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…about Passive-Aggressive Behavior
Suppose this happened to a missionary. His committee report to the field director is due this afternoon, and he still has not received John’s data that was due a week ago. He wonders what John’s excuse will be this time—last time he forgot when it was due, the time before that he had not followed instructions so the data was useless, the time before that… When John gets it in, he will probably complain about how no one appreciates what he does, or that other people don’t have to gather data, or that… He will probably come in angry and try to start an argument—then return tomorrow to say that he is sorry, ask forgiveness, and promise to do better next time.
The missionary and John have served together for nearly four years now, and the story is always basically the same. Only the details change. What the missionary is facing is the passive-aggressive behavior of a colleague, something quite common among missionaries and other Christians. Since they do not feel free to express their dissatisfaction, such people do things that, in effect, sabotage the project.
What is passive-aggressive behavior?
People who appear to support the requests of others but do not perform the requested action correctly or soon enough are displaying passive-aggressive behavior. They may even seem to be enthusiastic about the idea, but they use overt behavior to express what they do not want to say verbally. Rather than expressing their opposition in words, they use procrastination, forgetfulness, and inefficiency to avoid complying with the request.
Along with the passive resistance these people have a pattern of negative attitudes. They may complain about feeling cheated, unappreciated, and misunderstood as they blame their failures on others. They may be sullen, irritable, cynical, and argumentative. Some professionals have characterized passive-aggressive behavior as “hostile cooperation,” “angry kindness,” or “covert assertiveness.” This behavior appears most often in the workplace and in social situations, but it may also occur in marriage and/or family situations.
Is it a psychological disorder?
For many years both the World Health Organization (agency of the United Nations) and the American Psychiatric Association listed Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder. However, in 1994 the American Psychiatric association removed passive-aggressive from the list of disorders and placed it in an appendix of items for further study.
Therefore, most nations consider it as a disorder, but mental health professionals in the USA do not. However, even if it is not a disorder, passive-aggressive behavior is very difficult to cope with. The American Psychiatric Association’s manual of mental disorders (DSM-IV) does list seven “Research criteria for passive-aggressive personality disorder,” and a person must have at least four of these criteria to be considered passive-aggressive.
Is it in the Bible?
Most people look at the lost (prodigal) son who returned to his father as the focus of that story in Luke 15. However, his older brother also had major problems. Even though he is not labeled as “passive-aggressive,” the older son meets six of the seven DSM-IV criteria in just three short verses.
· Resisted carrying out routine social tasks: he refused to go to his brother’s party (v. 28).
· Complained of being unappreciated by others: his father never gave him a party (v. 29).
· Was sullen and argumentative: he argued with his father (v. 29).
· Criticized and scorned authority: he criticized his father’s party for the squandering son (v. 30).
· Expressed envy and resentment toward those more fortunate: he resented that the fatted calf was killed for his brother (v. 30).
· Voiced exaggerated complaints of personal misfortune: he had “slaved” for years (v. 29)
The only criterion he did not meet was the one saying that he alternated between defiance and contrition!
What are the symptoms?
By definition the passive-aggressive person has (1) a pattern of passive resistance to carrying out requested actions and (2) a pattern of negativistic attitudes (an alternate name is negativistic personality disorder).
As noted above, the DSM-IV criteria elaborated these two general conditions into seven more specific criteria. The following are even more specific passive-aggressive actions.
· Deliberate inefficiency, dawdling, laziness, inflexibility, ignoring of others
· Procrastination, stubbornness, resisting suggestions, disregarding instructions
· Pretending forgetfulness, putting things on the “back burner,” making excuses
· Losing things, discovering things too late,
· Sullenness, hostility, anger, argumentativeness
· Complaining, resentment, feeling unappreciated, irritableness, cynicism
· Blaming others, feeling cheated
· Overt sabotage, sulking
· Working poorly or slowly, being tardy or absent
· Repeatedly apologizing, asking forgiveness and promising to do better next time—but not really changing
The list can go on and on. Whether they are conscious of it or not, the goal is to do something that slows or prevents the action from being done or undermines the success of others.
Who can be passive-aggressive?
Anyone who is in a relationship with you may be passive-aggressive toward you.
· It may be someone above you, such as your field director, a mentor, a committee chair, or an administrator in the home office.
· It may be someone below you, such as a student in your class, a new missionary you are orienting, or your own child or adolescent.
· It may be someone at your own level, such as a fellow missionary, a colleague where you teach, a friend, or even your spouse.
The higher the commitment and the closer the relationship, the more the passive-aggressive behavior will affect your life. For example, if your spouse or teenager does not want missionary life, it will disrupt your life more than if a student in your class or a new missionary is unhappy.
