What Is Spiritual Bypassing and Why Is It Harming Our Faith?
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“God has a plan so everything’s going to work out.”
“Just give it to Jesus and count your blessings.”
“Keep praying and reading your Bible.”
If you’ve spent much time in Christian circles, you’ve likely heard phrases like these. Maybe, like me, you’ve even spoken them. They’re often well intentioned — our best attempts to help a struggling friend (or ourselves) cope with pain and hold onto faith. But while they may contain an element of truth, these types of comments have potential to cause great harm.
Psychologists call them spiritual bypassing.
What Is Spiritual Bypassing?
As Christians, we know God calls us to “Consider it all joy … when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3). Jesus predicted that “In this world you will have trouble,” adding the encouragement to “Take heart! [He has] overcome the world” (John 16:33). The apostle Paul instructed us, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done” (Philippians 4:6).
God intends for these Scriptures to be lifegiving. Through them, he reminds us of the bigger picture — that this world is not our home, that justice and truth will triumph in the end, that our loving Father is personally involved in each situation we face. He’s actively working for our good, redeeming our suffering and making all things new (Revelation 21:5).
Too often, however, we use these verses and others in damaging ways, instead of receiving the healing they offer. We forget about the process. We believe God wants white-knuckled obedience more than anything else. We take what he meant for good and use it to spiritually bypass the deep work he wants to do in our hearts.
“Spiritual bypassing is when a person uses Scripture, religious concepts or ideals, and spiritual mantras to ‘bypass’ the effects of a negative experience out of a desire to ease their pain…,” explains Peridot Gilbert-Reed in a Christianity Today article.
This practice isn’t new, nor is it unique to Christianity. The term was coined by a Buddhist psychotherapist in the 1980’s. He defined it as a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.”
While people of any faith can fall into spiritual bypassing, Christians are especially prone to this escape mechanism.
It shows up in our conversations when we admit we’re struggling, but end on a positive note about how God’s still good all the time, though secretly we’re doubting it’s true. It’s in our worship songs when we only focus on the positive, as if every situation has a happily-ever-after ending. It sneaks into our living rooms when we listen to a family member’s pain and respond with a pat warning not to get angry at God.
We mean well. Maybe we even think the Lord requires this of us — to will ourselves to trust, to combat doubt by quoting Scripture verses, to overcome worry by the sheer force of our will.
Yet God calls us to something far more transformative.
In Psalm 51:6, we discover his desire for each of his beloved children. “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” In the deepest part of our souls, that place where our subconscious, emotional beliefs reside – this is where our Father wants to teach us his ways.
When we embrace spiritual bypassing, we short-circuit the redemptive work God invites us to lean into, hurting ourselves and others in the process.
4 Ways Spiritual Bypassing Harms Us
Spiritual bypassing may sound pious on the surface, but it often undermines the faith it claims to champion. It offers a “quick fix,” yet it comes with a high price tag.
1. Spiritual Bypassing Misrepresents God’s Heart
Throughout Scripture, we discover a multifaceted God. He describes himself as “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished…” (Exodus 34:6-7). He invites his children to come to his “throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). He promises “whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37).
Spiritual bypassing paints a drastically different picture. It presents God as unrelatable when it calls us to simply try harder. It suggests his heart is callous when it demands we bury our pain. It implies he’s impersonal when it urges performance over relationship. It portrays him as easily angered when it condemns our doubts and silences our questions.
Spiritual bypassing prevents us from truly experiencing our Father’s heart.
2. Spiritual Bypassing Hinders Authentic Connection with God
Jesus taught his disciples that life is found in knowing God (John 17:3). His Spirit is our source of vitality, refreshment, healing, fruitfulness, and everything else that is good. We receive these blessings through our relationship with him.
Yet spiritual bypassing hinders us from connecting authentically with him. When we suppress our emotions, we avoid the healing and fresh perspective that comes from processing our interior life with God. When we try to reason away our doubts, we settle for human logic instead of listening for his Spirit’s still, small voice. When we minimize our pain, we forfeit the opportunity to experience the tenderness and compassion of Christ.
Spiritual bypassing leads us to settle for shallow faith.
