Tag: Jesus

Why Does the God of the Old Testament Seem Different From Jesus?

Camaron G. W. SmithLeave a comment

Some Bible passages are difficult because their world is foreign to us. Israel is commanded to destroy entire populations (Deuteronomy 20:16–18). Joshua is said to kill men and women, young and old (Joshua 6:21). Samuel tells Saul not to spare children or infants (1 Samuel 15:3). One of the Psalms ends by blessing the person who kills Babylonian children (Psalm 137:9).

Then we meet Jesus, who tells us to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, forgive repeatedly, and refuse retaliation. When his disciples want to call down fire on a Samaritan village, he rebukes them (Luke 9:51–56). When soldiers arrive to arrest him, he tells Peter to put away his sword (Matthew 26:52). After one of his followers cuts off a servant’s ear, Jesus heals the wounded man (Luke 22:50–51).

The question is unavoidable. If Jesus reveals God perfectly, why do some portrayals of God in the Old Testament seem so unlike him?

Some Christians fear that asking this question puts the authority of the Bible at risk. I think refusing to ask it creates a greater risk. It can leave us defending actions that we would condemn anywhere else, simply because a biblical character attributes them to God. It can also teach people that faithfulness requires silencing their conscience.

I don’t think those are our only choices. Christians can take the whole Bible seriously while recognising that Jesus is its interpretive centre. We don’t have to choose between keeping the Old Testament and following Jesus. The Christian claim is that the Scriptures lead us to Christ, who shows us most clearly what God is like.

Why Does God Seem Different in the Old Testament?

Violence is a big problem, though not the only one. Readers also encounter troubling laws, severe punishments, and stories in which God seems quick to anger. Taken together, these passages can leave the impression that the God of the Old Testament is wrathful while Jesus is merciful.

The Old Testament repeatedly describes God as compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (Exodus 34:6–7; Psalm 103:8). Hosea portrays God recoiling from judgment because of divine compassion (Hosea 11:8–9). Jonah becomes angry precisely because God shows mercy to Nineveh, one of Israel’s enemies (Jonah 4:1–2). The prophets imagine nations laying down their weapons and learning war no more (Isaiah 2:2–4; Micah 4:1–4).

The New Testament also contains judgment. Jesus speaks severe words against religious hypocrisy. Ananias and Sapphira die in Acts 5. Revelation contains terrifying images of violence and divine wrath. Dividing the Bible into an angry Old Testament and a loving New Testament does not survive a careful reading of either.

None of this explains the commands to destroy the Canaanites or reconciles them with Jesus’ teaching about enemies. The difficult passages remain. The difference is not between two simple collections of texts. The tension runs through the entire Bible.

The Old Testament Does Not Reveal a Different God

One early attempt to solve the problem was to separate the God of Israel from the Father of Jesus. In the second century, Marcion taught that the creator described in Israel’s Scriptures was a lesser and harsher deity than the Father revealed by Christ. He rejected the Old Testament and removed parts of the New Testament that connected Jesus to Israel’s God.

The Church rejected Marcion’s solution. Irenaeus insisted that one God stands behind both Testaments and that the God who created the world is the Father revealed by Jesus (Against Heresies 4.32). Christians could not detach Christ from Israel’s story without distorting Christ himself.

Jesus was Jewish. He prayed Israel’s Psalms, taught from the Torah, spoke through the prophets, celebrated Israel’s feasts, and announced the fulfilment of Israel’s hope. His language about covenant, kingdom, Messiah, mercy, justice, and resurrection came from the Scriptures of Israel.

Careless contrasts between an angry “Old Testament God” and a loving Jesus can reproduce an old anti-Jewish caricature. The Hebrew Bible is not a primitive religious failure that Christianity came to replace. It is the scriptural world in which Jesus lived and through which the first Christians understood him. Christian interpretation has to hold two convictions together: the God of Israel is the Father revealed by Jesus, and some biblical portrayals of God remain genuinely difficult when read beside Jesus.

Jesus Is the Clearest Revelation of God

The New Testament presents Jesus as more than another source of information about God. Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). He is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). John says that no one has seen God, but the Son has made him known (John 1:18). Jesus tells Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Taken together, these passages place Jesus at the centre of Christian interpretation. We do not construct an image of God from every biblical description and then adjust Jesus until he fits. We begin with Jesus because the apostles identify him as the clearest revelation of the Father.

This doesn’t mean that the Son is kind while the Father is violent. The cross is not Jesus rescuing us from a God unlike himself. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). The Father, Son, and Spirit act together for the healing and liberation of creation.

In Jesus, divine power looks unlike the power humans usually admire. He confronts evil without imitating it. He tells Peter to put away the sword, forgives enemies, and restores people shut out by respectable religion. At the cross, he gives himself instead of claiming another victim. In the resurrection, God defeats sin and death without vindicating the methods of the empire that crucified him.

If Jesus is the exact representation of God, his life cannot be treated as an exception to God’s character. Enemy-love is not a temporary mood adopted during the incarnation. It reveals who God is.

The Bible Records a Developing Understanding of God

The Bible is a library formed across centuries. Its laws, stories, poems, prophecies, Gospels, and letters come from different historical situations and reflect different levels of understanding.

That claim doesn’t deny inspiration. It asks us to take the form of inspiration seriously. God speaks through human language and culture, through memory, literary form, and theological reflection. As John Calvin argued, God accommodates revelation to human capacity. God stoops to communicate with people as they are. This same principle helps us interpret Genesis within its historical world.

Accommodation helps explain why Scripture contains development. The law of “an eye for an eye” limited retaliation within a violent world by preventing escalating revenge (Exodus 21:23–25). Jesus later carried that movement further, teaching his followers to relinquish retaliation and love their enemies (Matthew 5:38–48). The prophets looked beyond national warfare towards a future in which swords would become farming tools. The biblical movement is towards reconciliation, restored creation, and peace.

