The Gospel of Rigidity: A Survival Manual for the Religiously Wounded
The pastor's voice cuts through the Sunday morning haze like a blade dipped in honey. "We must stand firm on principle," he declares, eyes blazing with the particular fervor reserved for those who've confused their interpretation with divine mandate. In the third pew, a woman shifts uncomfortably, knowing her gay son won't be welcome at the church potluck. But principle demands sacrifice, doesn't it? Even if that sacrifice happens to be someone else's humanity.
Two thousand miles away, a diversity consultant destroys a professor's career over a lecture that dared suggest nuance in discussions of systemic oppression. "We cannot compromise our values," she announces to her Twitter followers, basking in the algorithmic applause of the self-righteous. The irony that she's using the same psychological machinery as the fundamentalists she despises never quite penetrates the fortress of her certainty.
Welcome to America 2025, where moral rigidity has become our national religion, and principle-over-people thinking the opiate of choice for masses desperate to feel righteous about their cruelty.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
When Compassion Becomes Heresy: How Rigid Religion Rewrote the Gospel
Growing up evangelical, I learned to worship a carpenter who spent his entire ministry pissing off people who prioritized rules over relationships. The religious establishment of his day had perfected the art of moral calcification, transforming divine mystery into regulatory code. Sound familiar?
Jesus kept doing this inconvenient thing where he chose compassion over compliance. Healing on the Sabbath when good people knew that violated sacred principle. Eating with tax collectors and prostitutes when obvious moral boundaries demanded separation. Forgiving adulteresses when clear scriptural law required stoning.
The man they claim to follow consistently demonstrated that love transcends law, that human flourishing matters more than ideological purity, that the spirit of truth requires the flexibility to meet people where they actually are rather than where our principles demand they should be.
Yet somehow, his modern followers have reversed the entire equation. They've made principle the god and relegated actual human beings to acceptable casualties in service of abstract moral authority.
The psychological sophistication required to miss this point so completely is actually breathtaking. But the systemic implications? Those are even more sinister.
Because principle-over-people thinking doesn't just corrupt individual relationships; it creates entire hierarchical structures where abstract authority justifies concrete harm. In the particularly culty circles of my childhood, this meant parents could step in and dictate how other families should raise their children, armed with nothing more than their interpretation of "biblical principles." And us kids? We were supposed to "honor our elders," which conveniently translated to honoring anyone and everyone deemed "in authority" over us.
The genius of this system is how it transforms child abuse into spiritual discipline, parental overreach into godly correction, and community surveillance into loving accountability.
When principles become more sacred than the people they supposedly serve, every violation of human dignity can be reframed as moral necessity.
Photo by Dibakar Roy on Unsplash
The Psychology of Moral Certainty—From Fundamentalists to Progressives
But here's where it gets deliciously twisted: this isn't a religious problem. It's a human problem that religion just happens to illustrate with particular clarity.
The same psychological machinery driving evangelical fundamentalism powers progressive fundamentalism, corporate fundamentalism, wellness fundamentalism… do you see the common denominator yet?? Different content, identical cognitive architecture.
The psychology of fundamentalism explains why: the brain's desperate hunger for certainty in an uncertain world, packaged as moral superiority and delivered with the conviction of the divinely appointed.
Watch a MAGA rally, then watch a social justice conference. Different tribes, same tribal psychology. Both groups have identified the pure principles that separate the “enlightened” from the benighted. Both have created elaborate justification systems for why their cruelty serves a higher purpose. Both get dopamine hits from performative righteousness that feels like spiritual awakening but functions like cocaine for the morally insecure.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
The progressive who destroys someone's livelihood over ideological impurity is using the exact same neural pathways as the conservative who disowns their queer child for violating "biblical principles." They've both chosen abstract rules over messy human reality because abstract rules don't require the terrifying vulnerability of actually seeing other people as complex beings worthy of dignity.
How Righteousness Hijacks Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Fundamentalism
Here's what's happening in your brain when you choose rigid rules over messy reality: you're literally getting high off your own righteousness. And before you roll your eyes thinking this is about someone else, take a breath. We've ALL been there.
I cringe now remembering some of the playground arguments I had as a child yelling, “dead Baptists!” when taunted with “pew hopper!” (meant to be a slur against my Pentecostal family who believe in speaking in tongues and getting “slain in the Spirit”) or, when at our international Christian school in Japan, country or culture centric divisions arose between us Americans and our Canadian, Japanese, and even Australian buddies. So ridiculous but human nature can’t help but want to subgroup until it’s overcome with emotional maturity.
My sister and I (two blondes) with our buddies on a campout in Japan
From a neuropsychological perspective, principle-over-people thinking functions like cognitive heroin. Every time we pick simple categories over complex humanity—good Christian versus heathen, patriot versus traitor, ally versus enemy, woke versus bigot—our neural reward system floods us with dopamine and the intoxicating sensation of moral superiority. It feels like enlightenment, but it's actually just intellectual cowardice with better marketing.
The science gets wild here. Your anterior cingulate cortex; the part that normally helps you manage cognitive dissonance (i.e., the mental discomfort experienced when holding conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes, or when actions contradict those beliefs)
… and navigate contradictions; essentially clocks out when fundamentalist thinking takes over.
Meanwhile, your prefrontal cortex, which handles empathy (which apparently, according to some MAGA and Christians is now toxic???! )
… and complex reasoning, gets completely hijacked by your limbic system's panic about uncertainty.
an illustration of the brain highlighting the limbic system
Ever wonder why arguing with someone deep in principle-worship feels like banging your head against a wall?
It's because they're not actually processing information. They're protecting their drug supply. Try presenting nuanced evidence to someone mainlining moral certainty, and you might as well be asking a heroin addict to consider the philosophical implications of sobriety while they're mid-nod.
