Authoritarianism is Religious Narcissism

I reconnected with an old friend recently who had similar experiences with spiritual abuse. It led me to find a YouTube producer I had listened to before, who has, perhaps the clearest view of narcissism I've found, Richard Grannon. [Disclaimer, he is quite uncensored!] It led me to this breakthrough.

His clear description of narcissistic abuse is (paraphrased), "They scoop out everything that makes you 'you' and replace it with what they want you to do for them."

Narcissists have a goal of making you an extension of themselves - a person who will get them what they want, when they want it - and they accomplish that by various shaming and guilting techniques when you don't fit the mold they've chosen for you. It could be physical or emotional violence, guilt trips, gaslighting. As Richard says, this is all done in a context of "I'm doing this because I LOVE you."

Now, I'm Reformed and Evangelical, but I stand against what has become culturally Reformed and culturally Evangelical, and that is centered around Authoritarianism. I'm not a psychologist or therapist, but I've read a lot about understanding these dynamics.

In psychology, there is this thing called our "affect", it's a bit hard to understand, but I would say in Christianity, it's roughly parallel to our "heart" or "will". We are born completely driven by emotions and instinct, and as we develop, we start building a higher-order consciousness to understand who we are, why we fell this way or that, and what we want to do with it. So, the "affect" starts out immature and unbridled, and over time is supposed to develop into what Christians call "the fruits of the Spirit", even though those fruits are what we desire to see in everyone. 

Now, the issue of authoritarianism is the relationship between the affect of the authority and the affect of the subordinate. I've mentioned Dead Poets' Society before, and not being able to understand what the point of the movie was. The abusive dynamic shows up in a father/son relationship. The father clawed his way to prosperity and wants his son to be a doctor. The son discovers joy in acting, and wants to become an actor. This leads to a clash where the father (whose narcissism is evidenced by the fact that he always buys an impersonal desk set for his son every year - indicating that he has no desire to know his son other than as an extension of his own affect) asserts his authority to guide his son, and the son seeing no alternative, commits suicide. I could never understand the point of this movie because I was living in an authoritarian, abusive system.

So, narcissism, authoritarianism and even positive parenting center around the proper approach to the immature affect. The idea that "strong-willed children must have their wills broken" - makes a statement. Total Depravity (not the Reformation doctrine, but the modern twisting) makes a statement. Highlighting stories about people who "never wanted to be a missionary, but God made them missionaries" makes a statement. Ultimately, the authoritarian perspective is that our natural will is evil (depraved), and God/authority needs to scoop out that will and replace it with the desires of the authority. Sound familiar? That is the core lie of authoritarian doctrine, cherry-picked from a few passages, to give the leaders false authority and narcissistic control.

Instead, understand that the affect is depraved, not in the modern "100% evil" sense, but an immature mixture of good intentions, natural fallibility and selfish desires. The true "you", without sin, isn't foreign, but is your own desires polished and refined through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. What is removed is the false "you" - the sinful and selfish desires that do no one any good. So, the job of parents isn't to make children obedient robot slaves. That is not a reflection of God. It is narcissistic abuse. Instead, the job of parents is to nurture what is good and right in your children, and discourage what is selfish and evil, even if what they desire for themselves is foreign to what you hoped and dreamed. In the case of Dead Poets' Society, recognizing the joy and desire to act versus the hopes and dreams of having a successful doctor as a son.

Understanding this dynamic, authoritarian or spiritual abuse is the church forcing members into leader-approved molds, using various techniques. Those techniques could be what the pastor says from the pulpit, the written and unwritten rules of the church culture, what behaviors are approved or disapproved. Ultimately, authoritarianism is an abusive system where members are depersonalized and squeezed into what the leaders desire. In the RPCNA of my youth, this happened through an almost militaristic system of breaking the wills of children and making them narcissistic extensions of the parents, with the theory that it would be easy to transfer a narcissistic extension of a parent to be a narcissistic extension of the church or God. This was all done with the underlying claim that this is "LOVING" parenting.

The RPCNA has raised generation after generation of narcissistic, authoritarian leaders, and it attracts narcissistic authoritarians from the world and other churches with the pervasive culture. The cycle of abuse needs to stop. The RPCNA is not a "safe" church, and it cannot become a "safe" church merely by adopting child protection policies, because children are being groomed to be complacent victims of abuse. They are groomed to be instant, unquestioningly obedient slaves to whatever "authority" asserts itself over them, and not even have enough affect to recognize the violation. When their existence is to be an extension of the authority, what is there to violate? Everything that makes them lovable, worthy, unique, gifted, desirable or anything that would give them the emotional energy to resist abusive authority has been systematically identified and destroyed, so that they can be molded into what "God" (or the caricature of God that idolatrously looks like the church leaders) desires for them.

Immanuel verdicts and appeals

The drama unfolded in the past month. Jared was tried in absentia and convicted, leading to his deposition from the office of teaching elder and suspension. The elders received a slap on the wrist - a one year suspension from office.

IndyStar has some writeups, but they are currently subscriber-only.