God does not improve morally over the course of Scripture. Human understanding of God develops, and Scripture lets us see it. Job challenges shallow explanations of suffering. Habakkuk questions God’s use of violent empire. Abraham asks whether the Judge of all the earth will do what is just (Genesis 18:25). The lament Psalms give faithful people language to protest, grieve, and demand an answer.

A flat reading obscures that development. As I argued in Moving Beyond Biblical Literalism, it assumes every passage communicates in the same way and every portrayal carries the same degree of clarity. A literary and theological reading asks who is speaking, what kind of text we are reading, where it sits within the biblical story, and how it relates to Christ.

How Did Jesus Read Difficult Scripture?

Jesus did not reject Israel’s Scriptures. He also did not repeat every command without interpretation. He read the law in light of its purpose and brought it to fulfilment in the kingdom of God.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes up the law concerning proportional retaliation: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” That law had restrained vengeance by limiting what an injured party could demand. Jesus then directs his followers beyond proportionate retaliation towards non-retaliation, generosity, and enemy-love (Matthew 5:38–48).

He does something similar when he cites Hosea’s words, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). Jesus uses one part of Scripture to expose readings of another part that produce condemnation without mercy. His argument turns on the purpose of the law, not the Pharisees’ ability to quote a rule.

Luke gives another example. When a Samaritan village refuses to receive Jesus, James and John ask whether they should call down fire from heaven. Their request recalls Elijah’s confrontation with royal soldiers in 2 Kings 1. They have a biblical precedent, but Jesus rebukes them (Luke 9:51–56). Possessing a precedent does not mean the disciples have understood the mission or character of Christ.

After the resurrection, Jesus interprets Moses and the prophets in relation to himself (Luke 24:27). The early Church learned to read Scripture through his death and resurrection. Israel’s history, law, worship, suffering, exile, and hope were gathered into the story of Christ and the renewal of creation.

How the Early Church Read Violent Old Testament Passages

Early Christians disagreed about how to interpret difficult passages. Yet many recognised that a surface reading could be morally and theologically inadequate.

Origen believed Scripture contained historical, moral, and spiritual depths. In On First Principles, he argued that apparent impossibilities and incongruities can function as “stumbling-blocks” that stop readers from remaining at the surface and direct them towards a spiritual meaning (On First Principles 4.2.9).

Gregory of Nyssa offers us insight in The Life of Moses. When he reaches the death of the Egyptian firstborn, he refuses to pass over the moral problem. How can a new-born child justly suffer for a parent’s wrongdoing? Gregory recalls Ezekiel’s insistence that a child should not bear the guilt of a parent (Ezekiel 18:20). He then reads the passage spiritually: the “firstborn” to be destroyed are the first beginnings of evil within us, before anger becomes murder or desire becomes exploitation (The Life of Moses 2.91–94).

Gregory does not respond to the death of children with a casual appeal to divine sovereignty. He allows the moral contradiction to change how he reads.

Augustine supplied another important principle. In On Christian Doctrine, he argued that anyone who interprets Scripture in a way that fails to build love of God and neighbour has not yet understood it as they should (1.36.40). That did not make love a sentimental excuse for ignoring hard teachings. Love was the goal of Christian interpretation because Jesus said the law and prophets hang upon love of God and neighbour (Matthew 22:37–40).

Origen, Gregory, Augustine, and Irenaeus differed from one another, and their interpretations should still be examined critically. Their work nevertheless disproves the claim that faithful Christians have always treated the surface meaning of every violent passage as the final meaning. Moral concern about a text was not automatically dismissed as unbelief. It sent these readers back to the text.

How Do Christians Interpret Violence in the Old Testament?

No single approach resolves every violent text. Some passages are narratives about human violence. Others portray divine judgment. Some contain commands attributed directly to God. Poetry, law, conquest accounts, prophetic rhetoric, and apocalyptic imagery cannot be handled as though they were one genre. Several approaches appear in Christian scholarship, and they can overlap.

Divine Judgment in a Unique Historical Setting

A traditional approach argues that God, as creator and judge, may bring temporal judgment and may commission Israel to act within a specific covenant setting. These commands belong to a unique moment in salvation history and give no continuing permission for religious violence.

This view keeps conquest from becoming a reusable political programme. It also recognises that the biblical writers present Canaanite judgment as connected to entrenched injustice rather than ethnicity alone (Genesis 15:16; Deuteronomy 9:4–6).

The moral difficulty remains, particularly where children and non-combatants are included. Saying that God has the right to judge is a theological claim, but it does not answer every question about how a particular human description or command reveals the Father seen in Jesus.

Ancient Warfare Language and Hyperbole

Other scholars emphasise the rhetoric of ancient warfare. Claims that an army “destroyed all” or left no survivors could function as conventional victory language rather than a literal census of every death. Joshua itself uses totalising language and then continues to describe Canaanite populations living in the land (Joshua 10–11; 13:1; 15:63; 16:10).

Recognising hyperbole changes how some conquest texts are understood. It does not remove the violence or make the problem disappear. People still die and land is still taken; the text still attributes the campaign to God.

Progressive Revelation and Divine Accommodation

Another approach distinguishes God’s unchanging character from humanity’s partial understanding of that character. God genuinely meets Israel within the ancient world, but the people’s perception of God is shaped by that world. Revelation develops within the relationship until it reaches its clearest expression in Christ.

This approach takes the humanity of Scripture seriously. The danger is that readers can appoint themselves judges over the Bible and accept only what already agrees with them. Christ, rather than modern preference, must remain the criterion. Historical study, the wider canon, the Church, and the fruit of an interpretation all help restrain private judgement.

Spiritual and Cruciform Readings

The spiritual reading associated with figures such as Origen and Gregory asks how violent imagery portrays God’s struggle against sin, death, oppression, and the powers that deform human life. The enemies to be destroyed are not flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12), but the evils that enslave creation.

A cruciform reading focuses more specifically on the cross. “Cruciform” simply means cross-shaped. Scholars such as Gregory Boyd argue that God’s fullest character is revealed in the self-giving love of the crucified Christ. Even Scripture’s violent portraits must ultimately be interpreted in that light.

