Resolving to not be a hypocrite

Resolving to not be a hypocrite means facing our hypocrisy, especially if you’re a leader of any kind.  I don’t know how other pastors and counsellors go, but I find the Holy Spirit is always counselling me as I counsel others — “See that, there?  Listen up, it’s in you too,” I so often hear the Spirit say.  Whether the wrongdoing is living and active in me is a moot point.  It’s the potential that it might rise in me, that it’s latent in me; that’s the point.

I know God is always raising questions of my hypocrisy as a husband and as a father — in those relationships where we’re all ‘normal’ until you get to know us.  How many pastors and counsellors are ‘less than they ought to be’ simply because they’re professionals.  Professionalism is possibly the biggest threat all helping professionals face, especially if we aspire to LIVE the integrity we espouse to others — as we should, and as society expects it of us.

The idea of integrity — back of stage aligning with front of stage — is absolutely crucial to maintaining the fabric of trust society needs to have with its leaders.  So it’s not a nice-to-have.  People who have power who work with vulnerable people must have integrity.  There is little or no room for hypocrisy.  And the only way of doing that — given that we’re all hypocrites! — is to continually face our hypocrisy.  That takes honesty and it manifests in humility.

If only we resolved to not be hypocrites by facing our hypocrisy, we would then exhibit integrity, which means that the foibles that are there in our back of stage environment would vulnerably be more worn on the sleeve (our front of stage) and not denied or covered over.  The most redeeming feature in any leader is their honesty.

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Living in the miracle of the in-between

We’ve probably all heard it said: “I’m not yet who I want to be, but at least I’m not who I used to be!”

It’s a variation of the old John Newton quote: “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

The wisdom in this is in holding tensions.  Please explain?  All through life we’re given situations of opposite designation that we’re required to harmonise; situations that are impossible to harmonise, unless we hold the tension between two opposites — “like I’m not yet who I desperately want to be” WITH “but I’m not who I was.”

The in-between is also that place where we’ve lost what we once cherished, and because it’s gone, there’s grief.  The new normal hasn’t yet arrived and we may fear that the new normal is far from desired. Perhaps, we may think, THIS in-between place is the new normal, and that is not only frightening it’s demoralising.

So many of us (including yours truly) have spent years in the in-between.  I’ve had three- and four-year periods of being in the in-between.  We can easily start to think that it’s hellish and strongly desire that such periods come to an end.  But there’s actually a lot going on in the in-between time; it’s strongly sanctifying and when God has our attention, we’re in growth mode.  In the in-between we’re sowing hard and applying our faith to the maximum.  In the hope that compels us forward through the journey all the way through ‘hell’ to the other side we resemble a walking, talking miracle.  Faith like this is a miracle of God’s grace operating, living and active, in us.

The in-between feels anything other than miraculous, but it is a time when we shine if our allegiance is with God.  This is what I call living in the miracle of the in-between.  At a time when we would run to any other comfort, we resist all manner of comfort for the comfort of God, which seems least enticing to the world.  Wisdom dictates that within the in-between, God is preparing paradise for those who love him.  When we’re in the in-between, we can say with resigned cheer, It is well with my soul.

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What is God’s prayer for us?

I have often thought beyond what God seems to say to me via occasional revelations to what God might pray to me about my life.  Prayer is not just you and me to God, but God to me and you too.  We customarily pray prayers of request to God, so what if God prayed prayers of request to us — what would they contain?  And wouldn’t it be important to listen?

Perhaps if we knew what God would pray, and we faced these prayerful realities, then that might influence our thoughts and behaviour, even to the extension of what we might desire.

OUR RELATIONSHIPS

Surely God desires harmony in our relationships; that we would seek to outdo one another in love.  Therefore, we could only be satisfied in our relationships if those we relate with were satisfied in us.  If there were even one person who would seem to have a claim against us, we would seek to address that issue with that person (Matthew 5:23-24).  In knowing the nature of God, we know what God would want, so why don’t we do the will of the Lord?

