I've said many times that I grew up burdened with feelings of guilt, shame, and inadequacy, which I attribute to the combination of my family dynamics and the church's teachings. Many LDS church members have responded that I obviously didn't understand the gospel and that I was the exception. Everyone else in the church understands forgiveness and repentance and doesn't carry that burden of guilt. These people tell me that I would have grown up this way no matter my religion because of my family dynamics. Of course, a lot of the family dynamics are at least partly related to our Mormonism.
But I've never "blamed" the church for my problems, but just acknowledged it as a factor. When I read this study, it became apparent how much of an influence the church was on my attitudes about myself. The study is about sexuality, but for me, guilt was about a whole host of issues: diligence in scripture study, prayer, home teaching, not controlling my thoughts, wanting material things, pride, not putting out total effort in church callings and obedience, not repenting, and so on ad infinitum. The study struck me because the levels of guilt among Mormons are so much higher than any other group; I suspect this is true in other areas where we Mormons feel guilt.
The study is available here: http://ipcpress.com/
I know, people can argue about methodology, but how do we explain Mormons being the most burdened by guilt?
I read some statements from the author of the study that I thought were interesting:
You do not have to be an academic researcher to test hypotheses about religion and sex. You don’t need any training, just an audience in the proper venue. First, let me explain my own approach to informal testing. When I travel around the country speaking on sex and religion, I ask one question at the beginning of my talk – “How many of you masturbate?” I generally get about 90% who raise their hand. Some even raise both their hands and wave them around vigorously. Then I ask, “How many of you are religious or believe in Jesus, Allah or some other god?” the other 10% raise their hands. Now masturbation is among the easiest and simplest ways to enjoy sex. So this could be a good indicator of how comfortable people are about their sexuality, especially with their own body. From this it seems that the religious are not enjoying their body, or they are afraid to admit it in public. Alternatively, they may be experiencing greater joy and satisfaction through prayer and religious activities.
Next I ask, “How many of you use Pornography?” About 80% raise their hands. The religious 10% don’t raise their hands here either. Our research, and other national surveys, show that about 75% of women and 90% of men use porn to some degree. We even know that religious people use a lot of porn because the highest porn use is in cities and states with the highest religiosity – like Utah and Mississippi. Our research indicates that religious people use more porn than secular people but it seems only the secular people raise their hands in my talks. A recent internet study found that 40% of women who visit a major Christian Women’s website also visit porn sites. From these studies, you can be pretty sure the people in your church are using porn, they just can’t raise their hands if asked.
We know that religious people engage in all of these things. It would be interesting to know why they don’t publically admit their sexual behavior. Secularists seem to have little problem admitting them. What prevents religionists from being honest? Could it be shame and guilt or admitting in public that they behave just like secularists? That was what we found in our study.
There really isn’t much difference at all between secularists and religionists behaviorally. We all masturbate, and we all have sex with multiple partners, and we all fantasize and most of us watch porn.
The thing is, religionists pretend like their religion keeps them from doing these things. In reality, it just creates a culture of denial. Everybody thinks they’re the only ones acting like the heathens, so nobody has the guts to tell the truth. It’s guilt-induced denialism. And that sense of being a uniquely sinful person creates more guilt, so that when the religionist does engage in the same behaviors as secularists, they feel even more guilty. It’s a downward spiral that often has no bottom point. It’s just guilt upon guilt upon guilt.
And as the survey pointed out, it doesn’t change behaviors. It’s just guilt. And that brings us back to the original point — Secularists and religionists do the same things. Secularists just enjoy themselves more.
There is this notion of "godly sorrow" in the church, which is supposed to be a motivation to repent, but more often I see this downward spiral of guilt, which indeed has no bottom point.