Narcissism and the Systems It Breeds - Diane Langberg

you I'm sure many of you if not all of you know the Greek myth about narcissus who is a very handsome young man whose heart was hard as a rock and was inaccessible to love and in the story one of his rejected lovers with nemesis asked that he be punished for his unfeeling heart his lack of empathy and so at nemesis caused narcissus to see his own reflection in the water and he fell in love with himself and of course that reflection was not a real person and so it was inaccessible to him so he experienced what he had done to others and he died of unrequited love the Greek word that his name comes from is the word narc which means stupor or numbness it's where we get our word narcotic so it it's a story that is about self-love lack of empathy leading to a deadness in the self and ultimately death relationally of course a result at the end of the tale is that out of his death came the beautiful and fragrant flower narcissus so the takeaway is that beauty only results when there is the death of this excessive and obsessive self-love so many of you I think have encountered narcissus in your lives some of you had encountered them in your own families some of the view in workplaces some in churches and many of you in political high positions some of you have probably worked with them in your counseling so they often initially seem very alluring they tend to be very bright and articulate and charismatic and commanding and capable and full of promises and they're the kind of people who come in and hold lots of promises for making things all better problem is that they don't deliver there was a study done at the National Institute of Health in the United States have suggested that six six and a half percent of Americans suffer from narcissistic personality disorder other ranges are 2 to 15 percent but it's less than 1% of the general population most experts agree that males dominate this arena with estimates of 50 to 80 percent however women can certainly have the disorder I know because I've had some in my practice the core characteristics of a narcissist are grandiosity lack of empathy and an insatiable hunger for admiration and approval to put it in less clinical terms the core characteristics are I am bigger I am better I am far more superior to you or anyone else and I have no understanding or interest in understanding my impact on you except insofar as you can feed my ego or support the beliefs I have in myself that is a narcissist so let me just give you some of the characteristics that are typically listed and it's important in looking at this diagnostic categories but everything human as far as I can tell runs along a continuum so you can have people with a little bit of something and some moderate amount and a whole lot we've talked about that but Strama that's true about narcissism so what I'm talking about here is if somebody met the qualifications for a narcissistic personality disorder out of the nine things I'm going to listen have had at least five one grandiose sense of self conceit in an exaggeration of their achievements and abilities - they're very preoccupied or obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success and power and brilliance in love three he believes he is special and can only be understood by other people who are special for demands excessive admiration five expects favors it's very entitled and expects you to comply with his demands allows no disagreement no criticism demands submission six interpersonally exploitive other people are things to be used to achieve his end she feeds off people he consumes people lakhs F number seven lacks empathy cannot understand or identify or enter into other people's feelings a concrete example of that would be if somebody hit you with a fist in the jaw and broke your jaw and his response was to go on and on about badly it hurt his fists that's a narcissist eight envious of others or beliefs say are envious on him because he's so superior nine arrogant haughty and proud so how do you like this person for a friend or a leader again in order to meet the diagnostic criteria you have to have at least five of those nine and in a personality disorder we're talking about patterns that are rigid over different contexts see that's where we have somebody who's grandiose about some things but over here they're not or it's a very mild thing as opposed to something that's very rigid so you need to be careful that when you see somebody who shows up flavors of narcissism that you don't immediately jump to diagnosing them somebody who has this disorder takes their bearings from the externals you think of the list that was in what I said achievements accomplishments abilities success power adoration affirmation approval those things are his food and drink so he presents this bigger than life grandiose self which is not his real self to others so as to gain the things that he feeds off of he believes those things are necessary to his existence they are owed to him they are his right and if you deny him you will find him full of rage narcissism at its core is the preservation of myself as good and great he uses everything he has abilities brains power reputation whatever he has to preserve himself and he will use others he will use you he will exploit anything have on which to feed or to serve his ends he will use your abilities your brains your love your beauty your reputation your connections your submissiveness your vulnerability in order to preserve himself he will suck you dry and once he has drained you he will kick you to the curb he has many gifts sometimes seemingly all of them but one and that one is the gift of humility the gift of humility before God that harnesses every other ability so that it is governed by the Spirit of God alone I think it's important to note that often in Christian circles we lift up gifts in somebody rather than looking at character and as we talk about this further