The Diabolical Trinity

"""Mark Karris not only explores the deeply violent emotional and spiritual damage done by Hell indoctrination with true insight and compassion, but also offers a real path to recovery."" - David Bentley Hart, author of That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation I'm so glad Mark Karris has written this brilliant book on healing from hell-related religious trauma. If you have an ""inner fundamentalist"" who constantly torments you with condemnation, this book by a trained therapist (who has experienced religious trauma himself) can help you heal. Highly recommended!""-Brian D. McLaren, author of Faith After Doubt ""In The Diabolical Trinity, Mark Karris offers insight and care that is grounded in multiple disciplinary perspectives (psychology, religion, theology, pastoral care). The care that Karris offers readers will be essential reading for religious trauma survivors, particularly those who have been taught to think of themselves and others in terms of punishment or damnation. Karris breaks open the punitive thought systems of hell and saves us from their psychic violence.""-Meghan R. Henning, associate Professor of Christian Origins University of Dayton, and author of Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature ""In this book, Dr. Karris astutely shows how religion can be perverted into a neurosis through the ideology of hell. Further, he shows how the preaching of eternal damnation causes massive psychological suffering rather than salvation. The book concludes with wise and compassionate strategies to help seekers after God return to their authentic selves after having lived in hell, a living hell caused by this ideology."" -Jon Frederickson, MSW, Author of Co-Creating Safety: Healing the Fragile Patient ""We know hell is bad for those who suffer there eternally. But who knew how bad it is in the present!?! Mark Karris explores in detail the trauma and psychological abuse that belief in hell causes. This book is the go-to psychological resource for rejecting the idea anyone will be forced to endure eternal conscious torment. And the go-to resource for helping us heal from that idea!""-Thomas Jay Oord, Author of God Can't and dozens of other books ""His masterful marshaling of evidence ensures that his work will be the new manifesto for helping people heal from their religious trauma by deconstructing the psychological horrors of belief in Hell. The Diabolical Trinity is an arresting, empathetic, and conscious-raising book.""-Darren M. Slade, PhD, Religious Trauma Studies Program, Global Center for Religious Research"