There I was, 14 years old, hands sweating as I held the microphone in front of about 80 other high school students from my Evangelical Christian youth group. It wasn’t being in front of my friends on stage that made me nervous. Except for the past several months, I had regularly sung worship songs on Sunday mornings as part of my youth group’s worship team. This time was different.
I was standing up on stage to explain why I hadn’t been a part of the worship team or student leadership since earlier that year. I vaguely heard the youth pastor calming everyone down and beginning announcements. “Before we get started with worship, Luke wishes to share something on his heart.”
My cue.
“As many of you have noticed,” I began, “I haven’t been leading worship for a while now…” I went on to explain, in front of my entire youth group, how I had been caught looking at pornography and had needed to take a “step back” from leadership. I had committed sexual sin, which is among the worst that anyone can commit. “…since I stopped looking at porn and masturbating, I noticed how strong my walk with God has been.”
This was not some punishment concocted by my pastor or parents. This confession was self-imposed. I believed that by publicly confessing my sin and showing my repentance of it to my peers that I could show how much God has freed me from my “addiction”.
“…because of Jesus’ forgiveness, I am no longer enslaved to this sin.”
Silence. Then applause. I got a damn standing ovation from all of the other students, the adult leaders and the youth pastor himself. It wasn’t true of course. I would watch porn later that afternoon, after which my shame returned, telling me that I would never be free and causing me to question if I truly believed in the God I said I served.
The version of Evangelical Christianity I grew up in was fixated on purity. We were taught to “guard our hearts,” save ourselves for marriage, and view our bodies as dangerous battlegrounds. Sexuality wasn’t something to understand; it was something to fear, repress, and confess. The emotional intensity of youth group culture, with the music, raised hands, and sermons about “dying to self,” created an atmosphere where vulnerability was celebrated but authenticity was punished.
When I stood on that stage, I wasn’t just confessing porn use; I was confessing to being human. That moment taught me that spiritual worth was earned through shame and redemption, a cycle that shaped how I understood love, forgiveness, and self-worth for years. It’s a pattern many of us internalized: believing we must break ourselves to be seen as whole. This is an example of religious trauma.
What Is Religious Trauma?
Religious trauma is what happens when faith systems, especially rigid or fear-based ones, which causes lasting emotional, psychological, or relational harm. It’s the aftermath of being told who you’re allowed to be, what you’re allowed to feel, and what it means to be “good.” It can look like shame that won’t go away, anxiety over moral failure, or a deep fear that you’re never enough for God. Many people who grew up in high-control or fundamentalist religious environments experience it without realizing there’s a name for it.
Religious trauma isn’t about faith itself being bad. For a lot of people, faith offers meaning and comfort. The harm comes from the misuse of spiritual authority. It happens when leaders, parents, or communities use fear, guilt, or exclusion to enforce obedience. Over time, that can distort a person’s sense of identity and safety in their own body and relationships.
For me, that moment on stage at fourteen was a perfect example of this. I believed confessing my “sin” was proof of freedom, but it was actually a form of spiritual self-harm; a public performance of repentance to earn belonging in a system that taught me I was broken by design.
Steps Toward Healing
Healing from religious trauma isn’t about throwing out everything that once mattered to you. It’s about reclaiming what was stolen from you by your religious trauma. This includes your ability to think, feel and make your own choices. For me, it started with allowing myself to question everything I’d been taught without assuming I was sinning just for asking. That permission alone was revolutionary.
You are not broken, depraved or evil at your core. Your heart is not deceitful. Your nature is not sinful. You are whole. All of you is here.
If you feel that religious trauma continues to impact your life in ways that are harmful, you are not alone. If this is something you would like to work on, I am taking new clients specifically for religious trauma issues.