OUR SIN

Surely God desires that we would wrestle with our sin, much to the point that we would repent of it, even to the extent of recovering from those sins that have entangled us over the longer period.  These matters are weighty, and they are a burden we are not designed to carry, hence the discord of dissociation that occurs when we engage in things, we know to be wrong.  Why do we therefore continue to entertain a fantasy life that pretends that God isn’t watching on?  It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a bachelor’s degree in theology, or a masters or PhD, or even if you know very little about God; we all struggle in the area of sin.  Could God be praying that we would take every thought, word and deed of sin captive?  Biblically, that’s a rhetorical question!

OUR IDOLS

Surely God desires that we surrender our idols, give them up and get back on with our heavenly allegiance.  This would include the idol of knowledge that puffs us up in pride, the idol of control that sees us lord it over others, the idol of power that seeks to project an image of control, the idols of greed and envy that see us covet things that aren’t ours, the idol of comfort for laziness’s sake, the idol of consumption, the idol of outrage that seems to be inculcated in all of us these days, the idols of popularity, exclusivity, partiality that actually project what is lacking in us more than how superior we think we are, etc.  We all have idols, and we can only grow in God if we are honest about this fact, much to the extent of identifying every single one of them and putting them to the torch.

~

These matters are matters of the heart, and we will never experience the transformation we are seeking unless we go to God, and desperately seek the only assistance that will help; a heart transformation that is ever unsatisfied unless it is satisfied in Jesus, alone.

I lived as a person trying to follow Christ and failing for nearly 13 years, never getting it.  Only when my life was turned upside down, and I had nothing left, did I reach out to God in desperation; the kind of desperation God desperately desires from us.  The last 17 years have been a completely different story, but I have grown lukewarm too often.  It’s not like I have not struggled with sin; we all do.  Unless we’re prepared to give up what we cannot keep to gain what we cannot lose, we will arrive at the end of our tenure in this life knowing we have wasted our opportunity to live.  That is eternal regret nobody wants if only they look back from a post-death perspective.

I lament days where I’m not desperate enough for God.  But it isn’t enough.  We need more of this God; much, much more.  Unless we are driven by a hunger to follow Jesus, we cannot know him.  Instead of pretending we have a great relationship with Jesus we would be better to tell the truth; we cannot know him enough.  We must stop boasting that we have mastered faith.

God knows that if only we put Jesus first everything else falls into line (Matthew 6:33).  Unless we put Jesus first, our hearts are enmity toward God.

God’s prayer for us must be, “I want your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength.  I want ALL of you.”  Only when God has all of us do our lives begin.

If only we gave God our all, God would give to us what we want, because what we would want would be what God wants.

With Jesus, it doesn’t matter how much we know if we don’t know how to live.

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WHAT IF...?

What if... you didn’t get that job.
What if... you didn’t get that endorsement.
What if... someone important to you says “NO!”
What if... you didn’t get that house you really want.
What if... the dream career falls through.
What if... you think you’re a contender, but they think in reality you’re a dreamer.
What if... you don’t get the break you’re depending on.
What if... what you’re counting on doesn’t come through this year... or next year... or ever.

WHAT if?  How important is it?

You would still be okay.  Life would go on.  God would reveal ‘another’ plan – just as good, and MAYBE infinitely better!  Sometimes out of disaster even, a better way emerges.

You accepting the status quo that you can’t change is a gift.

BUT....

What if... you got (or have) cancer.
What if... you died (or are dying – our bodies are dying).
What if... you must live without someone you love.
What if... there are regrets you can do nothing about.
What if... there are eternal things that you cannot change.

Sometimes we get the luxuries of pettiness, of entitlement, of boredom, of short-sighted frustration, of entertainment, and of self-absorption, when we get to complain about things that really don’t matter (as compared with things that really do).  And sometimes, it’s a more serious sin of moral bankruptcy, of deceiving or of being deceived.