you'll see how that makes us as individuals and as systems like churches vulnerable to nurses because we see the gifts we see the articulate creature with the charisma that the crowds love to hear and we're blinded by those things and we think that means the Spirit of God is there but we don't look at the character we just give you a quote from a narcissist that might help you understand a little bit more about what they're like this is a quote from an American politician and he was caught his name was Anthony Weiner he was caught sexting multiple women and he responds by explaining it because he just says he wanted attention in admiration after all he never met the women so it wasn't so bad and his exchanges with him were you know just something that technology makes possible I mean quote it's not like I went out cruising the bars or any and he dilutes the scandal by showing you other things I had nothing to do with this about himself that he holds up as good and grand so in his response to the exposure he says well I take my son to the park I pick up my wife's dry-cleaning when my wife is busy her high-powered job I help and so he's constantly lifting himself up never really dealing with the exposure of what he's been doing and he talks about his own injuries as a child of course that's why I do this thing online the fix of having an emotional relationship on the Internet at two o'clock seemed like a way for me to get something I never had before so of course there's nothing about his victims in there there's nothing about the exposure this character there's certainly nothing about the impact that that had on his family or on his constituency here's one other one this is from a female sex offender and she's talking about her child victim and she says I suffered too I'm not a priest I was under stress she waited until I was drunk this is a child we're talking about her father was the one who abused her and she confuse sex with love so she wanted me to show love to her by having sex with me and she took advantage of my quickness nothing imprisoned being a sex offender so you've been hearing that the egocentric thinking of those who feel they have been grossly betrayed and horned by others but in fact they are the ones who are doing the harm and their grandiose grandiosity and specialness and need for affirmation and their exploitation of others and all of those things show up in their comments when it's exposed and the thing that they constantly are driven to is you feed me you adore me you give approval you agree with me and whatever happens you reflect back to me the image of myself that I want to have and God help you if you fail but many years ago my father was a disabled for a long time and he was in a nursing home for a while and we used to visit him with our sons who were quite young and the littlest ones probably four or five on this occasion and he and his brother ran down the halls anyway the room was and they were on their way down and he came running back to me weeping mommy mommy why don't they feed that lady so I didn't know what's going on - what I took in my hand I said well let's go find out what's going on so we went up and it was a very old woman there in a wheelchair in the hallway and with extremely severe dementia and whoever went by she would put out her hands and see fade me made me I'm starving today where's my son thought it was true so I had to explain that to him but as I work with narcissus and think about that that's what they say and you see this woman had been fed well but she had no memory of it so it wasn't really hungry and that's the way the narcissus is it doesn't matter what you give them they're always hungry feed me feed me I'm starving to death when you think about it in the Christian world when you have somebody like this what a utterly weary task it must be to have to carry this starvation thing inside for the ego and admiration everything else and yet look like a shepherd he has to somehow sound like it has a Shepherd's voice and attitude but there's no Shepherd's heart it's a burdensome charade and it's important for us to realize that people in leadership can use Christian language and do Christian looking things and use moving tones in there and be fake and they're strangers really to gods masters so they really can't feed the sheep they in fact actually feed off the sheep so what do we do we encounter a narcissistic leader here's a way one wife described her husband who was a narcissist he is certainly preoccupied with his own importance and in staying loyal to that he can be boastful and unkind and condescending and has an insatiable hunger to be seen as perfect he is constantly campaigning to uphold his facade which underneath has a profound vulnerability the narcissist must mask his fears of inadequacy by ensuring that he is always seen as unique and brilliant so if we're going to encounter or try to work with one or interact with one obviously there going to be some difficulties if loyalty to himself is his primary thing and he will use anything to achieve that end how do you speak into that kind of life because to say anything other than praise is to have the door shut and yet the narcissist needs to hear from you about something other than praise if there's to be any change or insight or growth so in many ways it would seem that any intervention in fact will only increase his fortifications not gain entrance and give help so the narcissist who's looking for all this grandiosity and approval sometimes when caught and exposed it may be like a clergy sexual abuse when that is exposed first of all he responds like the u.s. politician that talks all about how he's been hurt and wounded right but the other thing that can happen is he wants to use you while he's being exposed in service of regaining his good ego and so what often happens in churches without churches understanding it is you have a pastor who's maybe had sex with five women in the congregation any finally