When Faith Feels Like Fear: How Childhood Theology Shapes the Nervous System
by David Ruybalid
Many adults who grew up in church describe a confusing experience later in life. They may still value faith, Scripture, or Jesus, yet feel anxiety, shame, or fear surface in worship spaces, prayer, or conversations about sin, Satan, and hell. Others have stepped away from Christianity entirely, often naming childhood religious trauma as a central reason.
At the same time, many parents and teachers who hold a traditional, Bible based Christian faith want to pass on their beliefs with integrity and love. They are not trying to harm children. They are trying to be faithful.
Understanding how a child’s brain develops helps explain why certain doctrines, when taught in fear based or age-inappropriate ways, can be traumatic rather than formative. This knowledge can serve both groups. It can help adults make sense of their own stories, and it can help caregivers teach responsibly and faithfully going forward.
Why fear based religious teaching affects children differently
Children do not process spiritual ideas the way adults do. In early and middle childhood, the brain is still developing the systems needed to regulate fear, think symbolically, and evaluate abstract claims.
The amygdala, the brain’s threat detection center, is highly active early in life. The prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate fear and assess meaning, develops much later. This means that repeated messages about danger are encoded powerfully and emotionally, often before a child can think critically about them.
When teachings about Satan, hell, God’s wrath, or sin are presented as a continual present threat, children often experience them as inescapable realities rather than theological concepts of invitation to a loving God. These are perceived as current dangers that must be monitored constantly, and their nervous system is continually going into survival.
Research in developmental neuroscience shows that chronic fear during sensitive periods of development can alter how the brain’s threat and regulation systems interact. Over time, this can reduce emotional flexibility and increase anxiety, hypervigilance, and black and white thinking.
Attachment, theology, and why timing matters so much in childhood
One of the most important and often overlooked factors in how children process theology is attachment. Attachment refers to the emotional bond a child forms with their primary caregivers and it shapes how the child experiences safety, threat, love, and authority.
Decades of attachment research show that children develop internal working models of relationships very early. These models answer questions like: Am I safe? Am I lovable? Can I trust authority figures? When something goes wrong, will I be met with care or punishment?
These attachment patterns are forming at the same time children are first learning about God, sin, Satan, and salvation. Because of this overlap in timing, theology is rarely received as neutral information. It is emotionally encoded through the lens of the child’s earliest relational experiences.
When caregivers are consistently responsive, calm, and repair relational ruptures, children are more likely to develop secure attachment. In this context, theological ideas about sin or moral failure are experienced as manageable challenges within a safe relationship. God is more easily perceived as loving, present, and trustworthy.
However, when caregivers are unpredictable, harsh, emotionally distant, or fear driven, children are more likely to develop insecure attachment styles. In those cases, theology can take on a very different emotional weight. Teachings about God’s wrath, judgment, or constant spiritual threat may be processed as personal danger, and are often taught inaccurately. God can become associated with the same fear, inconsistency, or emotional withdrawal experienced in human relationships.
In early childhood, attachment systems, threat detection systems, and basic God concepts are forming together. A child does not yet have the cognitive ability to separate theology from relationship. The nervous system simply absorbs the emotional tone of what is taught and who is teaching it.
For example, a message like “God is always watching you” may be heard very differently by a securely attached child than by a child whose safety already feels fragile. For the latter, such messages can intensify hypervigilance and anxiety, reinforcing the belief that love and safety are conditional.
Attachment research also suggests that children often internalize God in the emotional “shape” of their caregivers. This does not mean parents replace God, but that the child’s earliest experience of authority, care, correction, and repair becomes the template through which divine authority is imagined. When theology emphasizes threat before safety, or punishment before repair, it can lock in fear-based God images that persist long after childhood.
This convergence of attachment development and theological instruction makes childhood an especially sensitive and formative period. It also explains why later theological reframing, while helpful, often does not fully remove the bodily fear responses many adults experience. Those responses were learned before words, logic, or doctrine could be critically evaluated.
