the time. That person is in church and that is a good thing, but it’s for the wrong reason. Often we pat that person on the back and say, “Oh, you’re so faithful to the church and we’re so glad. There ought to be more of you around.” But what we probably should say is, “Go home. Go home and work on your marriage.” Compulsive religious activity can be a religious addiction.

People can be addicted to seeking a religious high. Addicts can use alcohol or drugs or food or sex to make them feel good and often escape reality. Religion can also be used for that. So, these are the people who are always flitting from one church service or one evangelistic crusade or one prayer meeting to another, always seeking to be on the mountain. They’re sort of like religious junkies looking for a fix. If they come out of a church service and they don’t feel like they’re on an emotional high then, well, “the Spirit wasn’t there,” and they feel disappointed. I think healthy faith understands that emotions and feelings are very unpredictable. They fluctuate. And the validity of any worship experience or the proof of the presence of God in any meeting is not whether you come out feeling like you are on a religious high.

Faith can also be an addiction when we depend on it for instant relief. This is when we are lazy and expect God to solve all our problems without our doing much of anything. We’re always looking for some kind of miracle or some kind of mysterious intervention.

For example, here’s somebody who is head over heels in debt because they’ve abused credit cards or they have overspent. And so they pray for a miracle, that God will give them freedom from financial bondage, rather then doing the hard work of getting an extra job to pay off the credit card bills, or getting financial counseling.

I don’t know how much religious TV you watch, but how many times do you see a televangelist advise somebody if they’re having financial problems to get financial counseling? Usually the scoop is, “Give to God and God is going to give you much more back.” And often “giving to God” means what? Give to my TV program -- instead of doing the hard work of getting the help needed and working to get out of debt.

Healthy faith doesn’t wait for God to do what we ought to be doing ourselves! Healthy faith isn’t an escape from reality, it’s facing reality and trusting God to help get us through.

There are some other things to look for in trying to distinguish between healthy churches and sick churches, and healthy faith systems versus poisonous or even addictive faith systems. These are sort of like red flags that we ought to be watching for (these are taken from the book Toxic Faith).

The members of the toxic faith system claim their character, abilities or knowledge make them “special” in some way. So, you may have a leader who claims some kind of divine direction that nobody else has. Can you see what this does? It puts you in a spot, because if you don’t agree with that person the assumption is you’re opposing God and you’re not agreeing with God. (By the way, I think this is a very good time to tell you and that most recently I have been given this unique revelation from God that I don’t believe anybody else has ever gotten! You’re so lucky to have me!) You may laugh, but there are people who get sucked into this kind of trap.

This week I listened to some cassette tapes that somebody had given me. They are teachings about demons - demonology. In the very first tape, in the introduction, the teacher said something like this: “You don’t have to agree with me; it’s okay if you disagree with me”. But then this man went on to basically say if you don’t agree with him you’re not agreeing with God, and the Spirit’s against you. That really sets you up, doesn’t it? Because you have to agree or else.

I don’t have any special knowledge of God’s Truth that you don’t have access to, and I
am not doing any kind of special thing for God that a lot of other people can’t do if that is their gift and calling. In fact, in this church we encourage you to discover your gifts and
calling from God and to use them.

In toxic addictive faith systems there is an “us versus them” mentality. In a sense religious addicts are at war with the world to protect their turf and establish themselves as godly people who can’t be compared to other people of faith. They’re something special, a cut above. So, you’re either part of this toxic faith system, or you’re not one of them – you’re an opponent. Often, if you don’t agree you get labeled: You’re a liberal or you’re unscriptural or you’re an unbeliever, or whatever.

There is a church in a community that I served that had the reputation of being the church where the “real” Christians were found. I was asked to read Scripture at a funeral in that church. After the funeral service was over someone came to me and said, Do you realize that you are one of the few mainline denomination ministers that has ever been allowed in that pulpit? Do you catch that “us versus them mentality”?

Toxic faith systems are punitive in nature. You agree with us, you tow the line, or you pay the price. Here’s a story from the book Toxic Faith. It’s about a little church in southern California where the pastor basically wanted total control over the congregation. Unfortunately, the congregation was willing to give it to him. There was a single woman in that church who had an affair with a married man in the congregation. She realized that it was wrong, and she wanted to get it behind her and find forgiveness. So she went to her pastor for help. He said he would help her, but she had to do certain things first. He made her go to that man’s wife and confess the sin to her and say she was sorry. Then he made her get up in front of the congregation and confess to the church what she had done. Then in order to prove that she was really sorry, he forbade her to date for one year. Here was a woman who was broken and contrite and wanted mercy and compassion, and what he did was make her jump through hoops and hurt her even more.

In addictive and toxic faith systems, control is a big thing. This kind of follows from point 3: Control is a big thing. Some churches can be very, very controlling in telling us exactly what to believe, what to think and how to act.

Did you know there is an organization called “Fundamentalists Anonymous”? I first learned of this support group when I saw a TV talk show interviewing several members of this group. Basically they were saying how they had gotten into a very strict religion, where their mind was so conditioned, that when they wanted to get out of that religion they felt tremendous guilt. It was like they were walking away from God. I went on the Internet this past week to see if that group is still functioning and it is. They have a “Twelve Step” recovery program. As I read a little bit more about some of their personal stories, what really made me sad was that it seems as though quite a number of people went from a narrow, ultra restrictive position to the other extreme, where they became
extremely liberal, and in some cases even ditched the Christian faith and walked away from Christ. That is sad when that kind of thing happens.

