he was mistreated, he did not revile; “he did not return abuse” (1 Pet 2:23).
Jesus responded to the guard’s bullying by making a calm and truthful statement about improper behavior, but it requires a sensitive observer for this to take effect. The truth will be preserved if there is any sensitive observer (like the centurion) to appreciate it. This may be one of the meanings of “Let anyone with ears listen!” (Matt 11:15; 13:9; Mark 4:23). Truth is handed on by anyone who hears it. Jesus presents it as a gift; not saying that we must hear him, but that anyone who can hear him shall receive what he is giving. Truth is a gift that blesses all who receive it, not a hammer that pounds people into obedience.
Jesus responded to his killers with the merciful statement that they really did not know what they were doing. Jesus lets the success of his message be entirely dependent upon the chance that a sincere listener is present, and on the listener’s quality of reception. In this way, Jesus has faith in us, in our ability to “hear.” In this way God waits for us to be ready. Do we have ears to hear? Will we respond, or will we seek to break God’s heart? Many people truly have a streak of vindictiveness and hostility toward God, and they take revenge on God by being cruel to people.
Jesus understands this, and many other psychological complexities. He has remarkable insight into human character; his forgiveness is not naïve, but happens with eyes wide open. He calmly observes how self-deceived his enemies can be, and warns his disciples, “an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God” (John 16:2). Rationalization springs eternal in the human breast. Even people who are conspiring to commit murder can convince themselves they are doing right. Jesus knows about the tendency to rationalize, to twist the truth for selfish reasons, and he trains his apostles to recognize it in those who mistreat them.
We live in an age where the insights of psychology have deepened and broadened our understanding of human misbehavior, but we need to go further. Christians need to become more psychologically aware, so that we are not helpless when sin happens. Wisdom “will save you from the way of evil, from those who speak perversely” (Prov 2:12). Jesus modeled calmness, compassion, and trust in people’s receptivity to the truth, but also a firm stance against cruelty and hypocrisy.
The Narcissist
It is time to look at a recognized psychological malady: narcissistic personality disorder. Not every bully is a narcissist, but many of them are, and these are the people least responsive to kind and compassionate overtures of any kind. The reader can decide if these features sound familiar.
First it is important to state that there is a natural “residue of childish narcissism, i.e., the child’s natural self-love,” and that a “severe impoverishment” in the child getting its narcissistic needs met will tend to make more difficult “the later absorption of this narcissism into more mature self esteem.”11 So some residue of narcissism is considered normal. We are not talking about this normal phenomenon when we speak of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). The standard definition of NPD, from the DSM-IV, is “A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.”12 People with this disorder are obsessed with power and self-importance; they cannot tolerate criticism and they lack empathy. While the person with mature self esteem will moderate his own claims in consideration of the views of others, the narcissist will devalue and disdain others, and “respond with despair and rage when their pressing narcissistic needs/demands were not responded to.”13 They frequently express contempt while secretly envying others. A person with narcissistic personality disorder will be “extremely sensitive to failures, disappointments, and slights. . . . To real or imagined slights, he responds with shamefaced withdrawal and depression, or with ‘narcissistic rage.’”14 Unlike psychotics, who suffer from personality disintegration and delusional states, narcissists are relatively stable and socially functional.15 They can “play the game,” and hold on to leadership positions for years, but their lack of empathy and moral principle injects poison into human systems.
We have to face the fact that techniques for handling normal conflicts simply will not work with narcissists. Chilling though it may be, there are people in the church who are “evil, who target moral leaders (usually pastors) for destruction.”16 A narcissist who is making a grab for power can lie without a twinge of conscience, and there is no way to have a constructive conversion with someone who lies. Negotiation is a useful technique for handling most conflicts, but it will not work when the complaint is coming from a narcissist, who does “not have a normal rational process.”17
A wholly different tack is taken by Randall and the field known as self psychology, founded by Heinz Kohut. This school of thought insists that narcissistic needs are normal, even in adulthood, but some people are better able to cope with the frustration of these needs, and some people lack good self-cohesion. Self psychology does not say that everyone is the same, but it does say that everyone has the same basic underlying narcissistic needs. I think this theory has much to offer, but its rhetoric is complicated and technical, and it may have limited usefulness in practical settings. However, its insights are important enough to receive some attention here.
Randall describes the three basic narcissistic needs that everyone has, although every individual will have a primary need among the three: the need to be mirrored and affirmed, the need for an ideal leader to look up to and from whom to borrow self-respect, and the need to have like-minded fellows. Randall writes: “Pastors and parishes long to feel whole and secure. Their selves reach out for responses that confirm that they are admired, immersed in the specialness of significant figures, and surrounded by like-spirited others”; both pastors and parishes may have “pressing narcissistic needs.”18 Kohut discovered the second of these needs when he noticed that many of his patients would start to show signs of recovery only if they could make a connection with Kohut and experience him as an ideal parental figure. But, “Inevitably, the narcissistically disturbed individual experienced Kohut as flawed and failing. When this happened . . . a wide spectrum of rageful reactions also poured out at the one who had dared to be so insensitive.”19
Randall looks at individuals and groups in relation to these needs. Every congregation has a sort of “personality” or culture deriving from its unique constellation of narcissistic needs and “and the quality of its self-cohesion.”20 Churches, like individual pastors, have primary narcissistic needs and have varying levels of self-cohesion. A pastor or a congregation with weak self-cohesion will experience chaos, despair, and fragmentation if its narcissistic needs are not met.
Everyone has a natural need “for mirroring acclaim,”21 for affirmation. The second category, idealizing needs, is where parishioners “whose self-cohesion is weak” manifest a need to “find their selves uplifted, supported, and spiritually nurtured by being in resonating contact with the revered pastor.”22 I tend to have contempt for this need, thinking that people ought to be adults and to stand on their own two feet, which shows that this is not my primary need. Self psychology has opened my eyes to the view that this is a normal and expected need for many people, and that we have to allow for it. The third level, where one seeks cohorts or fellows who have similar understandings to oneself, seems perfectly normal to me, which probably reveals
