The Trauma-Informed Gospel, Pt 1

Identifying sin, identifying us.

All right, let’s get this trauma-informed Gospel party started! This post serves as the intro and will really help as we dig into my interpretation of our relationship with God as portrayed in the story of creation, the fall, and redemption through the lens of trauma.

What is sin?

My short answer: sin is misalignment from Love. Let me explain:

What we know as the “original sin” is not in fact what resulted in the fall of man. The sinful eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was actually the first symptom (or first fruit, if you will) of something else.

What came first was the “original trauma.” The event that caused the trauma was Eve being convinced of something other than the truth of her identity of wholeness, and this was the separation of humankind from our source (God [aka Love]), and from our Selves (our true identity in God [aka, also Love]), and this separation caused the sin.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die’.’
But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.“
Genesis 3:1-6

Trauma is not just a terrible event that happens to a person, trauma transpires when events rewire the brain of a person to cause them to self-identify as unloveable, worthless, broken, and rejected – it’s the installation of a belief system of separation, shame, and danger. This belief system causes us pain, and to deal with it we will find ways, or coping mechanisms, to soothe ourselves – to try to get our needs met or ease our hurt. Some of us can cope fairly well, living in thought and behavior loops that don’t do too much obvious damage to ourselves or others. Some of us hurt so badly that we try to avoid feeling altogether, because the feelings are overwhelming and dangerous, and our coping mechanisms and mental/behavioral loops take on a different and more destructive flavor. However, whether more damaging or less, chronic avoidance of chronic pain – emotional or physical – results in addiction to whatever makes a person feel safe, or powerful, or free, or happy, or at the very least, numb to that pain.

But whether they be garden-variety coping mechanisms or full-blown and broadly-understood-as-addiction addictions, any behavior that stems from a place other than the truth of who we are in Christ is sin. All the sins of this world that we see and experience and participate in are the symptoms of our trauma of separation – they grow out of the misbelief, disbelief, and unbelief which that separation produces in us. It isn’t sin because we are big-S, proper noun “Sinners” and horrible people who are rebellious toward God from a place of authentic understanding of ourselves and then rejection of him – it isn’t sin because these behaviors are congruent with our identities, it’s sin because these behaviors are contrary to our identities.

Jesus answered them, '“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who
practices sin is a slave to sin.’’John 8:34

"While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

But wait, aren’t we sinners?

Sure, if we are practicing sin. But we've mistakenly given the power of identity to the word "sinner" which is absurd. For example, "dead," as it applies to the deceased (whether spiritually or physically), is an adjective, describing a state of being. "Dead" is not ever a proper noun; it's not an identity, just like “corpse” isn’t an identity. Likewise with us, being dead in our sin, both "dead" and "sinner" can be correctly used to describe our states of being, but neither have any bearing on our true identities.

The popular "gospel" that gets preached like is this: "you're a sinner BUT! Jesus died for your sins so you could be right with God! So, quick! Realize your badness and how you can never measure up and ask Jesus to come into your heart and help you be better!" and is dependent on the belief that both "dead" and "sinner" are proper nouns, are our identities. This makes receiving the grace of God very sticky, indeed, as we struggle with the cognitive dissonance of being bad, unworthy people that somehow a good God loves, and when this math ain’t mathin’ we try to make up the difference by acting how we think a “good” Christian should act, and so the Christian life becomes "I identify as a sinner, but now with behavior modifications! Well, I'm trying to be worthy of what Jesus has done for me, at least."

What I'm saying instead is that sin and death instead describe an abnormal state of being – of misalignment from our true identity. I'm also saying that our true identity is Christ. He calls us by his own name, and the fullness of that name isn't sin and death. Our identity and the perfect truth of who God created us to be is Love, and sin is just anything misaligned from Love. It's not a case of switching identities from "Sinner" to "Saint." It's a case of God revealing himself, and therefore our self, to us; and in receiving the truth of what he says, then casting off the imposter, "Sinner,” trying to pass itself off as us.

An overview of the whole story through this lens is here.

"And behold, He saw that it was very good." Genesis 1 (after God added the humans He created to take after Himself to His creation.)

"But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine... everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." Isaiah 43:1, 7, and by golly the whole gosh darn chapter.

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, for whom every family in heaven and on earth is named..." Ephesians 3:14-15

“…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…” Ephesians 4:13

"For all who are led by the Spirit of God (in love, joy, and peace) are sons of God (even the daughters of God would be classified this way, "son" signifying "heir"). For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs– heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." Romans 8:14-17 

"And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for, 'In him we live and move and have our being'; even as some of your own poets have said, 'for we are indeed his offspring.'" Acts 17:26-28