got told on or caught and he sits down with you and you're supposed to do some kind of assistance or counseling or whatever with him and what he does is start weeping and tell you he's so sorry it was so wrong or at least people and he wish they knew how much pain was in and how much he couldn't sleep at night how much hehehehehe but it's very easy to get sucked in if somebody uses the language of repentance but it's really all about them and there's still no real empathy for the victims and so what he does is perform so that you would feel like you got through where nobody else could you see the hook so he's in his narcissistic way going to be the best repenter that ever was which of course is no repentance at all but it's very easy as somebody who's coming alongside leadership like that to get hooked by that because if he's the best repenter that means I wasn't really effective so it's going to be very Sunday it's very easy I think for systems like churches or Christian organizations that surround narcissist to by his lies and one of the reasons for that is that to confront them is to risk the instant and so people will bow and submit to the narcissist for a long time before things often blow up and in these kind of emotional responses whenever anybody tries to expose or help him see that he's hurting people or whatever and he repents people accept it in order to protect the institution and what we do is forget the truths of God one of which is that repentance and transformation in human beings are very slow repentance is not an emotional response even with all the right words romans 5 4 says steadfastness is proof of soundness perseverance is proof of character somebody who has habituated a way of interacting with people whether it's a narcissistic way whether it's a domestic abuser whether it's a pedophile whatever it is in those kinds of categories words are not repentance they may be the beginning of it or they may not and you cannot tell the difference perseverance is proof of character the current political field in my country is ripe with examples of the failure to understand what transformation really looks like so politician gets caught doing who-knows-what read the papers is probably some US politician getting caught every day about something and the words of confession are spoken and so he or she is sorry inserts family and all those kinds of things and everybody says okay and he's reelected it's like a blip on the screen really and obviously those things are not limited to the political world they're increasing them as well when you work to intervene with a leader like this you have to know that what you're doing in part is threatening the system not just the individual so suppose you're in a Christian organization or a charter xx the leader is really damaging people because of these kinds of patterns and nobody is willing to go and say anything and you think about it and you pray about it you finally decide you have to go and say something about it you're not just threatening a narcissist you're threatening the entire system because he's got the system doing this take him away they'll all be afraid they'll fall down so it it's a very ominous task to do usually when somebody like this is to be confronted it is not like the whole group it's by one or a few people because when you have a leader like that most of what you have around him are very compliant sheep and they practice compliance for so long they don't really see what's in front of them and they certainly wouldn't know how to confront it so when you would do something like this it's very possible that that system will rise up to protect the leader that's hurting them rather than listen to the truth there's a wonderful essay that was written and I probably want to say it right by the Czech playwright and president václav havel that right yeah anyway it's called the power of the powerless and it's very much worth reading but he describes his systems reaction to a threat like this and he says the system will more often seek to punish those who threaten it when they shatter the world of appearances a fundamental pillar of the system so that the system is not about being who God's called them to be they're really about looking like they're who God has called them to be and exposure threatens their world of appearances as he calls it tearing apart what holds it together which is appearance and demonstrating that it's a lie what the truth teller has basically done and say the emperor is not wearing any clothes and there are no terms whatsoever on which a narcissistic system can go coexist with living in the truth those are his words as long as appearance is not confronted with reality nobody thinks it's just appearance so the system can respond by tossing out the leader so that it can maintain its own idea of being grand and special or the system will be so threatened that they'll defend a leader that's actually doing damage to them when the system does throw out the leader because they're so special and he's not special enough anymore so he's out the system carries the disease now so you can have a narcissistic leader which you can also have a narcissistic system and I'm sure you you know of cults or maybe even particular organizations or churches of whatever who they know the truth they have all the right creeds they know the right way to live and everybody's supposed to comply and it isn't so much that there's a person that it's done that though that may originally be how the group formed but now the group itself Foster's that kind of thing so it's very important when you're thinking about confronting a narcissist particularly somebody in leadership that threatened systems as we know from the often kill their province right so if you're going to do what the Czech president is talking about which is exposed the fact that the emperor really has no clothes on and that the appearance is not the reality of what's going on in this particular