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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When a woman’s case is twice as likely to be blocked on procedural grounds, it is difficult indeed to perceive “that our system is just.” Based on the data alone, it looks quite unjust. And the men who made that statement were aware that “perception [of justice in the PCA system] is essential to the moral and spiritual force we trust our discipline will have for the good of the church.” Can there be any “moral and spiritual force” for disciplinary processes that appear unjust?

Did you know that PCA church courts are more likely to block complaints from women than those from men? I suspected that to be the case, but didn’t have the data to prove it until digging through the past 49 years of PCA judicial proceedings.[1] I was curious if there is objective support for concerns raised by others in the PCA about how the church courts are serving its members, especially the vulnerable. For example, the PCA magazine byFaith did a write up when the Ad Interim Study Committee on Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault[2] published their report[3] earlier this year. One of the committee members interviewed for that article expressed concerns in particular about help for female church members:
“Women in the PCA must recognize there is more work to be done (a lot of educating to be done!) before they can have assurance their case will be shepherded well.”[4]
That comment raises a question: why would women want or need “assurance [that] their case will be shepherded well”? We could easily answer that question through personal testimony, but in my experience, the testimony of women carries much less weight than men. So consider with me some objective data to see if it answers why women need assurance their cases will be shepherded well.
In the last 50 years the highest court of the Presbyterian Church in America, the General Assembly and its Standing Judicial Committee (SJC), has heard 429 cases.[5] Of those 429 cases, 138 were ruled “out of order” on either administrative or judicial grounds. These out of order (OOO) rulings are based on the requirements of the PCA constitution, the Book of Church Order (BCO). The BCO provides detailed and often complex rules to which a case must conform in order to be adjudicated, including time frames for filing complaints, questions of jurisdiction and which church court is responsible, and who has the right to seek assistance from PCA courts. Once a case is ruled OOO, the church court is essentially done with the matter unless the member objects to the ruling and seek assistance from the next higher court.
So 138 out of 429 cases were determined to be OOO. That is a high percentage (32%), nearly 1/3 of all cases.[6] There has also been an increase over the last 40 years, starting in 1992, in the rate of OOO rulings. If we take the last 10 years since 2011, the average number of OOO rulings is 47.25%.[7] That’s quite a big jump from the overall rate of 32%. With that average and overall increase, one wonders if members of the PCA should expect future cases to have a 50/50 chance of being heard.
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[1] See Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, https://pcahistory.org/pca/ga/index.html. Data from 2022 is not available yet, I plan to update and revise my findings once the 2022 GA Minutes are published.
[2] https://dasacommittee.org
[3] https://dasacommittee.org/committee-report
[4] https://byfaithonline.com/pca-abuse-study-committee-releases-its-report/
[5] Calculating total number of cases is not straightforward. For these statistics I omitted cases that were either abandoned or withdrawn. Additionally, there are often multiple “cases,” “complaints” and “appeals” each year that relate to the same substantial matter. As much as possible, I counted the number of cases in accord with how the SJC reported them, e.g., if they grouped multiple cases together and ruled them as one, it only counted for one case.
[6] This is in the ballpark of a calculation from ruling elder and SJC member Howie Donahoe in a dissenting opinion from 2018: “In the 18 years between June 1997 and June 2015, the SJC rendered out-of-order rulings in 94 cases, i.e., in 36% of the 257 cases it received” (https://pcahistory.org/pca/ga/46th_pcaga_2018.pdf, p. 579).
[7] 2019 and 2021 are anomalous, with 100% and 0% out-of-order rulings respectively. If 2022 likewise had zero cases ruled OOO there might be cause to rethink the overall trend.
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Written by Charles B. Jacobi |
Sunday, August 21, 2022
What of the homogenous singing and liturgy in regulated worship? Doesn’t it, too, pressure the corporate body during worship? One could object that the environment’s reverence and uniformity cripples genuine emotion on the same token as the contemporary environment. But here the attention is pointed towards God, not a select group. The uniformity of regulated worship diverts attention away from individuals of the corporate body. Thus, the homogeneity may appear to dampen emotions at first glance, yet it is freeing.

Contemporary worship—better coined performative worship in my view—is often accompanied by lights, fog machines, and flickering screens centered around a concert stage. By design, the congregation is led to follow a select few at a distance—the performers—in lieu of the intimate, participatory nature of regulated worship. A chasm splits the observing congregation and performers in this contemporary scene whereby the crowd is the consumer and the performers are the producer.
Among Christians who enjoy its regulated counterpart, there is consensus that contemporary worship is detrimental to the congregation who faces the stage for the aforementioned reasons. Such is rightly agreed on. But we should consider how contemporary worship affects the performers too. The members on stage may suffer the most albeit inconspicuous.
An observant eye will notice the performers never fail to be emotive. They have few bleak moments on stage and less during dramatic songs that demand sentimental mannerisms. Surely, the pressure to manufacture expressions with the repeated choruses and mood-setting strobes is great under the crowd’s gaze. The performers are the center of attention, and this is done with purpose. Not to say some performers could be wholly sincere in their expression throughout the entire show, as some are surely capable, but to suppose every gleaming mannerism on stage is backed with genuine emotion is untenable. Here is where the contemporary culprit lies. Indeed, church members should stray from ingenuine expression during worship yet the contemporary environment pressures the performers into doing so. Individuals in the crowd may not reserve explicit expectations for the performers, but the performers will feel implicit expectation, then are pressured to generate outward passion to satisfy the crowd. Lest, they appear unspiritual. It can be exhausting, heart-wrenching, to watch them satisfy the demand.
By consequence, the performers are coerced to worship with a feigned heart due to the performative demands. Every Lord’s Day their elated passion is expected, but there is no guarantee the performers will be in the state to do this. The emotions of the Christian life are not static. Perhaps, their souls desire to lament. Or instead of brimming with passion, maybe the performers are tranquil in reflection. It could be they wish to cast their daily anxieties at the foot of Christ, which is far from stage worthy. These emotions the performers undoubtedly feel at times during their Christian life are suppressed by the stage’s demands. Though, in contemporary worship, none would be aware of the inner turmoil in their fellow members’ hearts.
While the members on stage suffer this the observing congregation can express their genuine, unpressured emotion be it lamentation or otherwise. Though the performer reserves a single option: satisfy the demands of the stage. One must wonder when the last time was the performers had deep spiritual rest.
What of the homogenous singing and liturgy in regulated worship? Doesn’t it, too, pressure the corporate body during worship? One could object that the environment’s reverence and uniformity cripples genuine emotion on the same token as the contemporary environment. But here the attention is pointed towards God, not a select group. The uniformity of regulated worship diverts attention away from individuals of the corporate body. Thus, the homogeneity may appear to dampen emotions at first glance, yet it is freeing.
In taking the form of one body the individual is unshackled from the demands bestowed by public attention. They are masked in a way. Such is one of the many beauties of the regulative principle. If performers, in the contemporary worship so common today, failed to signal their passion one Sunday their fellow church members would remember it for weeks. If someone broke down in lamentation in a regulated service, most of the corporate would fail to notice. Those who might would not bat an eye.
Consequences abound when we point to anything but God during worship. Not only does our worship become unfit when we do, but we end up inflicting ourselves in the process.
Charles B. Jacobi attends Hillside Church in Lubbock, Texas and is a PhD Student in the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University.
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