Want to know what scares me almost more than anything else?
Dentists
I think I’m not alone in this. Let’s face it. Nobody goes to the dentist for pleasure. I think I might have a deeper fear than some others though. It’s a childhood fear having to do with my upper right front tooth. When I was ten years old, I was pushed lips first into a cinderblock wall by two bullies. That tooth broke and for the next dozen years I underwent multiple procedures in an effort to have a permanent false tooth. I finally got my permanent tooth when I was twenty two years old after my last temporary one broke. The procedure involved grinding down the broken tooth to a small stump. Also a root canal with pins inserted into the bone to give the permanent tooth a good foundation. It was a good fix and the tooth still serves me well twenty five years later. The problem is, I was so nervous about going to the dentist after that (in 1995) that I didn’t go again until I had a horrible toothache from multiple cavities in 2018. I went again a couple of weeks ago to deal with another four cavities. I still don’t like going there, but the fear is slowly going away.
Fear is an interesting thing. It can be helpful to be fearful of reasonable things in order to keep us save and alive. We can also develop unreasonable fears, which are counterproductive and keep us from living healthy, joyful lives. Neuroscientists tell us that the prefrontal cortex and amygdala in your brain are responsible for fear based responses. When we have a traumatic experience, It causes us, when triggered, to bypass reason and engage the fight/flight response. It is automatic, just like when you burn yourself and your hand moves away from the hot object before you can even process what happened.
One of these unreasonable and unhelpful—even detrimental fears that we can have, is religious, existential fear. I always find it interesting…also frustrating, how when I end up having a conversation about theology with my family and friends who still believe that God punishes most of His created beings in an eternal torture chamber called Hell, most times they just shut down. Fear and anger are triggered and they simply cannot have a calm, rational conversation anymore. They do not want to hear information that is contrary to what they have been taught all of their lives.
Why is there such a fear based response to the good news that God is actually as nice as Jesus and that He is more like a restorative doctor than a retributive judge? Why are the religious fundamentalists not jumping for joy that the gospel really is good news? Why can’t they listen when I show them how historically, exegetically, morally and philosophically, the idea of eternal punishment is man-made, unreasonable and just plain untenable? What keeps them from being excited and hopeful that the gospel is not only an eschatology, but a present reality of universal restoration?
Most of these people have been taught as I was—as young, impressionable children that there is an all powerful being out there who is rather disappointed with you because you were born sinful. Of course it doesn’t matter that you were apparently thrust into existence apart from personal consent and immediately burdened with original sin which wasn’t even your fault. Of course the only way to escape the infinite, unimaginable torture which lasts forever (the human brain cannot even process the concept of infinity) is to believe the correct idea about God in a world with thousands of ideas about God. Of course it gives you an advantage if you are born in the right country and into the right family. And what you have to believe, is that God can’t forgive without being paid off first—which doesn’t really even make sense. God killed His own son (who is also God) and got it out of His system so that He doesn’t have to punish you. But if you don’t believe this, He will STILL punish you! Forever!
Teaching children this nonsense is child abuse.
This kind of mental trauma gets stuck in the prefrontal cortex. There is irrational fear when confronted later on in life with ideas of a God who really is love and cannot coerce, or hate, or punish retributively or behave an any way that is not love. They are actually scared that God will punish them for listening to these ideas. Reason is bypassed and the fight/flight response kicks in.
What’s the solution?
Patience.
Trauma like that takes time to heal. The more I go to the dentist to fix the years of neglect to my teeth, the more I realize that he is there for my healing and restoration. The punishment I endure is not comfortable, but he is working to ultimately take away my pain and to give me a better life. I’m less nervous every time I book an appointment.
You will never change a religious persons mind by arguing with them. Believe me…I’ve tried that and it does not work! I’m realizing as time goes on that the only way to convince these people, is to patiently be God’s love to them. To meet them where they are and accept them as they are, ironically without the agenda of convincing them. Perhaps as they experience God’s unconditional love from you, they will come to understand that no matter how loving you are, God is far more loving. One day they might come to the life changing realization that one simply cannot overestimate God’s love and mercy. From my own experience I can say that once I felt safe, my mind was ready to learn what my heart had always known!
Now the healing can begin as the divine dentist is able to extract the toxic decay of poor theology and self identity, leading them to wholeness of life.
This is salvation!