organization or person's life what they try to do is kill ja mile which is something a way to shut somebody up and of course that is what they did to Jesus sorry assuming we don't catch the disease or get killed what can we do when you're confronted by a human being who's so armored you can't get through and who has no insight or empathy it's a big temptation to going like a great big tank yes and you know it's sort of like this if knocking doesn't open the door then you start banging and if that doesn't do it you pick up a bat and hit the door and so that's often what happens is the people who are trying to speak the truth into the system or to the person get bigger and bigger and bigger and louder and louder and louder I mean people do this in arguments you know you've seen it in marriages I'm sure or experience perhaps but certainly a marriage counseling you know somebody will say I've been telling you this gently for a long time and then I told you and I cried and you didn't listen and so now I am screening in your face so we do this the problem with that attempt is that the person that we're talking to does this too so you're going to take a battering ram to my door I'm going to have five tours so we have to be very aware that going in like a tank is absolutely not going to work even though when buddy is that closed down it feels like the only thing that will work as a tank the narcissist is like a man who's wearing layers and layers and layers of clothes beautiful expensive clothes he wears clothes of approval in affirmation and grandness and specialness and brilliance and power he's got layer and layer and he believes the clothes are the men without the clothes there is no man so if you remove the clothes as far as he's concerned he will literally disappear and so if you come along and say you know you need to take that coat off because you're hurting people with that coat or if that doesn't work you get a little more aggressive and you try to take the coat off yourself he will respond in such a way as to wrap it more tightly around himself or if you manage to get it all he'll go buy two more because he believes that you are trying to strip him naked not of externals but of what he believes are essentials to the self from his perspective to take the clothes is to destroy the man to completely obliterate him because in his world to be naked is to disappear so when you're working with somebody like this it's far better even though you see this coat it's a mess and it's hurting a lot of people and though you want to immediately remove it it's far more effective to say maybe should wear this coat a lot tell me about it so you're coming in by a back door the code seems really important to you why do you think is have you ever not had that coat and what was that like what do you think it would be like to be without it the point is you're asking students of help me understand this you're not saying this is really bad this really wealth is really hurting people even though all those things are true but eventually if you do it that way you are able to be to ask the narcissist so how do you think other people feel about that code you think that codes ever hurt anybody or have you ever known somebody else so had a code like that who hurt people so intervention is difficult it's not always possible but doesn't always work but if you're going to do it you have to go in by the backdoor and one of the things that we know is that if you're doing counseling with anybody or you're trying to get them to see something they're threatening by without some counseling or not you must have a good alliance with them or they will not let you into the place that they must protect you can't have a trauma survivor for example walk into your office or in relationship with you and said you sit down and say now tell me the whole story they're either going to do that because they're so Unseld for and unwise they don't recognize danger when they see it or the most way in the door in your face that's true with a narcissist as well you can't go in like that you will increase the fortress that's also important I think to realize that even though it seems hopeless Jesus kept saying he who has ears to hear let him hear all through the Gospels he's talking and some people here in some people go and he just does it anyway and I think part of it is because the attempt to invite through speech to somebody is to give them a choice so if you ask the narcissism risk oh you've opened a door for him though I never really thought about my coat he may slam the door in your face but he will have had a choice at the same time I think it's very important to keep in mind because it can be very discouraging that one of the principles of Scripture is that as we choose so we become see this in addictions all the time sometimes the choosing runs so deep and is gone on for so long that we literally lose our capacity to choose another way so you think about a tiny little tree is sapling and suppose somebody bent it over again and again and again you're eventually going to have an old tree that grows like that and you can't fix it anymore there's nothing left to do this so there are those who have wrapped themselves for so long in these layers and obliterated any awareness of others that there is no door in and words like antisocial and psychopaths come to mind now not all narcissists are like that but some are but I also think we we still have to say he who has ears to hear let him hear because rightly we can't tell we can't read the heart we don't know if the whole hearts hard we don't know if there's a soft place in the heart and so as we can we want to go with in a way that seeks to understand not to criticize because I can't hear that and invite them into dialogue with us in a way that allows them to look at themselves alright let me just give you a little bit about narcissistic those that have the disease there's a fascinating book that was written by a man named