The Significance of Boundaries in Recovering from Controlling Religion
Unfortunately, high-control, high-demand, high-commitment churches are quite prevalent. These are religious communities that enforce rigid rules, don’t tolerate disagreement or questioning, and usually have authoritarian power structures. (Much of what happens in these spaces can also be called spiritual abuse.) While the wounds from controlling churches are often called “church hurt,” a more precise and helpful terms for these wounds is religious trauma because the long-lasting effects of controlling religion can linger in our minds and bodies long after we have physically left.
Recovering from controlling religion can be a challenge. The journey of healing is usually nuanced and multi-faceted. But while there is no one-size-fits-all formula for healing and empowerment after high-control religion, a crucial aspect of the recovery process is learning to establish healthy boundaries.
If you have been part of a controlling church, your boundaries have almost certainly been disregarded, manipulated, or violated in the name of faith, God, or spiritual authority. So as part of the healing process, it is essential to learn how to establish and maintain healthy boundaries that honor you. (The concept of honoring yourself may feel foreign and uncomfortable because in controlling churches we are often trained to think only of God and other people, never ourselves. This is why learning self-love is another foundational part of recovery.)
Boundaries are crucial tools for reclaiming your sense of self and your sense of agency after controlling religion.
In this blog post, we will explore:
- What Boundaries Are
- How Boundaries are Often Violated in Religious Spaces
- Why Learning Boundaries is Vital in Healing from Controlling Religion
- Practical Tips for Setting and Maintaining Boundaries
1. What are Boundaries?
Boundaries are metaphorical lines we draw around ourselves to define what is and isn’t acceptable to us in our interactions with others. Boundaries are not walls that block interaction completely. Instead, they are more like fences that we can see and talk through. Boundaries aren’t meant to block connection. In fact, the goal of boundaries is to make healthy connection possible!
Some relationships might be deserving of walls, but boundaries are more nuanced. They are a way that we care for ourselves while engaging in relationships. They are a way we build sustainable relationships. Rather than being all-or-nothing in a relationship or community, boundaries allow us balance separateness and connection in relationships in a way that is life-giving for us.
Each person’s boundaries are different, so boundaries do need to be both communicated and enforced by consequences to actually be effective.
Our view of what boundaries makes sense––and the whole concept of boundaries itself––is influenced by culture (communal cultures tend to encourage closer relationships and reliance on each other), gender (women are often socialized to think more about others than themselves), family norms, life experiences, etc. They are also influenced by our religious communities (more on this below).
Are Boundaries Selfish?
Some of us feel guilty about asserting boundaries others don’t like or having boundaries at all. If you feel like asserting distance between yourself and others is wrong, I invite you to explore why. What messages (spoken or unspoken) have you received about boundaries throughout your life? What do you feel is at stake if you assert boundaries that others disagree with? What is the cost of not having the boundaries you want?
Boundaries are a way of differentiating ourselves from others. Even in tight communities, we all need to maintain a level of personal responsibility and self-agency. That is, in fact, the way we can contribute best to the community.
As the only person inhabiting our physical body, we are the only ones ultimately responsible for our choices. While we can be close to others, but we are never interchangeable with them. If others seem to expect us to be them––to feel everything they feel, think everything they think, or believe or do everything they believe (or if they expect to feel, think, or believe everything we do), there is unhealthy enmeshment happening.
You can love someone and disagree with them. You can love someone and need space from them. These things are not mutually exclusive. Love requires choice, and choice requires the ability to freely say no and have space.
Many of us have been trained to see boundaries as selfish. But in fact, being clear about how we are separate from others and maintaining healthy separateness allows us to connect more fully with others––as a whole human being. It allows us to love others more fully, authentically, and sustainably.
2. How Boundaries are Often Violated in Religious Spaces
The very first story in the Bible prominently features boundaries: God separates light from dark, night from day, and land from water. In the second account of creation, God creates humans and gives them a boundary: they are not to eat from one tree in the garden. When they do, consequences follow.
Throughout the Bible, God clearly differentiates Godself from humans. God says God’s ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). God points out that God knows things and can do things we don’t and can’t (Job 38:4-7). In Genesis 1, God gives humans their own responsibilities and autonomy. God sets us the example of boundaries and separateness, even amidst deep, intimate connection and belonging.
We also see Jesus operate with boundaries: Jesus says no to people, Jesus separates himself to get alone time, Jesus allows people to disagree with him, Jesus invites people to follow him––to enter into intimate relationship with him––but he never blurs the line between himself and his disciples as separate people. Jesus sees people as distinct from himself and never violates people’s free will, their right to choose.
Not so in controlling churches.
In controlling religious spaces, the lines between people are blurred. Autonomy is undermined. Differentiation is discouraged. This can happen in a number of ways, many of which are subtle and hard to name when you are in the middle of the situation.
Here are a few common examples of how boundaries are violated in controlling churches:
First, disagreement is not tolerated.
This means people are not allowed to have their own opinions and viewpoints.
