Using A Field Guide
by Andrew Hanson
By Andy Hanson, October 3, 2013
Ted Wilson’s Milestone Address to the General Conference dismayed and disturbed me. Why? In researching that question, I discovered James Patrick’s article, “Working with a Narcissistic Leader,” in the Christianity Today. Hence, this post.
If Wilson’s narcissism was the reason for my distress, how should I react? How should thoughtful Adventists relate to this situation? I offer James Patrick’s observations and selected quotations from Ted Wilson’s address for your consideration.
Excerpt from “Working with a Narcissistic Leader: The Delicate Dance Of Effectiveness Amid Ego”:
While narcissistic leaders are nothing new, today's church culture may be fertile soil for narcissism. Our ‘celebrity driven’ mindset for defining leadership, and elevation of leaders who excel at casting vision, manifesting charm, and exuding enthusiasm produces pastors whose personal ‘brands’ are bigger than their church's. Perhaps now more than ever, we need to know how to respond to narcissistic tendencies in the leaders we work with. [1]
Under the heading Field Guide to Narcissists, Patrick describes narcissistic church leaders as people who “interpret the world only as it pertains to them,” and they “do not see this self-referential orientation as a problem.” His description of narcissistic behavior is extensive; however, the following list of characteristics should allow the reader to understand more specifically the behaviors and thought patterns that Patrick describes.
Because Narcissistic leaders are confident that their judgment, opinions, and behavior reflect orthodox belief and right thinking, they have “the ability to articulate vision with an inspiring self-assurance.” Consequently, loyalty is a virtue. “They are passionate about leaving a legacy.” They have poor listening habits. They emphasize “indoctrination of the ‘vision’.” “They habitually dominate meetings” and have “a tendency to become an information broker, especially of sin.”
Patrick supplies a list of do’s and don’ts for survival when working under a narcissistic spiritual leader (NSL).
“Empathize with an NSL's feelings, but don't expect them to empathize with yours.”
“Offer them your ideas, but give them the credit.”
“Offer information, but not opinion.”
“Don't disagree openly… discreetly allow the seed of the idea to become their own.”
“Don't over-perform.”
Patrick also provides advice about establishing a healthy environment while working with a narcissistic leader. “Cultivate an environment of honesty, clarity, and objective assessment of ministry practice, particularly relative to the organization's stated values and goals.” Keep conversations “focused on the team's goals, and this can mitigate opportunities for any NSL to warp reality to their own ends.”
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Now dear reader, I suggest that you read or listen to, in its entirety,
TNC Wilson’s Milestone Address to General Conference Delegates July 3, 2010, titled “Go Forward,” and assist me in making up my mind. Does Wilson have narcissistic tendencies or doesn’t he? The following quotations seem to me to be problematic. I invite your input.
“I humbly ask for your prayers that the message I share today is heard clearly and that the messenger not be lifted up. To that end, if there is a particular point with which you agree, please respond with a heartfelt 'Amen' instead of applause. Thank you for your help in keeping the message, not the messenger, the center of our time together.”
“[Babylon] has corrupted God’s commandments and instituted another day of worship other than the seventh-day Sabbath which is the only true mark of God’s creatorship. The third angel announces in verses 9-12 that 'If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand he or she will be tormented or destroyed with fire and brimstone. If you worship the beast and his image you are rejecting THE one sign God has proclaimed as His test of allegiance the seventh-day Sabbath.”
“The Spirit of Prophecy is one of the identifying marks of God’s last-day people and is just as applicable today as ever before because it was given to us by heaven itself. As God’s faithful remnant, may we never make of none effect the precious light given us in the writings of Ellen G. White.”
“Never doubt the destiny of this mighty Advent movement. It is in God’s hands. God has given us prophetic instruction to know the culmination of the great controversy–God is the Victor!”
“Go forward, not backward! Use Christ-centered, Bible-based worship and music practices in church services…. Worship methods that lift up performance and self should be replaced with a simple and sweet reflection of a Christ-centered, Biblical approach.”
“The historic Biblical beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church will not be moved. The Biblical foundation will stand secure to the end of time. Listen to what we are told in Selected Messages, Book 1, pages 207-208.”
“If God did not create this world in six literal days and then blessed the Sabbath day, why are we worshiping Him today on this seventh-day Sabbath as SEVENTH-DAY Adventists? To misunderstand or to misinterpret this doctrine is to deny God’s Word and to deny the very purpose of the Seventh-day Adventist movement as the remnant church of God called to proclaim the three angels’ messages with Holy Spirit power.”
