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Spiritual Abuse (Religious Violence)
By Steven Fales | June 29, 2010
From the Introduction to Confessions of a Mormon Boy: Behind the Scenes of the Off-Broadway Hit
What is becoming evident to me is that my work doesn’t just speak to Mormons or gays. As I’ve written specifically from my queer Mormon point of view, the play seems to be landing universally. It plays as well in Salt Lake City as it does in New York, though the themes and humor are sometimes appreciated differently. Salt Lake gets the religious and spiritual nuance of the first half. New York really gets the gritty urban underbelly of the second half. Other cities like Chicago and San Diego and Atlanta seem to get it all. There is apparently something for everyone.
As I greet the audience after every show or read their emails and letters, I get all kinds of comments — from gay, straight, male, female, old, young, religious, nonreligious–telling me how much the play means to them. “Did you steal my journals to write this play? I’m Lutheran!” or “You’ve told 99 percent of my story. I’m Jewish. Or Muslim!” or “I was excommunicated, too, and I’m straight!” or “Except for the escorting part, we have lived parallel lives!” or better yet “I was a sex worker, too, and I grew up a good Catholic girl!” I’m realizing that this is not just my story of reclamation; it is many of our stories.
What we all seem to have in common is spiritual abuse. I define spiritual abuse as any time an individual or group uses religion to justify telling or showing anyone that he or she is not worthy of God’s full love and blessings–including basic human rights. My excommunication from the church of my birth for the practice of homosexuality (in the twenty-first century!) is an overt form of spiritual abuse. Nothing would please me more than to see this medieval, barbaric cult tactic cease and desist in my lifetime. No one should be excommunicated for anything — especially for being gay.
Furthermore, I believe that spiritual abuse in all its insidious forms fuels addiction–as my play very personally illustrates. What do you fill your soul with when God no longer seems to be an option? Where do you turn when you no longer belong to your indigenous community? At the end of the day, then, Confessions of a Mormon Boy is my contribution to helping end spiritual abuse in our churches, mosques, synagogues, and families.
This play is about many things. But for me, it is about how I first learned to stop being a victim of spiritual abuse — and how I started to reclaim my values and a spirituality that works for me. It’s been said that religion is for people who are afraid to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have been to hell and don’t want to go back! Religion and spirituality can be two very mutually exclusive things. And yet, I have to concede that religion can be a spiritual path for many, many people — though it seems to be the exception. Basic spiritual tools belong to everyone. Unfortunately, many religions put their own stamp on spiritual technology (i.e. prayer and meditation, reading inspired literature, gathering in fellowship, service, etc.), claiming theirs is the only way.
It has been rewarding to see men and women who have long abandoned their religion (often out of necessity or survival) leave the show with the possibility of reconciliation with their faith and a renewed commitment to spirituality in their lives — whatever that now needs to look like for them.
It has also been humbling to meet other recovering sex workers after the show and hear their stories — and realize just how many of us have taken our spiritual gifts to the streets. (Commercial sex work includes prostitution, escorting, pimping, madaming, pornography, stripping, phone sex, adult cam work, erotic massage, or any other arena where you exchange sex or a sexual activity for money, services, or goods–whether a legal activity of not.)
If churches could only get the impact of the loss of talent (and tithing!) they are missing out on by not embracing their LGBT members! (And the part this plays in fueling the rebelliousness of some of us!) I’m not a sociologist, but I’m alarmed as I see how many sex workers with magnificent spirits grew up with a religious upbringing that one day let them down. I don’t know, there seems to be a connection . . . and some of us never make it back.
I would like to further propose that until we get “complete” with our parents, we cannot get complete with God. I think this is particularly true for those of us who grew up in a tribal-clan mentality with an unstated motto like: “If you’re not Mormon, you’re not family.” Or “If you’re not straight, you’re not family.” How I started to get over my anger and issues with my religious dad, in particular, is one of the most important dramatic arcs of the story and brings about the climax of the play. Making peace with my parents (and the spiritual abuse from home) has allowed me to start making peace with God. And it has been quite a homecoming! As it says in the bible, may “the hearts of the fathers turn to the children, and the hearts of the children turn to their fathers.”
No matter who we are, we all have a good victim story and can be held prisoner by that story. When we are in victim mode, there is only one possibility–that of being a victim. And choosing victimization is not very sexy. When we become willing to give that up, we have all kinds of choices, our possibilities are endless, and miracles can occur. We are no longer our circumstances or our past. Who we are is literally Possibility itself: the possibility of being able to love and be loved by God and others.
I call my work “transformational theatre.” My play is a true story of transformation (with elements of recovery) told by the person who lived it. It’s reality theatre and is unabashedly purpose driven. I guess you can take the kid out of the cult, but you can’t take the cult our of the kid! I hope my altruism isn’t a turnoff. It’s a by-product of my zealous upbringing. I further realize that yesterday’s transformation is today’s ego trip and tomorrow’s relapse. So wish me luck!
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