The thinking we engage in that misses the mark — which is probably much of it — fails for either a lack of awareness or a lack of will.  This is something to think on:

“A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying, “Why?” 
― Dallas Willard

The heart is either our must faithful ally or it is a thing to be feared.  It will serve us toward wisdom or it can send us forlornly to folly; it all depends how we cultivate it.

There is something remarkably empowering in keeping ‘what if’ on the tips of our tongues, on the gait of the conscious mind, adroitly before the conscience.  ‘What if’ may more often foresee what is being missed, it can forestall (or anticipate) many an error, and it might transform the given moment to reveal to our heart the thoughts that reflect the heart.  Out of our hearts the courses of life come to be.

~

Let’s not get stuck on the issues of life that bear little consequence, because there are plenty of possible consequences in life that really do matter.

The bigger changes and indeed the losses that occur in our lives have the ‘blessed’ effect of waking us up to differentiations of what is important from what isn’t.

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Journeying Patiently Through Inescapable Grief

Inescapable grief is the state we’re in when no matter what we do we cannot escape feelings of loss, anguish, hopelessness and despair.  It characterises the grief process and gives meaning to what grief actually is — when we’re in it, for whatever timeframe, we cannot escape the kind of existential crisis that really does threaten our lives.

This article is about the kind of response we can all make even as we grow and blossom through a time that feels hellish.  Growing and blossoming might be the last thing in our view when we think of grief, but if we traverse this space with faith, we can actually emerge afterwards, and even within it, with tools, strategies and an approach that serves us well in the new normal we find ourselves in.

Levels, degrees and manifestation within Inescapable Grief

It is advised at this point to spend some time in the various levels and degrees of the human response to loss.  Many of us will recover from the most brutal aspects of loss from anywhere between a few months to a couple of years.

Typically between 2-6 months is the feature of the rawness of grief, where we experience panic attacks, the prevalence of anxiety, clinical depression in some cases, and certainly many depressed days, bouts of anger, constant bargaining for life to return to normal, and even strong moments of accepting the status quo.

Like the seasons, all these seasons can come in one day or even one period of time, and it can be exhausting.  Added to this is the feature of change; so much is to be adapted to, which only serves to intensify the grief.  The loss of friendships, or the change in their dynamic, and even the loss of whole friendship groups, including vital supports, sends us reeling in response, and this is only one example of many that occurs within the change paradigm we undergo in loss.

If only it were loss that created the grief; the fact is, loss brings change and that aggravates our situation and doubles our pain.

Journeying Patiently?

The first response we have when we come to read the title of this article from the perspective of loss is, how?

How on earth am I meant to journey patiently through something that feels like torture, when every fibre of my being is screaming for relief.  It’s always the one-trillion-dollar question.

One of the redeeming features of grief (if you can stay with me here) is that we’re kept in it, firstly by the fact of what/who we have lost, and secondly by the fact our situation isn’t changing (back).  On the one hand, being kept in it by our circumstances can leave us thinking God doesn’t care.  Truly it’s not God’s prerogative to rescue us from our circumstances.  God’s prerogative is, was, and always will be to rescue us from the cost of our rebellion against God through Jesus’ salvific act on the cross and through the hope of new life via the resurrection.  This is enough.  God’s grace is eternally enough.  When we accept this is enough, and it isn’t an easy process, though it is usually given to us as a miraculous grace, we can begin to imagine life beyond the present situation we cannot change.

This is the opportunity of our lifetime; that is to come to a supernatural acceptance of that which cannot be changed.  Because it cannot be changed, the only option we have is to accept it; and that, there, is the opportunity of journeying patiently.  The fullness of this journey is maturity.  If we can realise this more and more in our spiritual gait, we will become more and more spiritually invincible, broken by suffering, but redeeming it in a hope that can never be destroyed.

Journeying patiently through inescapable grief — however long it lasts for — is the purpose of the loss we experience.  God has something huge for us to embrace when we’re transported out of a banal life into a life that nobody would choose, but that which acutely exemplifies the life of our Lord — and that’s where the deeper, more abundant life is!

