Losing My Religion
Unpacking some of my generational trauma
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I blocked someone recently.
“Just one person?” I hear you say. Touché, gentle reader.
True, this individual is certainly not the only person I've blocked since the inauguration. In most cases, I'm able to block and move on, but that wasn't happening this time around. Something else was still needling me. The more I thought and wrote about it, I realized my decision to block wasn’t just due to her choice to remain silent about the state of our country while maintaining a platform (for the record, this person isn't in a vulnerable position; she's a white woman and not a federal worker). I mean, I had already pulled away from/blocked several people who fit that description, so what made her different?
The proverbial straw for me was when this person shouted out a Christian influencer on her Instagram — a Christian influencer who has ties to Kirk Cameron. Kirk Cameron, for those of you who don't follow the trajectory of washed-up 1980s heartthrobs, is now a born-again Christian with a history of preaching homophobic and, during the pandemic, anti-masking rhetoric. The guy is a vile human being, and if you really paid attention to your TV history, then you'd know that he's been this way for 30+ years.
He allegedly had his Growing Pains girlfriend, played by actress Julie McCullough, fired from the popular ABC sitcom because her past as a Playboy cover girl didn't jibe with his evangelical Christian beliefs. I also have a clear memory of Cameron's TV dad Alan Thicke relating an anecdote in 2001 on E! True Hollywood Story where he once warned the increasingly holier-than-thou star that he would likely have to shift to Christian programming if he kept up this sanctimonious shit.
Which is exactly what Cameron did.
But every now and then, he would also shoot his mouth off about LGBTQ+ people. Sometimes, several of Cameron’s fellow former child actors would push back exquisitely:
So, yeah, Kirk Cameron is trash.
It wasn’t just the Kirk Cameron-adjacent shout-out that was nagging me, though. After some soul-searching, I hit on the answer: I was triggered by the person I blocked because religion is a central pillar of her life.
And I've had a lot of small "t" trauma when it comes to religion.
(I still hold firm on my decision to block this person because Kirk Cameron is a reprehensible human being, and praising people who DON'T think he's awful is equally abhorrent.)
Self-righteous and exclusionary attitudes have dominated a lot of my religious experiences. I’ve always been much happier when I didn’t let my life be dictated by rules, laws, and rituals that I've never been able to believe in, hard as I tried. As a result, I don't trust people who are knee-deep in their preferred religion.
Now, most of my trauma comes from my Jewish upbringing. But one thing I've learned is that this kind of religious trauma is everywhere. It's in Judaism. It's in Catholicism. It's in Protestantism. It's in Islam. It's in [insert your religion here].
From the moment I was old enough to date, I remember my mother encouraging me to marry a Jewish man, her view being that with all the challenges that come with marriage, the last thing I wanted was to introduce yet another potential challenge. Makes sense from a logical point of view. After nearly 23 years together, nearly 17 years of marriage, and one incredible daughter, my husband and I sure do have a ton of challenges.
But you know the one thing that’s never been a problem for us? Differing religions.
We’ve created a pretty nifty Jewyorican life for ourselves: My husband is a lapsed Catholic, and we love celebrating both Jewish and Christian holidays our way: Enjoying family, food, friends, fun, and love. We do our best to teach our daughter about both of our upbringings, but since we've never felt a deep bond with the religious aspects of our backgrounds, we don't feel anything is missing.
My husband wolfs down gefilte fish (bleh!) every Rosh Hashanah, and I love decorating our family’s Christmas tree.
(To me, having a tree doesn’t feel “Christian” at all, because as my husband once told me, it’s more of a pagan symbol anyway.)
I hesitated going down the religion rabbit hole this week because I get that it’s a touchy subject for many people. But I ask you to please stick with me, because while I don't expect to tie this topic up in a neat little bow, something tells me my story is going to resonate with at least some of you.
Also, while I may not subscribe to much in the way of religion, I do believe in signs. And I stumbled across two of them this week:
The first one was this Instagram reel my husband shared featuring Lemmy Kilmister. In it, the late Motörhead frontman proclaimed, "Believe in rock and roll -- it's the only religion that never lets you down."
As a rock-music-loving Gen-Xer, I had to admit Lemmy was spot-on.
The other sign was this article posted over at
:
While I don’t believe that all religious people belong to cults, I do feel that it’s easy to fall into the cultish trap the more religion controls your life.
As with most heavy subjects, I'm not looking to answer any huge questions or resolve any major conflicts with this one post, but to quote Julia Roberts' Katherine Watson, I’m asking you to merely consider what I'm saying.
Religion has always been a source of contention for me, even though, strangely enough, it's the only form of heritage, background, or ethnicity I have. I'm the great-granddaughter of Polish Jews who emigrated to the United States shortly after the First World War. My family and I are Ashkenazi Jews: primarily Eastern European Jews whose native tongue was Yiddish (a German dialect written in Hebrew letters). I know very little about my "Polish" ancestry, just my Jewish ancestry. Regardless, I am proud of my culture and identity.
My inner conflict with religion stems from my maternal grandparents, who were the children of the aforementioned immigrants. My grandfather, like so many people his age, fought the Nazis in the Second World War, so it’s reasonable that after the war he went all in on a pro-Israel stance and making his local Orthodox synagogue central to his life and community.