The appeal to the Synod Judicial Commission, written by political heavyweight and more bully than intellectual James Faris, revolves around a few key points, which I'll examine briefly:

1) "Irregularity" of the proceedings:

Olivetti (and Faris) regret not bringing in independent, professional investigators at Immanuel to assist them. I completely concur, but they then use their regret to insist that not hiring professionals is somehow "irregular". In other words, something that the RPCNA church, to my knowledge, has never in its history done, is "irregular". The complaint then cherry-picks from the Book of Discipline, and when that fails, stretches Matthew 18 like silly putty to fill in the gaps. So, according to the complaint, step 2 occurred on Nov 30, 2021. However, what about the meeting between Olivetti and the family of a victim with Faith Church West pastor Joshua Greiner? (Letter dated July 28, 2020). Why does only an RPCNA pre-trial hearing qualify as step two? Matthew 18 says the people are witnesses, not the court. The pre-trial hearing is part of step 3, presumably. There should be charges and an opportunity to negotiate or repent - many criminal trials are settled before the actual trial.

More delusion. "The accusers admitted in their investigation report that they formed conclusions about he facts at issue before speaking with any of the witnesses in these matters, relying only upon the evidence previously obtained by the GLG Immanuel Judicial Commission and supplemental documentation. By any professional standards, this manner of forming conclusions about facts is fundamentally flawed and reflects gross incompetence" To explain this fully, Faris is saying that the entire appeal process in the United States "reflects gross incompetence". The courts recognize that the best source of independent, factual information is the decision of the lower court. This is even in the RPCNA Constitution, that courts review the documents of the lower court. So, why is it "irregular" that the accusers sought out the most likely unbiased account first. But, if this is all irregular, why is it standard practice in the GLG that a committee or commission investigating a complaint against a court FIRST meets with the court.

2) "Bias" of the investigators:

This one is rich with delusion. In the complaint we enter the fantasy world requirement of complete independence and lack of bias. There are two sides to every story, but in the case of abuse, it's often a victim telling the truth and an abuser lying. There is ample evidence of many specific infractions, but also a general pattern of coverup and emotional/spiritual abuse prevalent in the sequence of events. So, perhaps a day of weighing facts, the investigators have a pretty good idea what happened. That's bias? 

The police and DA are not the courts and they do not have a requirement for lack of bias. It is the judge's responsibility to provide the level playing field for the trial, and much of the complaint simply ignores that. An investigator discussing punishment is not gah! INJUSTICE!!!

I think it's obvious here that "biased" = "doesn't agree with James Faris." The media called it a coverup, a local pastor called it a coverup, the GLG judicial commission called it a coverup, and now the SJC called it a coverup. So, Faris is right and the church is wrong? Possibly, but highly "irregular".

3) "Bias" of the court:

This one is also delusional. I agree that the court must provide a level playing field. However, if the defendant writes an official letter to the court and says "The SJC's process is fundamentally unfair" can they be expected to be unbiased? So, the defendant rails against the judge and then wants to hold the judge in contempt for admitting that they're not really happy with the defendant at that moment?

[Edit: I don't feel like I explained this thoroughly. If I write a letter to a judge and say, "you're an awful and biased human being," it's not a mechanism to force the judge to recuse himself. If it were so, wouldn't that happen all the time with lawyers seeking a new venue? No, if you send a petition to the court that is unprofessional, accusatory and dare I say, contemptuous, you are just plain stupid. The level playing field has tipped because of the petition. I don't find it out of order at all for Keith Wing to explain the obvious to James Faris, he did something stupid and stupidity has its consequences.

4) Focus on "character defects" instead of transgressions:

I do agree that the Book of Discipline (and the RPCNA documents in general) legalistically focus on behaviors, but I don't see a problem with focusing on character defects. Abuse is a pattern of behavior. The character qualifications for elder are a pattern of behavior. Passing the Presbytery exams on godly character is a point in time, and a brief one at that.

So, an inordinate focus on transgressions misses the point of even the gospel. Jesus says "for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, acts of adultery, other immoral sexual acts, thefts, false testimonies, and slanderous statements." The problem with character defects is a heart problem. So, if someone has a a wicked heart, and I come up with ten times that person has slandered me, is everything A-OK if he repents of stealing those ten times? What if he has stolen from me 100 times and repents for 10 and now the church thinks we're reconciled?

The fundamental problem here is that these men FAILED TO PROTECT THE SHEEP. That is the job description for elder. Jared can repent of failing to recuse himself, and directing the response to the congregation. He can repent of a few infractions here and there, but the ultimate problem is that the behavior that came from his heart was not in line with the qualifications of elder.

But, Faris wants us to pity Jared because he's checked every box, and then he doesn't forget to throw the victims under the bus for "lack of reconciliation" Abuse is the RPCNA kryptonite. I'm thankful that the SJC recognized, at least in some form, that the combined weight of Jared's actions was proof of something greater. I'm upset that they did not see the actions of the Session in a similar light. They circled the wagons around their abusive pastor and hid the truth from victims.

I guess the point here is that if you disagree with James Faris, you must be wrong. If he attacks your character you must recuse yourself from the court. If he twists scripture to make his case, his logic must be impeccable, and if he has learned his error, you must start from where he left off. In the US court system, a lawyer like this would be held in contempt of court.