Written by Samuel D. James |
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
The whole reason to call out church abuse wherever it happens is because the church is beautiful and valuable and immortal, and Satan, the master abuser, wants church to look more like him instead. To the degree that abuse awareness hands people a mirror and tells them they can only be truly safe at home, it surrenders the whole game to the enemy himself.

My review of When Narcissism Comes to Church generated some of the more pointed pushback I’ve ever received from those I would consider generally in my theological/political tribe. My friend John Starke thought I mis-characterized the book. Mike Cosper agreed with this, and went further to explain why the book is valuable even at those points where my description might hold up. In one interesting section, Cosper offers a scenario where Chuck DeGroat’s framework could be helpfully applied:
If you confront a narcissist and say, “You’re prideful, abusive, and manipulative of others,” you’ll likely get one of two responses. You might hear them say, “That’s simply not true — I’m deeply insecure and I’m surrounded by people who tell me they don’t think I’m abusive and confront me when they think I’m wrong.” In this case, that’s likely all true! The confrontation fails to consider the way the individual’s pathology makes them profoundly blind to their own sins and motivations, and it fails to account for the way modern society incentivizes others to attach themselves to narcissists. The outcome is often a mealy-mouthed, “I’m sorry for the way my behavior made you feel” apology.
On the other hand, you might hear them address the accusation directly, saying, “I struggle deeply with pride, tell me who I’ve sinned against and I’ll apologize.” In this case if there is a kind of narcissistic pathology at work, they can easily perform these tasks again and again. Critics might continue to say, “They’re abusive,” but co-leaders can point to the acts of repentance and attempts at reconciliation as evidence of a malleable heart. That’s all the more likely within a system that’s benefitting from a narcissist’s charisma and energy.
DeGroat’s framework challenges us to consider the more complex interaction between sin and suffering at the heart of the behavior. By understanding narcissism as a psychological defense, a built-in response to internalized trauma and grief, we see a different kind of inroad for caring for the soul of a narcissist. They can be confronted with their sin and its impact on a community while also being shown connections between that behavior and their deeper wounds. It does nothing to diminish the power of sin and the need for the cross to do so. In fact, it expands the way we can see its power — addressing not only the sins that we might have committed, but the power of sin to malform us.
Now, what I think is particularly instructive about what Cosper writes here is that he’s offered a mini-case study of confronting an abusive leader, and in this case study, there is no question that the accusation of narcissism and abuse is valid. Cosper’s case study envisions two endings to such a confrontation: either the leader will blame-shift, or they will try to pacify the accuser by appearing to “repent.” In either case, Cosper’s illustration presumes that the person being confronted really is a genuine narcissist, and with this assurance and using DeGroat’s ideas, the accuser can be equipped to see through even an apparent confession and apology. In other words, Cosper is saying that we need DeGroat’s book in order to really hold narcissistic leaders accountable, because otherwise we might be fooled by their apologies and their apparent contrition. Without doing the thick psychoanalytical work—identifying past traumas, naming one’s insecurities, perhaps even taking the Enneagram—we are at the mercy of having to take a narcissist at his word.
In the very beginning of my review, however, I offered a much different hypothetical scenario:
You are approached by two people in your church, both people that you know, love, and trust with equal measure. Person A needs to tell you something about Person B. Person B, according to Person A, has been spiritually abusing them. Person B has been using their leadership and influence to convince other people that Person A’s beliefs and opinions are wrong. Moreover, according to A, Person B has persisted in a pattern of manipulation toward A: saying things to belittle, minimize, or ignore A. Person A feels incredibly victimized by Person B, and does not know how they can persevere at this church while Person B remains.
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The Bible clearly shows that God favors some and not all. But God’s “favor” is not sin, where “favoritism” is indeed sin, as James rightly points out. Favoritism is when someone chooses a person or thing because of some perceived merit, worth, or bias; but, as Paul declares in Romans 3:23, all people have sinned and fallen short of God’s righteous requirements. There is no human being who justly deserves God’s favor. Instead, all people deserve the wrath of God. Yet, God, by his grace, chooses to give some people faith in Christ and the resulting righteousness that comes through this faith. This reality was as much in play in Israel’s history as it is today.

