Category: Narcissism

Satan’s Diary- Fall Quarter 2023

Lisa M. PriceLeave a comment

In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation”- 2nd Peter 3:3-4 NIV

Dearest Diary,

As the kids like to say: “it’s been a minute” since I updated you of my progress, but to be perfectly honest, I haven’t been this busy in two millennia.

Seriously. 

Life has never been more productive for me on this silly, stupid, little planet. Most of the human race has lost their moral compass and their minds, in that order. I, for one, could not be more pleased. 

My mission is to lead people as far from God and abundant life as possible. I do this by assisting humans in creating a hell for themselves through their own stupid, sinful choices. Then I find fun and creative ways to turn them away from God so they will never be forgiven and spend eternity in actual hell.

 Business is booming! BOOMING!

Thanks to parents who refuse to correct their children or tell them “no” the whole planet is swarming with creatures’ psychologists have dubbed narcissists.  Narcissists are my kind of people. Narcissist is really just a fancy-Nancy word for a person who loves themselves with wild abandon. A narcissist will place their own ambitions and pleasures above everyone and everything. Narcissists come in all shapes and sizes but the one thing they all have in common is they worship themselves as an idol. 

It’s lovely really. 

It has become fashionable among humans to be entirely self-focused and proud of their selfishness. Psychologists are quick to assure folks that selfishness is good for one’s mental health!  One rather beautiful way this plays itself out is in an obsession with the toxicity of others. If one of those stupid little demi-gods feels someone is toxic then they are OUT. It does not matter who it is. It could be a life-long friend, a parent, an acquaintance, or even their own child. If a person is categorized as toxic, for any reason, they are gone. I have never seen anything like it. It’s beautiful. The thing I love most is “toxicity” is one-hundred-percent subjective. A person can be labeled “toxic” for literally any reason. Disagree over politics: toxic! Invite an adult child to one too many family events: toxic! Argue with me over anything, no matter how stupid or trivial: toxic! Try too hard to be helpful: toxic! Behave in a way I decide is controlling: toxic! Don’t ask my opinion about something: toxic! Tell me “no”: TOXIC! Choose a bad restaurant: toxic! Dislike my favorite stuff: toxic! Do something culturally inappropriate, even accidentally: toxic! Don’t do exactly what I tell you to do: toxic! Make a judgment about sexuality or any other moral issue: toxic! 

LOVE IT! 

This crazy emphasis on toxicity has caused people to ditch anyone who does not affirm every single choice they make or anyone who does not make them happy all the time. After all, when you are your own little idol you shouldn’t have to put up with anything or anyone you do not really love.  This obsession with cutting people out effectively prevents individuals from growing emotionally. Because they never participate in relationships that stretch them or require them to give more than they take. 

Adults remain emotional children indefinitely! 

They never have to work anything out or compromise in any way. So BEAUTIFUL! They just go “low contact” or “no contact” and that’s the end of that relationship! Even Christians do this! It’s not at all unusual for “Christians” to cut their parents or friends or pastor out of their lives simply for not doing or saying exactly what they want. It’s like these “Christians” have completely forgotten the Bible tells them to: 

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

I KNOW THE BIBLE BETTER THAN THEY DO!  

SO GOOD!

Personal-autonomy run amok has led to the most senseless public policies imaginable. Governments allow very young children to undergo barbaric medical procedures that mutilate their sex organs and destroy their fertility because the little tikes believe they may be the opposite gender. Imagine that!  Kids some no older than four or five being allowed to mutilate their perfectly healthy bodies over something as fleeting as a feeling? It’s beautiful. I suspect transgenderism will be the gift that keeps on giving for me. Those kids will either grow up entirely without hope and turn to drugs or alcohol to cope or they will grow up angry at the idiots who allowed their fertility to be stolen from them. Maybe both? Who knows! 

There’s more!