I would argue that the ONLY true freedom in this life is on the OTHER side of grief; when finally, we resolve each day to journey patiently — with ourselves, others, God.

One of the biggest misnomers about recovering from grief is that it takes time to heal the wounds.  It’s not so much that; it takes us time to grow in patience — with ourselves, with others, with life, and with God.  It can take years.  But thankfully it’s not something we’re under pressure to master.  Life has a way of giving us time to adapt, and it’s usually more time than we think we’ll need.

Journey patiently.

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When all you can do is pray

There are times, my God, when all I can do is pray.  In the numbness or exhaustion, in speechlessness or nothingness, in conflict that rises to You as a plea, I wonder what else I can do.

Nothing.  When nothing else works I can pray.  I can.  When I can do nothing else I can pray.  And these prayers, You know full well, Lord, are not prayers of words; they’re groans of my spirit reaching up to You from the barren silence within me.  A vacuum, which is utterly foreign to me, but is a void that is intelligible to You.  You know the heart when I have lost touch with it.  You know the mind when the mind is gone.  You know the soul when it is desolate.

When all I can do is pray, I cannot pray as the Pharisees do.  I do not have words — fancy big ones, religious ones, big-brained ones — not even bare syllables at times.

My blank stare is a prayer.

The lack of my call to You for Your care is a prayer.

My soul that is cavernously open and vulnerable; that — as it is — is my prayer.

When there is nothing in my mouth but air, stale and deathly, that there is my prayer.  And it is just as acceptable to You as the dearest words of Spurgeon or anyone else.

I can even say the silliest or darndest things, and You understand, and whether I mean them or not, You know it’s the heart that strives for meaning it cannot have. 

You don’t need words, when after all these years perhaps I’ve felt guilty at times when I’ve not had them.  But You, my God and Saviour, need no such thing as thought or words or other instruments of ‘me’ for You to intercede from the heavens for me.

Words do not impress You, God, nor high thoughts or proud utterances.  You say that Your thoughts are higher than mine, and I take You at Your word.  So if words do not impress You, God, when I don’t have them, I offer You the poverty of my spirit, the song of my silence, the longing I have for you, Jesus, when there is nothing left.

This prayer is sufficient.

AMEN.

~

I’ve had people say to me, “I’m sorry, but all I can do for you is pray,” when realistically it’s the only action we can ever do that has divine power in it.

20 things depression has taught me

There are countless things we can learn from challenging times in our lives to support others who are going through similar present crises.  Indeed, part of the purpose of facing hardships and trials is what we’ll learn, the resources we gather, the equipping that takes place:

Here are just some of the things depression has taught me:

1.             Be gentle and go gently, with yourself and others as best you can.  Apologise to yourself or others when you’re harsh.  There is such a thing as trying too hard.

2.             As a proactive step, pray relentlessly, keeping constant contact the best you can with God.

3.             Stay connected to, and be honest with, people you trust.  Though it takes all your energy, trust those you can trust and support is right there.

4.             Develop and maintain real relationships.

5.             Another proactive strategy, throw yourself into the acquisition of virtue.  Do the right thing by faith as much as you can.

6.             Tomorrow will be different.  No matter how bad today was.  This, too, shall pass.

7.             Ask often, “How important is [this issue], really?”  Truly, how important is anything?  Just about everything is recoverable.

8.             Be at peace with people and with life, as far as it depends on you.

9.             Enjoy moments of lightness and hilarity.  This is an anxiety-reduction measure.

10.          Be whoever you can be for others.  Our purposes in life are versatile.  But don’t attract unnecessary pressure.

11.          Don’t worry about what others think of you regarding mental illness, but also seek to understand them and accept their views — they’re their own and we cannot change how someone views the world and life.

12.          Hope will return, as will energy, spark and enthusiasm.  Trust this to be a fact by faith, and it will certainly take place at the proper time.