Missionaries may show passive-aggressive behavior to avoid the stress of confrontation. In 1983 Dorothy Gish asked 547 missionaries to rate 65 items that cause stress, and “confronting others when necessary” was the one rated most stressful. Sixteen years later Joan Carter repeated the study with the same items plus some additional ones. The 306 missionaries still placed confronting others at the top of the list.
Passive-aggressive behavior can stop a project just like confrontation can, but it can do so with less stress. Missionaries who do not want to oppose a program overtly can just not get their part done so that the project fails. After that they can apologize for their tardiness, ask forgiveness, and they have still accomplished what they wanted in the first place.
What can you do?
Remember that this pattern of behavior has “worked” for many years for the passive-aggressive people. Even though their behavior has an impact on you it is not about you. Do not take it personally. Your goal is to create a climate of safe and open communication. The following may help.
· Keep an open mind, avoid being defensive, and acknowledge that some of the concerns may be legitimate.
· Be empathetic but still request more appropriate behavior.
· Concretely define what you expect, and ask the person to paraphrase your wants.
· Do not accept, excuse, or reward poor performance.
· Tactfully challenge distortions but do not argue over them.
· Make sure that he or she understands that you care for him or her personally and are not just seeking control.
· Remember that if you become viewed as an opponent, the objectionable behavior is likely to increase.
Finally, if you do not succeed, do not blame yourself. If people do not want to change, they do not. Remember that you did not cause the passive-aggressive behavior.
What if you are passive-aggressive?
People who are passive-aggressive may not realize that they are engaging in a self-defeating, objectionable behavior. The Spirit may have revealed to you that you use this habitual and problematic behavior yourself. If you recognize this troublesome behavior interfering with your own work or relationships, there is much hope.
· You may be able to change your passive-aggressive behavior by “observing” yourself and making changes in your own behavior, asking God to help.
· You may want to ask a friend to help you. It is much easier for people to recognize such behavior in others, so the observations of a good friend may give good insights.
· You may want to see a counselor to help you identify and change your behavior. Cognitive-behavioral therapy may help you become aware of such behavior and minimize it.
…about Whistleblowing
Whistleblowers are people who expose information or activities that are illegal, unethical or not viewed as correct within their organization. They may bring the allegations to the surface either within the organization, by telling a supervisor, or reporting the problem to someone outside the organization, such as calling the police. Such people risk retaliations from those they accuse.
Most people do not want to even know about evil activities because knowing puts them in no-win situations. However, when they do find out, they must make choices, and even doing nothing is making a choice.
Boarding schools during the last century have provided some examples of consequences when people failed to be whistleblowers. These examples may help us know what to do, so we will consider both Christian and secular boarding schools. Here we are primarily interested in considering missionaries serving in mission agencies.
A Christian (missionary) Boarding School Overseas
The most widely known instance of the lack of whistleblowers in the 20th century is one of the abuse of children in a boarding school. This abuse involved missionary kids over the span of a century.
· 1920s. Mamou Alliance Academy began in West Africa, and it continued until 1971. This involved 200 children from several agencies, students who came from hundreds of miles away and remained at Mamou nine months each year.
· 1950s. It is not clear when abuse began at Mamou, but it was rampant there by the 1950s when 10-year-old Wes Stafford became a whistleblower. As he was boarding the plane in New York on his way back to school in Africa, he told his mother that the staff there beat students all the time for everything. He was sobbing and pleading with her not to send him back. His father and some other fathers pressured their agencies about problems, and they finally began another boarding school; however, it was fully three decades before adequate changes occurred.
· 1990s. During the late 1980s the agency began receiving many reports that students were slapped, punched, fondled, and raped. In the 1990s a committee of 30 alumni met with the agency. Thorough investigations were conducted, and changes were made. Christianity Today published several articles about it during the next 15 years.
Secular Private Boarding Schools in the USA
During 2016 the Boston Globe published a series titled “Private schools, painful secrets.” The Globe’s series found that 67 private schools in New England had more than 200 students who were sexually abused by staffers. Abuse of students over a long period is not limited to Christian boarding schools. Here is an example.
Choate Rosemary Hall is an elite Connecticut boarding school with alumni such as John F. Kennedy, Ivanka Trump, and other well-known individuals. In 2017 the school admitted to sexual abuse of students by staff between 1963 and 2010. In April they made a 50-page report from an independent firm to the Board of Trustees available on-line. The report names 12 former teachers and how each teacher victimized one or more of 24 students ranging from groping to rape.