Everyone is encouraged to do what feels good and judgment has become the unpardonable sin. As a result, drugs have infested the planet.  I simply adore drug use. It’s just so dang degrading. The addicts live out their lives like miserable little zombies. They spend their time getting high, until they overdose, then someone comes along and revives them with Narcan. Then the whole wretched process starts all over again. Like the movie Groundhog Day with degradation and near-death experiences!  

 So GOOD!

The worship of self is the most spiritually dangerous thing in the world and it’s the most prevalent form of religious expression today! 

LOVE.  

Christians could help by choosing to model Christ-like selflessness (insert gagging sounds here). Though, I have observed a good many of them of them are just as caught up in self-absorption as their unsaved counterparts. Adult Christians cut their parents out of their lives almost as often as unsaved adult children. Friendships end over trivial matters all the time. Thankfully, many pastors have become more like influencers than spiritual leaders or moral guides. Many go out of their way to avoid being offense. It’s beautiful! After all, the gospel is inherently offensive. The one prerequisite of salvation is sinners must admit their sin and their own inherent goodness. It’s why those losers need Jesus.  

Any-hoo I digress. 

Time is short. I must be going.  There are some humans I simply must get focused on themselves and their feelings. Little do those fools know: anytime they worship themselves they give ME glory! 

Regards,

Satan

The Gateway Sin that Ruins Even the Best People-

Lisa M. Price1 Comment

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy- Romans 13:13 NIV 

Recently, I had coffee with a good friend. After some initial chit-chat I asked how things were going at her church. Tears immediately sprang to her eyes as she told me about a situation she’s encountered over the course of the last few months.  

Her church has a new pastor she likes very much. His sermons are excellent and all-in-all she feels he is taking the church in a solid direction. The problem is with his wife. She acts as the co-pastor of the church. My friend has zero problem with her role and initially really liked the woman, she’s bright, funny and my friend said she appears to really love Jesus. 

The problem started a couple of months back. My friend, who has been involved in a leadership capacity at the church for years was suddenly removed from groups and boards she had previously led. This was done without so much as a word to her or an explanation as to why. Furthermore, the pastor’s wife had made some public comments that were subtly demeaning and even blatantly rude to and about my friend. My friend has refused to discuss the issue with anyone at her church but she said that people were starting to ask what was going on.   

Sigh.  

My friend is content with taking a lesser role at her church. She understands sometimes new leaders take ministries in a different direction. However, she didn’t expect to be completely dismissed in such a hurtful manner. As her story unfolded it became clear, my friend is likely the victim of a behavior as old as humanity that has become all-too common in church, especially in church leadership: jealousy.   

It has not escaped my observation that most Christians tend to see certain sins as more ethically acceptable than others. Such is the case with jealousy.  Christians see jealousy as a problem, but not in the same way homicide or slander or lying are a problem. Christians typically place jealousy in the same category as telling someone their hair looks nice when it doesn’t. It’s seen as more of a personal shortcoming than a sin.  

The New Testament does not treat jealousy as a personal fault or a spiritual misdemeanor. The apostle Paul saw fit to place jealousy in the same class as witchcraft, hatred, selfish ambition, sexual immorality and debauchery (Romans 13:12-13, Galatians 5:19-21).  At best, the New Testament presents jealousy as an obvious indication of worldliness and spiritual immaturity (1st Corinthians 13:3, James 4:1-3). At worst it’s presented as a fast track to spiritual ruin. 

 Yikes.  

Jealousy is a gateway sin. It naturally opens the door to feeling more comfortable with other, much bigger, much more serious sins. If jealousy is allowed to run wild it can (and usually does) lead to even worse sins like slander, lying and even homicide (Genesis 4:1-7, Genesis 37:1-36, 1st Kings 21:1-14, 1st Samuel 18:1-16, Acts 5:12-18, Acts 17:4-6).

