Christian Severance

If you haven’t seen Severance, it’s a chilling little workplace dystopia where employees voluntarily undergo a procedure that splits their consciousness. Their “innie” only knows the workplace—an eerie corporation called Lumon, filled with cryptic rituals and a sinister “Break Room” where employees are forced to atone for wrongdoing. Their “outie” lives the rest of life, blissfully unaware of the cubicle purgatory they’ve signed up for. It’s equal parts existential nightmare and corporate satire.

Now, swap the office for a church sanctuary, and you’ve got a disturbingly accurate map of modern Christianity.

The Gospel According to Lumon

Like Severance, the American church has trained its people to live with bifurcated identities. There’s your Church Self—well-dressed, well-mannered, fluent in Christianese, possibly holding a coffee cup with Jeremiah 29:11 on it. Then there’s your Real Self—chronically online, passive-aggressively racist, obsessed with crypto, and one Cybertruck payment away from a full-blown crisis.

This isn’t just hypocrisy; it’s engineered compartmentalization. An inner sanctum of holy veneers and performative virtue. Church becomes the place where people clock in, punch their faith-timecard, and play the role. Then they step back into the world, unchanged, unbothered, and unrepentantly severed from anything resembling the teachings of Jesus.

You’ve met Church Karen. She’s screaming at her kids in the minivan one minute, but as soon as the car door closes and her foot hits the pavement—boom—radiant smile, warm hugs, and praise hands. It’s like flipping a spiritual light switch.

Worship as Workplace

In Lumon, you don’t know why you do what you do. You just follow the process. The numbers. The rituals. The system. The church isn’t far off. Raise your hands, sing the bridge three times, amen your way through a sermon that weaponizes scripture like it’s a corporate memo from God Inc.

Like any good workplace cult, churches love structure. They reward conformity and discourage deviation. Doubt is punished. Questions are suspect. Just be grateful for your employment in the Kingdom.

And don’t forget the metrics. Hours volunteered. Tithes tracked. Baptisms logged and posted like quarterly returns. “Your faith metrics are down this quarter. Maybe consider a short-term mission trip or crying during worship to boost engagement.”

The Break Room is Real

Remember the Break Room? Where you’re forced to repeat apologies until they sound sincere? That’s basically evangelical confession culture. Accountability groups, altar calls, men’s breakfasts with emotional waterboarding. A faith that values submission over transformation.

You’re not encouraged to grow—you’re trained to behave.

And when behavior slips, the church has systems in place. Church discipline contracts. Purity pledges. Forced repentance. You’re not healing; you’re rehearsing.

Outies for Jesus

We’ve talked about the Church Innie. Let’s not forget the Outie. He’s all grievance and God talk, but mostly just mad online. His Jesus doesn’t turn the other cheek—he open-carries. Outie Jesus votes red, hates nuance, and drinks American exceptionalism straight from the communion cup.

And while the Innie is polishing their performance, the Outie is rage-scrolling through MAGA sermons and Facebook theology, nodding along like it’s the Beatitudes and not the next step in the Project 2025 playbook.

Why wrestle with your conscience when your favorite YouTube prophet already uploaded a 37-minute rant about it?

Severed Souls

The tragedy of Severance is that the innies never get to be whole people. They’re stuck in a cycle of repetition, robbed of context, community, and freedom. It’s not just convenience—it’s survival. When the world punishes vulnerability and demands spiritual cosplay, splitting becomes the only safe option. It’s not far from the Christian who segments their spiritual life from their actual life.

Jesus as a weekend hobby. Morality outsourced to a pastor. Political opinions baptized in grievance. It’s easier to follow a brand of faith that demands costumes and scripts than to do the grueling work of inner transformation.

But Jesus didn’t call people to split their identities. He called them to wholeness. To love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. To live integrated lives of compassion and justice.

Because an Innie never causes trouble. An Innie never questions power. And that’s the kind of Christian the system was built for.