“Seventh-day Adventist Church members, hold your leaders, pastors, local churches, educators, institutions, and administrative organizations accountable to the highest standards of belief based on a literal understanding of Scripture. Utilize wonderful resources such as the Biblical Research Institute’s new book on hermeneutics that helps us know the correct way to interpret the Scriptures.”
“One of the most sinister attacks against the Bible is from those who believe in the Historical-Critical method of explaining the Bible. This unbiblical approach of 'higher criticism' is a deadly enemy of our theology and mission…. Stay away from this type of approach because it leads people to distrust God and His Word. Selected Messages, Book 1, pp 17-18 speaks directly to this issue.”
“While the Bible is paramount in our estimation as the ultimate authority and final arbiter of truth, the Spirit of Prophecy provides clear, inspired council to aid our application of Bible truth. It is a heaven-sent guide to instruct the church in how to carry out its mission. It is a reliable theological expositor of the Scriptures. The Spirit of Prophecy is to be read, believed, applied and promoted.”
“Jesus is coming soon!! Soon we will see in the eastern sky a small, dark cloud about half the size of a man’s fist. It will get larger and larger and brighter and brighter. All of heaven will pour out for this climax of earth’s history. Everyone will see Him at the same time through a miracle of heaven. And there seated in the middle of millions of angels will be the One we have been waiting for…not the humble broken Lamb, not the High Priest, but the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ our Redeemer!”
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[1] James Patrick, “Working with a Narcissistic Leader: The Delicate Dance Of Effectiveness Amid Ego,” Christianity Today, November 2010, accessible online at
From an intellectual perspective, using psychopunditry to analyze one's adversaries is a very speculative undertaking, fraught with fallacious reasoning. But it remains a highly popluar sport for smug bien pensants who have a choir to preach to. Sometimes psychopunditry contains valuable insights. But not in this case.
I have read many interesting analyses by psychologists and psychiatrists, who suggest that diagnosable personality disorders were/are strong factors explaining the actions, successes, and/or failures of various great historical heroes and villains. But I just don't see how the G.C. President fits that description by any stretch of the imagination. He is not charismatic; I see no evidence that he inspires fierce personal loyalty; his speeches are not self-referential; there is little about him that strikes me as fresh or visionary; he is not obssessed in his speeches with either promoting himself or with demonizing those who oppose him; he has not sought, at least not that I can tell, to impose his will on the Church above its policies or procedures. Being stubbornly wrong doesn't make one a narcissist.
Ted Wilson is simply a highly institutionalized bureaucrat, who is deeply committed to a traditional pre-70's homogeneous brand of Adventism. He worked his way up to the presidency the old fashioned way. He grew up and matured close to the levers of political power, and he earned the position by doing good political groundwork. He got the support of world leadership because he represented a brand of Adventism that is supported by the majority of Adventists worldwide. We moderates and liberals in North America, Australia, and elsewhere, may not like that. But it doesn't make him a narcissist. I actually think he is about as far from a narcissist as the top leader of any organization can appear. Try to imagine Ted Wilson as a tele-evangelist, and I suspect you will immediately recognize that narcissism is probably not one of the sinister qualities that fits his personality.
Perhaps it is liberals who are the narcissists in presuming that they should have someone as G.C. Conference President that will make them feel okay about hating on the Church. I'm not a fan of Wilson's policies, priorities or leadership style. But when we resort to ad hominem caricatures of those we oppose in order to demonize them and discredit their beliefs, it simply exposes our own lack of objectivity and trustworthiness.
No one needs to psychoanalyze Ted. His own comments will let the reader decide.
Nate,
Thanks for your response. I think that your description of Ted Wilson is thoughtful and accurate.
“Ted Wilson is a highly institutionalized bureaucrat, who is deeply committed to a traditional pre-70's homogeneous brand of Adventism. He worked his way up to the presidency the old fashioned way. He grew up and matured close to the levers of political power, and he earned the position by doing good political groundwork. He got the support of world leadership because he represented a brand of Adventism that is supported by the majority of Adventists worldwide. We moderates and liberals in North America, Australia, and elsewhere, may not like that…Being stubbornly wrong doesn't make one a narcissist.”
If you are right, and I believe you are, your description is a scary one. I think we both believe that “a highly institutionalized bureaucrat, who is deeply committed to a traditional pre-70’s homogeneous brand of Adventism,” is the wrong person to lead our church into an uncertain future.
Although you use the word, psychopunditry by way of accusing me of “a very speculative undertaking, fraught with fallacious reasoning,” I’m happy to be included in a reasonably respectable syndicate. (1)
And Nate, name-calling isn’t argument. And as for me, readers like you may decide I am a bien pensant (2) but they may resent being called my “choir.” And as for honinem caractures?
