For me, Alex, the answer is vulnerability.
When I first went to church, it was because my life was miserable. At 15 years old, I hadn’t had the time to discover who I was yet. Hell, my prefrontal cortex wasn’t even developed. After years of trauma, abuse, and neglect, I was depressed, lost, and angry. These circumstances made me susceptible to influence. I was so desperate to fit in, be accepted, to be valued and cared about. These were things that I didn’t really have in my life at the time. Vulnerability can take many forms: whether it be a loss of some kind, depression, loneliness, rejection, an existential crisis or simply a need to belong. I don’t know about you, but I was a mess.
Sometimes we are searching for meaning. Sometimes we are searching for community. Sometimes we just want to know that someone cares. Humans are wired for connection. It is understandable to want to belong, to be seen and to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.
Psychologists have found that the need to belong is one of the most fundamental human motivations. When needs are unmet, whether because of trauma, isolation, rejection, etc. We naturally seek ways to meet them. That’s not a flaw or a weakness. It’s part of being human.
My first few months at church were overwhelming in the best possible way. I was met with kindness, acceptance, and a sense of belonging unlike anything I had encountered before. Suddenly, making friends felt easy. People seemed genuinely interested in me. I felt welcomed. I felt included. Most importantly, I felt like I belonged.
In all the years that followed, I would never again experience that warm acceptance to that degree. In fact, the more time that went on, the more I began to experience things far less beautiful, and rather ugly. I’m sure that a lot of you can relate.
The thing is this wasn’t accidental. We were taught to do it.
We were told to make visitors feel loved. To make them feel welcome. To make them feel like they belonged. At the time, I thought this was a beautiful thing, helping people to feel loved and accepted like I was. Looking back, I’m not so sure it’s that simple.
The warm acceptance I received when I first walked through those doors wasn’t something I would experience for the rest of my time there. But I watched it happen over and over again, with new people. Not only that, but we were also strongly encouraged to go out of our way and make the new visitors feel welcomed. I believe that a lot of us truly wanted people to feel warmly welcome and want to come back, to be a part of our “family.”
There is a term for this phenomenon: love bombing. Love bombing refers to the practice of overwhelming someone with attention, affection, acceptance, praise, or a sense of belonging. The goal may be conscious or unconscious, but the effect is often the same. The recipient develops a strong emotional attachment to the group, community, or individual providing that attention.
For someone in a healthy place, this may simply feel welcoming. For someone who is vulnerable, isolated, grieving, or searching for belonging, it can be incredibly powerful. When you have spent years starving for acceptance, even a small amount of kindness can feel overwhelming. When that kindness comes from an entire community, the impact can be even greater.
Sources and Further Reading
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.
PubMed:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7777651/
Full PDF:
https://persweb.wabash.edu/facstaff/hortonr/articles%20for%20class/baumeister%20and%20leary.pdf
#Exvangelical #Deconstruction #ReligiousTrauma #ChurchAbuse #LoveBombing #ReligiousDeconstruction #Fundamentalism #TheMurder #LetThemEatCrow #Alex’sStory
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