Edwin Friedman it's called generation to generation and it was published in 1985 but anyway he says that there are two qualities that are being demanded of leaders in most of our cultures expertise and charisma and he said that expertise is that quality that forces leaders to define themselves not my character but by abilities so a good leader is constantly acquiring more information and demonstrating it with increasing profit proficiency in all of those things a problem with that of course is aside from the terrific pressure and anxiety on the leader is that if the person in leadership is the expert then the followers abdicate their power so you end up with somebody who's supposed to be the expert but I don't really have to do anything because this person is going to tell me what to do you see this in churches sometimes with pastors and compliance submissive sheep with inertia so the only relationship they have with God or the only study they have of the word is because the expert gave it to them they have nothing personal going on spiritually the second quality is charisma and that's that magnetic personality or somebody can just walk into a room and everybody goes and it is it necessarily size or look so it can be those things too but there's an aura about some people like that and people who have that quality and take a split body and bring it together because they are the glue or they can galvanize people who are depressed and like shrieking churches and things like that again it has a problem that comes with it if you're the glue what happens if you're not there you really have unity and it's very appealing to people who always want to be motivated from the out nothing develops internally for them so both qualities give unhealthy power to the person at the top which leads to anxiety in leaders and pressure that can easily feed things like entitlement and grandiosity and lack of empathy narcissists are not made by systems narcissism is a disorder of the self however in order to thrive it must be accepted or approved by a system systems that welcome narcissists are already broken so and they get a net anesthetized by their leaders so systems that do that have already advocated power they follow the script they buy the lie the leaders the one who knows the truth the leader is special more than other leaders are the most obvious examples of that is Nazi Germany those who follow such a leader are now special I mean that's part of the whole propaganda thing with the Nazis we do that in prison I go so those Church you know the really big one down here has long members in other words if I'm where the best is to they've abandoned thinking on their own if the leader says that it's true so I get spoon-fed and I don't need to read or thinker question on my own in it as a matter of fact if I try to do that somebody will probably shut me up and so the word of god man is not pursued the leader and the system are not looked at by the individual in light of that word it the Word of God is dished out by the leader who then says what it means and how you should respond to it deviations are considered failure lack of faith and often engender rage in the leader three systems like this believe but any kind of change or success is utterly dependent on the leader not the people and leaders like this say you want your church to grow biking make it grow you want prosperity I can bring it you want change I can do it I know more than you I see more than you I have the gifts I'm more accomplished and if you have me as your leader then I'll make it more better it sounds a little messianic doesn't it and such a system not only follows the narcissist it breeds narcissism and when I was in Brazil driving through a city of one of my companions kept pointing out these massive churches but our part of what's called the universal Church of the kingdom of God no grandiosity their way and they're spawned by a deer Lucido and the churches literally exist for the sole purpose of getting money it's a front he has over five million followers whose donation that the last 30 plus years in made him a multi-millionaire who's all over the news in Brazil a prosecutor who's trying to bring charges against and said that his promise of riches in response to tithing amounts to fraud so the prosecutor accused Macedo and three high-ranking church members of conspiracy money laundering and undeclared international cashed and transfers aren't we surprised he said this the preacher makes use of the faith the desperation and the ambition of his followers to sell the idea that God and Jesus Christ only look on those who contribute financially to the church and most of his multi billions are from poor people and even though this has been put in the papers and the prosecutor is bringing charges they still come and put their money down and go home because if they do then God will bless them housing thousands of people have bought the line oftentimes examples like that which are really quite outrageous it can be helpful because they shine a light on the dynamics you know might not that's somebody with a grand name of a church like that and whose sole existence is they don't even try to look like they're having a worship service they just take your money and you'll go home bless but you can see then on the continuum in a different place churches aren't quite so grand in their naming and they actually do have the appearance of a worship service but it's underneath there's really nothing when you hear and absorb the characteristics about the narcissus I think one of the things is it's hard to understand how people get drawn into it individuals get drawn in churches and organizations whole nations get drawn into a relationship with this kind of person you know you think about the characteristics like grandiosity who wants to be around somebody who's grandiose let's puffed up an arrogant it's not attractive but you see somebody who is a narcissist is an illusionist it's