🌍 The Delusion of Righteousness: How Power Can Harm While Claiming to Heal

By Rev. Paula Josephine Sadler, Founder of Universal Rainbow Faith

We live in an era where the line between righteousness and destruction is often blurred by belief, ideology, and power. There is a spiritual sickness spreading across governments, religious movements, and institutions—one where leaders and followers alike are convinced they are doing good, while in reality, they are sowing deep harm.

These individuals or systems pray, preach, legislate, and march with what they believe is moral clarity. They say they are protecting children, restoring freedom, upholding tradition, or saving souls. Yet behind these justifications, we witness the erosion of truth, justice, dignity, and human rights. It’s not just a political crisis—it’s a spiritual malady, born from ego, fear, and a refusal to look inward.

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🧠 What Do We Call This? How Can It Be Understood?

The phenomenon of believing one is doing good while actually harming others has been understood through many lenses, both ancient and modern. Here are some terms and frameworks historically and currently used to describe this condition:

Moral Blindness: The inability to perceive the unethical dimensions of one's actions due to self-righteousness or group conformity.

Righteous Delusion: A deep self-deception where someone is convinced their actions are virtuous, even if they cause harm.

Spiritual Bypassing: Using spiritual beliefs to avoid accountability or personal shadow work.

Cognitive Dissonance: The mental discomfort experienced when holding contradictory beliefs, often resolved through denial or justification.

Zealotry / Fanaticism: Excessive and uncompromising enthusiasm for a cause, often dismissing other perspectives.

Shadow Projection (Jungian Psychology): Attributing one’s denied traits or darkness to others, often in moral or spiritual conflicts.

Groupthink: When the desire for harmony or conformity results in irrational or dysfunctional decision-making.

Hubris: Excessive pride or defiance of the divine, historically referenced in Greek tragedy and moral teachings.

Ideological Possession (Jordan Peterson): When a person becomes entirely identified with a set of beliefs to the point of losing independent thought.

Authoritarian Personality Syndrome (Theodor Adorno): Describes rigid, hierarchical, and punitive mindsets that often justify oppression.

Sacred Violence (René Girard): The idea that societies often justify violence as necessary or divine in origin to preserve order.

Understanding the wide range of terms helps illuminate that this is not simply a political issue—it is deeply human, psychological, and spiritual.

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🔥 When Good Intentions Become Delusions

This phenomenon—where someone believes they are helping but are actually hurting—is not new. Throughout history, we’ve seen it in the Inquisition, the Crusades, colonial “civilizing” missions, and totalitarian regimes. These efforts were cloaked in spiritual or nationalistic language, but they justified persecution, war, and genocide. People felt they were right. But their “rightness” was a righteous delusion.

> “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”

—C.S. Lewis

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

—Traditional Proverb

Today, we see this same sickness manifesting across the world.

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🌪️ Governments and Movements Causing Harm While Claiming Virtue

🔴 Governments

Russia: Claims to protect Russians and traditional values, but wages war in Ukraine, silences dissent, and persecutes LGBTQ+ people.

Iran: Justifies brutal theocracy as God's will, executing protestors and denying women and LGBTQ+ people basic rights.

China: Speaks of unity and harmony, while committing cultural genocide in Tibet and Xinjiang, and censoring free expression.

United States (under MAGA-GOP rule): Preaches “faith, family, and freedom” while attacking bodily autonomy, trans lives, and democratic norms.

Israel (far-right government): Justifies violent military force and systemic displacement of Palestinians in the name of national security.

Saudi Arabia: Rebrands as a modern economic hub while silencing critics, women, and queer people under threat of death.

⚠️ Religious Movements

Christian Nationalism: A distorted fusion of politics and faith that seeks to control rather than liberate.

Hindutva (India): Marginalizes Muslims and non-Hindu minorities in the name of national Hindu identity.

Extremist Islamic factions (e.g., Taliban): Suppress women, education, and LGBTQ+ lives under the guise of piety.

Fundamentalists of all major religions: When belief turns into exclusion, cruelty, or silence in the face of injustice—it ceases to be sacred.

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🌈 Who Is Actually Healing the World?

There are glimmers of light—individuals, governments, and spiritual communities working not for dominance, but for dignity. While no nation is perfect, some have made conscious strides toward inclusion, peace, and sustainability.

🟢 Governments & Nations

New Zealand (under Jacinda Ardern): Modeled compassionate leadership during crisis, prioritizing mental health, Māori rights, and LGBTQ+ inclusion.

Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark): Offer universal healthcare, education, and lead in gender equality and climate consciousness.

Canada: Invests in refugee protection, trans healthcare access, and ongoing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

Costa Rica: A demilitarized nation focused on education, renewable energy, and human rights.