 Jealousy manifests itself in two ways. Sometimes jealousy is the result of wanting something a person feels they lack (a talent, characteristic, possession, opportunity, platform or relationship). Other times it’s the result of desiring to be the only really important person in a friend group, organization or church. At the root of jealousy there is always a spirit of self-promotion, craving for more of something (greed) and covetousness. The writer of Proverbs tells us that anger and rage are intimidating but jealousy is the real destroyer of people and relationships (Proverbs 24:7).  

In an age of social media, self-promotion, celebrity Christians and “Christian influencers” believers, especially believers in leadership positions (paid or volunteer) must be on guard against jealousy. Even good, godly people can become inflamed with jealousy. It is not unusual for jealousy to make its way into the church through a spirit of competition that disguises itself as a desire to reach the lost, mentor people or disciple others.  Jealousy is the ugly offspring of pride. It often begins with the belief that “I’m irreplaceable” or “no one can do X as well as me”. It ultimately manifests itself in a poverty mindset that leads to territorial thinking about things Christians should never be territorial about like ministry opportunities, leadership roles and mentoring opportunities. At the root of jealousy is the sin of unbelief. Jealous people do not believe there is ever enough of anything to go around.

 Spiritually speaking, we live in the grimmest of times (2nd Timothy 3:1-5, Matthew 24). People are deconstructing their faith in droves, violence is the new normal and out-and-out evil is thought to be virtuous in our culture.  

There is no room for jealousy among Christians in such times. 

 It is up to us to deal with jealousy aggressively. Jealousy never goes away on its own. We strangle feelings of jealousy with gratitude and thankfulness (Colossians 3:15, Colossians 4:2, Ephesians 5:3-5, Hebrews 12:28). The more intentional we are about being grateful for what we have the less likely we are to become envious of what other people have or are doing. Community kills jealousy.  It is much harder to be jealous when you know someone’s story and are in community with them. Praying regularly for people we feel jealous of is another way to chase away feelings of jealously or greed.   

And finally.  

There are some who have defended jealousy because God describes Himself as a jealous God (Exodus 20:5, Deuteronomy 4:24, Nahum 1:2). The difference between human jealousy and God’s jealousy is that God’ jealousy is never selfishly motivated. It’s never about Him. He is jealous out of concern for our well-being. Whereas human jealously wants what it wants only for its own glorification.  

My heart still breaks for my sweet friend. Seeing the hurt and pain caused by a jealous spirit is painful. However, the person I worry about most is the one who’s doing the hurting.          

Our Screwed-up Understanding of Church Authority is Literally Wrecking Christianity-

Lisa M. Price1 Comment

If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit- Matthew 15:14 NIV

Christianity has a leadership problem.

Accounts of bullying, embezzlement, adultery, duplicity, abuse, control and even pedophilia involving high profile pastors, churches and entire denominations have become routine. The Catholic Church, Jim Baker, Mars Hill, Ted Haggard, Bob Coy, Willow Creek, Sovereign Grace Ministries, Mike Warnke, Hillsong, Josh Duggar and The Southern Baptist Convention are just a few of the leaders, churches and organizations whose names have become synonymous with corrupt Christian leadership.  Leadership problems aren’t restricted to high profile pastors, mega churches or big-name Christian ministries. Many churchgoers have experienced hurt at the hands of insensitive pastors or pastors who acted much more righteous in public than in private. 

Sigh. 

Experts blame the rise of bad leadership on an increase of narcissism in churches and Christian organizations.  A narcissist has a strong sense of entitlement, is extremely self-focused, has an unusually high need for attention, is overconfident and a has profound lack of empathy. Narcissism is what used to be called “having a pride problem”. Therefore, it’s totally possible for a Christian to be a narcissist. Narcissists have enormous blind spots where their behavior is concerned. Narcissistic Christians can justify almost any action, including actions they know are sinful. Narcissistic Christian leaders truly believe God will overlook their behavior because they “do so much for the kingdom”.  Narcissists do not understand how their behavior affects other people. As a result, they can do a great deal of harm to people without even knowing it. Most experts believe narcissism is a growing problem among Christian leaders. This is concerning considering the contrast between a narcissistic leader and the model Christian leader described in Titus 1:7-9, Timothy 3:1-3 and 1st Peter 5:1-5. 

