If you’ve taken General Psychology in the past, you may have had to read an essay by D.L. Rosenhan called “On Being Sane in Unsane Places.” It is a wonderful, timeless, humorous, insightful article. I’ve taken some liberty here with the subject and setting of Rosenhan’s story. The original setting in his article was a lunatic asylum, but for those of you are high teachers, have supervisors with Type “A” personalities or who are observers of contemporary politics, you will have no trouble at all understanding the comparison.

I wanted to explore why, when confronted with an intolerable, narcissistic personality (such as a 215 pound gorilla in your living room), we, ourselves, sometimes become increasingly like the person we loathe. He is short-tempered and now we are the same. He makes outrageous accusations and we are tempted to respond in kind. He attacks people who share our convictions and concerns and we behave likewise to his followers.

I first encountered this issue when I had a colleague many years (decades?) ago. He was positively obnoxious. I was at a stage in my life where I was trying to live a Spirit-filled life, cultivating gentleness, meekness, patience, forbearance, and so on while he was bouncing off the walls of the ward trying my patience with his obnoxious, belligerent, unprofessional behavior. I toyed with the idea of speaking to him about his appearance of creating a hostile workplace (I was his supervisor and the nurses were complaining to me), but mostly I just wanted to be somewhere else, perhaps sipping a Mai Tai with someone I loved on a moonlit beach in Honolulu?

Now, I find myself in a similar scenario. I know how God wants me to behave in circumstances as these, but Lord, it is so HARD! Like I do when challenged by some formable issue or aliment, I research all that I can about it. Here is what I found in this regard.

ACKNOWLEGE YOUR FEELINGS

When you are confronted by someone who is overly negative in perspective or destructive in approach, there is an involuntary stress response that is aroused in you, yourself, that is not necessarily consistent with your true character. Perhaps it is righteous indignation? Call it what you will. Granted, some people can remain unperturbed and detached, but this often takes more discipline and training than many of us can muster. To reach this unflappable state, one must first recognize what is happening. You must be able to acknowledge your feelings and not suppress them, else they will build up and make it more difficult for you in the future to respond to some affront. My personal approach is to type up a response to a comment or an observation of a current event, but with the purpose of deleting it rather than posting it. Once I’ve betrayed and vented my “old nature” in writing in a way that might otherwise harm others or reflect badly on me as a Christian, I can then allow my “new nature” to once again take hold as I delete it before anyone can read it. This way, as a human, I’ve vented my sinful nature that destroys relationships, bespots my testimony and most of all, grieves the Holy Spirit but in a way in which no one is hurt. Yes, I’ve acknowledged these destructive feelings and “Yes,” they exist because the metamorphosis (Romans 12:2) in me to conform me to the image of the Risen Christ is still ongoing. In a sense though, I am being angry but not to the point of sin (Ephesians 4:26.)

Perhaps this is what Luther meant when he advised Christians to “sin boldly?” He mentioned this while writing Philip Melanchthon in 1521. More than likely Luther was referring to Hebrews 4:16 which says God’s grace allows us to approach the heavenly throne “boldly” in spite of any residual guilt and fear which Christ has washed away, but elsewhere Luther also wrote that if some deeply personal sin builds up in you and you cannot any longer, manage, struggle, suppress or live with it in spite of God’s grace, then spit it out. Just DO IT! Get it out of your system so you can clear the deck and be reconciled through confession and repentance and try again. At the moment I cannot offer a specific citation to his comment, but if pressed, I’m sure I can find it. And obviously, Luther was not giving license to someone who would like to strangle another person or is sorely tempted to set forest fires. Perhaps it applies to an individual battling a temptation to swipe a fistful of Snickers the next time he goes to the convenience store. Hopefully, this poor sinner will have someone with money to pay the cashier. But, I’m sure you can imagine examples based on your own experiences in life where you just want to “let loose and lose it” as the old time rock singer Gary U.S. Bonds once sang.

IF YOU LIE WITH THE DOGS, YOU GET THE FLEAS

I was mentored as a young Christian by a Baptist chaplain in the Air Force. He was a Captain when I met him and his name was Carl T. Hawkins. He kept me on the straight and narrow and followed me months after I arrived at Da Nang, Vietnam. While there, I was his best friend, because he found himself at odds with his commanding officer and had no one but me who he could trust to vent his feelings to.

One of his favorite sayings was “If you lie with the dogs, you get the fleas.” What he meant was if a Christian fellowships with people of dubious character, that Christian might have struggles with their walk in faith. His point was to choose your friends wisely. But what if this is true in other instances? What if your “fleas” are coming from your family, or the people your work with? How can you avoid them?

