By Jonathan C. Bannigan, LMHC
Religious faith, practice, and community can serve as essential balms — comforting, uplifting, and ennobling the hearts and minds of many as they navigate life’s inevitable ups and downs. For some, however, religious faith becomes a conduit for the very pain, suffering, and even trauma it is meant to explain, soothe, and transform.
Among those who find themselves caught in this painful paradox are many gay men raised within religious traditions, particularly within more conservative ones (Christian, Mormon, Muslim, Orthodox Jewish, among others). For many of us — myself included — integrating sexuality and spirituality has been a long and courageous journey. In the paragraphs that follow, we’ll explore the nature of the religious wound and the pathways toward healing.
For gay men from religious backgrounds, the trauma often goes far deeper than hurt feelings. At its core, religious trauma means being taught — implicitly or explicitly — that our very being is sinful, broken, or unworthy of love. Or that the pursuit of our natural needs for love, intimacy, and erotic connection is itself a grave, damnable transgression. These messages don’t just touch the surface; they shape how we see ourselves, how we relate to others, and even how we imagine the divine — not least because they are framed as emanating from the ultimate authority in the cosmos. The effects can include deep shame, chronic self-doubt, fear of abandonment, and an enduring sense of being "outside" of belonging — to family, to faith, even to life itself. Over time, these early wounds often calcify into emotional patterns that continue to cause pain long after we’ve left the environments where the trauma began. Recognizing this not as a personal failure, but as a real injury to the heart and soul, is a crucial step toward healing.
But what does healing entail? And is it even possible?
First, yes — healing is not only possible, but it has the potential to be uplifting and transformative, restoring the sense of meaning and hope that religious faith and practice were always meant to inspire.
Part of the process involves what is often called grief work: accepting, viscerally, the reality of what has been lost. What has been lost differs from gay man to gay man. For some, it is the alienation of our natural, rightful spiritual instincts — the denial or exile of our deep needs for meaning, connection, and transcendence. For others, it is the energy poured into religious and spiritual activities, especially the self-critical or self-denying efforts we undertook in trying to obey the doctrines of our childhood traditions.
Grief work invites the identification and expression of difficult feelings — sadness, anger, fear, regret, guilt, and shame among them. As this work progresses, we begin to move through the emotional residues that have built up over our original attitude of innocent and beautifully trusting openness to higher wisdom and transcendent experience — spiritual or otherwise.
Healing also means confronting the painful unconscious beliefs that religious trauma can leave behind. Excruciating beliefs like "I am a bad, shameful person," "I do not deserve love," "I do not deserve to thrive and prosper," "I do not belong to the human family," and "I must earn love through self-denial and compensatory spiritual achievement" often continue running quietly in the background, shaping our lives and relationships in ways we don't fully realize.
Ultimately, healing is about reclaiming your identity as a worthy, lovable person — someone whose sexuality is either a blessing from the divine, an insignificancy to the divine, or something else entirely.
Personally, I have found spiritual sustenance and existential meaning in conceiving of my sexuality as neither a source of pride nor of shame, but as a mysterious thread woven into the fabric of my destiny — one that has drawn me toward a hard-won self-love, an enduring self-respect, and a self-esteem grounded in truth rather than illusion.
Whatever meaning you arrive at, the point is that you are now free to create a new, life-affirming relationship with the divine on your own terms. And in doing so, you are harnessing the power of the divine within you — for the divine is, first and foremost, a creator who creates out of love. And it is with that same spirit of love that you were created. Why not let it be the spirit with which you now create your own world of meaning?
If you recognize parts of your own story in what I've shared here, know that you are not alone — and that healing is possible. Therapy can offer a safe and compassionate space to grieve what has been lost, to challenge painful beliefs that no longer serve you, and to begin building a life rooted in self-respect, belonging, and meaning.
If you are ready to begin that journey, I would be honored to walk alongside you. Together, we can work toward a sense of wholeness and peace — not by erasing the past, but by weaving it into a future that you can claim as fully your own.