Prisoner of Belief: One Man’s Odyssey to Reclaim His Soul – From Evangelical Minister to Searching Psychologist

By John Van Dixhorn, PhD

Prisoner of Belief by John Van Dixhorn is the tale of a man who fights for his soul against the crushing power of religious orthodoxy and evangelical zealotry to become a modern man in the modern world. Raised by rigid Calvinists, Van Dixhorn became an evangelical minister, a successful pastor with prosperous churches. But intellectual honesty and emotional longing led him to challenge his faith, his church, his family, his friends and his vocation...and to eventually leave the ministry and become a secular psychologist. To live this life and write this book takes courage. Prisoner of Belief, then, is a memoir of a courageous man. Through the numerous sharp and painful (and sometimes very funny) anecdotes we begin to realize what it means to confront all the significant figures and forces in one's life, from self to mom, to brother, church, faith, ideology, Jesus, and finally to God...and the world-view that holds all this together in one neat theological package. Van Dixhorn provides enough historical background so that otherwise obscure theology may be understood. As a psychologist, Van Dixhorn takes us deeper to see how doctrine affects emotional life, how belief affects our psyche, our sexuality, and our sense of self. As Van Dixhorn leads us through his life, we learn so much from this honest and courageous story. Geoffrey Sarkissian, Graduate of Fuller Seminary

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Nov 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781478746881

John Van Dixhorn, PhD

John Van Dixhorn started his professional life as the Basketball Coach and Athletic Director at Trinity College in Deerfield IL. He did his Theological training at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and was ordained with the Evangelical Free Church, pastoring churches in New City, NY, Naperville, IL, and Orange, CA. He went on to get a MA in Marriage and Family Therapy and a PhD in Clinical Psychology. He did his post-doctorate work in Psychoanalyses and became a Certified Psychoanalyst in California. He was an award winning faculty professor at the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute in Tustin, CA. He lives with his wife, Jana Holmer, in Palm Springs, CA where he has a private practice. He is also the author of the book, PRISONER OF BELIEF. 

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The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

Prisoner of Belief

One Man’s Odyessey to Reclaim His Soul - From Evangelical Minister to Searching Psychologist

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2015 John Van Dixhorn, PhD

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To Jana:

I have not suffered the sorrows of Goethe’s poor young Werther. Each night I climb in bed with the fairest of women, the dearest of companions, and the best of hearts.

To Becky, Debbie, Johnny, Beth, and Jimmy:

Blessed is the man who receives the loving affection of his children. I first conceived of this book for your eyes only. You are so close to my heart: Your pain brings me pain and your joy brings me joy. You have traveled much of this story with me while being protected from my private anguish. I knew one day I would want to tell you, but it could wait until you became the beautiful adults you have become.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter1

Goodbye, Mother

Chapter 2

The Erotic Struggles of aBorn Again Teenager

Chapter 3

Seminary or Cemetery

Chapter 4

Family or God

Chapter 5

Our God Doesn’t Kill Babies

Chapter 6

The Night I Committed the Unforgivable Sin

Chapter 7

A Secular Minister of the Soul

Chapter 8

Reading the Bible Again for the First Time

Chapter 9

Goodbye, My Brother

Chapter 10

De-conversion–A Developmental Achievement

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Foreword

The Bible is a wonderful book until you read it carefully; few ever do. The God of the Bible is a bully and an advocate; is narcissistic and selfless; frightening and comforting; forgiving and punitive. He murders, abandons children, is misogynous, racist, jealous and revengeful. Parts of the Bible should never be read to a child; you will see and be convinced. On one hand God promotes slavery and genocide; on the other hand He embodies some of the highest ideals of love and justice ever envisioned. This is not an attack on God. He has nothing to do with it. It is an appeal to self reflection. The person who knows his own instinctual heart soon realizes that God did not create us in His image; we created God in our image. The Bible is a very human book and it is a human tragedy to be imprisoned by the God created after our own schizophrenic realities.

Introduction

Soren Kierkegaard nailed a reality of human existence long before any of us were born: Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

The year is 2014. I am 76 years old and I’d like to show you what I learned as a child, experienced as a youth, and suffered as a young adult. Only now as an older man do I realize the significance of what I bring to you.

If you want a religion that brings comfort to your fears and peace to your soul, become a true believer and don’t question it. If you want a religion that is true, become a questioner and let unfold what must.

