Understanding Ourselves For Religiously Conservative Christians, Part 1

Usually the Friday blogpost covers some article that directly deals with Christianity. This week will be different. It isn't that the articles being reviewed today have no bearing on Christians, especially religiously conservative ones, it is that the articles being reviewed today have have an indirect bearing on Christianity. For these articles deal with a problem that has existed for centuries in the Conservative Church. That problem is our penchant to embrace authoritarianism.

Authoritarianism became a hot topic after much reflection on the European theater of WW II.  Why did Germans stay so loyal to Hitler despite the evidence that was so apparent at the end of the war? The answer that I have seen is because of authoritarianism. Germans clung to authoritarianism.
 
Authoritarianism has two sides to it: the ruling side and the submitting side (click here). The ruling side explains those who take control over others. The submitting side describes those who voluntarily submit to that control. And understanding the difference between the two will be helpful in understanding the review of the 3 articles on authoritarianism by Psychotherapist Eric Maisel (click here for a bio).

At the beginning of the first of his three articles (click here for article #1, click there for article #2, and click there again for article #3),  Maisel correctly states how important it is for us to understand authoritarianism in today's world. Why? Because more and more people are being ruled over authoritarians today. But we find authoritarianism in other places other than government. We can find authoritarianism at work, at home, at places of worship, and in other groups of people.

Maisel claims that authoritarianism comes from a hatred of others. I would not want to describe authoritarians in such a monolithic manner. While some authoritarians are governed by pure hatred, I believe that authoritarianism mostly comes from fear; it is a fear of one's preferred group losing control over a given population whether that population consists of those in a small group like a church or similar group, or the population of a nation. I concluded that because of my own observations of people and reading the smaller list of traits of authoritarianism found in an article about the authoritarian personality type (click here for the reference). It isn't that the reference I am using explicitly states that fear is the main reason for authoritarian personality types. But fear being the driving factor in most authoritarianism seems to  be the case. The difference between the two views might best be explained by whether we are talking about ruling authoritarians or those who submit to them.

In addition, there is another trait of the authoritarian personality that I suggest is there from the combination of observing others and reflecting on the previously cited article on the authoritarian personality type. That trait is that for authoritarians, truth is more determined by the credentials of the source than by the facts and logic used by the source. I've added that because authoritarians want us to obey only their favorite authority figures and traditions. And those who challenge what those sources say will be subject to attacks and discredidation.

In his three articles, Maisel lists 30 traits of authoritarians. Some of them include:

1. Hatred
2. The need to punish others including the shaming and ridiculing of others
3. Aggression and assaultive behavior
4. Threats
5. Paranoia
6. The need to control and dominate others
7. Religious fervor and cover
8. Anti-Rationalism
9. Coercing people to obey
10.  Lacking guilt for what one does
11. Lacking empathy
12. Concerns with social status
13. Exploitation
14. Narcissism

We should note that when the subjects of authoritarianism and authoritarian personality types were first studied, the conclusions were skewed against conservatives. Why? One reason is that the reason for the study itself came from the actions of the radical conservative, Adolf Hitler. As time went on, it was rightfully recognized that non-conservatives are capable of embracing authoritarianism as well.

We see the embracing of authoritarianism has spread throughout our political landscape. It is more than obvious that Donald Trump and his Republicans have passionately embraced authoritarianism. But the 2016 campaigns showed that establishment Democrats have also passionately embraced authoritarianism as seen by how Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee for President. And I greatly lament over the fact that my activism has exposed me to a great deal of authoritarianism that exists in many, if not most, on the Left. A Leftist doesn't have to be a member of Antifa to be an authoritarian.

For my fellow religiously conservative Christians,  our biggest problem with authoritarianism is not found in us trying to dominate over others, but rather we strongly tend to embrace a passive authoritarianism so that we strongly support those who would rule over others in our name. That is why we need to be aware of the authoritarianism that exists in ourselves. And what we have embraced is a passive authoritarianism.

Our authoritarianism is demonstrated by our insularity. Insularity here refers to our self limited listening to and reading sources outside of either our faith or our conservative political-economic ideologies. And because we have often been taught that how things use to be done in America in the good old days was the Christian way of doing them, then any challenges to our conservative political-economic ideologies automatically become a challenge to our faith.

For example, how many of us get a significant amount of our believed news from non-conservative channels, from channels other than FOX or news or internet sources that are not conservatively based? How many of us have read liberal sources or leftist political-economic sources? How many of us know the difference between the two? How many of us have actually read Noam Chomskey, Howard Zinn, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, or other real leftists? How many of us know that there are a number of different kinds of socialism? How many of us support some form of socialism? How many of us publicly  challenge patriotism or capitalism?

We could also ask how many of us have read a significant part of the Koran? How many of us have read liberal theologians? How many of us leave the readings of political liberals and leftists and non-Christians and liberal theologians to our ministers for them to interpret for us what these people are saying?

Remembering that authoritarians determine truth more by the credentials of the source rather than the facts and logic involved, we should note that not listening to or reading those outside of our religious or political-economic boxes is done more out of fear than anything else. For the more we tend to agree with a source, the more credentials we assign to them. And thus if we agree with non-Conservative sources too much, we are vulnerable to accessing too many outside sources and then falling away from Conservatism. But that should not frighten us religiously conservative Christians if we have not conflated our faith with our political-economic ideologies. Our insularity that comes from authoritarianism prevents from knowing things about the world that more and more people know. And thus our insularity can cause us to hurt the credibility of the Gospel by making us appear as a 21st century flat-earther.

Why have many of us embraced a passive authoritarianism? Is it because  we are afraid of sharing our culture, society, and the state with unbelievers whose personal values we look down on and see as threatening? Therefore we believe that we must be in a culture war that we must win so we can suppress the cultural influences of non-conservative unbelievers? And in trying to take back our culture, society, and the state, we seem to be blind to how our penchant for control hurts the credibility of our Christian witness because with our attempts to control others, comes the oppression of others.

I hope that more of us religiously conservative Christians see the need to study authoritarianism. For authoritarianism has become a spirituality for many of us religiously conservative Christians. And the harm it is doing to the reputation of our Christian faith is very evident to those whom we should try to reach the most.

As for the 3 articles by Maisel on authoritarianism, I find that fear more than hatred is the driving force behind authoritarianism. Here we should note that fear can lead to anger and hatred. It is wise to review all 30 of the traits of authoritarianism he listed in his articles. The above list is only partial and sometimes combines into one item 2 or more items from his list. Then read the other articles on authoritarianism and the authoritarian personality type to see what you want to accept from Maisel and what you want to reject.