In healthy churches people are encouraged to do their own thinking about their faith. This doesn’t mean that we can believe anything and still be a Christian. I’m not saying that. But once we hold to the fundamentals of the faith and the centrality of Christ, then I certainly encourage you to do your own thinking about your faith in the Lord Jesus.

Religious addicts lack objective accountability. In other words, they get the idea that they are so different and they are so special and they are so connected with God that they don’t have to be accountable to other people. In the book Toxic Faith, Steve Arterburn writes this: “When toxic-faith practices come under scrutiny, the religious addict reacts predictably: ‘I am accountable only to God.’ No one is accountable only to God…. a person accountable to God is a person out of control.” So, you need to hold me accountable, we need to hold each other accountable in our life and faith in a loving and supportive way.

And then finally: In toxic and addictive faith systems, rules become a distortion of God’s intent and leave God out of the relationship. Rules become more important than God, and people become addicted to being told that they have to think in a certain way and act in a certain way. Faith becomes a prescribed list of do’s and don’ts and individuality is frowned upon.

There is a TV program on one of the religious channels, a worship service that comes out of a Bible college in Florida. Here are all these students gathered, I presume, in the chapel and guess what songs they sing? They sing gospel songs from the 1920s and the 1930s. They usually have a quartet or maybe six or eight of the students who do special music and the boys all have short hair and they’re dressed in suits and ties and the girls are dressed very conservatively and you say, “Wow, that’s pretty good!” But, when I look at them, I say, “Boy, this is scary!”, because the performers all stand like wooden figures, with a plastic smile. They look like they’ve all been shaped out of a cookie cutter and everybody there is expected to be this way. I wonder if they're not told what to do, how to look, how to dress. I hope there’s some freedom for these kids to be themselves.

In healthy churches and healthy systems there are rules but the rules are minimal. The most important thing is a loving relationship with God and people. And the focus is on being the person -- the unique person -- that God created each of us to be.

I believe that Jesus had to deal toxic faith in his time. When we look at the New Testament and some of the religious people, leaders and systems in Jesus’ time, there are some of those that fit right in with what we've been describing. Turn in your Bible to Matthew 23. Jesus is talking about scribes and Pharisees. Who were scribes? Scribes were men who copied and interpreted and studied the Law and other Scriptures. They were in a sense the religious lawyers of that day. Who were Pharisees? The Pharisees were a religious sect, and their intent was to follow the law of God to the letter. In fact, they were so ardent in following the Law that they developed a whole bunch of rules and regulations to tell you how to apply the Law to every situation in life. There were over
500 rules to explain how to apply the law to life. Now, remember - who crucified Jesus?

It wasn’t the Roman authorities. It was the scribes and the Pharisees and the other religious leaders. You talk about toxic faith! Toxic faith killed the Son of God. That’s how poisonous religion can sometimes be.

Let’s look at what Jesus says. Matthew compiles a list of Jesus’ sayings about the scribes and the Pharisees and it isn’t pretty reading. Chapter 23, verses 1-4: “Jesus then addressed the crowds and his disciples in these words: ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so be careful to do whatever they tell you. But do not follow their practice; for they say one thing and do another. They make up heavy loads and pile them on the shoulders of others, but will not themselves lift a finger to ease the burden.’” In other words, this was, Jesus said, an oppressive religion that was a burden on people rather than a blessing.

Now, look at verse 13: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces; you do not enter yourselves, and when others try to enter, you stop them.” This religion actually was keeping people from God and from the kingdom of God. That’s how bad it was.

Some of the qualities that describe toxic and addictive faith fit the scribes and the Pharisees. For example:

They thought of themselves as special. Their utter devotion to the letter of the law set them apart from everybody else. And do you know what they called everybody else who didn’t keep all these religious rules and regulations - no matter what kind of a person they were? They called them the “people of the land.” And what did God think of the “people of the land?” Well, they were going to hell.

Their religious system was punitive in nature. Do you remember the story in the Gospel of John where the scribes and the Pharisees found a woman right in the middle of committing adultery and they dragged her to Jesus? And what did they want to do? They wanted her to be stoned to death! Punished! Do you remember how Jesus responded? He said “he who is without sin cast the first stone,” and one by one the men walked away. Jesus says to the woman, “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”

Control was a big thing for the scribes and the Pharisees. They wanted to control what people believed and how they lived in every situation of life.

There didn’t seem to be much accountability with the scribes and the Pharisees.
Maybe they were accountable to one another, but they certainly didn't feel accountable to Jesus, even though He was God in their midst!

And then finally: rules distorted God’s purposes and kept people from a relationship with God. Look at verse 23: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin; but you have overlooked the weightier demands of the law – justice, mercy, and good faith. It is these you should have practiced, without neglecting the others.” The scribes and Pharisees, the Pharisees in particular, had so many rules and regulations that they had to tithe tiny garden herbs. Tithing is a good thing, but they were more interested in these little garden herbs, separating one-tenth of them out, than they were in the big things like justice and mercy and faith.

Jesus, on the other hand, represented a faith that is healthy and that helps and heals people. People were more important to Jesus than rules. He didn’t try to manipulate and control people. He gave people the freedom even to choose to reject Him if that’s what they wanted. Instead of an “us versus them” mindset, Jesus said that every person is of value to God and that God offers every person an opportunity to be included in His family and in His Kingdom. In fact, Jesus boiled religion and faith down to two things, didn’t he? You love God, you love your neighbor -- and you’ve done it all.

So, in the remaining two messages I want to cover such topics as: Is prosperity a sign of God’s blessing? Does God send bad things upon me to punish me for some sin I’ve done? And, if I work hard enough, can I get to heaven?

Harry L. Kaufhold, Jr.
Preached at Lititz United Methodist Church, January 14 & 15, 2006

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