This is often how people part ways, isn’t it? True believers tend to be uncomfortable with doubt and questioners tend to be irritated with religious certainty. Friends and family and colleagues become divided over these differences. But sometimes this parting of ways takes place within an individual psyche, as it did with me. It left me with a soul in conflict, a divided self. A tumultuous journey for wholeness became my fate.

This is the most important story I could ever tell and I could not bear the thought of going to my grave with it left untold. Yes, it’s my telling, but I know it is a story that’s not unique to me. It’s a story replete with fear, shame, and anger, but also of yearning, striving, and longing. It’s a story of millions whose very DNA becomes embedded in an ideology that blinds them to important realities, stunts their development, and imprisons their minds. Importantly, it’s a story that’s still being lived as new every day. Your own kids may have been given major roles.

As a child in the late 1930s and 40s, little did I know that I was sharing a common experience, not only with my American Christian peers, but also with most of the children of devout Jewish parents in Europe and the children of devout Muslims in Asia. We were taught that the existence of God was obvious—beyond demonstration—though we were shown demonstrations everywhere. We had our Holy Books, the direct revelations from the one true God. It was beyond belief; it was fact. Unquestionably true.

Those who denied these truths were not just mistaken or misguided. Oh no, it was much worse and more disastrous, and unbelievably so. Our forefathers killed and were killed for it. For Christians and Muslims, at least, there would be a literal Hell to pay if we did not submit. At best, we’d be permanently separated from our loved ones and from God. We could not imagine it being any other way. We were Fundamentalists. We were Orthodox. The details of our religions were somewhat different, but we shared the same psychological makeup. We were of the same spirit, the same essence in spite of outward appearances and linguistic and cultural differences.

As we aged, those early beliefs continued to have a desperate hold on our lives. The things we learned first were the hardest to unlearn.

Loyalty to our early absolutist thinking was primary to all other knowledge and had the force of a life-sustaining attachment. It often came with the pleasure and prison of an addictive drug. Welcome to the Hotel California. We were brought there in innocence, but we found out we could never leave.

When new phenomena or evidence or relationships forced us to challenge our beliefs, we fought back and attacked the source of the challenge. But sooner or later we met with new experiences that forced us to reckon with the realities of our beliefs. People we respected contradicted them, or, in a reflective moment, we discovered that our beliefs contradicted each other. We heard facts and other truths with which our truths were incompatible. Or, in some cases, desires and sensitivities we developed revealed them as distasteful. The result was an intense, inner distress from which we could only escape by tweaking our ideologies. We held on to as much as we could, for, in the matter of belief, we were all extremely conservative. And I’m only speaking for the few of us that began to feel and even take steps to escape the prison of our beliefs. The rest, the vast majority of believers, the ones who never questioned, just dug in their heels all the more and hated us, punished us, and treated us as traitors.

I should know. I was one of the punishers and I was one of the betrayers. As I trace my spiritual travels I am aware of the words of Benjamin Disraeli:

Like all great travelers,

I have seen more than I remember,

And remember more than I have seen.

I am not blinded to the obvious: that a reality no longer is what it was when it was; it cannot be reconstructed. I am aware that men are often unreliable narrators of their own stories, showing what we’re willing to show and telling only that which fits our chosen narratives. This is my inner truth, my subjective experience. Those I encountered on the way have their own stories. I do not want to tell their stories—they are for them to tell. It is not unusual that other people become props for one’s inner theater without knowing it. I tried to be faithful to the external events that took me deeply into my own experience. But time passes and plays its tricks and the focus was to capture my psychological truth. Truth is grasped but not solely possessed. And there’s very little that’s new under the sun. Case in point: I’m still confused as to how my best insights were stolen by the ancients!

John Van Dixhorn, PhD

Palm Springs, California

Chapter 1

Goodbye, Mother

"Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised." (Proverbs 31:30)

"The more I tried to get away from my mother the closer we got."

I traveled two thousand miles to see my mother, now blind and in her nineties. For some time her heart had been failing, but now it had the added burden of a fall and some broken bones. I was sure this would be the last time I’d see her alive.

A clean, antiseptic smell greeted me as I passed through the automatic double doors of the skilled nursing facility run by the Lutheran Church. There was a faint smell of urine as I passed the rooms of old people struggling to finish out their lives, seemingly long devoid of the dignity one hangs on to for dear life.

