Jesus Has Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome

Jesus was the original victim of Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome.

Since I named this Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome thing, I’ve discovered that not only am I not alone; there are thousands–even millions– of people who have sustained spiritual injuries.

But Patient Zero was Jesus.

Think about it: Jesus did all the things we do when dogma stops making sense:

– He challenged authority— “You have heard it said but I say”

– He got angry—See, table being overturned

– He talked to people he was supposed to ignore—See, Samaritan women/strangers

– He broke the rules: See, healing/harvesting on Saabath, lack of ritual hand washing, all the gospels

He was punished for his “transgressions” by the religious leaders of the day; they perpetually attempted to back him into a doctrinal corner and trick him to make him look foolish in front of the people who were listening to him, and –we know the end of this story, don’t we?

As if things weren’t bad enough with the Pharisees and Sadducees, then Jesus was deserted by the family he had chosen: his brothers, his disciples. One minute he is their Main Dude, leader of the in-crowd, and the very next he’s Out.

His closest friends betrayed him, talking about him behind his back— while he was getting beat up. Jesus is all bloody and where are his buddies? Hanging out in the courtyard, denying they ever knew him. Any of this sound familiar?

Like Jesus, we find ourselves suddenly are without a tribe, while our formerly beloved stand around witnessing the death of our faith without lifting a finger to help (unless it’s coated in, say, vinegar).

For most of us that’s the worst part of PTCS—the betrayal. The people we would have sworn would kill for us are the one who stand by and watch us get killed. Our former friends become our assailants, and our former identity our torturer.

Friends, THIS is Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: when you turn the status quo thinking on its head and get spiritually and emotionally massacred for it.

And if you’re Jesus, you get KILLED for it.

But if Jesus is Patient Zero…isn’t he is also the first example of PTCS recovery?

He did have to die first—and so does our former faith. We have to die to our certainty identity and relationships that no longer serve us. Sometimes we even have to give up the Holy Ghost, too–depending on just how Pentecostal we were.

But before Jesus gave up the ghost, he forgave—just like we all have to forgive. He made peace with those who had reviled, persecuted, and nailed him to a cross. He let go.

PS: I’m not saying these steps have to be followed in order. He was Jesus, after all.

I think sometimes we forget that Jesus was dead for a little while, as often happens in our spiritual lives. To get better, you have to make a clean break with what was making you sick in the first place. Usually this means a lot of anger, hurt, and relationship carnage. Sometimes it means not setting foot in a church or opening a Bible and being unable to pretend to pray.

(My friend Kathy Escobar calls this period Severing in her beautiful–and highly recommended–book Faith Shift.)

Death of faith usually lasts a bit more than three days–eight years, in my case. It also involves a fair amount of demon-wrestling.

The good news is that Jesus didn’t stay dead. He wrestled the demons, triumphed, and was resurrected from the grave of the person he’d once been: whole, healed, restored.

He had scars, certainly, as we all do. But it is our scars that remind us that what could have killed us made us who we are.

People often ask me why I have a peacock on the cover of my book and peacock feathers on this blog header. It’s because during my yearlong journey through chronic illness and thirty religions, a shaman told me this:

“The peacock is a symbol of healing and of resurrection. It is the physical manifestation of the mythical Phoenix, a reminder of the truth that we can arise from our own ashes.”

If I had thought for a hundred years, I never could have come up with a better picture of spiritual recovery than a Peacock Rising from its own ashes in a glorious display of color and life.

The peacock’s correlation with resurrection is why you’ll often see the birds pictured with Jesus in Christian icons, or plated in stained glass.