about appearances they're the expert at masquerade there is a fascinating book it's a novel written by somebody named Baker it's called the seduction of Eva Volk and it is a novel about a Christian family in Germany pre-world War two and they are desperately seeking hope and healing along with the culture post-world War One where they held so humiliated and they didn't have enough to meet and there wasn't read on the shelves and all of those things and how they were seduced into seeing Hitler the savior of Germany he will return honor to Germans who were full of shame he will feed the hungry he will assist the poor he will lift this despair those are good sounding goals for a humiliated country and in fact he did some of those things you put bread back on the shelves you put money in their pockets and they were proud to be a Germans again but that seduction and blindness obviously costs them dearly they sold their souls and the author says this Eva's world was broken and fearful and so was she then Savior came as an ancient line so Eva in her world closed their eyes and let him have his way the subtitle for the book is a novel of Hitler's Christians Hitler's Christian that is an oxymoron if there ever was one how does that happen how do people get seduced it's very easy when you're hungry and somebody says they'll feed you to listen very easy obviously that's true in this is a level but it's true on an emotional level or an esteem level or any other way that you can think whole Nations anything from Eastern Europe or in six whole nations have been subjugated out of hunger to glory by political corrupts narcissistic sociopathic leaders but if you look at it in other other areas look at the financial world the financial world is whence its greed its downfall why because everybody was going to make your money grow bigger and then honey wasn't so good so everybody believed whatever they told them you think of those who use their power to abuse women or children for their own gratification it's big issues like countries and its little issues like in the home we value things that our culture has taught us to value whether it's materialism or pleasure accomplishment in the United States people ran to my houses they couldn't afford we pursue sex without any parameters we expect life to protect us from suffering and when it doesn't we sue somebody right that's my country and so we we get disappointed because there is suffering and either suing somebody doesn't really make us happy and we're hungry / hungry because God made us to be hungry people and already for him but if we don't really own him we just stay hungry if somebody comes in on some level some man comes to marry some hungry woman some pimp on the street it's not a rescue that some 14 year old who ran away from abuse some politician is going to turn everything around some banker is going to make your web see and so we listen and we're blind to what's there to see in terms of the character not only a person that's saying these things but of the system that they uphold so the church can be as vulnerable to this as the Christians in Hitler's time work they're going to teach us to do better worship and have the best Creed and grow the biggest Church and it's all for God so how could I be bad right the promise of great integrand is out there remember Jesus he became little you know he didn't come and say oh you know they wanted to know each other on the government do all the things these kinds of people do I didn't do it so when you hear messianic things that are going to overthrow the Roman government and bring your prosperity whether it's spiritual prosperity relational in a marriage or something or political it's not like him it's not like him and so oftentimes what we do like the narcissist in our hunger is seek gratification from others to give us what we longed for without consideration of what it's really going to do that is how we get narcissistic systems let me give you a couple of scenarios Church a I've been through some very difficult things they had a beloved pastor who died and the membership dropped after that happened and then they hired a new pastor but he didn't work out very well I couldn't stir the church or renew it in any way so they fired him now the system is quite depressed and they in it remember years ago when the church was vibrant and they evolved for that again nothing wrong with that and they've interviewed national candidates and they haven't found anybody until recently and they just interviewed a young man in his early 40s he's brilliant he's very articulate his preaching has that soaring quality in it he's given the congregation hope that they can be vibrant again and bring change to the community and that that will bring people to God and he told them a great deal about his hopes for them and what he can do for them and he knows how to do this and help them grow and so they hired him and initially when somebody like that comes in energized within us hope and the illusion is bought we will be bigger and better because we have the right person who's brilliant and has charisma and all those things the picture of promise which is painted with spiritual language laced with adjectives like deeper and fuller and bigger and all those things and they're vulnerable hungry depressed sheep follow behind believing the illusion thinking is God a depressed struggling hungry system whether it is a family an individual a nation the church is easy prey for someone who can deliver the mood will fix it so you won't be hungry as a matter of fact you're going to have so much food you can share with other people and isn't that what God wants us to do he's a master of words he's a Pied Piper an unwitting wittingly people follow like sheep without a shepherd thinking that he's come to feed them not realizing that they will become his food a second scenario this is when a group is not depressed and hungry but already self-satisfied so they are superior