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A Lutheran minister said recently, "Addicts have faith not in God but in the system that delivers God."
According to Nashville Tennessean religion editor Ray Waddle, religious addiction can take many forms - obsessing about producing the church bulletin, excessively quoting the Bible, or having an affair with a pastor- but it has its source in a sense of guilt about God or self.
Waddle says in some cases people who are especially emotionally vulnerable come under the sway of a cultish dictator. But more often, "religious addiction" takes less dramatic forms in mainstream faiths from Catholic to born again Protestants. "Religion has the power to help or to hinder," said the Rev. Jim Coffman, director of Pastoral Counseling and Consultation Services of Tennessee.
"Religion bears fruit when it helps one find one's place in the world, helping us to serve and be compassionate and enjoy the world. But to rigidly identify God with work that doesn't bear fruit is wrong."
Some ministers say God, the Bible and faith command people to make sacrifices that a secular world will always dismiss as foolish or unhealthy. But religious therapists say religion can become "sick" if sacrifices and other religious attitudes are excessive or destructive.
Author Stephen Arterburn, co-author of Toxic Faith: Understanding and Overcoming Religious Addiction, says, "If a person is here on Earth, part of their life mission and their desire is to grow closer to God. But he adds, "If, getting involved in a sick religion, they lose touch with God and also lose touch with who they are, then I would say that it would be just as bad as drugs.
Answering yes to many of the following questions might define a "toxic faith" problem, Arterburn said.
Has your family complained that you are always going to church meetings rather than spending time with them?
Do you feel extreme guilt for being out of church just one Sunday?
Do you sense that God is looking at what you do and if you don't do enough God might turn on you or not bless you?
Are you giving money to a ministry because you believe God will make you wealthy if you give?
Have you ever been sexually involved with a minister?
Is it difficult for you to make a decision without consulting your minister? Even a small one?
Do you ever have thoughts of God wanting you to destroy yourself or others in order to go and live with Him?
Do you believe you are still being punished for something you did as a child?
Do you feel if you work a little harder God finally will forgive you?
Has anyone ever told you a minister was manipulating your thoughts and feelings?
Toxic Faith: Understanding and Overcoming
Religious Addiction is published
by Oliver Nelson Books and available at your local Christian
bookstore.