One of the greatest criticisms of Christianity in the West has been its apparent problem with pleasure. The old joke about the difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants being that the former love suffering and the latter hate pleasure comes to mind immediately here. These are exaggerations of course, but they speak to a difficulty in many expressions of Christianity in embracing a balanced understanding of the body, sensation, and feeling good. Where do these ideas come from? And what, if any, are their negative consequences? Today I’d like to look at this through a theological lens.
There can be no question that the New Testament does not share humanity’s general aversion to suffering. Its general tone is to see it as a badge of honour (Matthew 5.10-11; c.f., 1 Peter 4.12-17; 1 Timothy 1.8; 2 Timothy 2.3) and even as a means of participating in Christ’s divine life (Colossians 1.24). It’s easy to see how this could lead to people seeking out suffering in a way that is not consistent with healthy body and mind. But that’s a distortion of the Scriptures’ message. For none of these passages envision suffering as a positive thing; it is simply a given of life in the kingdoms of this world that run contrary to ways of God’s Kingdom —a Kingdom in which the blind see, the lame walk, the grieving are comforted, the poor have all that they need, and the dead live — a Kingdom of plenty and peace where there is no suffering or pain. And it is the coming of this Kingdom for which we pray every day. Suffering is a reality for which we must be prepared, but it is not what we seek and it is not representative of God’s desires. What the New Testament teaches is not that suffering is good but how we can frame and think about our inevitable suffering in a way that is empowering and in which we can meet God.
A similar nuance is helpful when interpreting the New Testament’s language around pleasure and bodily appetites. Again, there is no doubt that the New Testament, grounded in the pop psychology of its day, has a general suspicion of physical desires and appetites (e.g., Galatians 5.16-17). But this is not because pleasure is bad. The key word there is suspicion, not opposition; it wants us to pause and interrogate our appetites: Is this beneficial? Am I being controlled by this? (1 Corinthians 6.12). Pleasure is not a bad thing in the New Testament, but it’s not inherently good either. Pleasure is a neutral value: A gambling high feels good but is detrimental to one’s longterm well-being. Cheating on a spouse may feel good in the moment but damages one’s primary relationships and destabilizes one’s life. Having an extra slice of pizza is amazing, but also has negative consequences. The point is not that pleasure is bad, but that we have to be free to say no to passing pleasures in the moment in service to the bigger picture of our lives.
The problem is that these nuances are easily lost, and high control religions weaponize these teachings as a means of power and control (43).* And this has the damaging consequences of leaving people disconnected from their bodies, distrustful of their feelings, and emotionally truncated. But as we’ve seen, theologically speaking, we are inherently and profoundly embodied creatures, so in order to be healthy, we need to be healthily connected to our bodies. Our feelings and senses, while, yes, needing to be interrogated and challenged at times, are there to tell us when things are going well or badly. And, in order to be healthy, we need to experience the full range of emotions, both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ (153ff). Part of this is reclaiming pleasure — again, not as an end in and of itself, but as an integral part of a full human life (164ff).
It’s also important at this point to also talk about spiritual bypassing: the use of spiritual or theological language to avoid difficult or painful emotions. Common expressions of spiritual bypassing in Christian circles include platitudes like “Everything happens for a reason,” which frames even the most difficult circumstances as God’s will, or not dealing with grief for a lost loved one because “They’re in a better place.” To be clear, these statements or beliefs are not necessarily bad in and of themselves. If one comes to them after a process of deep personal reflection and emotional processing, they can be good, true, and beautiful. They become problematic when they are a knee-jerk reaction to a traumatic situation that allows one to avoid dealing with those feelings of fear, anger, or grief. When wielded as a weapon in high control religions, spiritual bypassing delegitimizes nature and legitimate — in many cases necessary — feelings, and keeps adherents immature by leaving important psychological tasks unresolved. To my mind, this is the problem at the heart of all high control religious expressions: They keep people spiritually and psychologically immature and therefore dependent. This is a far cry from the true spirit of the Gospel, which calls us all to grow up into the full stature of our full humanity in Christ (Ephesians 4.13).
We’ve seen today that the Bible’s nuanced perspective on suffering and pleasure is easily lost — a fact which high control religions use to control their members. Next time, we’ll look at a specific and all-too common expression of this: sex and sexuality.
* All references, unless otherwise noted, are to Dr. Laura E. Anderson, When Religion Hurts You (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2023).