they are more knowledgeable they're more spiritual they're holders of a special mission or the core of biblical truths or whatever and they have Church Church plants can think this way new organizations you know we've developed this organization because nobody else the world is doing this spin all the churches even older traditional organizations or churches you know they're sort of the blue blood in the spiritual world that kind of man we know how to do it better so by definition we have to have a leader who's grander and bigger and smarter than the ordinary because a special group demands a special leader right a special leader needs to bring along the group so it will be special extraordinary requires extraordinary and so you end up often times that I've seen this happen in my area and working with churches you end up with a church that for example many years ago was a church plant a full of very wealthy and educated bright people and so they were special and they hired to lay special and then some things happened and he had to be let go so they hired somebody else for really special and he had tested a couple women in the church so he couldn't be let go and then they hired another person was really special and he was about as arrogant as you can be so it's like serial narcissist because the group is so special they have to have somebody so special and again it's not said like I'm saying it it's said in very biblical spiritual language and it's not a stretch from these two scenarios to see how in that environment which is quite toxic you can end up with somebody who's embezzling money like Lucido or clergy sexual abuse because if you have people who have abdicated their power people who aren't thinking on their own people who are drawn in by the charisma of the leader and you know has come so you come to help that you come to him for help maybe your marriage is struggling or something like that and the next thing you know you have a pastor who's feeding off of these women and has had you know four or five women and use them for sex with no empathy and surprised and hurt that the church doesn't how hard ministry's for him these shepherds are described in Ezekiel 34 they feed themselves not their flock and God says it is a field 34 I will demand my sheep back and when caught their horror is not about the damage they have done but it is about the damage to them in being caught it's one of the ways that you can tell or sometimes the appearance is broken and people expose what's under it but the system comes in to protect them because they are afraid to be without the person so for example in response to a pedophile church leaders might say as one did to me he's so gifted in ministry surely you do not want to destroy such potential and so they took the pedophile out of their church and they move to to a different church without telling them the profound lack of empathy in the narcissist or the system what alone repentance is frightening and it leads to death wouldn't we stop in five minutes fifteen booking all right let me just put a couple examples on there you just feed back to me what you're hearing it's important to realize that when you look at narcissism in the raw sort of which is what we're doing today it's pretty obvious and it's really ugly and you wonder how anybody would be seduced by all of that stuff we see it in a negative light which is appropriate but what I think we need to understand not only for ourselves and for the sake of the church but also for vulnerable people that come to us for help who have been chewed up as it out in these circumstances how easy it is for narcissism to fit into the language of Christianity and we end up sanctioning what actually is unhealthy and wrong thinking like the narcissist that we're doing good so case pastor seemingly godly shows a lot of compassion for others who are struggling it goes out of his way to help people he's very sacrificial he worked seven days a week he's always going after the struggling or the depressed or the addict or whatever and everybody thinks it's wonderful his dedication to Jesus and he's unselfish and he's called by God and we pray for him I can't tell you how many times I dealt with the situation and all the things you say are exactly what's there and the leaders advocate because number one they don't want to deal with messy people I mean a lot of us really do that right and so they let him do it all and they by association see the church as special and it's where all the broken people can really comment on where the messy people can come and all the addicts can come and all those other kinds of things because we accept people like Jesus did only we is heat but do you see to go back to the power issue how do you confront somebody who knows about your private addictions how do you confront somebody who knows you actually have to appears in a marriage and obey including your wife knows it probably don't do that mate and how as leaders that are with him under him do you confront somebody like that when he protects you from the messes and that's actually what you want you want the position not the message you see whole powers gone out of the system of the people of God and in terms of having presence what's that it's always this with people never this but again do you see how subtle it can be and do you see how the appearance can be so utterly spiritual sacrificial ministry welcoming broken people all those things and that can go on for years in a church but the problem eventually is that the leader will explode we hate you doing that forever not blow up alright here's another one your church shopping you're new to an area and you're looking for a church and you begin hearing things like we really want to be the Church in this city we wanted minister in places nobody else goes we as a body want to be sacrificial in the lives of others we know that most people don't want to deal with these things but we do what are you going to think yes