The Cognitive Dissonance of Faith
As a theatre director, poet and writer , I’ve come to learn a thing or two about suspending disbelief. After all, my job kinda depends on it. What folks might not know, though, is that my experience in that particular aspect of theatre actually predates me ever setting foot near a stage. It was, in fact, the first time I decided to stop stepping foot in church. And today, after reading an…interesting article by local Christian writer Akilah Holder, I’m reminded of all of those feelings.
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If you’ve read the article…I should apologize. It’s bad, in more ways than one - a horrible article, about a horrible idea. Holder argues that LGBT rights advocates in the Caribbean and around the world suffer from a kind of cognitive dissonance - a conflict between their ‘immoral behavior’ and the person they think they are. In the article, she likens sexual rights advocacy to, of all things, the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
And what stands out to me immediately is how dissonant her own words are.
“You see, to borrow the words of Degruy Leary..., “the difference between their actions” (engaging in immoral, deviant and abnormal sexual behavior), “and their beliefs about themselves” (morally good, normal and sane individuals) is “so great and the cognitive dissonance so painful, that they were obliged to go to great lengths in order to survive their own” deviant “behavior.””
Now, for those who don’t know, I left the church when I was very young. I’ve since come back to my childhood Anglican faith…in my own way, at least, but from my early teens to my mid twenties, I identified as atheist, after witnessing terrifying acts of bigotry and hatred from some believers. Not just towards LGBT people, but those who advocated for sex education and abortion, those who stood for the freedom of other religions…
What was so interesting to me at that time (but also made it so frustrating to have conversations with those ‘Christians’) was that they were convinced that it was that same bigotry that made them good, God-fearing people. Take Akilah Holder, for instance - she no doubt believes that if she didn’t take every chance she got to say that LGBT people are immoral people trying to corrupt civilization as we know it, she would not be a good person. And she’s sure she’s a good Christian woman, of course. She’s never thought long enough about how her words against LGBT people work to increase the risk of risky sexual behavior, or drive teens to commit suicide, or in fact alienate LGBT people and their families from communities of faith.
I had a friend of mine say to me, about my atheism and LGBT activism, “The most loving thing I can do for you is tell you you’re going to hell.” It goes without saying that I didn’t walk away from that conversation feeling Loved. Be he walked away from it feeling more loving, somehow. It was truly confusing for me for a long time, until I started paying attention to that friend’s thought process. He knew, for instance, that telling someone the words ‘you’re going to hell’ was at least a hurtful thing to do. He certainly understood that telling someone of a different religion that they were sinning was disrespectful, because he didn’t appreciate it when someone told him the same thing. He advocated for dead-naming trans people, while at the same time feeling annoyed by the prospect of me calling him a nickname he didn’t like. But he’d always defend his actions and beliefs the same way - it’s the Christian thing to do.
Now doesn’t that sound like cognitive dissonance to you?
Now, I’m not anti-Christian - I think that anyone, of any faith, can be this dangerously discompassionate. If you ask Anglican Reverend Dr. Shelley-Ann Tenia, I’m not un-Christian, either. Since my mid-twenties, she’s invited me to partner with the Anglican Diocese of Trinidad and Tobago on a handful of workshops, debates and projects, and I’ve even preached at the pulpit a couple of times. Part of my concern with the cognitive dissonance of faith is that it runs counter to what (at least I think) the author of the universe put us all here for - to preach Love. In a way, this is the truest expression of my faith - to hold others accountable for the ways they use theirs to preach hate, even accidentally, or how their faith or action can bring others to harm. That’s not the Christian thing to do, by any means. No matter what some people’s dissonance tells them.
For Akilah, I’ll keep it simple - people Loving who they Love, or learning to express themselves the way they feel inside isn’t an immoral act that people need to lie to themselves about; it’s a part of a person’s very identity. It’s certainly not the same as chattel slavery, that’s for damn sure. LGBT people, people of color, and even people of different religions, have to fight for space to exist as themselves all the time, against ideas like these - that they are somehow forcing themselves against a society that should know better. If your God, of all people, is the one who’s telling you to treat people like that, then they’re not a God worth believing in.
And I’d preach that on the pulpit any day. Just as I always preach…
Blessings, Compassion, Peace & Love.