Christians disagree over how far this approach should go, but it insists that the cross is not one divine act among many. The cross shows how God confronts evil and saves enemies.

A Christ-Centred Reading Does Not Reject the Old Testament

Reading through Jesus doesn’t erase difficult texts or pretend they say something harmless. It doesn’t reduce the Old Testament to a set of Christian symbols either.

We still need to ask what these texts meant within Israel’s history. Christians should listen to Jewish interpretation and remain alert to readings that treat Judaism as the dark background against which Christianity appears enlightened. The Old Testament also contains its own critique of violence. Matthew Lynch develops this point in Flood and Fury, showing how the biblical narratives can expose the destructive logic of violence even while using violent language.

A Christ-centred reading shouldn’t make Jesus tame. Jesus confronts exploitative power, warns of judgment, overturns tables, and calls people to costly repentance. Divine love is not passive approval. It opposes whatever destroys human beings and creation.

The question is how God opposes evil. Jesus answers through his life, death, and resurrection. He overcomes the powers through faithful, self-giving love. His followers are commanded to take up a cross, not a sword.

Why Our Interpretation of God Matters

The way Christians describe God shapes the way Christians use power. If cruelty becomes good whenever it is attributed to God, people can learn to distrust their moral awareness and obey religious authority without question. If divine love is imagined as coercion for a person’s own good, coercive leaders can easily present themselves as godly. If enemies may be destroyed once they are labelled evil, almost any act of exclusion or violence can acquire religious approval.

The consequences are historical, not hypothetical. Scripture has been used to defend conquest, slavery, colonialism, domestic abuse, racism, and war. Calling an interpretation “biblical” does not settle whether it reflects the character of Christ.

The same pattern appears in religious trauma and spiritual abuse. A person’s image of God can make manipulation feel holy. Fear can be called conviction. Control can be called discipleship. Harm can be defended as obedience.

Jesus gives the Church a concrete standard. Christian authority serves. Correction seeks restoration, truth refuses manipulation, and love protects the vulnerable. The God revealed in Christ does not require us to call evil good.

How to Read Difficult Bible Passages Without Losing Faith

There is no method that makes every troubling passage easy. A few practices can help us read without denial or despair.

  1. Name the moral problem honestly. If a text disturbs you, say why. Honest attention is more faithful than rushing to protect God with an answer you do not believe.
  2. Identify the genre and speaker. A lament, battle report, legal text, prophetic warning, and theological claim do different things. Psalm 137 records the rage of an exiled and brutalised people; it does not issue a timeless command to kill children.
  3. Study the ancient setting. Historical context can clarify warfare rhetoric, covenant language, social structures, and the purpose of particular laws. Context may reduce a difficulty without removing it.
  4. Read the whole Old Testament. Do not isolate conquest from Exodus, wisdom, lament, prophetic criticism, mercy towards outsiders, or the hope of worldwide peace. Israel’s Scriptures contain debate, development, and self-critique.
  5. Bring the passage to Jesus. Ask how it relates to his teaching, character, cross, and resurrection. This is a theological judgement grounded in the New Testament’s claims about Christ.
  6. Read with the Church and with good scholarship. The Christian tradition contains several approaches to these texts. We need voices from different periods, cultures, and theological traditions, including scholars who challenge our preferred explanation.
  7. Allow some questions to remain unresolved. Faith does not require a confident answer to every moral and historical problem in the Bible. Forced certainty often produces weaker interpretations than patient honesty. For some Christians, relinquishing that pressure becomes part of reconstructing a more durable faith.

The God Jesus Reveals

Why does the God of the Old Testament sometimes seem different from Jesus? Part of the answer lies in genre, historical context, ancient rhetoric, and the long development of Israel’s faith. Part lies in the difference between God and every human attempt to describe God. Some passages yield to careful study. Others remain difficult after the usual explanations have been considered.

Christians still have a centre. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He does not reveal a second God or persuade a violent Father to become merciful. He reveals the Father who has always been working to rescue, heal, judge evil, and reconcile creation.

Honouring Scripture requires careful and truthful reading in the light of the One to whom it bears witness. We don’t have to defend every interpretation handed to us.

When the Bible sounds unlike Jesus, discarding one side of the tension will not help. We have to return to the text, test our assumptions, and hear how the wider Christian tradition has wrestled with it, always keeping Christ at the centre. The difficult passages may not become simple, but they need not control our picture of God.

Jesus shows us the Father. For Christians, every interpretation must finally be tested there.

Sources and Further Reading

Moving Beyond Biblical Literalism

Camaron G. W. Smith2 Comments

The Bible Is Not One Kind of Book

“The Bible was not meant to be read merely literally. It was meant to be read literarily.”

For many Christians, ‘taking the Bible literally’ is often seen as a sign of faithfulness. Questioning a literal reading can feel like doubting Scripture itself. But this idea quickly runs into trouble, since the Bible is not just one type of book, written in a single style or for a single purpose.

The Bible is a library. Even the word itself reflects this reality. It comes from the Greek phrase ta biblia, meaning “the books”. From the beginning, Scripture was understood as a collection of writings spanning centuries, cultures, authors, and literary styles.

Within its pages, we find poetry, wisdom literature, parables, prophecy, apocalypse, genealogy, narrative, law, and song. Some passages are historical. Others are metaphorical. Some invite reflection. Others provoke imagination.

Psalmists speak of rivers clapping their hands and mountains singing for joy (Psalm 98:8). Jesus says faith can move mountains (Matthew 17:20). Revelation describes beasts rising from the sea. Few Christians insist these are literal descriptions. We instinctively recognise genre.

The issue is not whether the Bible contains truth, but what kind of truth a passage is communicating.

Modern readers often approach Scripture with assumptions shaped more by post-Enlightenment Western culture than the ancient world. We expect precision, science, and factual reporting. Ancient authors were often doing something else.

