Holy Hypocrisy: The Dark Side of Hazing in Christian Orgs [Op-ED]

A young woman named Ashleigh’s testimony has reignited a complicated question: are Christian fraternities and sororities sanctified or sinister?

In March, she posted a 28-minute YouTube video announcing, “I pledged Alpha Nu Omega in public, and I am denouncing in public,” describing an intake process branded “non-hazing” yet marked by “mental, emotional, and spiritual breakdowns.” Recently, reposts of her video on TikTok resurfaced in the current debate—drawing more laughter than reflection. “A Christian sorority?! Really?” one commenter joked, mocking a wider online habit where Christians label almost anything demonic, from secular music to entire universities like Spelman College.

The commonalities allowed people to gloss over the real issue of Ashleigh’s story–she was hazed. Faith-based organizations often escape scrutiny because of their branding, even when their practices echo the same hierarchies and harms they claim to replace.

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As a former member, I was tagged in the comments on the young woman’s video, much to my chagrin. I already knew my feelings about the intake practices would ruffle the feathers of Dove Sisters and Eagle brothers who still love the organization. Distance often clarifies what proximity hides. The reactions confirmed it: “I’m in ANQ. Literally this is not it,” one member wrote. Another insisted, “But you didn’t name one thing that wasn’t Christian? I’m a proud member and this isn’t true! ANQ was founded on Christian principles and actively practices and proclaims the gospel.”

I chose Alpha Nu Omega because of the climate I was in at 20 years old. Although I pursued my current National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC, Divine Nine, or D9) sorority, campus chatter about D9 culture felt overwhelming, and I worried whether God would be pleased if I pursued that route. Churches in my orbit were circulating anti-Greek DVDs and sermons that painted the Divine Nine as spiritually suspect, sometimes in the same breath as critiques of secular music and artists. I had close friends in D9 organizations who lived very different lives—some partied, some never drank, some were proud virgins—yet I knew the reality of guilt by association. Alpha Nu Omega offered something that felt safer and kept dual membership on the table. I had an opportunity to figure it all–life, my walk with God, and if I still wanted the d9 sorority at all.

The “Christian Alternative” That Isn’t

Though it claims to be a ‘Christian alternative,’ it’s caught in the middle—too Greek to be different, too different to be truly Greek. It mirrors Greek signifiers like letters, line numbers, calls, and neophyte presentations, while claiming ministry sets it apart. That claim should prompt Christians to ask whether they are aptly stewarding the young souls entrusted to them. When that examination is missing, the practices become indistinguishable from the ones they criticize.

Christian organizations point to “we do not hit” and claim moral distance from the worst outcomes, as if tragedy elsewhere confirms virtue within their own organization. Humiliation for mis-stating a title does not become holy work because Colossians 3:23 is quoted over it. Young adults with still-developing judgment learn to ignore their conscience under the guise of becoming closer to God. The harm lands in the places faith is supposed to protect: identity, autonomy, trust, and the capacity to say no. Non-hitting does not equal non-hazing.

Conversations about hazing typically center on historically Black Greek-letter organizations, like those of the Divine Nine. Faith-based student groups rarely make the list, as if the word “Christian” works like a safety seal. Research tells a more complicated story. The University of Maine’s National Study of Student Hazing found that hazing behaviors are common across campus life, that social fraternities and sororities report them at high rates, and that students who recognize hazing rarely report it. Religious clubs are included in the study’s “other organizations” category, and hazing shows up there too. Those findings do not prove every Christian club is harmful. However, they show the need to evaluate practices rather than assume all is well.

At the heart of this issue is that tension between identity, authority, and autonomy. We tend to call collegians “adults,” yet we also say they are probably too young to marry and accept that, with frontal lobes still developing into the mid-20s, they are vulnerable to manipulation by older people. Why does that logic not apply when the manipulation comes by way of intake? At the interest meeting I attended, someone asked whether Alpha Nu Omega hazed. The answer came with a smile: “We do not haze, but God hazes you.” That line captured what I’d come to see as the problem. In Christian organizations the authority bias is doubled. The same people who orient prospective members and enforce intake also carry titles as ministers or clergy. Even collegiate peers who hold no official title in a church setting appear to be bold people “on fire” for God. A directive in that setting lands as both an organizational order and a spiritual command. Refusal can feel like disobedience to God rather than a healthy boundary with peers and/or elders.That pairing of positional power with pastoral influence turns what is framed as discipline into control.