To contrast this briefly with what we see in the Bible: Moses, Abraham, Jeremiah, and many others question God and argue with God (see Psalm 10:1-2, for example); Jesus constantly enters into debates and discussions about what is right, what is best, what it means to honor God, etc. (see Matthew 15:21-28).
God doesn’t actually expect or require unquestioning obedience. Of course we should ask questions. Asking questions is a valuable way we learn. If you’re not asking questions, you’re not fully using your brain. And God never tells us to shut down our brains. Instead, what we see in the Bible itself is God encouraging honest and open dialogue. Jesus teaches, he never force-feeds information.
In controlling religious spaces, however, there is an insistence on strict adherence to certain beliefs, ways of living, and social norms. There is intolerance for questioning the leadership’s decisions or teachings. Often people who question are given negative labels to turn the spotlight back on them––they might be called “divisive,” “dishonoring,” or “immature,” or be said to be struggling with some kind character or sin issue. There might even be serious consequences for people who voice disagreement––they might be publicly humiliated, punished, or excommunicated.
Second, church leaders are overly involved in personal decisions.
This takes away the freedom to make personal choices and explore options.
Religious leaders might tell people who they should and shouldn’t date or marry. They might pressure people to live in a certain city, read certain books, abide by certain dress codes, follow particular eating/drinking habits etc. They almost always pressure or guilt people to give of their time, energy, and finances to the church. These usually aren’t suggestions, but something more akin to commands (though that language may or may not be used).
This type of pressure doesn’t respect a person’s ability to say no, to be separate, or to make their own choices.
Teaching people a certain way of life is good and God-honoring is one thing. Inviting people to serve at church is one thing. Pressuring or guilting people to live a certain way is another. Controlling churches pressure people by making belonging to the community conditional, treating people differently if they don’t comply, and/or speaking contemptuously about people who make different decisions.
Third, people are pressured to share intimate details of their lives.
This takes away privacy, a very important form of separateness.
This pressure can happen in the guise of healing. People might be told they need to confess their sins with others in order to be fully healed. It can happen in the guise of care. People might be pressured to share intimate details of their lives so they can be prayed for. Often people are not only pressured to share in private conversations, which can be uncomfortable enough, but are pressured to share publicly.
Those who hesitate to divulge some personal information might be accused of “not trusting,” “living out of fear,” “lacking faith,” “not going deep in relationships,” “blocking themselves from healing,” or simply “not living the way God intended.”
Trust should be earned. And that takes time. It should never be forced.
Trust is always a choice. Some people or institutions are not worthy our trust, and it is good not to trust them! While James does say, “Confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed” (James 4:17––he is talking specifically about physical healing by the way, if that’s significant for anyone to know), Jesus also “didn’t entrust himself to the people because he knew all people” (John 2:24), and we are often wise to follow Jesus’ example.
These three boundary violations are just a few ways that boundaries are often disregarded and disrespected in controlling religious spaces. The gist of the matter is that people aren’t allowed to be separate. They aren’t given the freedom to determine how intimately they want to engage in the community. Manipulation, pressure, bullying, and disrespect in toxic church communities keep people from being able to choose to engage in the community from a place of autonomy and authenticity.
3. Why Learning Boundaries is Vital in Healing from Controlling Religion
Learning boundaries is just one component needed to heal from controlling religion, but it is an important one.
When we become enmeshed with others––whether in a one-on-one relationship or with an entire community––we lose our sense of self. Who we are becomes wrapped up in that person, community, or institution. If that person is upset, we’re upset. If the church community has a moral stance on something, we have that stance. It’s automatic. We don’t even consider the possibility of being different.
As humans, we are innately communal. We need belonging and connection to survive. We can’t feel whole without those things. In close relationships, people naturally influence each other. Our friends rub off on us. Being part of a religious community can cause certain terms to slip into our vocabulary.
That kind of influencing of each other is not enmeshment, that’s normal. (Although if the influence is only one-sided, that might be worth examining.)
Enmeshment is when we are unable to differentiate ourselves from another, to ever disagree or be separate.
Intimate community or enmeshed?
Perhaps your whole identity didn’t become tied to your controlling church, but certain parts did. Perhaps you can differentiate yourself in some ways, but when it comes to particular areas of your life, such as how you view morality, God, sexuality, earning, work, belonging, marriage, loyalty, purpose, love, etc, you feel discomfort at the idea of having an opinion different from what you were taught.
The ways we lose ourselves to a controlling church culture can be subtle. It can take time to unlearn all the various layers. And we don’t have to unlearn everything all at once. Even just realizing and owning that you are a separate person from a church community or church leaders is huge.
In case you need a reminder today: You don’t have to believe, experience, or do all the things your religious community does or that your loved ones do. You get to choose your level of closeness in relationships. And you have the God-given ability to protect your own sense of peace and well-being.
4. Practical Tips for Learning Boundaries after Controlling Religion
Here are some practical tips from my own experience and the experiences of others I’ve walked with:
1) Start with your mindset.
