This is a relevant and fascinating question in the church today.
This is a relevant question because according to PhD’s Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell in their recent book The Narcissistic Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement the US is experiencing an “epidemic of narcissism”. Given this well-researched fact and the propensity the neo-American Church has for adopting culturally sensitive styles of worship and generally accessible structures and modes of leadership, none should be surprised that narcissistic spiritual leaders (NSL’s) are on the increase in the ministry, broadly, and in the pulpit, particularly. Enabling this phenomenon are commonly held contemporary church cultural trends that lend toward fostering an NSL friendly culture. Issues like our collective “celebrity-driven” mindset for pastoral leadership, church “branding”, personality-birthed peer-ministries (i.e., the “this group is popular because ‘Pastor Bob’ leads it” mentality), the constant measure of ministry fruitfulness by the gauge of attendance and financial giving. All of these realities within the organization of most churches create a ministry dynamism that encourages the most pronounced aspects of an NSL’s personality to shine forth and be employed in advancing ministry impact, though none of these trends are wrong or misguided in themselves.
This is a fascinating question because in my own ministry experience the real issue is NOT identifying NSL’s accurately or clearly and thus seeing people and ministry victimized, by degrees, as a result. Truth is, most sincere Christians are concerned about being too judgmental of others, making us overly careful and less diligent to discern people’s true motivations (when possible) and accurately assess their behavior (whenever necessary). Thus, in most churches an NSL can run rough-shod over other leaders and the congregation while appearing — to the uneducated eye — to be deeply committed to God’s work. Positive aspects of the NSL’s personality tendency can seem highly acceptable and even Godly, if not closely examined. For example, NSL’s can be highly driven to extreme workaholism, forcing others to adopt self-destructive approaches to work that, especially over time, can seriously injure mental and physical health. NSL’s frequently press for excellence in all endeavors, foisting extreme pressure on colleagues, co-laborers and even followers. An NSL’s extreme need for admiration and loyalty can easily mis-shape a productive ministry environment into a hot-house of competition and insecurity, with healthy ambition becoming transfigured from the hearty exchange of inspiration between hard-working and encouraging co-ministers into the paranoid dynamics and manic-machinations of personality-cult members. Further, NSL’s can be extremely effective at putting themselves on display in altruistic activities and missions. For fear of appearing overly-critical, colleagues can notice blatantly self-referential displays of the NSL engaged in care-giving for others and still remain silent. Damaging examples of NSL’s rushing to appear altruistic in the eyes of others while alienating, manipulating, hurting or even disillusioning those they seek to “help” are becoming more frequent in churches. Constituents are increasingly left to wonder if the help they’ve received is the work of a true benefactor or simply a benevolent dictator dispensing “strings-attached” gifts among the needy for later use in personal or even political advancement within the organization or wider church movement.
The answer to recognizing narcissistic personality disorder and the presence of NSL’s in the church is found in Jesus’ own instructive words to his disciples, in Matt. 10:16: “…be as shrewd as snakes but as innocent as doves.”
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Thanks for this article! I was just fired recently at a church I was employed at after defending another employee who I felt was being mistreated & bullied by the pastor & his wife. Like your articles suggests, they were very involved in missions & other altruistic endeavors so it took awhile for people to realize there was a problem. I kept going back over & over in my head that they can’t be that bad since “they are involved in so many good things.” At the same time, they were neglectful to the needs of many of their own congregants & showed a profound lack of empathy which took a long time for me to discern. I realized over the past several yrs that the reason they had lost so many members & church staff is because they were bullied out. No body said anything about it because they didn’t want to appear judgemental.