The most extreme version of the phenomena goes a little like this, in my observation: It is thought of as validation of your mission (persecution for the sake of truth/Jesus Christ) when anything is done or said at any time to be critical or to slow the achievement of that mission... no matter how appropriate those goals may or may not truly be.
The problem with an explanation of "persecution" when strife occurs, is that it does not make good provision for reason. Perspectives by those outside the group is outlawed; only insiders are privileged to have their reasonings received by its members for general contemplation.
The theological discourse of Christian persecution has a long and paradoxical legacy: indeed, Christianity itself is founded upon an archetype of religio-political persecution, the execution of Jesus by the Romans. Certainly, the earliest Christians routinely equated Christian identity with suffering persecution, as the gospels and letters in the New Testament amply attest: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake," Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account" (Matthew 5.10-11). Meanwhile, in the Gospel of John, Jesus warns his students with these words: "Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you" (John 15.20). Decades before these gospels were written, the itinerant preacher and missionary Paul wrote to the fledgling Christian community in Corinth: "For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12.10).[1]
By the end of the second century, the north African church father Tertullian would link the Christian experience of persecution to the expansion of the church in what has over the centuries become a near-slogan of the Christian movement: "The blood of Christians is the seed [of the church]" (semen est sanguis Christianorum) (226-27). By the early fourth century, the tables had turned, and a writer like Lactantius could create a work like his On the Deaths of the Persecutors, in which he offers an almost gleeful portrait of the grotesque fates to which the persecutors had eventually succumbed. And by the post-Constantinian era of the fourth and fifth centuries, after Christianity had mastered the language of empire (Cameron), Christian imperial legislation effectively deployed the familiar image of formerly dominant pagans as the persecutors of Christians as a rationale for outlawing their religious practices (see Codex Theodosianus 16.10 [Pharr trans. 472-76]) while exuberant Christian monks justified anti-pagan acts of violence, such as breaking into the homes of prominent pagans and destroying the religious objects found therein, by recourse to the claim that they (the monks) were by definition without guilt since they acted as martyrs (witnesses) for Christ (Shenoute of Atripe; Gaddis).
What happens if the only ones allowed to reason over the propriety of a mission are the ones within the group? Any group has a customary pattern of thought, by definition. Therefore, it is blind to its own prejudices. That is why a group needs someone from the outside, someone who opposes them, to show them those prejudices (whatever those might be). In the case of an extreme persecution complex, that opportunity is never granted, and the group keeps making the same error after error until the damage done becomes so obvious that there is revolution from within the group itself. Or, the mission is abandoned out of disillusion and frustration from an apparent lack of progress.
And of course, the rift between the two groups grows larger.
Early on in the forming of new factions, it is important to deal swiftly to resolve bad emotions and language from the two sides.
For the sake of seeing the universal nature of the complex, here is a description of another group's pesecution complex... the LDS's:
As noted, the Mormons' identity as a "persecuted people" from early on in their history is very deeply felt. Its imprint leaves Mormons today thin-skinned, hypersensitive, and virtually expecting to be attacked. And let's be plain: the major body of attackers then and now has been perceived as Protestant Americans. So as we saw, we may typically expect a defensiveness that quickly throws walls up at even the slightest critical questioning of any aspect of their religion and culture. One classic manifestation of this complex is the insulated, fixed Mormon aversion to any form of what gets labeled "anti-Mormon literature"--books and pamphlets critical of their history or teachings or personal-journey stories of people who leave the LDS Church. Do any of this, or any joking or ridiculing, as you relate to a believing Mormon, and you can plan to lose an audience for the gospel right then and there. It will be seen as "one more attack."[2]
They weren't the only ones, I had it too. I can testify of how blind I was to my errors, through believing I was suffering persecution. I still haven't delivered my mind from automatically assuming that every bad experience I have, means I am being persecuted for the sake of the truth. But you should have seen me when I first started hanging out with the LDS. As the extreme descriptions above illuminate, it was impossible for me to let the LDS who I was evangelizing, tell me how I was doing in evangelizing them. How I came across. How I was treating them. I feared the thought of listening and considering their reaction to the way I shared my message. I still don't understand what that fear was all about. But I'm glad I gave it up after a year or two... and I am even more glad that they gave me enough grace to stay long enough to have all those second chances. I eventually came around. Their goodness to me helped me wake from the trance of the persecution complex.
[1] Persecution Complexes, by Elizabeth A. Castelli, April 2008.
[2] I Love Mormons, by David L. Rowe, pg. 49. 2005, Baker Books.
2 comments:
Interesting, Michelle! I like your observations about how we can become so numb to what the opposing group is trying to say and how we become blind to our own predjudices. Good thoughts.
Hi Rose,
My husband was giving me some feedback on the content of this post. He said the only thing missing in the discussion of the "persecution complex" is the emotions involved.
I thought about it. Here is what I came up with (which I could have shared in another post, but it'll be awhile, certainly downstream, if I do one post a day on this stuff):
--If you're reading someone else's opinion and calculating what the logical weakness is, you've gone too far.
--If you're reading someone else's opinion and you get angry, you're too closely tied in and logic can't work its benefit.
--If you read someone else's opinion and all you read it for is to make your reply, you've gone too far.
What's the point in talking at all, if no one is doing any listening, or giving any thank-you's?
Thanks for giving the feedback. I need it to know that I am doing anything helpful and only another point of view can refine these points and make my comments truly helpful.
Michele
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