ADDICTED TO RELIGION AND AFRAID TO QUIT
If religious people have trouble accepting that their religions are toxic cults, they will also be thoroughly outraged at the suggestion that the term addiction could also be applied to their religion. How could anything that is so good, wholesome and Biblical be toxic? Such claims would be regarded as attacks of the devil who is trying to destroy God’s church. Sadly, this tendency to deflect responsibility from themselves to another entity is clear evidence that they are addicted but don’t know it.

Addiction is a term that is loaded with negative imagery usually associated with weak, shiftless junkies whose focus is always on the next fix. Surely these qualities could not describe sincere, devoted Jews or Christians who claim that the reasons for their religious affiliations are totally honorable and all about God. A poll of Christians, however, shows that reasons for belonging to church are more about personal needs than about God. We suspect that the same motives could be assigned to Jews also.

Considering all of the above, it would not be an outrageous speculation to suggest that all religious people would quickly reject the notion that their religion is toxic. Furthermore, they would reject that they could be addicted to their religion because it has caused a toxic dependency that they cannot resist or shake off — even if they wanted to. That is what they would say, but what would happen if they were put to the test of going cold turkey without religion? Could they do it?

Before asking if they could live without their religion, we need to ask if they would even be willing to try to live without their religion. A resolved unwillingness to even try to live without religion is a clear indication of toxic addiction.

We can get some ideas about the degree with which we are addicted to religion by knowing how a religious person would answer these questions:

When we look carefully at each of these questions we see that they all deal with guilt and fear. Each one could be rephrased in the following language using guilt or fear and still embody the same meaning.

The way we see it, everyone who answers “yes” to one or more of these questions is addicted to religion. They have chosen death and curses through religion instead of life and blessings as New Covenant disciples. Such people are convinced that religion has a critical and absolutely necessary place in their life. And if they are convinced, it can be said that they are addicted and  intoxicated with belief that religion is absolutely necessary to their spiritual well-being. And so that is why they would hanging onto their religious life as though it were life itself.

We make this argument on the basis of what we see in addicts to alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex: They are unwilling or unable to quit doing or taking the thing to which they are addicted. You are either addicted drugs, alcohol, gambling, religion or sex or you are not. There is no in-between unless you are in some kind of recovery program in which you are working your way toward freedom from your addiction.

With respect to religion, you are still addicted until you can choose life instead of death and say no to all the above questions without any hesitation. You need to get sober from religion and stay sober with no backsliding. Only then will you experience true freedom from religion. For as long as you are tempted in even the smallest way to return to your religious ways, you are still addicted, enslaved and oppressed by religion.

In other words, we would say that anyone who is unwilling or unable to quit religion and stay sober is addicted to it just like a drug addict is addicted to drugs. It is analogous to the first step of the 12 step process associated with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) which can be rephrased as follows:

“We admitted we were powerless over “religion” that our lives had become unmanageable

AUTHORS’ NOTE: The analogy to AA or any other treatment program applies neatly with Religion Detox Network’s goals. Just as it is nearly impossible for an addict of any drug to get sober alone, it is also nearly impossible for ex-religionists to stop using religion without some help from friends.

The Religion Detox Network exists to help religious addicts develop meaningful relationships with people who have successfully transitioned out of religion or are moving in that direction. This kind service is necessary because there is no program or agency to help people who want to get free from religion. The networking features of the Religion Detox Network are designed to fill this void so people who are trying to get free from religion will have someone to walk with them through the process.

Even though getting free from religion with the help of others is helpful, however, it must be said that the more critical path to freedom is listening to God’s voice while engaged in personal Bible Study.

The notion of being powerless over religion is a hard concept for religionists to accept. It argues against the generally accepted belief that religious activities are critical to faith and a good relationship to God. This perverted relationship of religion and faith (not faith as God sees it but faith as man sees it) exists because hundreds of generations of human teachers (i.e. false prophets) have preached convincingly that religion and faith are one and the same thing even though the Bible says that they are as opposite as night contrasts with day and good contrasts with evil.

Because of wrong teaching that religion and faith are identical, there is a sense among religionists that being under the control of religion and a religious leader is good, right and necessary. Religionists believe that if they perform the religious activities found in the Bible (e.g. pray, sing, baptize, communion, circumcise, etc.) and use God’s name in worship, they are under God’s control/influence. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are really just practicing religion according to the traditions and teachings of men (i.e. religious laws).  What ultimately controls all the activities in the above list is tradition. And we know how God feels about tradition.

Furthermore, when we look at the list of questions above, we see that all items are under human control and/or involve use of some kind of physical act or object. And we know how God feels about his people taking direction from humans. The way God puts it, all of these activities are matters of the flesh — not of the spirit. God feels so strongly about the control that religious leaders have over his people that he calls the condition slavery, oppression and bondage to sin. We clearly see his strong condemnation of religious leaders in Jesus’ discourse with the churches in Ephesus and Pergamum and in his stern rebukes of the Pharisees.