As I rounded the corner and saw my mother’s room number, I noticed my heart beating faster and my steps slowing down. I hadn’t seen her for over two years. This was more an act of duty than desire. When I had last seen her, there were still signs of a robust five-foot-nine-inch, strong Dutch woman who brought nine children into the world without a fuss. What would I be walking into? Was I ready to face what I might have to see?

The door was open and a frail woman with thinning grey hair was sitting bent over in a wheel chair at a desk with her back to me. A hospital bed with a night stand was the only other furniture in the room. There were bottles of medicine on the night stand along with a lamp. She had a worn, black Bible placed into a machine provided for the vision-challenged. The machine was chrome and cold and gave me an awful feeling. It looked like an ugly version of an outdated computer console. It magnified and intensified the outline of a letter so one who still had a shade of sight might be able to make out the word.

I stood in the doorway for some time without being noticed, but when I could no longer bear to see her struggle to make out each word, I softly said in my most gentle voice, Mother I’m here. It’s John.

Oh John she said warmly with a feeble voice that still communicated an acute awareness. I’ve been waiting all morning for you.

I went over, knelt by her wheel chair and gently embraced her; if I embraced her any more firmly I felt I would crush her bones. She was in a pink robe and smelled like baby powder, a smell I love. Her Dutch concern for cleanliness was still intact. Her skin was pale and loose. I was ashamed that hugging her felt eerie. After early childhood, we seldom touched again. We were just that kind of family.

She turned back to her machine, explaining it to me. Telling me her greatest suffering in losing her eyesight was not being able to read the Bible anymore, she wanted me to read it to her.

Spending my last days with her reading her the Bible was the last thing I wanted to do. I said, Mom, you have others who will read the Bible to you. I’m only here for a few days.

She countered, wanting to know if I still valued the Bible and spent time reading it. She wanted to know if I was making sure my children were reading the Bible and if they were reading it to their children. As she continued to evaluate my life around Bible reading, I realized how quickly irritation could replace my tender feelings whenever I was with my mother. Why was it so difficult for me to like her, though I deeply loved her? Why were loving feelings toward her so easy from a distance or in my solitude, but so hard to maintain in her presence?

The oppressiveness of my past, that great sleeping giant, awakened. A rage mixed with compassion broke loose, like boulders dislodged from a mountainside. An inner dialogue cascaded through my head.

I: I come all this way to spend time with her and all she cares about is whether or not I’m reading the Bible. I’m done dancing around this religious bullshit. I’m not spending my time reading the fuckin’ Bible to her.

Me: You’re not going to do what? Your dying, blind ninety-three-year-old mother, who can no longer read the Bible on her own, wants you to read the Bible to her and you are not only going to refuse, but get in a rage over it?

I: Give me a break. This love affair with the Bible is crazy. Millions of people may continue to revere a book filled with ignorance and savagery, but I’m not going to enable that crap. You really think slitting the throats of a bunch of animals and cutting off a piece of your penis as the only way to God, is something I want to be part of anymore? If I wasn’t raised and conditioned by these absurdities, how could I have eaten the body of Jesus and drank his blood for so many years without my better senses rebelling, much less my stomach? It’s time someone brings some sanity to this madness and calls a spade a spade.

Me: So this is your great moment of protest. Your own mother, who read Bible stories to you while still in her womb, now in her blindness wants you to read to her and you’re concerned about illusions around the Bible.

I: Screw the kitsch. This is a system that enslaved my mind and inhibited my spirit for years. I dragged that unbearable weight around for forty years, always feeling guilty for never denying my own life enough, never living completely enough for a God created for me by others. Forty years is a hell of a long time. No, I’m not giving in to this now. Stephen Dedalus wouldn’t pray with his mother on her death bed and I’m not reading the Bible to my mother on her death bed, either.

Me: You’re going to blame your mother for your religious self-made prison? That was your choice. For all but a few of those years you were no longer a child.

I: All I’m wanting is a real experience with my mother. She’s dying. Is it too much to ask that for one moment she could get a slight glimpse of her real son? And might I just for once touch something human in her that is not hidden behind her religious armor?

Me: Why are you still trying to get blood out of a turnip? Give it up. You broke rank with your family system. In their eyes you not only sinned against God, but them. Did you think that anything outside of repentance would save any meaningful connection to them?