This begs some hard questions: 

Why is there so much bad behavior in Christianity? 

What does the church do to produce and attract all these narcissistic leaders? 

How does an average Christian enable narcissistic leadership?  

Christianity is plagued with narcissistic leadership because Christians have a flawed understanding of what New Testament authority should look like.

Here’s what I mean:

Most Christians form their views on spiritual authority from Old Testament stories, principally from the system of Kings found in the Old Testament. Old Testament Kings had absolute God-given authority. This is most famously played out in the story of Saul and David. Saul was an awful king. He was evil, volatile, selfish, and guided almost entirely by pride and sinful passions (1st Samuel 16:14, 1st Samuel 18:14, 1st Samuel 19:4, 1st Samuel 15:22-24).  

However.

 Because Saul was anointed King, David faithfully submitted himself to Saul’s authority. David did not disparage Saul, physically harm him or challenge his authority.  Christian teachers (including myself) universally applaud David’s submission to Saul’s authority. It’s an example of Old Testament obedience God clearly blessed (1stSamuel 26:9-11, Acts 13:22). 

Many Christians apply the same concept of “anointing” to present-day pastors. Many deacons, board members and elders refuse to correct or question a pastor even when they know the pastor is wrong because they view the pastor as God’s “anointed” and therefore unchallengeable, regardless of their behavior. Many Pastors, especially narcissistic pastors tend to see themselves as having the same unchallengeable authority as Old Testament Kings. The rotten fruit of this understanding of authority is at least partly to blame for the large numbers of people who have left the church in recent years. It’s also literally obliterating the churches ability to do our one job: reach the lost (Matthew 28:18-20). Non-Christians see leadership situations like the ones at the Southern Baptist Convention, Mars Hill and Hillsong as unacceptable, indefensibly gross and entirely inconsistent with the whole notion of a good God and reject God because of what they see in those churches. This is entirety unacceptable.

Because:

There are to be no human kings in the Church. Jesus is the only King among His people. Period. End of story. Jesus is the only leader who can make demands or who deserves absolute obedience. Pastors are simply not anointed to lead churches the same way kings were anointed to lead Israel in the Old Testament. The word anointed or anoint in reference to people and/or Jesus is used a total of eleven times in the New Testament. Eight explicitly refer to Jesus (Mark 14:8, Luke 4:18, Luke 7:46, John 11:2, John 12:3, Acts 4:27, Acts 10:38, Hebrews 1:9). The remaining three teach all Christians are anointed for ministry, not just a few specific leaders (2nd Corinthians 1:21, 1st John 2:20, 1st John 2:27). 

All Christians are given gifts to benefit the church (Ephesians 4:11-12, 1st Corinthians 12:7-11, Romans 12:3-9). Some spiritual gifts have a leadership component to them (apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, overseers). The New Testament commands Christians to treat these leaders with respect and to make their task joyful rather than difficult (Hebrews 13:17). Christians will be judged for how they treat their spiritual leaders. Therefore, any challenge to a leader’s teaching or behavior must be prayerfully contemplated before action is taken. 

 However.

Pastors simply do not have the same authority as Old Testament Kings. Instead, the Bible promises leaders and teachers will be judged at a higher standard than other Christians (James 3:1). ALL Christians will be accountable to God for how they use or misuse any authority they have in the home, workplace or church. Christians are called to humble servanthood, and specifically commanded not to lord their authority over others (Matthew 20:25-26). 

Truth-be-told narcissism has taken root in churches because too many pastors have been given unchallenged authority and too many Christians have foolishly chosen to follow human leaders more closely than they follow King Jesus.