Often learning boundaries starts in our minds first. Learning something new can be scary, so it can be helpful to test things out privately in our imaginations before taking the risk of putting them into action in real relationships.
For example, the first step in learning to openly disagree with other people (perhaps even spiritual leaders––perhaps even spiritual leaders you respect!) is simply realizing in your own mind, in the privacy of your own thoughts, that you disagree. Doing this allows you to privately accept yourself and your ability to disagree. It gives you space to get accustomed to this new normal before actually voicing your disagreement out loud and needing to navigate the potential consequences that may follow.
2) Practice with safe people.
Identify people in your life that you can practice having honest conversations with and putting up boundaries with. Less intimate relationships might be easier in some cases, because it might feel like less is at stake. In other cases, those who’ve known and loved you the longest might feel the easiest to practice this with.
Reminder: Even with safe people, doing something new will feel uncomfortable at first. It might feel embarrassing to admit that you don’t like something that you have silently tolerated for years. It’s normal to feel nervous or awkward about any new thing in the beginning. That’s why we’re practicing.
You can start with being more honest in small ways. You can even start with something that seems silly like, “I actually don’t like that restaurant” or “I’m not sure what you mean when you send this emoji.”
Then, you can move to the next step of communicating small boundaries: “I’m trying to go to bed earlier, so I’m not going to respond to texts after 10pm from now on” or “Thanks for the invitation, but I’m gonna pass.”
As you exercise this muscle of communicating boundaries, it will feel more natural. As you have positive experiences communicating boundaries to safe people, your confidence in being able to handle these situations will grow.
3) Practice saying no.
Sometimes boundaries might feel a little complicated. It might take time to even identify what exact boundary we want or need or why exactly we feel uncomfortable in a certain relational dynamic, much less to communicate that well and enforce the boundary effectively.
Saying no is a really simple, straight-forward boundary that doesn’t have to be complicated to enforce, so it can be a great place to start.
Just practice saying no to things that you don’t want to do. You don’t even have to give an explanation, but if you feel more comfortable doing so, you can use something simple like, “Sorry, I won’t be able to.” You can also google suggestions for your specific situation. (Googling how to reject guys who asked me on dates was super helpful for me in my love life.)
4) Practice following through.
There are 3 basic steps to boundaries:
- Figuring out what boundaries you want
- Communicating those boundaries to others
- Enforcing your boundaries if they aren’t respected
Often we forget about the 3rd step. Again, it will probably feel uncomfortable at first, but don’t be hard on yourself in the process of learning. It is indeed a process, and every attempt, even failed attempts, are part of that process.
Enforcing boundaries might mean having to repeat your no. It might mean having to put up a wall (such as stopping responding to someone’s texts). Enforcing boundaries effectively requires being willing to enact consequences. So if someone won’t stop talking to you in that certain tone you told them you don’t like, you come up with a consequence: you won’t engage in the conversation until they change their tone.
5) Remember: You are allowed to change your mind.
You are allowed to change your mind about what boundaries you want at any time. You are not beholden to whatever you wanted yesterday or last year. People change, and that’s part of the fun of life. In the moment, you always have the autonomy and right to communicate a new boundary or to even figure out what you need in real time. And if someone tries to guilt or shame you for doing that, I would examine whether they are a safe person you want to stay close to.
Conclusion
The wounds, patterns, and ingrained habits from controlling church culture can go very deep. It usually takes time to even become aware of the extent to which toxic church culture has affected us. A very common effect of controlling churches, however, is feeling guilty about asserting boundaries and struggling with enmeshment in relationships.
Growing in awareness is the first step to reclaiming your personal agency and power. So if you’re aware of this struggle, you’ve already made significant progress. The next steps are changing your mindset about boundaries and learning to do boundaries. I hope you find the above suggestions helpful as you keep taking those next steps of growth.
If you are looking for a healthy church or other form of deep community, I suggest adding their attitude toward boundaries and actual practice of boundaries to the list of criteria you consider. Do they respect differences of opinion and everyone’s right to separateness and privacy? Do they invite you into intimacy or pressure you into it?
If you have found yourself isolating a lot since your harmful church experiences, that makes a lot of sense and might be needed for a season, but also isn’t a sustainable way of life in the long-run. Thinking about what boundaries you need in order to engage more socially can be one way of considering next steps in growing toward healthy relationships.
For those who want to go deeper in this subject, I have listed some resources below.
RESOURCES: The book Boundaries by psychologists Cloud and Townsend is a Christian classic that provides biblical support for asserting boundaries in relationships. For practical tips on navigating the complex world of boundaries, Nedra Tawwab has created a card game that helps you practice setting boundaries in various contexts. You can also check out her book Set Boundaries, Find Peace.
Elizabeth Meeshim Hogsten helps people find spiritual clarity and navigate the dating world after church hurt. She is a spiritual abuse survivor with a Master’s of Divinity who believes in the healing powers of divine love, radical self-embrace, and persistent curiosity.
To learn more about working with Elizabeth, click here or email coaching.eliz@gmail.com to set up a free 15-minute consult.
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