I: So breaking rank with my family’s religion is some unforgivable sin? My mother denies me a separate existence. That’s what should be unforgivable. She had a plan for my life and because I didn’t cooperate to be everything she needed me to be, I should go along with the illusion that my life is a tragic existence? It’s hideous, not virtuous.

Me: See her face? Is that the face of a sinister woman? She’s afraid. She’s afraid for herself and she’s afraid for you. Don’t you see the love? Is it so wrong that she obediently followed the religion of her childhood when she carried her little bundle of joy to the front of the church, had him baptized and dedicated his life to God? She thought that was the greatest thing she could do for you. She wasn’t a tender woman, but do you recall her tears of joy the day you were ordained into the ministry? Didn’t you break her heart fifteen years later when you questioned your faith, left the church, and then went through a divorce of all things? Yes, she lost her son. That man was not the son she knew or could ever envision. So in her last days she’d like to get him back for a few moments. And you can’t give her that? What kind of person have you become?

After all the years of my own individuation process, living in a world of rich diversity and scholarship, how could the unexamined absolutism of my ninety-something mother cut me so deeply and turn me into a fool, when I understood it so well?

My parents immigrated to America from Holland when they were children. I was the middle of nine children, brought up in rural Wisconsin and raised in the Dutch Reformed Church. Dutch Reformed people, especially the immigrants, took their religion seriously, as did most Europeans with their passionate, creedal histories.

My father was the oldest son of a large family. His mother was pious but his father took his religion as a matter of convention, as did my father. The strict Calvinism that took over our family life came from my mother. I always felt my father went along with it, but with my mother it was personal and intense.

After every meal my father read the Bible to us. At noon it was the real Bible, the King James Version. After our evening meal he read Bible stories geared to children. The real Bible was boring, but I liked the Bible stories.

I especially liked those early stories in Genesis that stimulated my curiosities. I learned why snakes crawl on their bellies and why weeds grow more freely than things we plant. I knew why I was afraid of snakes and why I hated weeding. That’s the way it is when God curses things.

I learned where giants came from. Male angels came from heaven and had babies with beautiful women and God didn’t like those giant children. I learned that just a few thousand years before Jesus was born, men lived many hundreds of years before they got old. Methuselah lived close to a thousand years and his father Enoch never died at all. God just took him to heaven one day because he was such a good man. That intrigued me since my grandfather seemed old at seventy. I didn’t like the direction that was going. I was afraid by the time I got old those years would even be shorter!

I learned that God was sorry he ever created humans because he was so disappointed in them all the time. So he sent a flood to destroy the whole world and started over with the only family he saved. He told Noah to build an ark. And I learned where the rainbow came from. God promised never to send a flood again even though he got so disappointed the second time around also. I was excited to see a rainbow because it seemed that was the one time God was feeling good again.

I learned why there were different races and languages; not everyone got to be white and speak English. Some people had to become foreigners and speak a weird language. God had to add different races and languages to get people to divide up. If they all stayed together they’d be able to build a tower that would reach heaven, which they actually started to do. God had to put a stop to that.

By twelve years old I could take you chronologically through the Bible with the stories of the Patriarchs through Moses, and the battles of Joshua. I could tell you about the kings and how the prophets had to shape them up. I could tell you about Israel and Judah splitting up and how they both went into captivity, because they displeased God. When Israel pleased God they won all the wars over evil nations and when they didn’t God had these evil nations win.

I lived in a Christian nation and I knew why we were winning our wars. I would do everything I could do when I grew up to make sure it stayed that way. I never lost that zeal. When Israel became a nation again and God was giving them another chance, I, as an evangelical pastor, knew that the new Israel, America, and the old Israel revived, were one. How could any American be so stupid as to repeat the mistakes of the Old Testament and not side with Israel in all cases. Those early impressions of God and how he dealt with his chosen people stayed with me for a long time.

My ancestors were the product of the Protestant Reformation. That reformation brought liberation to the common believer. The Catholic Church, the only Christianity that existed, had ultimate control over the earthly and eternal life of people. Because of the Protestant Reformation, the common person could access God directly through the Bible and his own conscience, and no longer needed the church or priests as the middle man. Ah yes, The Priesthood of Believers!

No doubt about it, Christianity was better off because of the Reformation. Oh Luther and