13.          Try not to compare yourself with others who seem to ‘have it all together’.  Nobody has it all together.  Anyone who thinks they do still have this to learn.

14.          There are depressed days; it doesn’t automatically mean it’s depression.

15.          Everyone experiences grief; grief is not a mental illness.  But we often experience depression with grief.  Allow it to come and leave.  Most bouts of severe grief lasts months, not years.

16.          Expect the best and plan for the worst.  Be prepared to accept what cannot be changed.  Again, go gently.

17.          Show grace for those who appear insensitive.  They probably aren’t aware or don’t understand.  They can be forgiven.  They can only see what they can see.  Acceptance reduces the pain we experience.

18.          Try to learn to say goodbye to things that are no longer helpful.  It seems we are missing out even more, but better things are coming.  This includes letting go of problematic relationships.

19.          Accept the best that you are on any given day.  On your worst day, you are still incredible!

20.          Smile at yourself in the mirror.  Be honest with yourself in the mirror.  See yourself.  You are seen and loved.  Psalm 139 attests to this truth.

Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash

Only via adversity is there victory through lament

I can tell you it’s very often I get to sit down after a long day or evening and seriously contemplate how hard life is.  The Christian life is not the victory that a lot of Christians would have it be.  No, it is hard and yet in the facing of our truth, in the hardness of it all, somehow in not reaching out for an anesthetising drink or drug or food or flutter, we’re somehow met by God, even as continue to face our pain.

This is lament... and it is biblical.  Somehow as we strive not to strive, as we sit in the realities we cannot change, God meets us there, amid the centrality of a lament that will neither deny nor disparage, and in THAT God starts to heal us.

Yes, I know, it is probably a very unimpressive theology.  It doesn’t hold out to you some unreachable theology that is unattainable for the many.  It doesn’t privilege the experience of miracles to the few.  It doesn’t herald special ones for having ‘special’ gifts.

But lament in and of itself, even the willingness to go there, is a rare gift, for who will willingly suffer as the Christ suffered?  “God has a university,” Gene Edwards says in The Tale of Three Kings, “... it’s a small school.  Few enroll; even fewer graduate.  Very, very few indeed.”  Our living God offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in brokenness.  His lecturers are Joseph and David and Job and Jeremiah and Jesus and Paul.  A whole litany of biblical exemplars.  We don’t graduate in these degrees like we typically graduate — God’s degrees are eternal (ref. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18).  The truth is, we’re not meant to master life.

Even more than ever there is less willingness to enter the sacred faculty of lament, however.  This world for too long has promised too much, and we have bargained our way on a false hope, completely missing God into the bargain.  We barely see that it is in our lack that we are to see that there is nothing lacking in God.  The life of lament that any of us can live, an invitation never starker than in this COVID-19 season, beckons upon the altar call of Psalm 23.

It is only when we have nothing that we truly realise we have everything in God.  It is a blessing, therefore, to you have everything ripped out from under us, if only we will try God out to this degree; to trust the Lord to the extension of entering our brokenness, as if we have nothing to lose, because what is hidden in the heart of God is we have everything to gain via entering it.  We fear losing that which holds us away from gaining everything.

Psalm 23 never ascends to the heights of our imagination until we read it within the chasm of spiritual poverty; the truth of this Psalm is forever withheld from us until we read it through the eyes of the broken.

God wants to know if any of us would have the compunction to truly live as Jesus lived; a life of going without; a life of lament for the unseen spiritual treasures in the heavenly realms; that’s right, we sow these blessings up by going without.  Not very popular or ‘practical’ these days — in a day where we judge everything by whether it works or not!

The true hope of the gospel is not in denying our pain, nor fighting it, running from it, nor pretending that life’s sweet.  The true hope of the gospel is found in the very place we hate to imagine exists; by facing it, by looking at it, by peering into it, by embracing it, by loving it.

Try this.  Achieve victory without adversity.  Experience life without lament.  There is no such thing in this life.

