God With a Gatekeeper
Gentle Disclaimer
This piece is not an attack on Christianity, religion, or people of faith.
It is a personal reflection written from the perspective of someone who respects religious diversity while also interrogating the impact of spiritual authority, fear-based theology, and the policing of belief.
If your faith brings you peace, grounding, and meaning, this is not meant to take that away.
This is an invitation to think — not a demand to agree.
God With a Gatekeeper: When Faith Becomes Policing (and Why It Can Trigger Rage)
I recently watched a video of a woman who carried a high-risk pregnancy. She delivered via C-section at 32 weeks, knowing her babies would pass within hours. It was heartbreaking, sacred, and human in the rawest way.
But one moment hit me like a punch.
A priest was in the room to baptise the newborns immediately… and I felt rage. Not at the mother. Not at her grief. Not at her faith. I respect people’s right to believe what helps them make sense of life.
What enraged me was something subtler: fear being projected onto innocence — and a sacred moment being quietly claimed by religious authority.
This is me unpacking why that matters, what’s underneath it, and why I suspect I’m not the only person who has felt this.
God Doesn’t Need Paperwork
If God is all-knowing and benevolent — if He gave us free will — then He already understood what the 3D would include: love and war, beauty and brutality, clarity and confusion, so why would divine love hinge on human-administered rituals?
From a mystic lens (and from my own lived experience), “sin” isn’t a permanent stain on a soul. It’s misalignment. Forgetting. Density. Distortion. It’s what happens when consciousness is filtered through fear and survival and pain and if that’s true, then salvation isn’t a transaction. It’s a remembering.
Ritual can be meaningful, yes. But it isn’t permission. It isn’t a passport. It isn’t a spiritual border control checkpoint.
Epistemic Violation: The Real Trigger
I was raised in the Mormon church. Before baptism, we took classes. We were asked questions to assess readiness. We were taught concepts we couldn’t fully grasp — because we were children.
Looking back, I recognise something important:
There was an assumption that we understood enough to consent. But we didn’t.
This is what I now call epistemic violation — when someone claims spiritual truth on your behalf, binds you to it, and calls it “choice” even when understanding isn’t possible.
That’s why religious authority triggers me. Not because I hate faith — but because I’ve lived what happens when authority claims jurisdiction over your soul before you’ve even learned how to hear your own.
The Hypocrisy of Moral Gatekeeping
Here’s the part many people feel but rarely say out loud:
If the person administering cleansing is also human, also imperfect, also “sinful”… then what exactly gives them the right to judge another person’s spiritual status?
How do we measure sin? Who decides what counts? Who ranks it? Who gets to declare you worthy?
Once you build a system where purity is mediated by role rather than embodied integrity, you get symbolic cleanliness without actual transformation.
You get people who believe they are authorised because they occupy an office — not because they are aligned… and that, to me, is where spirituality becomes sick.
A Non-Policed Spirituality
I’m not here to convert anyone to my worldview. If your faith supports you, I honour that.
But I want to offer an alternative lens that has brought me peace:
Souls are inherently intact.
Growth is a process, not a legal status.
Love doesn’t require paperwork.
Rituals can be sacred tools — but they are not gates.
God/Source does not need intermediaries to recognise what belongs to Him.
In that view, baptism can be beautiful when it’s chosen freely and understood deeply. A blessing can be tender without implying defect. A dying baby doesn’t need spiritual “insurance.” A soul doesn’t get lost because a priest wasn’t present.
Coexisting Without Contempt
When I see someone reach for ritual in grief, I can hold compassion for the human need to create meaning. A mother might invite a priest because she needs comfort. Because she needs a moment of completion. Because she’s trying to survive an impossible pain. I don’t have to mock that.
But I also don’t have to pretend the theology beneath it is harmless.
I can hold both truths: people cope the best they can and systems can still project fear onto innocence.
Final Thought
Maybe my rage isn’t rage at all. Maybe it’s a boundary.
A refusal to let innocence be burdened.
A refusal to let love become conditional.
A refusal to let the sacred be owned.
Because if God is love, then love doesn’t require a gatekeeper and if the soul is real, then the soul already knows the way home.
An Open Door
If this piece stirred something in you — questions, discomfort, recognition, or relief — and you don’t have a space to talk about it without being dismissed, corrected, or marginalised, you’re not alone.
You’re welcome to reach out via the contact page on my website if you’d like to continue the conversation, ask questions, or explore these ideas more deeply in a one-to-one consultation.
This isn’t about convincing or converting anyone. It’s simply a space for thoughtful, respectful dialogue — especially for those who think deeply, feel strongly, and don’t quite fit into tidy spiritual boxes.
Sometimes, being heard is the beginning of clarity.