Have you ever seen someone play favorites based on a person’s appearance, bank account, employment, or some other factor—and you weren’t the chosen one? It’s not a good feeling.
Favoritism is nothing new under the sun, and it most certainly was an issue in the early church (James 2:1-4). If favoritism is bad, why do we find numerous passages in the Bible where God clearly favors some people over others, even in the matter of salvation? In his greeting to the Ephesian church, the apostle Paul states:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. (Eph. 1:3-5)

Is God showing a form of favoritism in his election of only some of humanity for salvation? Let’s look closely at this issue and see why God’s electing grace is not favoritism.
What does the apostle James say about favoritism?
One of the earliest writings in the New Testament is the letter by James to “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion,” a way of referring to the Christian church that was scattered throughout Asia Minor due to the persecution of Christians circa AD 40 in Jerusalem. James’s letter was most likely intended to be read among many congregations to address issues that were becoming problematic in all the churches, one being favoritism—the giving of special attention to people because of their position, influence, or wealth.
In the first verse of chapter two, James warns believers against showing favoritism. He writes, “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (James 2:1). James is concerned about us, and he denounces this practice as one that should never be characteristic of God’s children. He goes on to write:

For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:1-4)

God’s favor versus favoritism—what’s the difference?
The favoritism James warns against in James 2:1-4 is different in every way from the favor God shows in choosing to save some but not all humans. The salvation God graciously provides by the gift of faith (Eph. 2:8-9) begins in Genesis 3:15 with the promise to Adam and Eve of a Savior. His favor begins to take further shape in Genesis 4:25 with the birth of Seth to Adam and Eve. Even though sin seems to have won when Adam and Eve’s firstborn, Cain, murders his brother Abel, hope returns in Seth through whom the God-fearing ancestral line would run to the promised Messiah.
In the days of Noah, the increasing corruption on the earth results in God bringing judgment on all mankind. Yet, God, being rich in mercy, shows favor toward Noah (Gen. 6:9-22). God preserves Noah and his family through the water judgment so that the plan of God—announced in Genesis 3:15—would continue.
Of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, God chooses Shem, who alone is favored by being given faith to continue the ancestral line that would eventually lead to Jesus (Gen. 4:26). In Genesis 11:10-26, we read the list of Shem’s descendants.
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Reading, hearing, and expositing Scripture is part and parcel of biblical religion, which is why our Islamic friends call us “the people of the book.” God did not say, through Moses, “See, O Israel,” or “View, O Israel;” he said, “Hear, O Israel.” Further, God expressly and comprehensively6 prohibited the religious use of images. Generations later, the apostle Paul also affirmed the importance of oral language for our faith, when he asked, rhetorically, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Rom. 10:14).

Contemporary Judaism, like love, is a many-splendored thing. For our own convenience, we often refer to three types of Judaism: Reformed, Conservative, and Orthodox, but there are many variations even within these three. Nonetheless, practicing Jews of any brand have a common liturgical practice in both the morning and evening services, where they cite together (often in biblical Hebrew) the “Shema Israel,” from Deut. 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” It is a remarkably significant text that affirms monotheism in a polytheistic context, and that contains what Jesus regarded as the “great and first” commandment in the Hebrew Bible (Mat. 22:38). The affirmation of monotheism in the second millennium BC in a culture surrounded by polytheism, and the claim that the highest ethical pursuit was whole-personed love of the One true God were remarkable in their day (and in ours). It is entirely understandable, therefore, that a third reality—admittedly of lesser significance than the other two—is also contained in this significant text, and that its beginning is: “Hear, O Israel.” Indeed, our Jewish friends call it “The Shema,” calling attention to its opening demand that Israel hear and heed the call and command of the one true and living God.
One might be excused for dismissing this observation, and for suggesting that in the second millennium BC there was no other way than oral language to mediate religion. Such a dismissal should be dismissed. In fact, every other known religion in the second millennium BC had an alternative medium for conveying religion: graven/carved images, images that were not only forbidden in the decalogue recorded in the previous chapter of Deuteronomy, they were prohibited thrice in Deuteronomy 4, even before the decalogue was given (Deut. 4:16, 23, 25). Indeed, in the central one, in Deut. 4:23, the entirety of the covenant God was about to institute was at stake on this one point: “Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image…”
There was/is an important relationship between the prohibition of images and the command to “Hear, O Israel.” The one and only true and living God was, well, true and living. He was not the product of human imagination; he was the creator of the human, and of human imagination. This one-and-only God made the human to be his image; and prohibited the human from rejecting this great privilege/responsibility by assigning it to something the human had made. No material image/likeness could be made that would reflect anything genuinely true about a non-material Creator; and no lifeless image could possibly reflect the truth of a living God. To the contrary, an inanimate image would always be non-living, and therefore non-threatening, the very opposite of the actual reality that “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). Such a God could only be known via the medium of language; since, ontologically, he was entirely different from the so-called deities of the Ancient Near East, any medium that could convey those deities would not be able to convey the distinctiveness of the one, only, living and true God.
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