Pastors and Narcissism

Most people forever live on the follower side of leadership. On the follower side, it’s easy to criticize because you do not have the responsibilities or understand the special temptations which relate to it, much less have to face them. One of the special temptations or weaknesses associated with the pastoral role is what the world calls Narcissism. Although I probably will use the term a bit creatively, I think it’s a good umbrella for a specific and real pastoral pitfall.

I had a pastor once who had some issues for which his wife asked the church to have him psychologically evaluated at a famous clinic. He was very unresponsive with the evaluators and so they diagnosed him as narcissistic. At the time, I thought that was probably just because of the clash of worldviews. As a Christian he was probably not predisposed to show them a lot of respect, and nor were they, I thought. And that may well have been true, but with a number of years of experience and retrospection to look back on it, I wonder if not only this pastor had an issue, but if there is an endemic problem related to the pastoral role.

I think I’ve served most of my life under pastors who either A. Seem to care about everybody or B. Do not care enough about others. This second type of pastor has become all too common of late, as authoritarian theologies now prop him up. The first type of pastor, however, I think is often the kind of person that we would all like to be. Kenn Guilliksen is one that comes to mind. Here is the guy who was instrumental in Calvary Chapel, and also in the Vineyard, had led countless souls to Christ, loved by everyone, yet at the peak of his life has a breakdown. The “nice guy” pastors, the ones that we all love, are the ones most susceptible to this situation. They want to make everyone happy. But overtime this takes on a sort of life of its own. Their “personality” becomes so big that even they aren’t sure who they are apart from it. After all every week hundreds or thousands of us turn our eyes on them to hear what they say, not to mention all of the church staff and help who do whatever the pastor wants them to do.

One sign of Narcissism is when we are afraid to confront people. If there are no confrontations, then we know that we are doing something wrong, because all leadership involves confrontations.

A second sign of Narcissism is double standards. In fact, one of the greatest checks against it is to submit ourselves to the same standards we expect of others. We’re all blind to some extent about the character of our own actions, but the Narcissist has the issue to the degree that they are unable to actually see the issue when the mirror is held up. That’s scary.

Here are some thoughts about avoiding the pitfall:

1. Deep Christianity happens when we lose consciousness of ourselves. This is especially hard for those of us raised in the “I, me, my” culture. In fact, probably the most basic difference between secular and Christian music is the pronoun “I” versus the pronoun “You.” Secular music speaks to the flesh, to the “I”, but Christian music speaks to the spirit, and the spirit cannot be manifest until the flesh is dead. If you can get to the point where you are conscious only of God and of others, you’ll find incredible freedom. I don’t mean you are not self-aware, but you are fundamentally not self-centered. And it is possible.

2. We should not force or allow our pastors to become the center of a universe. The church is supposed to be a body where everyone brings something essential to body life. We do ourselves–and the pastor–a disservice to focus on one man only. Services and church life should not hinge on one man’s word or will, even if we are all following one man’s vision.

3. The Biblical idea of a pastor, I believe, is one who lays down his life for the sheep. The one who leaves the 99 in the open country to save the one. The one who protects the sheep from the wolves. The one who separates the sheep from the goats. He doesn’t allow the sheep to get fleeced. These are all pastoral functions. So part of a healthy pastorate is understanding that the pastor must be both caring and correcting. To be only one of the two is dangerous.

Submission and Abuse

Abuse is just that: abuse. It is a horrible violation of God’s law and character. One only has to read a testimony of an abused child to know that this is the case. We know that while we are in the days of mercy toward sinners, such crimes will not go unpunished forever, and those who commit them and do not repent will encounter divine and eternal justice. The most horrible thing about abuse is not even the act, however, it is what the abuse does to the abusee psychologically. It warps their views of good and evil, their view of authority, and a lot of other things at the core of their identity. This is why the unthinkable happens — the abusee becomes an abuser.

Often part of the abuse is to designed to convince you of the rightness of what is being done to you, and many abusees begin to believe it. When you believe it, you become either a permanent abusee, or a future abuser, or both. In many more cases than we would like to admit, the abusee actually has some degree of choice to exit the cycle. When participating in the abuse this choice does not really seem real, or it would be excercised. There tremendous fear of some kind placed on the person to keep them from excercising it. In abusive religious systems, it’s usually associated with the loss of one’s salvation. With children it’s especially bad because they have no sense of personal autonomy or choice. In terror, and for seeming lack of options, people submit to abuse.
Therefore, people either submit to abuse because of fear or because they believe it is some how needed, or deserved. These are the doors to the exits of the abusive cycle. If you are terrified of leaving, begin to plot your escape, and at your best chance, make a break for it. There may be great risk involved, but the risk is worth getting your soul back. If you believe that the abuse was needed or deserved, you need healing, and you need to repent. As a way of coping you’ve said to youself “this must be necessary because so and so is such a good person, they would never hurt me” but in reality they are hurting you. When you come to grips with the fact that they were not a good person, and they did actually hurt you and it was completely wrong and unjustified, you’ll begin to close the door on the cycle.

Sometimes we particpate in a form of submission in human relationships that does not classify as abuse but takes on some of its unhealthy dynamics. For example, a well intentioned man desiring to lead his home well, and help his wife toward godliness, may in fact override her will and not even know it because she is deferring rather than trying to argue in what she knows is a difficult battle. Slowly her sense of herself begins to erode as he starts to exercise more and more initiative and she exercises less and less. Eventually this will blow up. He will be shocked because he thought all along that she was on board with the decisions they were making “together,” when in reality, she was not expressing her will. Who is at fault? In reality, they both are. Of course the man is responsible for overriding her will, even if it was unintentional. But it was the responsibility of the woman to let her voice and preference be heard. This is difficult because it will cause conflict especially at first, by not expressing herself, it takes on the dynamics of abuse, even though both parties are acting in good faith and there is no abuser — The woman’s identity is suffocated by the man’s.