Monthly Archives: January 2020

Sin or Safety: Where is Our Focus?

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A comment was made recently by a survivor of sexual assault that really struck me. She said the church tends to focus on the perpetrator at the expense of the victim. I did not really understand at first but then had an “aha” moment.

Are we more focused on sin or safety?

When my wife and I witnessed a verbal abuse attack of a close friend by her husband soon after they were married, we were ignorant of abuse. He began apologizing and hung his head. We immediately began consoling him.

His new wife sat in anger and fear while we consoled him.

We put our arms around him.

We consoled him.

We expected her to forgive and forget.

Years later we realized our horrible mistake.

But we know that this is what the church tends to do in many cases. There is much to be done to help the church become a safe place for those who are suffering under leadership or domestic abuse.

We look back at that experience in shame. We have since learned much about abuse in the workplace and home and realize our failure.

Getting Repentance

We tend to focus on bringing the oppressor to repentance. Rather than doing all we can, first and formost, to provide safety and solace for the victim(s), we begin speaking words of exhortation and God’s promises of comfort to the abuser.

Jeff (not his real name) told me his story of bringing two other ministry leaders (major names in Christian organizations) to the founder of the ministry of which he was a upper-level manager. The founder had sexually harrassed multiple women in the ministry’s employ. They sought the founder’s repentance and suggested he step down for a few months’ time to get counseling.

Seeking the repentance of sinners is most certainly of biblical importance. It is the ultimate work of Christ to bring us to repentance.

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

2 Timothy 2:24-26 (ESV)

He has done this work in us and we are called to seek it in others through the preaching of the sweet and welcome message of the Good News. Note the sweet words in the 2nd Timothy passage. “Be kind,” “patiently enduring evil,” correcting with “gentleness.” Romans 2:4  says,

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

What leads to repentance? “God’s kindness!” And we are to mimic the Lord in this good work.

Foundations of Spiritual / Psychological

But it is important for those who come into contact with abusive leaders in the home and workplace to know the spiritual and psychological forces of this particular brokenness in God’s creation. It is Paul’s words to the Romans in the chapter before the one quoted above that helps us understand the dynamics of abuse:

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Romans 1:28-32 (ESV)

Even a cursory look at those words gives you a description of an oppressive and abusive individual. “Evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, slanderers, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, heartless, ruthless…“

These are not the descriptions of your average Joe.

The foundational sin of Paul’s words of exhortation are found in verse 25:

They…worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…

Idolatry, which is the giving of honor and attention first and foremost to anything other than the Lord Who created the heavens and the earth, is foundational to abuse. Those who have worked tirelessly to bring abusers to repentance can testify to the sense that abusers have been given up to their incredible debasement. They have moved farther and farther away from truly humbling themselves before their Creator.

They are always right. They are always the target of those other people. They always have justification for their sin. They lie. They are heartless and ruthless.

The sin / psychology of the abuser is one of entitlement. HE / SHE is the center of the universe in which he / she lives. He deserves all the good he receives…whether from man, woman, animal, or God.

And in this case, God calls them to account.

Being Pastoral

Therefore, we “pastor” the abuser differently than we do the average Joe. The Bible draws a distinction between the sinner next door and an oppressor as they welcome the Gospel.

  • The average Joe will hear the Gospel and see it as the good news it is. An undeserving sinner has been served by the deserving God and come out smelling like roses. Wow! To grace he is a debtor.
  • To the abuser the Gospel is what he deserves. He is entitled to the good treatment by God and by others. He receives his subordinates’ or wife’s praise as that which is merited. He has been given over to his idolatry – he deeply loves himself.

Pastoring the abuser therefore means calling him to account. It means not giving in to his foolishness and manipulation but kindly and humbly telling him he is wrong and needs to turn from his blame-shifting, justifying, and oppressive behavior.

Jeff and his entourage experienced a common response of abusive leaders following the hearing of a Gospel-like confrontation: The Founder fired Jeff. And a major donor coddled the Founder by threatening to pull his support of the ministry if the board of directors did not keep him in place.

