By: Abbey Crank
As a high school senior, Sarah Boykin had her first kiss. For most, this is seen as an exciting moment. For her, shame, condemnation and utter disgust engulfed the entire experience.
“I had to unlearn a lot of what I was taught in my past. The first thing was that I had to learn how to not to hate myself after my first kiss. I was ashamed but also really excited at the same time, which was confusing for an 18-year-old girl. Looking back, it was completely natural for me to want to kiss boys at 18, but I felt like a sinner,” Boykin said.
Boykin grew up in an atmosphere surrounded by purity culture, fear and judgement. Upholding Christianity to avoid eternal punishment was the only thing that mattered. It wasn’t until her sophomore year of college that she realized she was traumatized by her religion.
The Huntsville, Alabama, native is currently a 21-year-old junior at Auburn University studying accounting.
Her childhood was a run-of-the-mill experience. She came from two loving parents, Kelley and Billy Boykin, and spent time playing with her younger sister, Elly.
Boykin remembers her mom driving her and her sister to Whitesburg Christian Academy every weekday morning. When the keys were in the ignition, Huntsville’s local Christian radio station always played in the background.
“For my mom, religion is what gives her hope and strength. She had a difficult childhood and young adult life, and finding God is what has really turned that around for her. She has her moments, but she is genuinely one of my best friends, and I think religion actually made her a better mother,” Boykin said.
While her mother’s relationship with Christ was beneficial, Boykin’s experience at a small, 1A Christian school had different effects.
“My experience at Whitesburg was both good and bad. I had an amazing education that I’m thankful for because it made college easier academically, but I wish religion wasn’t attached,” she said. “There was drama, obviously, because we were a high school with only 29 kids in our class. Everyone knew everything.”
“Later on, I started asking questions about harder topics because I genuinely wanted to understand God’s reasoning. For example, I didn’t understand why a man is the head of the household and not a woman. When I asked, I got called a crazy feminist by classmates instead of being given actual answers. I stopped asking questions after that because I got tired of being put down for it. I would say I gave up trying by my senior year.”
Boykin did not question her faith until freshman year of college when she met her non-believing best friend: Skyler Corkum.
“My best friend Skyler who never went to church really listened to me talk about my faith freshman year because she knew it was important to me,” Boykin said. “I remember one time she asked me if I thought she’d go to heaven or hell, and I literally told her that based on Christianity’s perspective, she’d go to hell. That ripped my heart out because she is one of the best people that has ever existed.”
Her struggle deepened.
Boykin was diagnosed in therapy with PTSD from her schooling experiences. She is still unable to walk into a church without feeling overwhelming anxiety.
“If I could talk to my younger self now, I would say, ‘What happened to you wasn’t your fault, and you didn’t deserve to go through the bad even though you are being told you’re a sinner. You are a child. You deserve to be able to play and have fun without the weight of eternity on your shoulders,’” she said.
Along with Boykin, Whitesburg alumni 22-year-old Cassidy Byron also walked away from her faith following graduation. Not only did she leave Christianity, she was finally able to understand her identity.
“I didn’t know that people could even be gay until I was a teenager with unsupervised internet access. Even after I learned about gay people, I assumed it was a thing you could only do if you were an atheist,” Byron said. “Whenever my teachers talked about gay people, it was in scary terms like ‘sodomy and ‘abomination.’ I was the first student from my school to come out as gay, and I was the only one to this day to come out as transgender.”
She continued, “I was bullied relentlessly for being effeminate, for being gay and for being neurodivergent. My teachers would associate me with my older brother and often give me disproportionate punishments for my behavior. I was sent to the principal’s office at least once a year for 12 years straight. I was nearly expelled, and the principal threatened to cut my hair off when I dyed it blonde.”
Byron has not stepped in a church in over four years. Now, she is currently dabbling in the world of Judaism.
“I have no advice for LGBT Christians because, for me, leaving the church was my only option. I cannot fathom having to come to terms with both faith and sexuality when the two are so inherently diverse and exclusionary of each other,” she said.
While Byron and Boykin both walked away from their faith, Auburn, Alabama, native Darcy Corbitt used her negative experiences as fuel for ministry.
Corbitt is a doctoral student at Auburn University studying human developmental sciences. She also serves as the minister for Allsouls Universalist Church.