they aren't they want you to agree with Olympic yes right so if you're joined them you'll be special too yes yes yes he sanctions and supports what they're doing yes but again it's probably nobody in this room who doesn't want to be part of a church that reaches out to people and truly wants to be the church in the city right but the emphasis of the words is on that not him and the emphasis on the word is divisive with the rest of Christendom then it lifts up and the person that lives up the pastor in the second one it lifts up the special Church all right a woman goes to her pastor for counseling she's having difficulty in her marriage ultimately in her sexual relationship with her husband so she sees him for a few times he's caring and compassionate you know he says well you know I I know your husband is an untrue that can be difficult she keeps going back and then he calls her on the phone me just look at the husband's at work or whatever and just checks to make sure she's okay and she continues to go back and she finally tells him about the struggle in the sexual area and he says that's very hard on you I can help you with that and so she feels a courage that she goes home when he calls us more it's just supporting her and checking her and telling her he's praying for her all those things and he's going to be a safe person for you and then somebody on the road guess what happens he comes into a session again two examples and he says why don't you take your shirt off and he says don't you trust me I'm not it saved me didn't I tell you I help you if you can learn to be comfortable with me in a way it won't bless your husband right now the pit of hell is when it happens a lot it happens a lot and depressed vulnerable meeting women in difficult situations don't see and usually it's because it's just the individual but they're part of a system like we've described that see because the pastor's here and so obviously you have a progression of things until you have a victim and you gotta pick them all along in the woman right so somebody like that comes to you for counseling what's she going to be confused about who's responsible for the downfall of the pastor right he'll have lots of people telling her that what's happened to her relationship to her church community yes it's over what is she thinking about God maybe he's a little manipulative - maybe he doesn't think very much of women and what he supposed to happen with her marriage that was already difficult whose fault is it completely in the marriage earth and again there are many many out there like that with those kinds of stories who'd never again darkened the doorman Church and who are hungry for God they still want him not like that and they're terrifying to walk inside Italy just another example of pastor has suspected of an affair somebody confronts him so he partially confesses to touching every once on one kiss one Kissel and he's been working so hard for the church and he's burned out until he notices orchestrates his own recovery there might be a problem with that you think somebody who is in leadership and has been exposed as doing something in moreover should be in charge of his own recovery and so he suggests they give him a leave and he's going to take his family on vacation for a couple of weeks and then he'll feel rested and he'll come back anywhere we ever do it again and while he's gone unbeknownst anybody he spends $12,000 of the church's money and it is later discovered that he was having a full-blown affair not only before and during the vacation but after he returned on there were three women before met anybody who orchestrates their own recovery you mean bells and whistles going over your head anybody whose confessions say well I did this and I did that and I'm very upset about it I'm struggling on a deep level I'm so tormented in your confrontation is my worst nightmare come true and I'm so overjoyed that you've agreed to forgive me and I I'm gonna not have to be so tormented about this anymore I was able to see for myself what a fine church this is and I'm so glad that you're forgiving me so we can still work let me just close with this before coffee it is a very fascinating study in the scriptures that I highly recommend to read about Saul's disobedience to God and his response to Samuels confrontation versus David's interaction with Nathan and his response which we haven't so 51 to Nathan's confrontation if you look at Saul and for Samuel 15 he says to Nathan I carry out the commandment of the Lord and it's all says what's that bleeding over there and Saul says they did it I obeyed the voice of the Lord and went on the mission the Lord sent me on but the people Saul use a spiritual words he obeyed carried out God's command they went on the mission and when confronted he blamed them David on the other hand is confronted with his sin and Nathan says you are the man and David says I have sinned against the Lord my iniquity my transgression my sin against you I have sinned and done this evil that's really quite a phenomenal study and it's an important study because it helps us really begin to hear the difference in the way people respond when they are confronted the response of a narcissist is about the self even if it's hidden in sacrificial behavior even if it's hidden in some words of repentance it has little to do with warning to understand the devastation that as a result of that big you David understood the devastation that resulted from his behavior on the human level but even more so with God that's a very different response so we can be easily fooled with emotional responses laced with spiritual language but they can very often be just like souls not like David's and of course when attempts are made to orchestrate one's own repentance and recovery that is whether the height of arrogance isn't it go have coffee you

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Length: 65min 53sec (3953 seconds)

Published: Thu May 05 2016