Spiritual Bypassing
How I stopped the generational cycle of giving God the glory and Satan the honorable mention
To God be the glory, great things He hath done,
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
And opened the life-gate that all may go in.
Praise the Lord.
“To God Be the Glory Great Things He Has Done”
I have this hymn playing in my head. Make it stop. The people that I come from would say, “That’s the Holy Spirit trying to speak to you. Maybe you should listen.” It couldn’t possibly be that in reading books on Evangelical history and writing snippets of my story… I’m digging up sediment - the leftovers from a previous life that need to be stirred up to be filtered out.
Spiritual Bypassing is a core feature of the Evangelical Christian life. You will find it lined up right beside morning devotions, daily prayer, Bible study, and weekly church attendance.
Originally penned by psychotherapist John Welwood, spiritual bypassing is “the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks” (Caplan, 2019, p. 164).
This is why so many adults raised in high-control religions (ie the evangelical church) find it incredibly difficult to grow. The very core of childlike faith is to be so absorbed in the god narrative - that the growth narrative is lost.
For me, all of this family and church history of spiritual bypassing meant I entered adulthood not knowing HOW to establish boundaries, give consent, speak up for myself, stop people-pleasing & codependency, engage in restorative communication, own my triumphs and mistakes while not blaming the damn devil every time something didn’t go as planned.
Or pleading with God to make all things new…
“God blessed me with a front row spot at the grocery store this week…” or “The devil is attacking our marriage.”
Recently, I was sifting through a Facebook page for the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) denomination’s local district. It’s fascinating to me to wander back on the fringe to see what has changed in the last 15 years. The answer to that question is NOT MUCH.
Throughout the FB posts requesting prayer by church leaders is the common thread of the “enemy” (read this as Satan, Lucifer, the Devil) putting up barriers, tempting the church leaders, and throwing off the work of the church. Evangelical consensus is that church work is God’s work so anything counter to that has to be Satan’s maneuvering and thwarting.
It’s like they took those Frank Perretti books to heart… (spot the 1980/90s Evangelical church cultural reference)
Or maybe they so desperately need to be like Jesus tempted in the desert… that every life obstacle has become an honorable mention to Lucifer.
Does an Evangelical’s life have value if Job-like suffering and the Devil’s temptation are not a part of it?
The problem with giving God the glory and Satan the honorable mention is that folks get stuck in emotional and spiritual immaturity while thinking they are all grown up.
They look like adults but they don’t know how to be adults.
‘‘Can you face your life as it is; can you look at all the pain and darkness as well as the power and light in the human soul, and still say yes?’’ -John Welwood (Caplan, 2019, p.163)
Five ways to identify spiritual bypassing and how to stop the spread:
Give yourself credit for your achievements. You did the hard work. You showed up. There doesn’t need to be a godslobber reason for your wins. Those are yours.
When an inconvenience becomes about the devil… step back and evaluate the true source. Life is simply life. Messy happens. What is yours to own and what is just life being life? What if you left the Devil out of it?
Learn to identify your emotions and needs as valid. Spiritual bypassing is about disconnecting from ourselves and not trusting our emotions. You are not desperately wicked and deceitful. Neither is your heart. Stop giving Hebrew poetry so much value as you navigate your very real life. You have anger and sadness for a reason. Pay attention and listen to what your emotions are trying to teach you.
“Emotions may help wake us up to what is happening in our lives by indicating where we most need to work on ourselves to become balanced and integrated. And, since they are expressions of our own life energy, experiencing them in a direct and mindful way can help us to feel ourselves more deeply” (Welwood, 1979, p. 141).
Doing the hard work of navigating healthy relationships without surrendering to unhealthy coping mechanisms. Relationships built on the sinking sand of spiritual bypassing lack depth and healthy connection. If you are not sure what that looks like, I am responsible for my actions and words in relationships. Not the devil. Not God. Me. When I own my emotions and reactions, when I can identify my triggers and pride, it becomes easier to nonviolently communicate with others. I learned from Evangelicals how to be lazy in relationships. We left it all on the altar for God on Sunday but then had to live our lives every other day of the week. They did not teach me how to own my emotions, wants, and needs in relationships. They did not teach me restorative, nonviolent communication. I had to find these tools for myself.
In spiritual bypassing, we are taught to hand everything to God - trusting him to work all things together for our good. But what if we hold on to it as our own? What happens if instead of expecting a giant warlord in the sky to make all things work for good - we learned how to work the good ourselves? It’s harder to own it and do the work if I have to trust myself to get it done. “Aliveness is our most fundamental experience of ourselves - being present to life at this moment with an open receptivity, which, like a mirror, generously reflects whatever appears in front of it. It is our most intimate experience” (Welwood, 1979, p. 143).
Spiritual bypassing keeps us from living fully awake and fully alive. It numbs us at the feet of a god or a way of living that gives credit for all good things to a divine being and an honorable mention to a villainous myth.
I want to live fully awake and fully alive even when it hurts. I have found I cannot do that behind the curtain of Evangelical faith.
J.
*References:
Caplan, M. (2019). John Welwood: March 12, 1943-January 17, 2019. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 51(2), 163–165.
Welwood, J. (1979). Befriending emotion: Self-knowledge and transformation. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 11(2), 141.