Understanding this dynamic does not require rejecting Christianity or abandoning theology, though many do. It invites caregivers, pastors, and educators to take extraordinary care with tone, timing, and relational context. Secure attachment is not opposed to holiness or moral formation. It is the foundation that allows children to encounter serious theology without being overwhelmed by fear.
Satan, sin, and hell in high control religious environments
In many high control religious settings, children are taught several ideas at the same time: that they are inherently sinful or depraved (as their identity), that God is easily angered by disobedience or doubt, that Satan and demons are actively watching and attacking, and that hell is a real and eternal punishment that could result from wrong beliefs, behaviors, or even thoughts. For a child, this convergence of messages can be overwhelming, instead of helpful. Normal developmental experiences such as curiosity, sexual development, anger, fear, or questioning authority may be met with shame rather than guidance. Instead of being patiently discipled and worked through with a trusted, loving authority figure, children are led to fear themselves and God.
Clinicians working with what is often referred to as “hell trauma” describe children who develop chronic anxiety, intrusive images of hell or demons, recurring nightmares, and a persistent fear of being abandoned by God. These fears are not fleeting or merely imaginative. Because they are learned during sensitive stages of brain and emotional development, they often persist into adolescence and adulthood, surfacing long after the original teachings have stopped.
Over time, this pattern can resemble complex trauma. Survivors frequently report hypervigilance, deep and enduring shame, dissociation, and significant difficulty trusting authority figures or institutions. When fear-based doctrine is paired with harsh discipline or shaming forms of correction, the impact intensifies. The child is left experiencing both spiritual threat and relational threat simultaneously, shaping their understanding of God, themselves, and the world in ways that can take years to untangle.
One common outcome of this kind of fear-based formation is a condition known as scrupulosity. Scrupulosity is a form of religious or moral obsessive compulsive distress in which a person becomes consumed by persistent fear of sinning, displeasing God, or failing to meet spiritual or moral standards. Those who struggle with scrupulosity often experience intrusive thoughts, constant self-monitoring, compulsive confession or repentance, and an ongoing inability to feel peace or assurance, even after doing everything they believe is required of them.
I have worked extensively with individuals who live with scrupulosity as a symptom of religious trauma, and many trace its roots to childhood environments where faith was framed primarily around threat, punishment, and hypervigilance rather than secure attachment, grace, and trust. In these cases, the nervous system learns to equate spiritual faithfulness with constant fear and self-surveillance. As a result, people are left exhausted, deeply ashamed, and disconnected from both themselves and God. Even when beliefs are cognitively reframed, the fear often persists because the memories that shaped those beliefs are stored in the nervous system. At that level, the body has learned that safety requires vigilance and that both the self and God are something to fear.
If you view Satan and sin as Biblically grounded theological realities, it is crucial to teach them in ways informed by both trauma research and child development. This means presenting these ideas in a manner appropriate to a child’s cognitive, emotional, and relational stage, ensuring that instruction is truthful without creating fear or overwhelm. All too often, these concepts have been conveyed insensitively, simply because fear-based approaches have become normalized in certain Christian subcultures.
I remember attending Bible camp after fifth grade, around age 11, when the speaker gave an intensely graphic account of Jesus’s death on the cross, more vivid than anything in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. At the end, he made sure we understood that this suffering happened “because we were sinners. We caused this. We deserved it.” Thirty years later, that memory is still lodged in my nervous system, carrying the weight of trauma.
Teaching theology without harming attachment
If you desire to teach your children from a traditional Christian perspective, it is possible to teach about sin, evil, and spiritual conflict in ways that are theologically accurate and psychologically protective. The key principle is secure attachment first.
Consider Jesus’ interaction with the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11). The crowd was ready to condemn her according to the law, and the situation was tense and threatening. Jesus did not ignore what had happened, but he also did not respond with fear, shame, or harsh punishment. Instead, he first created a safe relational space, asking those without fault to step forward and ultimately protecting her from harm. He acknowledged the seriousness of the situation while centering grace, restoration, and her dignity. He concluded, “Go now and leave your life of sin,” offering guidance without condemnation and giving her both clarity and hope.