Old Testament scholar John H. Walton argues that modern readers ask questions that the biblical authors were not trying to answer. These texts are often concerned with meaning, purpose, and theology more than technical description.

This becomes especially clear in books like Genesis, Job, the Psalms, and Revelation. They are not merely reporting information. They are inviting readers into reflection, wisdom, and participation in the story of God.

As Tremper Longman III notes, responsible interpretation requires attention to genre. Different kinds of texts communicate differently.

“Good interpretation asks not just what happened, but what the text is trying to say.”

Literalism, in its modern form, often flattens Scripture into something it never claims to be: a single genre document written with modern expectations in mind.

Biblical Interpretation Has Never Been As Simple As We Imagine

“Modern biblical literalism is often a reaction to modernity, not a reflection of historic Christianity.”

One of the great myths surrounding biblical literalism is that Christians have always interpreted Scripture in a single, straightforward way. History tells a different story.

From early Judaism through the Church, Scripture has been read with depth and diversity. Ancient interpreters saw layers of meaning. A passage could be historical and symbolic at the same time. Jewish traditions long before Christianity engaged Scripture through poetry, symbolism, and pattern. This continued into the early Church.

Origen argued that some passages were designed to push readers beyond surface meaning (On First Principles). Augustine warned against rigid readings that ignored reason and reality (The Literal Meaning of Genesis), even cautioning Christians against making foolish claims about the natural world.

Even the Reformers did not read Scripture the way modern literalism often assumes.

Martin Luther read the Song of Songs not simply as romance, but as a picture of Christ and the Church (Lectures on the Song of Songs). John Calvin argued that God accommodates revelation to human understanding (Commentary on Genesis). He noted that Moses described the world in ways people could grasp, not as a scientific explanation. When Scripture speaks of the sun rising, it uses ordinary human language, not astronomy.

For much of Christian history, interpretation included multiple layers:

  • literal
  • allegorical
  • moral
  • anagogical

Scripture was seen as capable of communicating on multiple levels at once.

This does not mean agreement. It means diversity has always existed.

“There has never been a single, universally agreed ‘plain reading’ of Scripture.”

Modern literalism often emerges as a response to scepticism, treating the Bible like a document that must defend itself through precision and certainty. Ironically, this imposes modern expectations onto ancient texts.

Even Jesus and the New Testament Do Not Read Scripture Hyperliterally

The New Testament authors often interpret the Old Testament in ways that do not fit modern literalism. This is not because they take Scripture lightly, but because they take it deeply. They see patterns, symbols, and trajectories pointing toward Christ.

Jesus regularly moves beyond surface-level readings. When he speaks of destroying the temple (John 2:19), his listeners think in physical terms. John tells us he meant his body. Literalism misses the point. Jesus also teaches through hyperbole and metaphor: mountains moving, camels through needles, eyes torn out. These are not instructions. They are invitations to deeper reflection.

Paul continues this pattern. He reads Sarah and Hagar allegorically (Galatians 4), and describes Christ as the rock in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:4). These are theological readings, not literal ones.

Matthew does the same. He applies Hosea 11:1 to Jesus, even though Hosea is clearly referring to Israel’s past. Matthew reads typologically, presenting Jesus as embodying Israel’s story. He does something similar with Jeremiah 31:15, applying it to Herod’s massacre (Matthew 2:17-18). This also echoes the Exodus narrative, where Pharaoh kills Hebrew children.

Matthew is not just quoting predictions. He is drawing patterns.

  • Israel suffers.
  • Israel comes out of Egypt.
  • Israel enters the wilderness.

Jesus relives this story.

This was normal in the Jewish world of the first century. The issue is not seriousness. It is recognising the kind of reading Scripture invites.

Literalism Often Creates Fragile Faith

“Many people do not lose faith because Scripture failed, but because their framework for reading it could not hold.”

Modern literalism often tries to protect Scripture but ends up weakening faith. When every passage must function as science, history, or precision, the system becomes fragile. One challenge can feel like everything is collapsing. This is especially clear with Genesis.

Many were taught it must function as a scientific account of origins. When that clashes with modern knowledge, people feel forced to choose between reality and faith. But this is a false choice created by the framework, not the Bible.

John H. Walton argues that Genesis is concerned with function and meaning, not scientific mechanics.

The same issue appears elsewhere:

  • Proverbs are treated as guarantees.
  • Revelation is treated as a predictive code.
  • Poetry is treated as science.

Literalism often shrinks Scripture, and when cracks appear, people feel betrayed. A richer understanding of Scripture does not weaken faith. It strengthens it.

When Literalism Becomes Harmful

“The question is not just what a text says, but what it produces.”

The problem with literalism is not just intellectual. It can become harmful. Throughout history, rigid interpretations have been used to justify abuse, control, and injustice. This is not a problem with Scripture itself, but with how it is read. A flat reading struggles with the Bible’s movement and development. Scripture is a story moving toward Christ.

Jesus consistently resists rigid interpretation. He prioritises mercy, restoration, and human flourishing. “The Sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27). In the Sermon on the Mount, he deepens the law beyond behaviour into the heart. Literalism can confuse faithfulness with control. Texts become tools of enforcement rather than tools of transformation.

This is especially damaging around:

  • shame
  • power
  • mental health
  • fear

“People are often taught how to be afraid of being wrong, rather than how to love God.”

This raises a deeper question:

What kind of person is this interpretation producing?

Scripture points to Christ. And Christ becomes the lens through which Scripture is read. The goal is not information, but transformation.

Toward A Better Way Of Reading Scripture

“Scripture is not just meant to be understood. It is meant to form us.”

Rejecting literalism does not mean abandoning Scripture. It means reading it more faithfully. The Bible is not a modern textbook. It is a collection of human texts through which God reveals himself.

Reading well requires asking:

  • What kind of text is this?
  • What is it doing?
  • How would it have been understood?
  • How does it point to Christ?

