As followers of Jesus Christ, the importance of essential Christian doctrine is what unites us and helps us to navigate through the most difficult storms. For example, salvation is not based on works but only found by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The power of His resurrection inaugurates everything new in our lives. Another example would be that we believe that the Word of God is given by inspiration, is immutable, eternal, and living. Scripture tells us that it has the power of dividing soul and spirit. The Word brings clarity by judging the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts. If these essential doctrines unite all believers, why do we encounter in Christendom so many conflicting thoughts and behaviors? Why do we so often see local churches with such odd behavior, tribalism, or at times even denying the essentials of Christianity? I would dare to say it’s because many of our leaders function in Cognitive Dissonance. Kendra Cherry, medically reviewed by Steven Gans, MD says, “The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so this conflict causes feelings of unease or discomfort. This inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave motivates people to engage in actions that will help minimize feelings of discomfort. People attempt to relieve this tension in different ways, such as by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding new information.” Cognitive dissonance is a powerful tool in the hands of narcissistic leaders and can be destructive to someone’s soul and life’s output.
Several years ago, I was in a small room of our next generation of church leaders as we were listening to a well-known guest speaker. He was charismatic, well put together and he was someone everyone wanted listen to. Then the Cognitive Dissonance bomb went off in the room. Just as he had everyone nodding and agreeing about the anointing of God in our lives, he took a sharp turn and went on to explain that it was because of his new anointing that he was divorcing his current wife so he could marry a different woman. WHAAAT?! He explained that when he had met his current wife, he did not at that time have the anointing to preach. Now that God had anointed him to preach, God was allowing him to leave the wife of his youth behind so that he could be equally yoked with a new wife with the same level of anointing. The crazy thing was that some people in the room were ok with it. This might be seen as just one extremely rare case that was horrible and tragic. But in my experience, the most tragic behavior is the habitual everyday Cognitive Dissonance that constantly occurs in many of our churches. Depending on where they fit in the hierarchy of the church, people will have a variety of challenges that will cause them to dismiss, explain away or avoid negative information about their pastors or leaders. For the weekend attender they may explain his/her leader’s crudeness or consistent use of inappropriate jokes as being ok because he/she surely did not mean it that way. Staff leaders who are far closer to the inner workings of the church will often choose not to see or listen when they know what they just heard was doctrinally incorrect, perverse, or had ill intent. Why doesn’t anyone say anything? Why does this disconnect continue to live on? Most people see these inconsistencies and rather than facing them head on, they instead mentally turn off information that is contrary to what they want to believe about their leaders. This is what they have to do to survive, the other option is just to quit. This might sound like an easy choice but to many church leaders quitting would mean they had given up the calling of God in their lives. This is the perfect situation for a narcissistic leader to capitalize on. For people working under this kind of leadership, it can feel like a choice between walking away from their calling from God, or just excusing their leader’s destructive behavior. And since the devil is usually the answer to explain away all their conflicts, it’s difficult to confront these leaders without being told you have a demon talking in your ear. Whether he’s faced with true persecution or just constructive criticism, the battle between the heroic narcissistic pastor and the devil becomes the rallying cry of the staff and the church members. It is much easier to just go along with the narrative, do not ask each other questions and do not question the leader.
A heartbreaking example of Cognitive Dissonance I experienced was when a church not too far from where I worked was going through a difficult time. Their pastor was dying of cancer, and I reached out to the church to see if we could help by leading their worship service. When I went to our lead pastor, I was told that I was not allowed to offer anyone from our church to help this local pastor because that might lead to our people missing our services or to other churches asking for our help. The cognitive dissonance here was that we were constantly asking our own church community for help. We consistently communicated to our church body that to help is to fulfill God’s design in us. This refusal to offer help to our neighboring pastor in need was hard for me to digest and to this day I still have regret for not standing up right then and quitting. Perhaps you are someone who loves your church community but often finds yourself justifying, explaining away, or just rejecting negative information about your church leader. If so, you might need to find a safe place to talk. Or maybe you are working in an environment where you are having to do mental gymnastics to make sense of what you are seeing, or worse you stopped trying to make sense of any of it because you have decided at least the leader’s motives are in the right place. Please know that professional help is available for you. Or you can seek help from incredible organizations like Grace Ministries (netgrace.org) that has a Godly response to abuse in the Christian community.
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