“Perhaps it is liberals who are the narcissists in presuming that they should have someone as G.C. Conference President that will make them feel okay about hating on the Church. I'm not a fan of Wilson's policies, priorities or leadership style. But when we resort to ad hominem caricatures of those we oppose in order to demonize them and discredit their beliefs, it simply exposes our own lack of objectivity and trustworthiness.”
____________________________________________
1.
Strictly speaking, a "psychopundit" is William Saletan's term for a scholar who uses psychology to explain what's wrong with people who don't vote for Democrats or recycle or otherwise agree with the pundit's left-wing views. But why limit the coinage to liberal malcontents? "Psychopundit" could nicely denote anybody whose work relates psychological research to policy and politics. In that light, Saletan himself is a psychopundit (one of the best). So are David Brooks and Malcolm Gladwell and, I suppose, yours truly. And, among researchers themselves, so are David Sloan Wilson and Jonathan Haidt and Dan Ariely. David Berreby
2.
Someone who accepts and/or espouses a fashionable idea after it has been established and maintains it without a great amount of critical thought.
Andy,
This does raise the question of whither goes the SDA church? For those in the NAD, Europe and Australia,
who do not "go along" with Ted's policies or positions, is it still their church? When people change and the institution to which they have long belonged, takes a reverse backward, can they still have allegiance to a church that is not what they signed up for?
Of course, many of us decided long ago that it was no longer a church we could swear allegienace to or be associated with. But for those loyalists who disagree on much of the present policy, the question becomes: "Who and what is Adventism today"?
Narcissism or nostalgia? One has no way of knowing if Wilson is a narcissist (perhaps as a subscriber to a narcissistic system), was playing to his audience as he saw it, or if he truly believes the vacuous myths he espoused. However, Nathan, I think your placement of the narcissist badge is on the wrong body.
The Adventist institution has always dealt with its embarrassments as evidence of its superiority. Narcissism, idolatry, shapes humility into a source of pride.
As long as the SDA church and its leadership is fixated on the Swiss cheese theology of the disappointing past, and is willingly ignorant of modern physics, astronomy, and geology, it has nowhere to go in the future. That is except to play the anxious "lady in waiting" for the already two thousand year delayed second coming. It waits for the last laugh, with its dubious superiority complex intact, when the little hand cloud shows up and a few souls can look down as they are sucked up to heaven and shout to the doomed mortals below, "See, we told you so!"
And that did seem to define the role Wilson rehashed, that which is old is new again, for the church.
The SDA church is not in danger of disappearing. However it plays no significant role on the stage of the world (even its medical system is dissolving). Until it redefines itself it will, on the feeble crutches of deemed self-importance (there's the narcissism!), limp blindly down the declining road of non relevance.
There has always been a wall of embarrassment behind which SDA's cringed when they had to reveal what church they belonged to. In spite of the inbred evaluation as the True, Remnant Church, soon to be tortured by those evil Catholics it was outwardly viewed as a sect, a strange church maybe LDS or JW, a Jewish Law keeper church, people who would work in a hospital on Sabbath but strangely not in construction, etc., etc. Admiration didn't come with disclosure. No one ever said, (I'm guessing, here) to an SDA, "Wow, I've finally met one, tell me how to join your church!"
I think the SDA church could redefine itself into an admired institution to the degree members could walk around with pride because it has a belief system that provides unique hope and solace in the religious world.
Wow, Larry. Looks like even if Andy missed the mark with his blog, he at least provided you with an opportunity for some much needed therapeutic venting. You've taken this to a fascinating new level – institutional narcissism. Oh well – we have dog psychologists. Why not institution psychologists?
Yeah, I departed from the script, but just couldn't help myself. Thank you for alerting me to my accidental creation of a new category. My reinterpretation of narcissism must have a book there somewhere waiting for me to write. You're in for a bit of the commission! Of course, that depends on there being at least one interested reader! And that is as far fetched as imagining the SDA Church can, in any sense, reinvent itself!
*You may get a kick out of this Nathan, but Bugs here reminds me of some my favorite liberal pundits and Democratic strategists who love to give the Republican Party advice as to how it can again become relevant national electoral politics.
Of course these pundits and strategists do not want the GOP to become relevant; they just want Republicans to become less unlike they are (and/or perhaps less 'distinctive'). One can’t help but chuckle at this.
Ted Wilson doesn’t seem to be narcissistic. On the other hand, he is persuaded that what he believes is the gospel. Undoubtedly that can ‘come off' in an off-putting way, because he actually believes it.