It requires humility. No one reads Scripture neutrally. It requires comfort with mystery. The Bible does not offer simplistic certainty. It invites wisdom, trust, and transformation. Historically, Scripture was meditated on, not just analysed.

A healthy reading holds together:

  • literary awareness
  • context
  • theology
  • community
  • formation

Its poetry deepens. Its tension becomes meaningful. Its humanity becomes part of its beauty. The Bible was never meant to produce certainty alone. It was meant to form a people capable of love, wisdom, justice, and communion with God. And perhaps that is not a departure from Scripture, but a return to reading it well.

Sources and further reading

John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate.

Tremper Longman III, How to Read Genesis.

Origen, On First Principles, Book IV.

Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis.

John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis.

Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture.

G. K. Beale, “The Use of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15.”

What Is Religious Trauma?

Camaron G. W. SmithLeave a comment

In many Christian communities, trauma and pain are often overlooked or explained away with spiritual answers. Churches struggle to support people whose wounds do not fit into familiar theological boxes. Even now, in 2026, common mental health issues like depression and anxiety are sometimes dismissed as a lack of faith, not praying enough, or not believing the right things.

The National Church Life Survey (NCLS) found in 2021 that in Australia, one in five Christians faced mental health problems like anxiety and depression. Of those, 38% said their church did not know they were struggling. The study does not explain why, but from my own experience and conversations with others, I can guess some reasons. People may fear being judged or dismissed, worry their struggles will be given only spiritual answers, or feel afraid of being isolated and losing friendships. Some even fear losing their ‘salvation,’ especially if leaders see their struggles as a problem.

What is even more concerning is that these mental health issues are only part of a bigger problem. Stories of religious trauma and years of spiritual, institutional, and sometimes even physical or sexual abuse are becoming more widely known. From Mars Hill to Bethel, there are many accounts of church leaders using their power to manipulate or harm people in vulnerable situations. Sometimes it feels so overwhelming that I want to ignore it all and disconnect from social media. This reality can be discouraging, leading many people to feel disillusioned, question their faith, or even leave the Church. Clearly, we are not doing a good job of representing Jesus.

In this post, I want to make room for us to think about religious trauma and the misuse of power in our churches. I hope to define it, name it, speak against it, and share some ideas for a better way forward.

Not Everything That Hurts Is Trauma: Religious Trauma Defined

I once heard someone say that life is a series of traumatic events we learn to manage. For many of us, that feels true. Some people go through more pain and hardship in a few years than others do in a lifetime. Still, not every hard experience in life or church is trauma. The word ‘trauma’ has become a buzzword lately and is often used for any distressing or uncomfortable experience. Using it this way can actually take away from the real struggles of people who live with true trauma every day.

This is also true when we look at the Church. Christianity is meant to change us. It challenges us, reveals our flaws, and helps us grow. This kind of transformation is often uncomfortable and sometimes painful, as we are shaped into the likeness of Jesus (John 15:1-5; Romans 8:29). But trauma is something very different. Here is how I define religious trauma:

Religious or spiritual trauma is psychological, emotional, relational, or physical harm that is caused, intensified, or sustained within a religious context, particularly when people in positions of spiritual authority or influence misuse their power, or use God, Scripture, or their role in ways that distort truth, override personal agency, or damage a person’s sense of self, safety, or relationship with God.

Questions to Ask Yourself

With this definition in mind, we can ask ourselves some pressing questions to help us discern the difference between something that looks to transform us and something that causes genuine trauma.

Honesty

  • Do I feel safe saying what I actually think and feel here?
  • What would happen if I said something that disagreed?
  • Am I editing myself to avoid consequences?

Pressure

  • Do I feel free to take time and think, or do I feel pushed to respond quickly?
  • Would saying “no” feel genuinely acceptable, or risky?
  • Do I feel like I am being led, or steered?

Fear

  • Am I more motivated by love and trust, or by fear of getting it wrong?
  • Do I worry about disappointing God or specific people in a way that feels heavy or constant?
  • Do I feel watched, evaluated, or measured?

Clarity

  • Do I understand what is being asked of me, or do I feel confused but still expected to comply?
  • Am I allowed to question and process, or is that discouraged?

Authority

  • Can leaders be questioned without tension or fallout?
  • Do certain people carry a weight that makes disagreement feel unsafe?
  • Is “God said…” or “the Bible says” ever used in a way that shuts down conversation?

Sense of Self

  • Do I feel more grounded in who I am, or more unsure of myself over time?
  • Am I becoming more honest and whole, or more careful and guarded?
  • Do I feel like I am growing or shrinking?

Relationship with God

  • Do I experience God as someone I can trust, or someone I need to manage?
  • When I struggle, do I move toward God, or pull back?
  • Is my spiritual life marked more by connection or pressure?

Pattern Over Time

  • Is this an occasional moment of challenge, or a repeated pattern?
  • Am I becoming more alive, or more exhausted?
  • Do I feel freer now than I did before, or less?

A Final Question

If I were completely honest about my experience here, would I feel safe, or would something in me expect consequences?

My Experience

In the early years of my faith, I was part of a church, and I use that term loosely, that placed a heavy emphasis on spiritual warfare. It was the kind of environment where there seemed to be a demon behind every bush. There was a strong us-versus-them mentality. We knew where the evil was. Others didn’t. At the time, it felt intense, even meaningful. However, over time, there were moments that stayed with me.

I remember being told not to read certain books or listen to particular teachers because they were spiritually dangerous. Even things like clothing, music, and movies were treated with suspicion. I have a vivid memory of my mum buying me a simple leather ankle bracelet from a market. I wore it without thinking much of it. Not long after, I was told it carried something spiritually attached to it. A curse. Something only certain people in the group could discern. I was told I needed to cut it off.

So I did. I was young. I trusted the people around me. But even then, something in me felt uneasy. Over time, that environment began to shape what was happening inside me.

I felt constant pressure to perform, to be a certain kind of Christian. I became hyperaware of everything, believing evil could attach itself to ordinary things.