The investigation showed that when people reported sexual abuse the Choate officials handled such complaints secretly. They received many complaints over the years; however, Choate did not make any reports to Department of Children and Families about adult sexual misconduct.
What does the Bible say?
Jesus was a whistleblower throughout his ministry. John describes his clearing the temple near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (John 2:12-17). Luke describes a similar clearing of the temple at the end of his ministry (Luke 19:45-46). Matthew devotes all of chapter 23 to Jesus telling the crowds and his disciples about the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. Seven times he starts a section of the chapter with the words, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees….” He simply would not let religious leaders go on with their usual practices.
Whistleblowing among missionaries began with Paul shortly after the first term of missionary service in Acts 15. After he and Barnabas returned to their sending church, some men came to it and were promoting some faulty theology. Paul confronted these men and finally went to Jerusalem to report it to headquarters. After much discussion, those at headquarters agreed with Paul’s theology.
Later a personnel problem occurred in which a missionary had a spiritual problem. Paul wrote to Philemon (verse 24) about Demas as a “fellow worker.” Paul also sent greetings from Demas to the Colossians (4:14), another positive thing about Demas. However, something happened with Demas so that Paul wrote to Timothy, a missionary pastor that Demas had deserted him because he loved this world, and Demas had gone to Thessalonica. Paul asked Timothy to come see him and bring Mark since Demas had left (2 Timothy 4:9-11).
Those who report
Wess Stafford, author of Too Small to Ignore: Why the Least of These Matters Most, was called to stand before his 70 classmates at Mamou when he was ten years old. The students were told that Wess was Satan’s favorite tool. Now his mother was not able to do her work on the field, and Africans would be in hell because of him. Then Wess was forced to hold a candle lighted at both ends so that it burned toward his fingers which blistered until a first grader knocked the candle out of his fingers.
People who become whistleblowers often find that harmful things occur: however, in long run they feel satisfaction that they did the right thing. Laws exist in the USA to protect whistleblowers, but those laws are not always applied, and it may be impossible to prove the wrong. The list of possible consequences is endless, but some common ones are listed here.
· Reprisal or retaliation
· Legal action, social stigma, or humiliation
· Firings or transferals to insignificant work
· Accused of being unethical or breaking promises
Those who do not report
The rest of the students at Mamou and all of the staff, (except for one junior teacher who was told to mind her own business) failed to report the abuse. The abuse continued for decades and involved more than 200 students. All went on as usual. As Wess put it in his book, years later, “The hall became a jumble of shrieks, pleas, cracks of the belt, and wailing children” (p. 134).
Some may ask why siblings did not report, but we must remember that these children were threatened with beatings themselves. They were told that if they told anyone they would destroy parents’ ministry, and Africans would go to hell. Wess said that his sister knew his cry, and she shed many tears every week for her brother.
Not reporting may seem best because one avoids the immediate consequences like being beaten or losing one’s position; however, later even worse things can occur.
Some of these later bad things include:
· Feeling guilt or shame when others suffer
· Dealing with rejection by others
· Dealing with legal issues that arise
· Wondering what God thinks of failure to respond and wondering if they had sinned
What can we do?
Of course, we must listen to the whistleblowers, especially children. Although they may fabricate stories, we must take time to check the stories out rather than ignoring them. Wess’s parents both took action even though they had questions about what he had said.
We must also break the silence and inform others as well as reporting to the authorities. Perpetrators are likely to look for similar positions. Some of the Mamou teachers found other teaching positions, and the new employers did not know what they had done--and were likely to do again.
Most important of all is to get rid of the secrets. Remember that the Boson Globe titled its series “Private schools, painful secrets.” That title states what we must do. We must do away with the secrets.
Although this is generally true, it is especially important with sexual abuse. Physician Walt Larimore wrote Bryson City Secrets because his two children requested it, and they urged him again when he was reluctant. They had both been sexually abused by a babysitter, and they had told their parents the next afternoon. Walt immediately called Social Services, and the children were interviewed by counselors that afternoon and later as well.
After consulting with a lawyer, a theologian, and another professional as well as other trusted friends, he and his wife prayerfully decided to move to Florida where he had found a position. In a matter of weeks they moved.
Everything seemed to go well for nearly two decades. Both children were nearing the end of college, and one November evening Walt and his wife received a phone call from one of their children (now 24) pleading for them to come visit for Thanksgiving because of thoughts about the perpetrator. Five days later the whole family met in Washington D. C. for the holiday, and they thoroughly discussed the continuing consequences of abuse.
They met again for Christmas, and both children convinced Walt to tell their story to help others who have been abused. They hoped others could also find the healing they were beginning to experience. It is never too late to break the silence.