It’s a well observed and documented fact that bad behaviors can over time corrupt and spread to those around the person who behaves badly. I worked with a boss once who was more than fairly paranoid. He would falsely accuse those of us who worked for him of being against him or participating in some plot to get him in trouble. He’d see us standing together talking quietly about football or some experience someone had over the weekend and rush over to where we were to accuse us of talking about him. After months of confrontations fueled by his paranoia, whenever we’d gather and we saw him glaring at us, one of us would snicker and say “Look at Joe. He’s getting all out of joint because he thinks we’re talking about him.” And now we were! So, Joe gave life to a self-fulfilling prophecy. We were somehow seduced into playing this “game” which only fueled his delusion.

Some of the first qualities you are in danger of losing in this current political environment are the very ones that define you: empathy and compassion. We may have these two traits for those who are victims, such as those nonviolent yet undocumented immigrants in our land, people losing their jobs without cause or due process and in spite of tenure or some other legal arrangement, or because they are perhaps not sufficiently “loyal” to one person. As an example, two general grade officers who were fired in the past two weeks were women. And there are precious few women at this senior level. The Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan a four-star general officer was the first woman to head a branch of the military. She was fired as soon as President Trump repeated the oath of office and given only three-hours to vacate her quarters. Admiral Fagan was said to be too preoccupied with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to be effective, and there were other specious allegations made. Chief of Naval Operations (Admiral Lisa Franchetti) was fired “just because.” So, while I can easily muster empathy and compassion for these women whom I have never met, I cannot say I have the same compassion on those that treated them so dishonorably and disgracefully, and I must as a Christian care for those who treated them thusly as well. In Admiral Fagan’s case, incidentally, she was ordered to leave the door to her house unlocked after she left so that the interior of her home could be thoroughly photographed, though to what end? She barely had time to gather some clothing together before she was forced off the premises. This incident is precisely why we have and need DEI, even and particularly in the White House, itself.

General Charles Q. Brown was also unceremoniously dismissed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A total of six senior military officers were fired in this purge, which warnings that more may follow.

SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Because we work in toxic environments, because we need to be hopeful to others in the world (I Peter 3:15) when they are falling into deep despair, because we need to be brave when the spirit of fear has this country in its filthy grip, and because many churches have lost their way, we need our own ad hoc support systems. We need to keep our families together. We need to be there for each other, encouraging each other, ministering through the Word and so on. We need to keep our heads on straight as conspiracy theories swirl around us. Along with fear, lies are being blown like leaves on a brisk autumn breeze. Because many people do not know how to think critically, we need to know how to think critically, and to be able to discredit false prophecies and lies whenever and from wherever they arise, even if from the highest pinnacles of our government. We cannot let fear reign in the U.S. God has not given us the spirit of fear. This spiritual battle calls for people who have the gift of discernment.

POLITICS IS RIPE FOR PLUCKING

In a study by Kyle Hull, Kevin Smith and Clarisse Warren of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, researchers found that people are more vulnerable to become morally ambiguous when the circumstances are political. Wrote Dr. Hull:

“‘People, regardless of age or ideology, were more willing to engage in immoral behaviors and judgments if the behaviors were in the political realm,’ said Hull, a visiting assistant professor in political science. ‘And a lot of it was just driven by genuine internal dislike of the other side.'”

Hull found members of either major political party to be equally apt to engage in this sort of nonanalytical thinking and outrageous behavior. Professor Hull continued:

“As long as there is some internalized dislike of the outgroup, there’s certainly a risk of behaviors that may be involved when people are willing to act less morally. Politics makes us do things that we just normally wouldn’t do and tolerate things we wouldn’t normally tolerate. It brings out, sometimes, the worst in us.

The way some politicians and media speak about the other party fuels that fire in a way. The more we engage in pitting one party or the other as the bad guys, and the more you feel that way, the more you are willing to set your morals aside.”

This spiritual contest will not be quickly won. The longer bad behavior prevails, the more acceptable and entrenched it becomes. For Generation Alpha (people born between 2010 and 2024), they have been or are being socialized in this dysfunctional environment. If you are fifteen years old, this is all you know. You haven’t had enough longevity to understand that this is not the norm. Life has so much promise and opportunities if we build on the lessons and foundations (including our Constitutional foundation) that our forefathers provided us, that we fought wars over, rather than tear everything down, fire tens of thousands of people, and suppress speech and especially dissent. America used to be a land of opportunity. We did not suddenly lose our prejudices to the point that the CIvil Rights Act is somehow a useless relic of the past. Women and people of color who serve our country have the same right as while males to “be all that they can be” and not be purged for ascriptive reasons beyond their control.

We as Christians have been called to be the moral compass and the guiding light for Generation Alpha and beyond. We must be true to our faith and to ourselves as Polonius reminded Hamlet. And we must remain sane in unsane places as Rosenhan reminds us.