This demonstrates anyone can be taught in ways that are truthful yet protective. The relational context matters. The child experiences guidance and correction in a framework of trust and care, not terror.
Children tend to internalize their image of God through their caregivers.
Below is a practical, developmentally informed guide for teaching within a traditional Christian framework while protecting a child’s nervous system and sense of self.
A Developmentally Informed Guide for Teaching Traditional Christian Theology to Children
Early childhood (approximately ages 3–7)
At this stage, children think concretely and relationally. Their brains are highly attuned to threat and safety: the limbic system, including the amygdala, is very active, while frontal regions responsible for abstract reasoning, impulse control, and perspective-taking are still immature. Children process experiences through relationships: “Is my caregiver here? Am I safe? What happens if I do X?” Because of this, messages that frame behavior as a reflection of identity are experienced as global threats to self and belonging.
Helpful approaches:
Focus on behavior, not identity. Say “That choice hurt yourself and others,” basing it on fractured relationship, rather than “You are depraved.”
Link wrongdoing to empathy and repair, not punishment. Emphasize making things right.
Present God as consistently loving and near, especially when mistakes happen.
Avoid graphic and intense descriptions of hell, demons, or spiritual warfare. Keep language simple.
A simple framework is “God’s way helps people flourish, and when we mess up, we repair and are still loved no matter what.”
Middle childhood (approximately ages 8–12)
At this stage, children’s brains are developing the prefrontal cortex but it is not yet mature. They can handle more complex reasoning about motives, patterns, and moral consequences, and their conscience is more active. Storytelling is particularly effective because their brains integrate moral lessons through narrative and identification with characters. Social comparison is increasing, and shame still hits hard, so identity-based messages are dangerous.
Helpful approaches:
Use biblical stories and the restoration thread of scripture to explore both failure and restoration.
Teach the difference between conviction and shame. Conviction leads to growth. Shame attacks worth.
Talk about sin that includes the effects on the world, fractured relationships (God and others), not just individual mistakes. Avoid using the term “sin” as identity language (who they are), because children will process it as shame and hold onto it in unhealthy ways.
Frame Satan and evil as forces that pull people away from love and truth, always emphasizing Christ’s presence and victory.
Fear must never be the primary motivator for faith.
Adolescence
Teen brains are undergoing major remodeling. Synaptic pruning and myelination increase efficiency in prefrontal regions, improving abstraction and long-range planning. Limbic and emotional systems remain highly reactive, making adolescents sensitive to shame, coercion, and hypocrisy. Identity formation and meaning-making are central, so theological teaching can be integrated in ways that support agency, critical thinking, and self-regulation.
Helpful approaches:
Present God’s heart, even when discussing justice, as loving opposition to what harms people and creation. God allows people to experience the consequences of their choices when they turn away from what is good (“hands them over” - Romans 1), rather than acting out of arbitrary anger or rage.
Connect repentance to healing and freedom rather than fear of rejection by God.
Explicitly name and critique abusive uses of hell, Satan, or sin language that might be used in contexts that they might be in or around.
Welcome doubt and questions as part of mature faith development.
Practices like lament, serving, contemplative prayer, and honest conversations with caregivers help teens regulate emotions while engaging hard topics.
Important Things to Remember
Children deserve theology that forms them, not frightens them. Understanding brain development does not require abandoning faith or Scripture. It invites greater care, wisdom, and humility in how beliefs are passed on.
For some adults, this understanding offers language for wounds they have carried silently for years. For others, it provides a path forward that protects children while honoring possible deeply held theological convictions.
Faith does not have to be rooted in fear to be faithful.
David Ruybalid is a co-founder of the Religious Trauma Network.
This article was originally published at davidruybalid.substack.com.
This article is not intended to treat or diagnose any condition. David is not a licensed therapist or clinician. Any advice or opinions given on this site are strictly individual observation and insights based on personal experiences and study. It should in no way take the place of professional assistance.