It is only through resisting anger, through embracing patience, that we learn patience, by saying ‘no’ to anger.  It is only through resisting greed, through embracing generosity, that we learn generosity, by saying ‘no’ to greed.  It is only through resisting pride, through embracing humility, that we learn humility, by saying ‘no’ to pride.  It is like this through the corpus of all the challenges of this life.  It is a most inconvenient truth; yet it’s a truth all the same, unabashed in its wisdom.

It’s a truth that never goes away, and it remains there ever to be faced for what it is.  To enter pain where it is, to enter reality however hard it is, is to enter the mature life, and nothing of that can harm us.  Indeed, it can only set us on the road to freedom.

It is wisdom to go its way.  It is God’s university.  It’s a curriculum of brokenness.  Come.

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Predators require protectors to flourish

Anne Manne said that.  “Predators require protectors to flourish.”  A certain niece has said the same sort of thing about a very famous uncle of hers: “Too many people have enabled him.”  Very simply put, predators and narcissists require protectors and enablers to flourish.  They insist on flourishing.  They demand support.  They root out those who will consent to their demands.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” said Edmund Burke.  Good men?  Hardly a good man does that, even if they seem ‘good’ by letting evil walk.  Good man or accessory-after-the-fact?  There is so much in the Edmund Burke quote that speaks the truth about a fashion of life that gets many people down.  It is as sure as there is light in a day.  Manipulators will have their way!

Behind every predator that gets away with it, is a protector that the predator has groomed for the task of protection.  Behind every narcissist is the enabler (or enablers, plural, especially in the case of clever narcissists), and how sad it is that at times it’s the victim of the narcissist’s cruelty, who, by their inability to hold them to account, continues to pay the price.  Just as sad as it is to see, it is maddening to watch.  Yet, just as much, there are people who watch on, knowing it’s criminal, and yet they turn a blind eye when they could defend.

Evil will always have its way unless it finds a match, and by a match I mean something that will either stand effectively against it, or it’s a witness who will gather a clinical weight of evidence for the trial.  Therein lies the threat of a cost, or of the temerity to face the tyrant with a smile.  It is a risky business.  Resistance doesn’t always pay, and that’s part of the allure of keeping the peace, yet there’s a resistance that works a long game, and that’s a surer hope for success.

The fact is, most of the time with predators and narcissists nobody wins.  Everyone is a loser for the games they play with people’s lives.

Does this have a happy ending?  Only if, by our empathy, discernment, wisdom and courage, we protect our own against the protectors and enablers of predators and narcissists.  That’s the only way.  Save people from exposure to this human virulence.

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How sad and wrong to be judged by looks alone

How ridiculous is it that in this day and age, when we are supposedly ‘enlightened’, that people continue to judge people by outward appearances?  The fact of the matter is we are no closer to being ‘enlightened’ than ever before — when men can define what women can do (or vice versa), when white people can define what black people can do, what any majority can define what any minority can do, and when anyone is defined by how they look like or what they look like, as a basis for what they are to do.

We still live in a world that prefers outward appearances over what is in the heart, the virtue of perception over the virtue of merit.

We need to be wary whenever we encounter a humanity that shows partiality for appearances and influence, favouring some by positive manipulation, over what is represented at a deeper level of truth, but that which doesn’t prevail for the powers that be.  It isn’t just corrupt governments that are tempted to curry favour with the rich.  Whenever any of us are given any sense of power, we too are tempted to favour those the powerful would have us elevate — always for their own gain.

A far better judgement is to reward merit, and yet if we are committed to this we will run afoul of the powerful.  Unless we are blessed to be within a system that values contribution over appearance, impact over favouritism, objectivity over subjectivity.

Where the rubber hits the road as far as church and family is concerned is how much one gender can at times be elevated over another purely because of gender.

