In the course of getting ourselves kicked out of church we started to see a pattern of behavior. We referenced it briefly in the All the Problems of the World… post, where we said:

We’ve written about, and will write more about, this topic – but the summary is, people think that if someone near them is doing behavior X, it will cause them pain. They think that if someone near them is misbehaving according to God, then they will feel pain from God as a result.

This is an old, old cultural scar. Homophobia, racism, legalism, basically all kinds of hatred are examples of this. It’s a lie that people believe and respond to: “I need to control you, or something bad will happen to me. I need you to be what I think God wants, or we won’t be safe.”

We’ve gone over and over the ground of how people try to keep themselves safe. We even know part of why people do this – because of the one fear, the fear of being alone because of who you truly are. We do crazy, damaging things trying to keep ourselves and our relationships safe – and we do crazy, damaging things trying to make the people around us into our definition of safe as a result.

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