It was exhausting and fear-based. Looking back, some in the community genuinely believed they could see demons or curses at work in everyday things, believing their spiritual insight was unique.

Was it group delusion?
Was it control from leadership?
Was it a mix of both?

I am still not entirely sure. What I do know is this: I began to see the impact it was having on people. I watched others get hurt and leave. Something in me, perhaps a stubborn resistance to control (I’ve always been a contrarian at heart), began to push back. Eventually, I decided to leave.

I remember walking along the beach with my best friend. We had both been deeply involved in the same group. And I told him that the moment I decided to step away, I felt something I had not felt since first becoming a Christian. Freedom. And I really did.

Common Examples of Spiritual Abuse

To name these patterns more explicitly, spiritual abuse in Christian settings often looks like:

  • Using God or Scripture (particularly Scripture misread and taught out of context) to control behaviour.
  • Discouraging questions or framing doubt as rebellion.
  • Leaders who cannot be challenged or held accountable (this happens when there is unhealthy leadership in the local church).
  • Fear-based teaching about hell or judgment used to drive compliance.
  • Pressuring obedience over personal conscience (Romans 14:5).
  • Shaming or silencing people who raise concerns.
  • Equating loyalty to leadership with loyalty to God.
  • Creating environments where leaving results in relational or spiritual threat and isolation.

None of these, on their own, always constitute trauma. But sustained exposure to these patterns can.

The Role of Power

Where there is trauma, there is usually an imbalance of power. Not always overt power. Sometimes it is subtle. Cultural. Assumed. It is usually found in a leader who cannot be questioned. A community where leaving means losing your salvation, your friends, and your family. A system where blind obedience is equated with faithfulness and being a part of the ‘in crowd’.

In those environments, the ability to say no is removed and twisted so that the person feels they’re not giving their all to God. And that is important to understand, because healthy spiritual formation always preserves agency. It invites. It does not coerce. It calls, but it does not control.

When a person cannot disagree, say no, or question without consequence, something is wrong.

What It Does to a Person

These environments don’t just shape beliefs. They reshape a person’s inner world.

Psychologically, it can look like:

  • Persistent anxiety.
  • Chronic guilt or shame.
  • Hyper awareness of failure.
  • Seasons (even years or entire lifetimes) of depression and anxiety.
  • Isolation from community, friends, and relationships.
  • Grief.
  • Exhaustion and burnout.

Spiritually, it can look like:

  • A constant sense of fear of God and separation rather than trust
  • Difficulty praying without tension
  • Confusion about what God is actually like

Relationally, it often leads to:

  • Loss of community
  • Fractured relationships
  • Difficulty trusting others

And perhaps most disorienting of all, it can destabilise identity. If your sense of self was formed within that system, leaving it can feel like losing yourself entirely (Herman, Trauma and Recovery).

People struggling with these things are often lost, unsure where to find help. They stop attending church. They stop reading Scripture. They stop praying. They isolate themselves, exhausted and unable to properly process what they’re experiencing.

To everyone else, especially those in positions of power and authority, the person struggling is seen as unspiritual, faithless, and rebellious. The answer to their problems, after all, must be prayer, faith, and church.

A Theological Line We Cannot Ignore

At this point, the question becomes theological, not just psychological. What is the fruit? The New Testament gives us a remarkably clear vision of what life in Christ produces.

Life in Christ looks like freedom. Not just freedom from guilt, but freedom from the powers that enslave us (Galatians 5:1; Romans 6:6–7). It looks like a life marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). Not as ideals we strive to perform, but as fruit that grows as we are united to Christ. It looks like a renewed mind. A way of seeing the world that is no longer shaped by fear, anxiety, or cultural pressure, but by the truth and character of God (Romans 12:2). It looks like becoming more fully human. Being conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29), who reveals what true humanity actually is. It looks like love that is patient and kind, not easily angered, not keeping record of wrongs, rejoicing in truth (1 Corinthians 13:4–7). It looks like a community where burdens are shared, where people confess, forgive, and restore one another (Galatians 6:2; James 5:16). It looks like peace replacing hostility, reconciliation overcoming division, and walls of separation being torn down (Ephesians 2:14–16). It looks like boldness without fear. Confidence to draw near to God, not shrink back from Him (Hebrews 4:16; 1 John 4:18). It looks like life. Not just survival, but participation in the life of God Himself. A life that is described as abundant (John 10:10).

So when we ask what a Christian environment should produce, the answer is not unclear. It should produce people who are becoming more alive, more whole, more grounded in love, and more free. If the consistent outcome of a system is fear, control, and shame, we have to pause. Not everything that uses the language of Scripture reflects the heart of God. This is not a new problem.

In the Gospels, even Satan quotes Scripture. In the wilderness, he uses the words of God in an attempt to distort the will of God (Matthew 4:1–11). The issue is not whether Scripture is being used, but how it is being used, and to what end. And this pattern has not stayed confined to the pages of the Bible.

Throughout church history, there have been seasons where theology, grounded in biblical language, has been used to justify control, harm, and exclusion. Often this has happened when the Church has become entangled with power, status, or empire. The more there is to protect, the easier it becomes to distort.

So we have to be honest. Biblical language, on its own, is not proof of truth. Even Scripture can be weaponised. Which means the question is not simply, “Is this biblical?” The question is, “Does this reflect the character of Christ?”

Formation or Distortion?

We are always being formed. The question is whether that formation reflects the life of Jesus or does it conform to the way that those in positions of power want us to live? The goal of Christian formation is to become the kind of person who naturally lives in the way of Christ. A person whose inner life is marked by faith, peace, and love.

But formation can be distorted. When fear becomes the primary motivator. When control replaces invitation. When conformity is valued over transformation. The process may still be called discipleship, but it no longer reflects the kingdom.