The Founder stayed in his leadership position for 10 more years when the overwhelming evidence of more and more harassment became unbearable to the organization’s good name.

He took advantage of others’ “gentleness” while slaughtering women under his leadership.

Accountability, Not Coddling

Those with experience working with abuser intervention programs do so with an unswerving focus on accountability. They do not allow their counselees to bamboozle or take advantage. They hold them accountable.

We often hear the perpetrator’s words of shame (when caught in his misdeed) with little suspicion and give words of comfort without repentance being evidenced in life. I have been that man who received an abuser’s words of supposed repentance only to see him continue to oppress. [see this for a good list of indicators of repentance]

It is time for the church to work towards educating its masses that they might seek to comfort the oppressed and if possible call the oppressor to account.

This is God’s pattern:

Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them.

Judges 2:18 (ESV)

The Lord stood by the oppressed. He brought them safety. He was on their side. He did not say to the oppressors, “What is your side of the story? How can we help you?” We know how to help them and it is to bring them to account.

He stood unswervingly at the side of the oppressed.

This is a far cry from how many churches have handled reports of abuse. It is not uncommon that in the interest of being “fair,” the church unknowingly sides with the oppressor. By giving the oppressor the opportunity to continue to tear down his target, we are siding with him. To give him a voice, we take away the long-silenced voice of his target.

Do not allow abusive leaders to “presume on the riches of [God’s] kindness and forbearance and patience.”

Call them to account.

Notes:

Consider picking up a free copy of “Becoming a Church that Cares About Abuse.”

The 2nd Chair: Suffering a Toxic Leader When 2nd in Command

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In an orchestra there is the “principal” player in each section (I.e. trumpets) and the “second chair” who supports the principal.

Depending on the church, an Assistant to the pastor may take a significant role in directing a particular ministry in the church such as youth groups, music, discipleship and worship as a leader in the “second chair.” In some denominations the senior pastor and elders have equal authority and this may include an assistant.

However, most elder and deacon boards give significant authority to the senior pastor, giving him broad discretionary powers in budget spending, vision, and day to day operations of the church. An assistant (or associate) pastor may report almost entirely to the pastor.

When the senior and assistant pastors’ visions and practice of leadership conflict there can be significant relational battles waged that then envelop the congregation.

How does the pastor’s assistant, who “leads from the second chair,” practice self-differentiation when the environment is exceptionally anxious due to the autocratic leadership of a senior pastor?

Self-Differentiation

“Self-differentiation” is described by Edwin Friedman [A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix] as,

“Someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals, and, therefore, someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about.”

An “anxious emotional” environment may develop because of the autocratic and non-empathetic leadership of the pastor. Conflict is a matter of course under his leadership.

Some literature describing self-differentiation suggest that those who are self-differentiated can have a significant impact on the systemic anxiety located in an organization. Though there may be a person who acts “obstreperously” or is “ornery” and intimidates “everyone with his gruffness,” Friedman argues that it simply takes one person willing to take “a stand, telling this person he has to shape up or he cannot continue to remain a member of the community” to neutralize the anxiety in the system.[1]

While speaking of marital discord, Friedman says, “It does not require two people working on a marriage to change it.”[2] Friedman argues that one person can create a positive environment despite the intimidation of another individual.

Christian writers, Herrington, Creech and Taylor would agree as they maintain that the focus in an anxious environment needs to be on “managing yourself rather than managing others.”[3] It is necessary to be different (differentiated) from those creating the anxiety.

These counselors have had extraordinary success in helping leaders of organizations develop self-differentiation skills that greatly impact the relationships in their systems.

But Abuse

But does this really work when under the authority of an abusive leader? Can the pastor’s assistant practice self-differentiation in this way and impact the systemic anxiety while facing an autocratic, dictator-like senior pastor?

David McAllister-Williams, in The Leadership Challenge, exhorts, “what matters is not your personal success or the success of your organization.” To self-differentiate, the assistant needs to “put the future in God’s hands, and [he] will be the kind of non-anxious presence people will look to for comfort and hope.”[4]

Here self-differentiation is related to a servant’s attitude as the (second-chair) leader has opportunity to provide “comfort and hope” rather than defending his own territory, ego, or ideas.

