An essay & framework by Oscar Rivas
The God That Gave You Sunglasses
We inherit ideas about God. We also learn what to expect from love, authority and belonging. Sometimes it takes a question to tell them apart.
The framework
One question, followed through three relationships
The essay introduces the nine religious lenses: recurring ways that expectations about love, danger and belonging shape how a person experiences the sacred. The lenses gather under three relationships, and each asks the same question from a different side.
What we expect from God
Whether love feels dependable or has to be earned, and whether rest is ever permitted without losing our worth.
What we distrust in ourselves
Which instincts, doubts and desires a person has learned to treat as dangerous, and therefore to silence.
Whom we may treat as safe
Who is allowed to be a source of comfort, and who must be watched before they can be trusted.
The lenses are a tool for reflection and research, not a psychological test. Recognising one never establishes that a person has suffered trauma.
About the author
Oscar Rivas, PhD
Oscar Rivas is a clinical psychologist and researcher specialising in psychological trauma. His research reaches injuries that often fall outside clinical attention, among them the trauma of abuse of conscience and the experiences of people harmed by priests and religious leaders.
Faith & Conscience is where he examines, in English, how sacred authority meets the freedom to examine, judge and choose for oneself.