The Gospel Still Leads to Freedom

Talking about religious trauma is not an attack on Christianity. It is, in many ways, an attempt to take Christianity seriously. Because if the gospel is what it claims to be, then it cannot be the source of fear-driven control. If the Gospel is about Jesus dying to free us from that which oppresses and enslaves us (sin, satan, death), to unite us to God in Christ, and to transform us into his image, then being part of a community that preaches a gospel that disintegrates life, that’s seeded with anxiety, fear, and depression is nothing short of anathema. If something consistently leads away from freedom, it is worth asking whether it truly reflects Christ.

Moving Forward

If we are honest about the problem, then we also need to be honest about the responsibility. Creating safer, healthier spaces in the church does not happen by accident. It requires intention, humility, and a willingness to change. So what might this actually look like?

1. Create cultures where honesty is normal, not risky

People should not have to edit themselves to belong. That means leaders modelling honesty first. Naming their own limits. Admitting when they do not know. Creating space for people to speak without immediately correcting, fixing, or spiritualising their experience. If people only feel safe when they agree, the space is not actually safe.

2. Teach people how to think, not just what to think

A healthy church forms people; it does not control them. This means encouraging questions. Letting people wrestle with Scripture. Making room for disagreement without labelling it as rebellion. When people are trusted to engage, not just comply, their faith becomes their own.

3. Be clear about power, and accountable with it

Where there is unexamined power, there is always potential for harm. Churches need visible, functional accountability. Not just in theory, but in practice. Leaders who can be questioned. Structures where concerns can be raised safely. Processes that do not protect reputation at the expense of people. Authority in the kingdom is meant to serve, not control (Mark 10:42–45).

4. Separate conviction from control

The Spirit convicts. People do not need to be coerced into transformation. There is a difference between being invited into truth and being pressured into conformity. One leads to life. The other leads to fear. A healthy environment allows people to move at a human pace. It does not rush, force, or manipulate decisions in the name of spiritual urgency.

5. Take mental health seriously, not spiritually

Depression, anxiety, trauma, and burnout are not signs of weak faith. They are human experiences that require care, wisdom, and often professional support. Churches should be places that normalise this, not minimise it. Sometimes the most spiritual response is not prayer alone, but referral, rest, and practical support.

6. Protect people, not systems

When harm happens, the instinct is often to protect the church, the leader, or the reputation. But the call of the church is to protect people. This means listening well. Taking concerns seriously. Acting decisively when needed. And being willing to name failure without defensiveness. Truth builds trust. Silence destroys it.

7. Centre everything on the character of Christ

Not every environment that uses Scripture reflects Jesus. So we return to Him again and again. Does this community reflect His posture? Is there gentleness here? Patience? Freedom? Truth without fear? Jesus does not coerce. He does not manipulate. He does not crush the bruised reed (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20). If our spaces do not look like Him, then something has gone wrong.

A Better Way Is Possible

The goal is not to create a perfect church, because that does not exist. But we can build healthier churches. These are places where people can be honest without fear, where questions are welcome, and where leaders serve others. In these communities, spiritual growth leads to freedom, not control. Such a church does more than avoid harm—it becomes a place where people can heal.

The Wide Work of Christ

Camaron G. W. SmithLeave a comment

Through him God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself
things on earth and things in heaven
making peace through the blood of his cross.

Not some things.
Not only the worthy things.
All things.

The hidden fracture in the world
the quiet estrangement in the human heart
the long ache of history
the violence we inherit and the wounds we carry
none of it lies outside the reach of Christ.

The cross is not a narrow doorway for a few
but the deep center where everything broken is gathered.

Here hostility is unmade.
Here distance is crossed.
Here even what resists love is slowly surrounded by it.

The peace of Christ is not fragile agreement
but a steady, patient restoring
like roots pressing through hard soil
like light finding its way into a closed room.

And so reconciliation is not only a doctrine to believe
but a reality to inhabit.

We learn to live as those already being gathered
already being healed
already being brought home.

The cross stands at the center of all things
not as a sign of defeat
but as the quiet place where the world is being made whole.

Deconstruction Led Me to a Deeper Orthodoxy and Faith

Camaron G. W. Smith2 Comments
A warmly lit study with a wooden desk and chair, an antique table lamp glowing on the desk, stacks of old books, and tall bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes lining the walls.

When Faith Stops Feeling Life-Giving

I once managed belief like a fragile museum piece, feeling the weight of maintaining it rather than living it. Before deconstruction, my faith felt exhausting. Not because I didn’t believe, but because the answers I had adopted stopped helping me live freely or flourish. Over time, they settled into a shallow kind of idea-ism, a way of thinking about faith that meant my spirituality, my questions, and even my own human experience had to be constantly filtered through categories that needed defending, maintaining, and keeping in order. Faith became something to manage rather than inhabit. Something to defend instead of embody.

Unresolved Theological Tension

Faith started to feel like something that needed constant attention instead of bringing rest. I carried a lot of unresolved tensions. The sharpest was the contradiction of a loving God who was also described as perpetually angry. It was difficult to reconcile the message of the cross as good news with explanations that felt wrong to me. I was told to trust Scripture, but only within rigid boundaries, which impacted how I viewed science and historical contexts. These tensions weren’t just ideas. They manifested in politics and in divided groups. Faith increasingly felt like an exercise in picking sides to stay ‘biblical.’ Underneath, I was sorting people: who was orthodox or heretical, faithful or compromised, who belonged and who didn’t. None of it felt life-giving. All of it carried weight, and over time, that weight became unbearable. Eventually, I didn’t just feel strained. I stopped altogether. I stopped engaging. I stopped trying to hold everything together, not out of rebellious spirit or a hard heart, but out of exhaustion.