Scotland & Ireland (with nuance): Though there have been recent protests and growing cultural tensions around transgender rights in Scotland, both nations continue to lead in progressive legislation, healthcare access, and efforts to uphold inclusive values—albeit amid a challenging global climate.

💜 Conscious Spiritual Communities

Unity, UCC, Reform Judaism, Plum Village, Universal Rainbow Faith, and others are creating sanctuaries for healing, diversity, and truth.

Progressive Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist voices are reshaping theology to honor the sacred within everyone.

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✨ Can the Spiritually Blind Be Awakened?

Transformation is possible, but it requires:

Empathy that bridges the ideological divide.

Moral rupture, where deeply held beliefs are confronted by personal loss or undeniable truth.

Courageous confrontation from voices inside and outside one’s belief system.

Spiritual humility—the willingness to say “I may have been wrong.”

No one awakens through shame. But they may awaken through love, truth, story, and the undeniable call of conscience.

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🧭 How Do We Know Who Is Truly Doing Good?

This is not about partisanship—it’s about principles. A true measure of goodness transcends dogma, borders, and party lines.

📜 How to Evaluate Who Is Doing Good

(Print this. Share this. Reflect on this.)

👉 Does it reduce suffering—for all, not just a few?

👉 Does it affirm dignity and freedom for the most marginalized?

👉 Does it protect the Earth and future generations?

👉 Does it honor truth, even when it’s uncomfortable?

👉 Does it allow disagreement without violence or dehumanization?

👉 Does it foster compassion, healing, and shared humanity?

> “By their fruits you will know them.”

—Matthew 7:16

If the fruit is violence, cruelty, silencing, or hate—it doesn’t matter how righteous the tree looks.

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🌟 Final Reflection

We are not fighting between left and right. We are fighting between love and fear. Between truth and delusion. Between domination and liberation. The world doesn’t need more power. It needs more soul.

Let us become those who do the quiet, persistent work of healing—not through conquest, but through consciousness.

This is one of the deepest spiritual and psychological questions we face as individuals and societies: How do you help someone—or a group—see that what they believe is good is actually harmful? And even if they do see it, how do you get them to care enough to change?

🔍 The Problem at the Core

At the heart of this is ego, identity, fear, and belonging. Many people:

Can’t see the harm because it contradicts what they believe about themselves (“I’m a good person”).

Won’t see the harm because admitting it would mean losing status, power, or community.

Don’t want to see the harm because it serves their interests or comforts.

So change isn’t just about giving people facts or moral arguments—it’s about disrupting illusions with love, truth, and consequence.

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🌟 My Recommendation: A Path to Awakening

Here’s what I believe must happen—internally, culturally, and systemically—for true transformation to occur:

1. Moral Disruption

People often don’t change unless they’re forced to confront undeniable consequences:

A child comes out as LGBTQ+ and their ideology gets personal.

Their group causes harm to someone they love.

A public tragedy happens that exposes the hypocrisy.

👉 We must create space for truth-telling, storytelling, and bearing witness. Real stories break through propaganda.

2. Spiritual Humility

The greatest barrier to awakening is spiritual pride. We must model and promote:

The idea that growth is holy.

That being wrong is not evil—it’s human.

That repentance and change are paths to true strength.

👉 Religious leaders, educators, and influencers must model humility.

3. Collective Mirror-Holding

We need people inside and outside belief systems to speak truth—not with hatred, but with strength and clarity:

Whistleblowers.

Deconverted voices.

Moral leaders within the community.

👉 You can’t shame people into seeing. But you can love them into accountability.

4. A Culture of Consequence

We must create social, economic, and political consequences for harmful behavior:

Voting out politicians who legislate oppression.

Calling out hate in churches and communities.

Refusing to normalize abuse or dehumanization.

👉 Compassion must be paired with accountability. That’s justice.

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🔥 Worst Case Scenario

If people refuse to see, double down on harm, and cling to ideology over humanity, we risk:

The collapse of democracy in multiple countries.

Global violence, civil unrest, and climate chaos fueled by tribalism and denial.

Mass persecution of LGBTQIA+, women, immigrants, and others, justified by “righteous” belief.

Widening authoritarianism disguised as tradition or faith.

Spiritual deadening, where entire generations lose trust in religion, government, or community.

This is already unfolding in many places.

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🌈 Best Case Scenario

If enough people awaken—through compassion, crisis, or grace—we can:

Create a global spiritual renaissance, where love and liberation are central.

Heal divides with truth and restorative justice.

Enshrine human dignity and sacred diversity in law, culture, and faith.

Rebuild society based on care, sustainability, and equity.

Awaken a generation to serve something greater than fear—namely, love.

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✨ Final Thought

> “What needs to happen?”

A miracle—but not the kind that falls from the sky.

The kind we choose to become.