But it goes even deeper than neurochemical addiction. We're talking about identity preservation at the most primal level. If I've built my entire sense of self around being a "good Christian" or a "true progressive" or a "real patriot," then any information that threatens those categories threatens my very existence. I literally cannot process evidence that might force me to question whether I'm actually the good person I believe myself to be, or whether the group I've tethered my identity to might be wrong about something fundamental!
The subconscious does the math: "If this information is true, then either I'm not who I think I am, or my people aren't who I think they are. Both options are unacceptable. Therefore, this information must be false." The conclusion comes first; the reasoning follows.
The attachment theory piece makes this even more fascinating. What we're really looking at is avoidant attachment to complexity itself. Instead of developing the emotional muscles to handle ambiguity, contradiction, and the uncomfortable reality that other people exist (AND HAVE A RIGHT TO) in all their magnificent messiness, we create rigid rule systems that promise to eliminate the need for actual relationship.
Think about it: rules don't require you to see other people as complex beings. Rules don't demand empathy or curiosity or the vulnerable work of genuine encounter. Rules just require compliance.
It's spiritual bypassing dressed up as moral clarity, and it's everywhere you look once you know what to spot.
The Gospel They Forgot: Why Jesus Chose People Over Principles
Here's what continues to astound me about the religious right's particular brand of principle worship: they've managed to miss the central pattern of their supposed savior's entire ministry!!
Every single time the religious establishment tried to trap Jesus with rule-based thinking, he responded with radical humanism. The woman caught in adultery? Instead of upholding the clear scriptural mandate for stoning, he created space for her dignity while challenging her accusers' moral blindness. The tax collector Zacchaeus? Rather than maintaining appropriate social boundaries, he invited himself to dinner and transformed a life through unconditional acceptance.
The Sabbath healers, the unwashed disciples, the Samaritan conversations, the temple tantrums against religious capitalism. Over and over, the same pattern: love as the principle that transcends all other principles. Relationship as the context that gives meaning to rules. Human flourishing as the measure of moral legitimacy.
Photo by vivien solomon on Unsplash
Yet his modern followers have performed the most spectacular theological magic trick in history: they've transformed the man who consistently chose people over principles into the patron saint of choosing principles over people.
The cognitive dissonance required to worship someone while systematically rejecting everything he demonstrated about how to treat other humans is so profound it qualifies as a form of collective psychosis.
From Church to Cancel Culture: How Moral Absolutism Fuels New-Age Inquisitions
This principle-over-people pathology has metastasized beyond religious communities into every corner of American culture, creating secular inquisitions that would make medieval Christians blush.
The corporate executive who destroys employee mental health in service of "shareholder value." The wellness influencer who shames followers for not maintaining sufficiently "high vibration." The therapist who pathologizes clients who don't fit their theoretical framework. The progressive activist who cancels allies for insufficient ideological purity. The conservative politician who supports policies that harm children while claiming to be "pro-life."
Different altars, same sacrificial logic. Different gods, same demand for human offerings.
The pattern reveals itself most clearly in how these various fundamentalisms handle complexity. When presented with information that challenges their worldview, true believers don't update their understanding; they update their enemy list. The principle must be protected at all costs, even if that cost includes the very people the principle supposedly serves.
Watch how quickly someone's humanity gets revoked the moment they violate the sacred categories. The conservative who discovers their child is gay suddenly becomes a "RINO." The feminist who questions any aspect of trans ideology becomes a "TERF." The environmentalist who suggests nuclear power might be necessary becomes a "corporate shill."
Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash
When someone dares to ask questions or show a little nuance, suddenly they're not just wrong; they're dangerous. But, don’t you see? — Without someone to demonize, the whole thing falls apart. It's like a vampire that feeds on moral outrage instead of blood. Again, their identities would die without it, and I’m telling you right now as a psychotherapist, most people simply don’t have the balls to face that metamorphosis.
Healing from Ideological Rigidity: Practicing Principled Humanity in a Binary World
So how do we hold strong values without becoming fundamentalist assholes about it?
First, develop what I call the dissonance test. When you encounter information that challenges your worldview, notice your body's reaction. Are you getting defensive? Angry? Scrambling for counter-arguments before you've even processed what you're hearing? That's your nervous system protecting your identity, not your intellect protecting truth.
Psychology says healthy egos can sit with cognitive dissonance long enough to actually process through it. They can say, "Huh, that's interesting and uncomfortable. Let me sit with this for a minute instead of immediately deciding it's wrong." You need that capacity to tolerate uncertainty without rushing to resolution if you want to be effective in ANY negotiation process which is what all conversation is when you think about it.
Second, check your relationship to being wrong. If the thought of changing your mind about something important feels like psychological death, you've probably attached your ego to your opinions. Values worth having can evolve. Principles worth keeping can deepen. The moment your convictions become too precious to examine, they've stopped serving you and started enslaving you.
As for dealing with people deep in fundamentalist thinking: stop trying to logic them out of positions they didn't logic themselves into!! FFS, you can't reason someone out of an identity crisis. Not even with a degree and a license. ;p
Instead, model what principled flexibility looks like. Show them that you can hold strong values without needing enemies. That you can change your mind without losing your soul.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is refuse to participate in someone else's rigid thinking. Don't take the bait when they try to force you into their binary categories. Stay curious when they demand certainty. Choose relationship when they choose “righteousness.”
The revolution we really need is people choosing humanity over ideology, one uncomfortable conversation at a time.
If you're exhausted by the inherited dogma still running your nervous system, tired of navigating the white noise of everyone else's rigid certainties, and ready to build genuine peace in the midst of cultural chaos, I'd be honored to work with you.