Unfortunately, this was the mid-20th century, and back then (and now, sigh), dudes didn't go to therapy. As someone who has spent many of her adult years in therapy, I believe my grandparents (and most likely, my great-grandparents) are the source of my generational trauma. My entire childhood and young adult life, I felt that much of my Jewish upbringing was due to my grandfather’s unbending directives. And whenever we visited my grandparents, suddenly we had to act like good, observant Jewish people who followed all the rules and kept kosher (which we didn’t).
I grew up unable to embrace any sort of beauty or love in my religion, because everything felt like something I was obligated to do. I felt no connection to anything. Synagogue services were long and boring, and Hebrew School was populated by mean girls.
(My dad, although Jewish, never embraced his heritage/religion either. All of my Jewish experiences were primarily through my mother and her extended family.)
We never explored the nuances of Judaism, so I had a hard time understanding why we performed the rituals we did. I also spent many years witnessing bigoted, racist, and intolerant behavior from the religious Jewish people I knew. When I arrived at Brandeis University for my undergrad, I learned that it wasn't just my Orthodox grandparents and certain extended family members who held these attitudes. Many of the Orthodox students showcased the same beliefs. Case in point: I had one “Ortho” friend who was so smug and self-righteous that she told me she wouldn't attend my wedding if I dared to ever marry someone who wasn't Jewish.
Our friendship ended soon afterward.
Eventually, I fell in love with a Puerto Rican man, Andy, who was raised Catholic. He was welcomed into my nuclear family with open arms. For the record, my parents and siblings have always accepted my life choices. I’m so grateful for their love — and that they’re on the right side of history (my parents and sibs all voted for Kamala Harris).
Sadly, the two people who wouldn't accept Andy were my maternal grandparents. It wasn’t surprising, but it was still difficult for me to understand that my (loving?) grandparents couldn’t embrace the man I adored for one reason: He wasn’t Jewish. To be fair, my grandfather only met Andy once before he died (though his last words to him were, "Next we'll talk about you converting!"). But my grandmother, who lived a sheltered, Jewish-only existence, didn't have the critical-thinking skills to accept our interfaith love, and it broke my heart. She treated Andy with disdain — even after we got engaged — and only apologized for her atrocious behavior mere hours before she died.
The truth is, everywhere I look, I see so much destruction and heartache caused in the name of religion: The war in Gaza is a perfect example. Trust me, this shit has been going on since well before October 7, 2023. Conan O’Brien did an excellent bit on the region’s tumultuous history back in 2017:
So many American Jews like me received a one-sided history lesson about Israel from our Hebrew Schools, and I’m still trying to educate myself on what I wasn’t taught. Today, my stance is as follows: I believe in a two-state solution. I don't believe the nation of Israel should be dissolved, but I do believe the Palestinian people deserve autonomy.
I believe in both the Israeli people and the Palestinian people, but I am 100% against:
Hamas
Benjamin Netanyahu and his fascist government
The destruction of Gaza at the hands of the IDF
Sidenote: Please read the story of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and Tufts graduate student who was disappeared by ICE for supporting Palestine. This is wrong, plain and simple.
I also can’t say I’ve found much comfort in religion when loved ones have passed away. Too often, clergy people who preside over funeral services either don’t know the deceased or don’t care enough to put in any effort. Clergy people are supposed to provide emotional and spiritual support to the bereaved. When they don’t, the proceedings come off as impersonal and boilerplate:
My mother-in-law devoted her life to her local Catholic church, and when she passed, her beloved priest referred to her by the wrong name at her own funeral.
The rabbi at my paternal grandmother’s funeral — who didn’t know my grandmother — made her out to be little more than a materialistic shopper. (She wasn’t.)
The priest at my friend’s husband’s funeral last week sounded like he was reading from a script. He mentioned no personal details and referred to Mike as “A husband, a son, and a friend.” Pretty damn shameful considering Mike was also a father.
If you’ve found comfort in your religion, I am genuinely happy for you. But I personally see nothing but damage, chaos, and intolerance when people make religion a central pillar of their lives.
Don’t get me started on the Mormon mommy vloggers, like convicted child abuser Ruby Franke.
You know what I’d love to see? For those who do have a thorough understanding of religion and the Bible, consider using their knowledge to poke holes in MAGA’s Christian nationalist rhetoric. Especially the recent establishment of the White House Faith Office, as well as a task force to counter what Donald Trump calls "anti-Christian bias" in the federal government.
As long as you don’t use the Trump Bible to do so.
Does religion feature prominently in your life? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments.
As always, thank you so much for reading.
—Sarene
The Critical Communicator is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
So much here I resonate with regarding religion. Especially Kirk Cameron (yuck) I grew up in a very evangelical family where we’d go to weird, ticketed, mega church gatherings in football stadiums. My grandmother religiously watched televangelist programs and loved Left Behind (starring Kirk). I feel like a lot of this essay was speaking right to me.
Sarene, I went to Brandeis undergrad too! Maybe that's why you seem so familiar me. :-) I'm a bit older than you though - graduated 1995 - curious if we overlapped at all! I lived in East quad and then Ziv and then the mods!