However, when anxiety-causing leader has extensive authority and is seeking only his personal success, the aggressive stance of telling him “to shape up,” as Friedman suggested earlier, is not an option available to the second-chair. Even seeking redress from others in the organization (like the elder board) can mean losing employment or breaking an already fragile relationship with the pastor or CEO, according to Mariam Ciby and R.P. Raya of Pondicherry (Central) University.[5]

There are few psychologists who have studied abusive leadership who will suggest that self-differentiation by those under abusive leaders will change the environment. Calling the subordinate to mellow the anxiety created by the leader places the responsibility of systemic change on the target of the abuse rather than calling to account the badly behaving pastor.

Expecting the one under the powerful position of the leader to be above it all while being battered is likened to telling an abused woman to “just hang in there,” being submissive to a man who has no intention of loving her, only controlling her to his own selfish ends.

There is likely to be no change in the abusive leader’s end-game as any abuse counselor will affirm. He may change tactics, but the end-game will be his control and entitlement.

Coping Strategies

For fear of losing their job or being ruled by people-pleasing instincts, some under abusive leaders create coping strategies when under the duress of this anxiety. They cannot change the environment they have found, but they want to “fly under the radar.”

One of those coping strategies is the “herding instinct.” This pattern of behavior is intended to bring peace to an environment in a perpetual state of anxiety by discouraging “dissent,” “seeking consensus,” and “adopting an appeasement strategy” toward the one that is troublesome according to Friedman.[6] The goal is to create a positive and peaceful environment, overlooking or diminishing disagreements.

However, this strategy will focus on “changing others” as it is necessary that all employees (or congregant members) who surround the difficult leader must come to a consensus on matters of disagreement in order to please the senior pastor.

Friedman says people must “focus first on their own integrity and on the nature of their own presence rather than through techniques for manipulating or motivating others.”[7] The pastor’s assistant and elder or deacon boards caught in the middle must be primarily concerned about their own beliefs, values, and integrity rather than seeking agreement where there will be none with the autocratic leader. He is likely only to agree to those things that bring him fame and honor…and this often is not what is best for the organization, nor God-honoring.

Be Ye Different

However, being self-differentiated provides a positive coping strategy according to Herrington, Creech, and Taylor. They suggest that,

“Differentiation is the ability to remain connected in relationship to significant people in our lives and yet not have our reactions and behavior determined by them.”[8]

Both Herrington and Freidman recommend facing the aggressor firmly planted in self-identity and personal values. For Herrington, Creech, and Taylor this perspective is found in the example of Jesus as He served others, “But they would not determine his decisions.”[9] He would not entrust Himself to the crowds who were praising Him, because He knew they were fickle.

Self-differentiation can be understood to mean that the surety of one’s place in God’s kingdom and the giftedness with which the assistant to the pastor has been given assures him of the value of his perspective and leadership when facing a “tyrant.”

Whether that leader allows him a place at the table or not. The Assistant can act with integrity, damning the torpedos.

But be prepared to leave…by force or by choice when the abusive leader becomes implacable. It is unlikely the winner will be the underdog – the second-chair.

He rarely is.

Summary

An assistant to the pastor, seeking to be both leader and follower, serving an autocratic senior pastor and leading the people of God, faces a difficult environment. As he depends on God’s gifting, leading, and faithfulness, he can find the solace and shalom necessary to impact the anxiety present in the system or get out of it.

Whichever will mean fruitful ministry in God’s kingdom by God’s sovereign grace.

NOTES:

[1] Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve, 238–241.

[2] Ibid., 1523–1524.

[3] Herrington, Creech & Taylor, The Leader’s Journey, 70.

[4] John Maxwell, Christian Reflections on The Leadership Challenge, 59.

[5] Ciby and Raya, “Exploring Victims’ Experiences of Workplace Bullying: A Grounded Theory Approach,” 76.

[6] Friedman, A Failure of Nerve, 1285–1287, 1306-1308.

[7] Ibid., 313–315.

[8] Herrington, The Leader’s Journey, 273–274.

[9] Ibid., 322–323.