*Disclaimer: I must hasten to add, of course, that I am both a supporter of Ted Wilson and a political liberal.
i disagree somewhat. i accept Nathan's interpretive position that Ted Wilson is essentially a skilled politician, not a narcissist. He has spent his whole career working hard and learning the system, and recognises what the nucleus wants. He couldn't put a spade in rebuke of the system even should he desire to. The Church will go down swinging, as the doors in NAD, EURO and Australia continue to.
This made me smile a bit, because it has almost nothing at all to do with the DSM-IV-TR and it makes me wonder from whose keester the diagnosis was pulled.
And curiously enough, Nathan, this might be the first time I can remember ever agreeing with your commentary… at least, right up until you started going off about liberals or whatever (I stopped reading), which always makes you sound insane.
Sorry if my critique isn't as gentle as y'all would like — I never had time to go to finishing school. Feel free to run weeping to the moderator if you'd like, but I remind you that it's a big bad world out there and toughening up a bit would probably do you (and the church?) some good.
Cheers.
Well, I would thank Mr Hanson for being honest about his view on how he perceives and assimilates things, even if it is being done in such a derogatory way towards our GC President , Pastor Ted Wilson. That’s okay I suppose, in a world where character assassination is the order of the day. At least it gives us a better understanding of the liberal mindset – albeit a rather disturbing one at that. I guess such open denigration of our World Church President demonstrates what liberals are generously gifted with and their contribution to the Adventist Church undoubtedly does make a ‘difference.’ At least the article isn’t openly saying “crucify him.”
Also, if this article is anything to go by, (and since psychological inferences have undoubtedly being made in it), I would say that the liberal’s frame of reference and perception would give the best psychologists a run for their money. Having said that, if we just take it at face value then we can at least get a glimpse of the ebb and flow of the liberal Adventist mindset.
Did Pastor Ted Wilson preach any doctrines that are contrary to our fundamental beliefs? No. Did he solicit attention, praise and applause or stardom for himself? No. If you said no to both – Correctamundo! Then what did he say that is so narcissistic (according to Mr Hanson’s surmising)? Nada! The fact that President Wilson asked the congregation not to applaud him but focus on the message by confirming it with a ‘heartfelt Amen’ clearly indicates his forthright position in the matter regarding the danger of applause. He clearly doesn’t wish to be associated with any form of celebrity status for himself and it shows the man for who he is: A truly selfless and admirable leader at that. It is rather good to note that the GC President cautioned the congregation against applause in order to set the record straight regarding his non-approval of any celebrity status for himself – but (sigh) it seems nothing can be done or said to appease the cultural adherents of Adventism. The adage "better the devil you know than the one you don't" does come to mind – but in a good way – and without prejudice of course.
What may need to be said is that Pastor Ted Wilson is very much an advocate of an exceptionalist, even self-reverential historic church, in which adjustments to cultural change are held to be highly suspect. Narcissism is a disease of our times that can historically affect a whole movement, as surely as it can single out a lone leader…..
While Pastor Ted Wilson may be the human focus of what is the historical Seventh-day Adventist theodicy, it seems utterly out of line to suggest that he suffers form a narcissistic personality disorder. He surely does not seem to be in any way described here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
There is every reason to believe he is, like us all, working out his sense what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist, if admittedly on a global and grand platform as General Conference President. What you see is his best effort to align the membership of the church with his personal sense of what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist today.
His sense, of course, is shaped by having grown up in the home of a former General Conference president, Neal C. Wilson. He is not, however, his father.
Oh, he may well have learned how to garner ecclesiastical support around the world. I once saw N. C. Wilson move through the cafeteria at Andrews University greating students from around the world, typically by name and referencing their family members by name. I was in awe.
However, I felt no sense that N. C. Wilson aspired to retun the church to its historical roots. Rather, he seemed to be moving it well beyond those roots, reshaping it to stand larger and more dependent than his childhood memory of fewer than 500,000 odd souls here in the U.S. rooted in a 19th Century religious oddity, with not quite that many more in scattered congregations in even then perhaps a hundred countries around the world.
Today Seventh-day Adventists claim nearly 20 million members, with financial muscle that no longer depends on the U.S. for the bulk of its support, as important as the U.S. cashflow remains.
Pastor Ted Wilson, it seems from a distance, is attempting to reverse his Father's efforts to substantiate the denomination in every way, by reigniting the spiritual embers barely glowing beneath the white ash of a bygone era. Perhaps he is in some way hoping be what he may have hoped his father would have been as the spiritual leader of the Remnant Church.
This is by no means narcissism. It is not a disease. It is Pastor Wilson being his own person, valuing his own vision, and perhaps Pastor Wilson just workign out his own fears and doubts on a grand scale. Pretty much like us all, really. Save for the stage on which he stands.