“I’m transgender and grew up in Church of Christ. It was so hard because I felt that I was disgusting and that God hated me,” Corbitt said. “When I went into psychology, I learned about transgender people. I was immediately like, ‘Oh, that explains a lot.’”
She continued, “Then I was in a weird chaos. I think the really insidious thing about religious trauma is that, even if you’re out of that environment, it eats away at you. Any new information you get that doesn’t jive with what you’ve been taught is immediately rejected. After finding myself, I can now say I don’t see myself as a mistake as the church would say. God is not angry at me. I see that I’m who God made me to be and embracing that person is the greatest act of worship I can do.”
Ever since February of 2020, Corbitt started using her experiences as well as her psychology knowledge to make the safest environment for Allsoul’s congregation.
“My ministry is designed for people who have been forcibly unchurched. By forcibly unchurched, I mean people who still believe in God and the words of Jesus. But because of their identity, who they love or how they look, they’ve been removed from the church without their consent,” she said.
One thing Corbitt constantly reminds herself is that not only was she a victim of religious trauma but so were those harming her.
“In terms of trauma research, 90% of people have been traumatized at some point in their life. How we deal with it depends on our resiliency. It’s easy to vilify the people of these types of churches, but we have to remember that they themselves have experienced religious trauma as well,” Corbitt said. “They’re surviving. When people like me break free and thrive, it threatens them because it makes them realize just how alone and isolated they are. It makes me want to help them.”
Licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Kenneth Sullivan defined religious trauma through his 37 years of experience.
“The trauma is fear of punishment for failing to uphold the religion’s rules. The punishments include hell, being ostracized, being shunned and being treated as a disappointment,” Sullivan said.
While most trauma may happen at a specific moment, Sullivan explained most religious trauma is experienced over a prolonged period of time.
“People may not realize it’s trauma mainly because it is done in the name of love, usually by parents and almost always by people we trust for our survival, in our earliest years when we are receptive. Also, often the people teaching the scary things actually believe them, so they are more convincing,” he said.
Along with Sullivan, Auburn religious history professor Dr. Adam Jortner explained the historical complexities behind American Christianity.
“The term ‘Christian’ doesn’t just mean one thing because there are so many Christian churches. I tell my classes that it may be true Jesus is the same yesterday, today and always, but Christianity is not the same. Christianity as a human institution changes over time,” Jortner said.
Jortner also showed how America’s religious freedom changed the motives for Christian congregations.
“America was really the first in the modern world to say you can believe whatever you want. That means our churches compete with each other. They need to try and gather people,” Jortner said.
Right in the heart of downtown Auburn, Alabama, St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church stands proudly, waving its pride flag for the world to see.
Rev. Thomas Joyner, rector of St. Dunstan’s, wants people to know that churches can still be a safe space for those with religious trauma.
“I try and help people who went through religious trauma understand that there’s another way to Christian theology, which is just as old and valid as all of the things they found harmful,” Joyner said. “What you believe is between you and God. There is no test here. I’m not trying to see if you got all the right answers or not. That’s not a part of our theology. We’ve got a big pride flag out there; that’s a statement in itself.”
Instead of focusing on fear and hell, the Episcopal Church highlights the love of God. Joyner explained that his congregation hopes to be a welcoming place for those harmed by other believers.
“If there’s one thing I want people with religious trauma to know about Christianity, it’s that the whole message is love. Imagine there was no such thing as the fall. Imagine the whole reason Jesus came was to show us the amazing love of God, not to fix us,” he said. “The love we’re supposed to show one another is reconciled love, not let me fix you love.”
Along with Joyner, Corbitt also offered advice for those healing.
“It’s hard to walk away. This is not going to be an easy or painless process. The gospel is not comfortable. It’s comforting, but it’s not comfortable. It should motivate us to improve the world rather than keep it the way it’s always been,” Corbitt said. “It’s hard to leave, but it’s necessary. Not only is it important to you, but it’s important for your future children and friends.”
Corbitt continued, “You will find a truly supportive community. They exist. There are churches that are actively trying to proclaim a better gospel. It may be different what you’re used to, but it’s also better than any more abuse. You are not a mistake, and God loves you.”
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