Faith shaming is to religion what fat shaming is to body image. It’s someone or something that makes a person feel shame regarding their religious or spiritual preference.
Like the time a woman flung her passenger door open and stopped me asking if she could pray for me and if I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
I said no and felt shame — not because I had no religious preference, but because disappointment spread across her face faster than a rumor around high school.
It’s important to recognize faith shaming can be intentional and unintentional. Even if you think you’re having a positive discussion about faith, it can still have the same effect as faith shaming.
The woman wanting to pray for me thought it was a positive gesture. She didn’t consider the guilt and shame brought forth in me because she questioned my faith. She knew nothing of my inner struggle with not belonging to a certain faith.
My spiritual journey is peppered with unintentional faith shaming just like this.
My parents took us to church consistently when I was a kid. I remember going to Bible study, shining in the choir and participating in the annual Christmas play. Then, we shopped around a few churches until I was about eight years old.
Then we stopped going to church altogether.
It had something to do with a personal falling out between my mom and the pastor. I think it turned her off to churches altogether because of how the pastor handled the disagreement.
Although church was deemed a positive experience, I always wondered, what’s going to happen if I don’t do this stuff?
And I say stuff because I honestly didn’t fully understand what was being taught. Chalk it up to being a kid uninterested in anything other than clothes, chokers and running after the cute boys on the playground.
Church was just another thing my parents made me do and just like I tested their limits, I’d put the church on notice too.
With my defiant nature, I never felt saved in church like they say you’re supposed to. I felt boxed in, out of place and a bit guilty for not taking it as serious as everyone else. The church never said outright other faiths were wrong, but they did say this faith was the only right way to live.
This marked my first encounter with unintentional faith shaming.
My spiritual journey really started after we stopped going to church.
My parents never made us go to church after that. Instead, they educated us on the importance of having faith and believing in something much bigger than humanity.
We’d pray each night before bed as a family — mostly what and who we’re thankful for and what we’d like watched over. My mom would read us stories from a children’s Bible sometimes and I remember my siblings and I would be in awe of how the simplest things provided so much power.
Like prayer. Like believing. Like loving.
Faith shaming clouds our ability to choose principles instead of a group to belong to. It births this internal conflict: I can’t believe in God if I don’t go to church. I can’t get an abortion if I want to practice Islam. Christmas isn’t a Jewish holiday so scratch that if I want to explore this faith.
Even in their most positive lights and intentions, religion can leave you feeling shameful because nobody fits the exact mold they preach.
Can’t I take principles from all different religions and form a relationship with God all on my own?
I’m still mulling over this question at 29 years old.
I’m always open to discussions about religion, however, time and time again I’m left feeling like I did when walking across a Las Vegas street and a man with a bullhorn and sign citing his disgust for sin and our need to accept Jesus Christ, tried to hand me a card and I declined. He was sure to tell me I was going to hell.
Unintentional faith shaming is just as damning as the intentional — it’s essentially a public stoning.
Unintentional doesn’t mean positive. It more so means a person didn’t set out to make you feel like s**t — but they did. The church didn’t mean to make me feel like my badass kid self didn’t belong — but it did. The woman praying for me didn’t mean to make me feel like something was wrong with me because I hadn’t accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior — but she did.
And even when people think they’re doing God’s work by recruiting for their religious team, they could also be damaging a person’s spiritual journey. Because spirituality is a personal journey. If you’re pushed into it, the likelihood of it turning into a lifestyle is slim.
It’s like when you your parents tell you not to date a guy, but you just have to find out for yourself for it to stick. You need that experience and in return, it shapes who you are and who you will become. Spirituality should be fulfilled from within.
Navigating my 29th year of life, my experience with faith shaming isn’t primarily malicious in nature.
It’s the folks that knock on my door trying to get me to go to church after a 20-year absence. It’s the folks asking me to pray. It’s the folks asking me do I believe in God. It’s the folks posing as God’s angels on Earth. It’s the folks trying to find a religious home for me when I’ve already made peace with my spiritual foundation.
Spirituality isn’t black and white. It shouldn’t be boxed into one corner of religion. We shouldn’t try to persuade someone to pick a corner and stay there in timeout like a toddler. Instead, let’s accept those that want to take four corners and build a wall. Or those that don’t want any corners and instead float in an open space.
Let’s focus our spiritual energies on nurturing and calling forward our real selves. The self created by whoever you believe in or don’t. But we all came from some source of love and acceptance and it’s vital we introduce discussion and collaboration as an alternative to persuasion and bullying. The reason we love our respective spiritual journeys is because we feel in place. Accepted. Safe. Lead with this in mind and we just might make an impact on inner peace and happiness.
Contributing Writer
BABL 