3. Spiritual Bypassing Causes Us to Feel Unknown
Ours is a relational God. From eternity, each member of the Trinity has existed in perfect harmony with the Others. He made us for relationship, too — with him and with each other.
Spiritual bypassing undermines our need to know and be known — by God, by others, even by ourselves. When we bypass how we’re really feeling, we’re left to struggle alone. When we present only the positive aspects of our lives, we portray a false image that holds others at a distance. When we keep questions and doubts to ourselves, we lose the opportunity to hear how others have experienced the Lord in similar situations.
Spiritual bypassing trades connection for isolation.
4. Spiritual Bypassing Ignores the Whole Person
As humans made in the image of God, we are complex creatures. He wove together our bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits with intricate beauty. Each part of our humanity impacts all the others.
Spiritual bypassing attempts to treat all problems from a solely spiritual perspective:
Has your friend wounded you? Choose to overlook the offence. Just forgive and forget — seventy times seven.
Does anxiety weigh you down, making it hard to function through the day and impossible to sleep at night? Repent of your worry and memorize Bible verses about trusting God.
Has addiction sabotaged your life? Get more accountability and let shame drive you to change.
While it’s true God calls us to forgive, to cast our cares on him, and to live by his Spirit rather than addiction, holistic wisdom makes room for other solutions as well. God often uses therapists, doctors, medication, and recovery programs — along with spiritual leaders — to grow us in wholeness and maturity.
Spiritual bypassing neglects whole-person care.
A Healthier Alternative
Far better than spiritual bypassing is the practice of embodied faith. Embodied faith, explains Dr. Alison Cook, is “a faith that includes our hands, our feet, our nervous systems, our mind, our emotions. It's holistic.” Personal embodied faith pays attention to what’s going on within us and uses our observations as a starting point for conversations with God’s Spirit.
King David modeled this throughout the Psalms. (See Psalm 6, 31, 38, 39, 88.) The book of Job vividly describes the pain that ravaged Job, body and soul, and it records his honest conversations with God about his suffering.
For believers living on this side of the cross, embodied faith acknowledges that our bodies are God’s temples. It welcomes his presence in our whole person, inviting him into every closet and corner of our souls. It recognizes that here, in the deepest part of our being, the Holy Spirit does his most profound work.
I’m learning that faith this real, this raw, takes practice. It requires us to make space for silence, time for process, and room for mystery. It calls us to live with curiosity, gentleness, humility, patience, and authenticity.
For me, cultivating embodied faith often begins in quiet moments alone with the Lord, using something my counselor friends call a “body scan.” From head to toe, I notice symptoms I feel on a physical level. With pen and journal in hand, I ask God, “Where do you find me today?” and I take note of what I observe. I talk with him about why I’m feeling the tension, the pain, the restlessness, etc. In prayer, I process the emotions underlying those bodily symptoms. Then I listen for anything his silent voice may want to reveal to my heart. He often points out deeper issues of the soul — unmet needs, unhealed wounds, burning questions, beliefs in crisis, misunderstandings about his character…
Sometimes in this process, the Holy Spirit leads me to parts of Scripture that relate to what I’m experiencing. Other times, he reminds me of an article I saved to read later, or he prompts me to reach out for a friend’s perspective or a professional’s expertise. Sometimes he’s simply present with me as I pour out my heart, allowing me to experience the comfort of his closeness and the healing power of his love.
Embodied Faith in Community
Embodied faith helps us live out James 1:19: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
As we practice personal embodied faith, we grow in our capacity to help others do the same. We learn to recognize spiritual bypassing and avoid using it in conversations with our friends and loved ones. We become better active listeners. We relate with compassion, humility, and wisdom gleaned from our own experience with Christ. Through embodied faith, we more accurately represent the God who welcomes each of us into a deep, authentic relationship with himself.
The Christian life isn’t about bypassing our struggles, ignoring our pain, or fixing ourselves for God. On the contrary, it’s about bringing ourselves, our whole selves, to the One who loves us dearly. It’s about receiving from, resting in, and responding to His Spirit. As we do this, we’ll find that God meets us at the intersection between real life and real faith.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/fizkes
