Transformation is not about overcoming, improving, fixing or transcending your humanity.

Transformation is not about overcoming, improving, fixing or transcending your humanity.

Brené Brown wrote, “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.” Too often the underlying premise of religion is that human beings are inherently bad, repulsive to God, and deserving of God’s wrath. It may not be articulated quite this way but for all intents and purposes the so-called “Gospel” of Christianity-gone-astray demands people to essentially say, “God, please forgive me for being me.” I don’t get why these people don’t consider that we were created in the image of God. Factoring that in, the request would more accurately be, “God, please forgive me for being the me that you made me to be.” Huh???

Religion insists that at the core we are bad – that something is inherently wrong with us that needs to be fixed and overcome. Well, actually, it doesn’t even say it can even be fixed, just forgiven. This message gets pounded in our head continuously, and it erodes that part of us, which Brené Brown pointed out, we need intact to be capable of growth. Religion sabotages our relationship with ourselves, eliminating the possibility of ever taking on the fullness of who God created us to be.