It’s one thing to believe that a gender is suited to a particular role, it is another thing again to imagine that one gender is suited to either a leadership or non-leadership role; I’m highlighting power differential here.  ‘Head of the family’, for instance, has privilege attached to it, not what it should be, i.e. servant leadership.  For those brought up in some quarters of the church, giving one gender power over another is quite normal.  I was brought up in a non-Christian home and it seems a little ridiculous to me.  Some people have tried to train me in the theology of complementarianism.  I still don’t get it.  It elevates one over the other with no regard to merit.  The leader in this case doesn’t earn that role — they are ‘entitled’ to it.  Whenever I think of the word entitlement, it always reminds me of narcissism — the narcissist thinks of themselves as entitled.  And that’s the problem here; too many men will lord it over women because they’re given ascent.  When a male is ‘head of home’ because he’s a male — and for no other reason — he can assume that position is his right.  See how insane that sounds?  If he is a narcissist, he is enabled!

If we think of elevating a white person over a coloured person, just because of their skin colour, we get a similar comparison than if we elevate a male over a female.  It’s little wonder that non-white people and women feel besmirched.  They are judged on what they cannot change; they are not judged on what they can contribute.  Imagine turning the tables on a white person or a male, or for that matter, someone like me, a white male person.

The same argument holds in the church.  Men can preach, but women cannot — in some churches.  It doesn’t matter if the woman can preach like Charles Spurgeon or Dr Brenda Salter-McNeil.  Or, that a man makes a better overall leader because he’s a man, or worse that he can only lead because he’s a man.  It makes a mockery of some of the best women leaders of the world.  The best leader I’ve seen in the flesh was a woman.

The Bible cannot stand in opposition to the truth as it basks resplendent through life.  Shimmering as irrepressible, the truth is our guide.  Society is not made weaker for female leadership or teaching.  And it’s not a sign of a weak and decaying society that women are in preaching and leadership roles.  But when leaders and preachers are selected on merit, everyone wins, because the truth is honoured when justice is vindicated and rewarded.

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How complementarianism can enable narcissistic husbands

No bipartisan relationship can be had with a person who is always superior.  This is the chief claim against complementarianism and patriarchal society — that one gender is leader over the other, for the simple reason that it’s believed that that gender has biblical ascent as ‘head’.  Whether it’s what God meant or not, that construct for church and marriage enables narcissistic abuse, for only the narcissist puts themselves above those they love, especially when the only reason is gender.

God created all humankind in the image of God,
so all humanity is equal in the sight of God.

I don’t decry complementarianism’s theology, for it is potentially a very noble one — that the husband would serve the wife and children by being kind of a godly (or godlier) figure in the home.  It just about never fits the reality, though!  As a person who’s counselled about 50 couples over nearly ten years, who has also observed many marriages, I don’t know a single one that fits the complementarian sculpt, though I would say there are many very capable husbands — as there are very capable wives, also.

To put the complementarian theology pressure on a husband — any husband — is too heavy a burden to bear.  It is enough for him to endeavour to love his wife as Christ loved the church!

What complementarian theology does, however, is it enables narcissistic husbands to lord it over their wives.  They get to spout Bible verses doing it.  I know there will be many complementarian husbands and wives who are happy, but that doesn’t account for a power differential that is designed into the complementarian marriage, that is wide open for abuse — and is abused.

Marriage is hard enough without giving one partner more power, 
let alone more (so-called, in many cases) responsibility.

The reality is there are far too many Christian wives out there married to husbands who go to church and seem diligent disciples but who also are closet narcissists — who are impossible to live with and who are in many cases dangerous.  They calmly go about creating rules within their marriages that ‘are for the family’s best’, all the while these rules work in his favour, not hers and the kids’.  The fact of the matter is, whether you’re complementarian or egalitarian, we’re all sinners, and the sin problem shows up most — and most secretly most often — in our most intimate relationships, i.e. marriage.

Simply put, complementarianism, whilst it’s wonderful and noble in theory, doesn’t account for the sinful nature in human beings who are not designed to be given power just because they’re a particular gender.  In practice, complementarianism excuses too many cases of abuse because it enables narcissistic husbands.