Why I Stepped Away

It wasn’t some hidden sin I wanted to justify that led me to deconstruct. Rather, it was the heavy burden of traditional evangelism, a way of holding faith that was slowly hollowing me out rather than giving life. I needed distance. Not dramatically or all at once, but carefully. Slowly and surely, I removed myself from it. Stepping back didn’t feel brave. It felt disorienting. I wasn’t replacing one system with another. I was letting go of the constant explanations and seeing what was left.
At first, stepping back felt uncomfortable, but also freeing. Without my old ways of thinking, I didn’t know what to do next. My prayers changed. I stopped trying to say the right words and just sat with my feelings, embracing these moments as a form of silent prayer or centering. This contemplative posture allowed me to talk less at God and be more present. Faith didn’t come with easy answers anymore. There were no safe categories or certain words. The mystery I used to fear started to feel interesting instead of scary.

Deconstrucion Research

As I went through this, I noticed I wasn’t alone. Increasingly, I realized that deconstruction was happening everywhere. Research shows that about 42 percent of adults have questioned the faith they grew up with, and many still call themselves Christian. Barna’s research says about a third of practising Christians have seriously re-examined their inherited beliefs without leaving their faith. This shows that deconstruction isn’t simply about leaving Christianity. For many, it’s a personal reckoning inside the Church. Commentators such as Scot McKnight helped me understand this further. In Invisible Jesus, McKnight says that much of modern Christianity has replaced the real Jesus with other versions: a political Jesus, a nationalist Jesus, a moral enforcer, or a doctrinal gatekeeper. When people deconstruct, they’re often not rejecting Christ, but these distorted versions, hoping to find the real one.

Deconstruction as Reformation

Seen this way, deconstruction begins to look less like collapse and more like correction. Building on this, it almost ironically carries the marks of reform and renewal. Historically, movements that return people to the centre of faith are rarely neat or reassuring in the moment. They disrupt settled systems and force hard questions. Consider Martin Luther’s 95 Theses in 1517, which challenged the practices of the Church and sparked the Protestant Reformation, a period of profound religious renewal born out of significant disruption. Today, deconstruction feels like that kind of moment. As Brian Zahnd has often said, the future Christian will likely be a mystic, not someone chasing spiritual novelty, but someone formed by presence rather than control, encounter rather than certainty, love in place of fear. Taken together, the data and lived experience tell the same story. Deconstruction is not about killing Christianity. For many, it is about clearing away what is brittle and broken, so that something more ancient, deeper, and more Christ-centred can emerge.

Deconstruction as Formation

When I stepped back, not everything disappeared. In fact, some things stayed, not because I fought to keep them, but because they were never tied to the frameworks I had let go of. Christ stayed. Not as a system to defend or a set of conclusions to maintain, but as the person I kept returning to. Even when I wasn’t sure what I believed, Jesus himself remained compelling. His way of being in the world. His closeness to those on the margins. His refusal to grasp for power. Whatever else shifted, I couldn’t shake him. Sometimes, in silent prayer, it felt like Jesus whispered, ‘I’m here with you.’ It was as if he was telling me, ‘It’s okay to ask questions, to seek understanding. I am with you in your doubts and your discoveries.’ Scripture stayed too. And in many ways, it became more profound. I never stopped loving the Bible. I’ve always been a Bible nerd. What changed wasn’t my affection for the text, but the way I read it. As I let go of the lenses I had adopted, Scripture stopped being something I approached primarily to extract answers or defend positions. It became sacramental. Life-giving. Formative.

Deconstruction and Orthodox

I came to recognise the Bible not as a puzzle to solve, but as a place to meet God. Reading it this way made me slow down. It shaped how I think and what I care about. It worked deep inside me, not just in arguments. The text didn’t always answer my questions, but it kept bringing me back to Christ and to living more like him. That didn’t weaken my faith. It made it stronger. Orthodoxy came back, but it felt different.

What I eventually realised was that orthodoxy really is about healthy boundaries. In its earliest expressions, orthodoxy existed to confront heresy and guard the heart of the Christian confession. The creeds and confessions were shaped in conflict because what was at stake was not abstract correctness, but the truth about God, Christ, and what it means to be human. That work mattered. It still does. What surprised me was discovering that those boundaries were never meant to suffocate faith. They were meant to protect life.

Reading the early Church Fathers made this clear. Figures like Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa were deeply orthodox and fiercely committed to doctrinal clarity, yet their theology was never anxious or thin. For Athanasius, orthodoxy mattered because if Christ is not truly God, then humanity is not truly healed. Doctrine was inseparable from salvation. Gregory of Nyssa, equally committed to the creedal faith, insisted that God always exceeds our concepts. Orthodoxy did not eliminate mystery. It required it. Doctrine named the centre, but it also opened the soul toward continual growth, desire, and transformation.

From there, the tradition opened rather than closed. I found this same orthodoxy expressed across several streams of the Church, in the earthy devotion of Celtic Christianity, in the depth and union spoken of by Catholic and Eastern mystics, and even in modern voices who continue to live this faith attentively and sincerely. Each tradition nurtures humility and compassion, drawing from the same well of Christ’s love and teachings. What united all of it was Christ, not as an idea to defend, but as a life to enter.

Deconstruction didn’t take me away from orthodoxy. It led me into a deeper kind of orthodoxy.

To Those Watching Other’s Deconstruct

That’s why I want to offer a word of caution to those watching others deconstruct: how we respond matters. Treating deconstruction as betrayal, danger, or moral failure does not protect faith. It reinforces the very wounds that made faith unlivable in the first place. If the goal is depth, maturity, and Christlikeness, then fear-driven responses are counter-formative. What deconstructing people need is love, not suspicion. Curiosity, not control. Space to ask honest questions without punishment. Orthodoxy was never meant to be enforced through fear. It was meant to form people into the likeness of Christ.


I didn’t lose my faith. I lost a version of it that could not carry life.
What remains now is not certainty, but commitment. Not answers I can deploy, but a way of living I am learning to inhabit. Christ abides at the centre again. Scripture is sacramental. Orthodoxy is formative. Mystery is no longer something I rush to resolve. For the first time in a long while, faith doesn’t require vigilance. It asks for faithfulness. Faith now feels like breathing, not balancing plates. It sustains me quietly, like a gentle rhythm that I can finally rest in. And that feels like something I can truly live with.