I began the process in the Fall of 2009 while at Bowie State University, the organization’s Rho Chapter. My process began with pre-orientation in July 2009 and formal intake the first weekend of September through Rho Chapter at Bowie State. Intake lasted seven weeks. Although my chapter had recently inducted members before our line, all of those women had graduated in the spring. Not every moment was harmful. The parts that looked like prayer, study, and sisterhood felt beautiful. Other moments did not. 

Authority did not stop at the organizational level. It doubled, because the same people leading intake were “on fire” ministers who serve their campus communities.

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When Discipline Becomes Control

During a regional conference weekend, an extended set appeared after formal programming. After our usual Saturday lesson–after which we were usually dismissed– we were pulled into an extended session that did not resemble edification or spiritual formation. Men and women packed that hotel room, and we were pressed to perform in unison with two prospective members from another chapter that we had only met the night before. Members appeared to be bothered when my two Rho line sisters and I could not immediately move and respond in sync with people from another campus. It was intense, but we were asked varying forms of “If you don’t know this, how are you going to be able to minister on your campus?” We were finally dismissed after being told we had embarrassed our deans. Conversations of whether or not it was worth it to continue swirled around on the ride back. Only one of us actually left the process. Money had been paid, bonds had been formed, and spiritual aspiration often pairs with sunk cost to produce compliance.

Leadership roles later changed how I interpreted those experiences. As a chapter president, then an advisor in training, I reviewed internal documents and realized some “traditions” lacked authorization. Later, as a graduate advisor, I watched how practices get handed down in the name of consistency. What we called discipline often functioned as control. What we called spiritual testing sometimes carried the marks of psychological harm. Students learned to equate discomfort with development and silence with obedience.

Policy on Paper, Practice in the Room

Public information from Alpha Nu Omega outlines how structure can enable confusion. The organization describes itself as “one organization” with “two entities,” a fraternity and a sorority under one constitution and one national board, with the same colors and a “family” framing. The site states that the fraternity and sorority hold separate orientation processes and manage different outreach. The history page adds that in spring 1991 the organization chose to become a non-hazing organization and adopted an intake curriculum called the Orientation Process. Those claims are important and should be stated plainly. They also raise reasonable questions about how shared governance works in practice.

Shared governance across a fraternity and a sorority creates the potential for imbalances in voice and authority. I remember wondering why a male voice appeared to have authority above the national vice president for sorority affairs. I saw moments where male leaders spoke harshly to sorority members. I also recall a social media thread within the organization’s private Facebook group where a leader implied to a fraternity member that he should “rectify” a disagreement at home after his wife (and sorority member) asked the organization to take a clear position on LGBTQIA+ inclusion. This exchange prompted me to send a letter to renounce the organization. Those episodes illustrate how titles and theology can converge in ways that leave women with less agency. At times, it felt like we were just School Daze’s Gamma Rays “meowing” after Christian Gamma Dogs. 

I held dual membership for roughly eight months between late 2018 and mid-2019. The reaction inside Alpha Nu Omega was telling. Subliminal posts and memes appeared, some labeling D9 organizations demonic. The shade did not target only me. Several members across the organization joined D9 orgs that month. Some of the loudest critics later joined D9 organizations themselves. The “alternative” framing depended less on practice and more on posture.

Accountability Without the Halo

My D9 sorority has its own challenges, yet I never felt forced to choose between my beliefs and my membership. My personal walk with God–and my shortcomings–are not fused to my status in the sorority. I serve because I love service and because I believe it matters. I can serve beside people who love service for its own sake. That difference matters.

Scholars have examined how race and gender shape hazing. Research led by Gregory S. Parks and colleagues finds that violent hazing incidents trend higher in Black fraternities, while Black sororities face different but persistent forms of coercion and abuse that are often psychological or status-based rather than overtly physical. Those patterns help explain why “non-hitting” spaces can still injure people and why spiritual framing can mask that injury. A ritual does not need a paddle to be harmful. A ritual dressed as a test of devotion can accomplish the same harm under a different name.

The point is not to brand Christian organizations as demonic or to pretend that Greek life is unredeemable. The point is to tell the truth about how power operates under religious branding. Students join because they want to belong to God more deeply, not because they want to be conditioned to obey people more readily. Non-hitting does not mean non-hazing. It never did. No organization should be exempt from accountability. Christian ones are no exception.

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