Despite God’s strong feelings about human leaders, God and religion are still fully integrated and inseparable in the minds of religious people. In their minds, if they have religion, they have God. The have been taught to think that if they practice religion, they know God and have a relationship with him. Religionists believe that interacting with other like-minded believers in religious activity is equal to interacting with God because in religious fellowship they experience warm fuzzy feelings that they attribute to God. They conclude that if doing religion feels good emotionally and physically, God is pleased with them and blesses them with those warm fuzzy feelings. They like to think that what is happening to them is spiritual,  but it is really just their flesh responding to the social and psychological effects of doing something with other, like-minded people. Social scientists have observed these effects in the following research:

People who do not understand the difference between observable religion  and invisible faith believe that religion is absolutely necessary to acquiring knowledge of God and that worship of God is absolutely linked with the practice of religion. For religionists, this is the way it has always been. For the deeply religious, there is no room for consideration that it could ever be any different. This assumption works fine until we consider two matters.

Somehow this contradiction never enters the mind of religious people who claim to have faith. For those who are unwilling to quit religion, this creates a serious dilemma.

On the one hand, if they maintain their religious practices, they keep beliefs about their faith, and religion intact. They are willing to live with the contradiction. Such people are unable to admit that they might be wrong about their religion. This is evidence of the toxic hold religion has on them.

On the other hand, if they do quit religion, they must simultaneously admit that their earlier assumptions about God and religion being linked were false. And if they also recognize that they have always been directed in their religious activities by human religious leaders instead of by God, they  must also admit that they have always practiced deviant, Old/First Covenant religion and never were New Covenant disciples. More shocking still, they must admit that they have idolized those human leaders.

These are tough admissions for religious people to make. But people who have accepted these truths and have disengaged from toxic religion have made a critical step in the right direction toward becoming New Covenant disciples. If they don’t stall in their new-found freedom and continue to study to learn what it means to be New Covenant disciples, they will be taught by God directly and worship him without the aid of religion or a human teacher. That may not be what they had in mind when they quit religion, but that is what God has in mind for them and for those who have not yet quit religion. The Religious Detox Network is a resource for such people.

Another problem exists for those who are unwilling or unable to quit their religion. If they can’t or won’t quit, they show that they are addicted to their faith (i.e. religious doctrines and practices). Even if their religious history has been all good and even if they do not have a sense of experiencing any adverse circumstances because of religion, they prove that they are addicted when they categorically reject quitting or even modifying their religion. Such people are commonly called fundamentalists. Even when someone proves, or even suggests, to fundamentalists that religion is toxic to their spiritual health, they refuse to change and become even more resolved in their religion. They respond to such notions the same way that Pharisees responded to Jesus’ complaints about them.

Fundamentalists do not realize that it is possible to relate to God independent of religion. Their religion teaches that the only way to connect with God is through religion and that they need religious teachers to learn about God and his ways. They do not allow that God is able to connect with his people independently, without human assistance. In reality, they find God deficient in his ability to connect with and teach his people. In reality, they believe that they can do things that God cannot do. In reality, they set themselves above God. In reality, they make themselves to be gods.

This thinking is evidence that they are intoxicated with religious thinking. If they are unable to see or think in a way which is different than the way their religion tells them to think, they are addicted to the religion that controls their thinking. Thus they do not understand that the stories of Jesus healing blind men are parables that speak about them being cured from their addictions to religion. And, remaining blind to the truth that religion is a curse, they remain deceived in their belief that it is a virtue.

In other words, religion has taken over their thinking to the degree that the ability to even consider an alternative way of relating to God does not exist. They are in the great population of religious people who have eyes to see but do not see. This means that they can read the literal words of the Bible but do not interpret what they read with spiritual eyes.

In their self-righteousness, fundamentalists believe they are faithful to God but they are really only faithful to religious doctrines taught by men based on the literal words of the Bible. Being Old Covenant religionists who are taught only by men, they are not able to listen to God speaking to their heart according to the terms of the New Covenant. Holding fast as they do to these religious doctrines, fundamentalists have forfeited the ability to reason and apply free will while listening to God’s voice. The caution here is that if religion does your thinking for you, and if neither God nor anyone else can break through to change your mind or behaviors, you are addicted to religion.

That is bad news for people who remain tied to their religions. The good news is that people who have disengaged from religion are beginning to hear from God directly. The Religion Detox Network is a place for those ex-religionists to communicate to one another what they are hearing from God about leaving religion and listening to him only.

That is good for people who are in the process of quitting religion, but practicing religionists still have a dilemma that is complicated by convictions that the literal Bible justifies religious beliefs and behaviors. So what we seem to have is a situation which suggests that religious people are addicted to something that they are convinced God has instructed them to do — even though God actually instructs them very differently and tells them that he hates their sacrifices, offerings and assemblies that they convene in high places. This does not make sense at an intellectual level, but that is where religionists are and they are powerless to change their thinking — unless God intervenes and unless they are healed from their blindness.

These points about addiction to religion are so critical to spiritual health that they are worth repeating:

Finally, since God and religion are interchangeable in the eyes of religious people, they might argue that they are addicted to God. That is a fine-sounding religious argument but it does not make any sense because the basis of relationship with God is that people love him with their heart, mind, soul and strength.

Addiction to God does not fit into this pattern of love. God wants the love that people have for him to be from the heart and voluntary —  not compulsive and involuntary like an addiction. Loving God comes from awareness of his kindness in rescuing us from religion — not because we practice religion.

Love of God is an option that people can take or not, but addiction to religion is beyond control.