Tag: abuse

Understanding True Love: Why Jesus Challenged Sin

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 

John 5:14

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

John 8:11

Jesus wasn’t afraid to tell people to leave their life of sin!

So why are we?

Jesus was the most loving person who ever existed. He was perfect love incarnate. Everything he did was pure love. And on more than one occasion he told the people that he had just rescued to stop sinning. What are we to make of this?

Imagine a young child swinging a razor blade around. Is it loving to let them continue? They are cutting themselves and harming the other kids around them. We don’t just let it continue. Even if they don’t harm the people around them, they are harming themselves and the very least. This is the nature of all sin. Anything that is outside of God’s design for our life is a razor blade in the hands of a child. The most loving thing we can do is to call them to stop. Jesus knew this. When Jesus calls people to stop sinning, it’s actually the most loving thing he could say.

Our culture struggles with a healthy understanding of what love really is. Too often, our culture conflates “acceptance” with love and in doing so ends up enabling sin. We learn from the addiction community that enabling addiction is the opposite of love even though it “feels” very loving. When we cover for a spouse who is addicted and we think we’re showing love and grace, we’re actually enabling the very things that are destroying the person’s life. The addiction community helps us see clearly that enabling sin is not loving. Affirming sin is not loving. Covering for sin is not loving.

And while our culture has finally learned this after decades of research on addiction, it struggles to apply this lesson to all forms of sin. We see this with many forms of modern parenting. Three year old kids are being “reasoned” with as if they are adults. Over and over again these young parents were wrongly taught that setting healthy boundaries of discipline could somehow harm their kids. So, instead, the kid ends up running the house and becomes filled with anxiety as he subconsciously realizes that he’s in charge.

We also see this same thing in church scandals. The enablement of sin and the covering of sin was mistaken for what it means to be “loving.” So church leaders across the country in various denominations were never called out for their sexual sin and abuse. And as they continued in their lifestyle of sin, more and more people were harmed. Again, enabling sin is not loving. Covering for sin is not loving. Challenging sin is the most loving thing that could have happened.

We also see this with the affirmation of all kinds of different sexual expressions and gender identities in the LGBTQ community. The affirmation of sin is confused with what it means to be loving. But enabling sin isn’t loving. And we’re starting to see the harmful ramifications of young children being mutilated with puberty blockers and horrifying surgeries. This is what happens when people confuse affirmation with love. But enabling sin isn’t loving. Affirming sin isn’t loving. Covering for sin isn’t loving.

And these are just three obvious examples in our culture, but there are hundreds more. I think the enemy takes people’s deep desire to be loving and compassionate and manipulates it into something harmful. The desire to love is good. Compassion is good. Accepting people in all their weaknesses is good. But true love sets boundaries. True love calls out sin. True love holds people accountable to the damage their lifestyles of sin cause. Jesus was true love in action, and this is why he called people out on their sin. Sin always hurts the person sinning, and when left unchecked, ends up hurting the people closest to them.

The dangers of “gaslighting”

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus… I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 

2 Timothy 4:1-4

What is “gaslighting” you ask? The term itself comes from the title of a 1938 play that was turned into a 1944 movie entitled Gaslight. In the movie a husband psychologically manipulates his wife to try to get her to think she’s insane. His goal was to have her committed to a mental institution and steal her inheritance.

Taken from that movie, the term “gaslighting” was originally used in clinical psychology to help those who have suffered from mental manipulation in an abusive relationship. And in this context the term is useful. It can help an abuse victim understand how she has been psychologically manipulated.

The problem with this term now is that it has been taken out of the context of abuse. This term is now used in a colloquial sense to describe every day interactions, and this is where it has become dangerous. Instead of it being understood as an intentional psychological abuse used in an abusive relationship over time, it is now thrown out there as an accusation in the middle of a conversation that involves simple disagreement.

Here’s how gaslighting is being defined today: “Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where a person or group makes someone question their sanity, perception of reality, or memories.” Can you see how this definition is problematic if it is taken out of original context of an abusive relationship? Here’s how the term “gaslighting” is now being misused: if you make me question my perception of reality or my memories then you are psychologically abusing me.

Can you see how destructive that claim is? Can you see how the term can be used to prevent your listener from disagreeing with you for fear of being accused of psychological manipulation? Can you see how this term is now used to silence people into compliance?

For example, I can perceive that everyone is against me. But, if you try to convince me that my perception of reality is off, that maybe people are just misunderstanding me, then you are gaslighting me. You are psychologically abusing me. How dare you make me question my perception of reality!

Or if, because of my insecurities, my memories are filtered through a lens of self-hatred, and I “remember” that my friends were always mean to me growing up, you aren’t allowed to disagree with me. If you, as my friend who was also there, try to help me understand that wasn’t the case, you are gaslighting me. You are making me question my memories.

Do you see how accusing someone of gaslighting forces them to stop disagreeing with my “perception of reality?” If you disagree with me at any point and cause me to question my perception of reality, you are guilty of gaslighting, which is psychological abuse. So, you disagreeing with me is abusive. I get to weaponize my victimhood whenever someone disagrees with me.

The truth is that people often have skewed perceptions of reality. What they think happened, didn’t actually happen. But they are convinced it did because it comes through the filter and lens of their own life experiences, hurts, and wounds. What they think was said wasn’t actually said. Their own insecurities caused them to read subtext into the comment that actually was said. This happens ALL. THE. TIME. It is the most human thing in the world to do.

The thing about deception is that you don’t know you’re being deceived. We need help from others. We need people in our life who we trust who will cause us to “question our perception of reality.” This is what healthy relationships do. When I have a filter, or a bias, or a lens that is causing me to skew reality and skew what really happened, I NEED a good friend (and most often my wife) to cause me to question how I remember an event. This is not abuse. This is love. This is community. This is accountability.

Gaslighting, which is a useful term in a clinical setting, has become a dangerous accusation in a general setting with chilling consequences. It is a weapon used to eliminate disagreement and demand thought-compliance. It makes me an abuse victim every time someone tries to show me where my perception of reality is off. It makes me an abuse victim every time someone tries to show me where I might be wrongly filtering a memory through my own wounds. It’s too often used as a manipulative accusation intended to suppress disagreement.

If a person doesn’t feel heard in the middle of a conversation, disagreement, or argument, they should just state that they don’t feel heard instead of launching the accusation of “gaslighting.” The use of this term needs to stay in its original, useful context of counseling abuse victims. Outside of that, it becomes a thinly-veiled compliance tactic that silences disagreement.