I'm pleased to feature this outstanding follow-up to Amy Simpson's "Codependency and the Church."(Be sure to read that piece first for needed context.) I hope you find Amy's words today as practically insightful (and elegantly quotable) as I do. -Paul
Some experts say churches foster codependency in all of us. Author and former pastor Jeff VanVonderen says, "A lot of Christians are taught not to be dependent, but codependent on God. We tiptoe around to try to make sure God has a good day."
Church staff and volunteers often confuse codependency with servanthood. But sometimes serving others is really about serving ourselves.
People like church staff and volunteers often confuse codependency with servanthood. A description of codependency can sound a lot like serving others. And service-oriented professions attract people who may not understand the difference.
But sometimes serving others is really about serving ourselves—and that's when codependency enters the picture. People who are codependent serve to meet their own emotional needs and desires. They serve whether others really want to be served or not. They serve in ways that keep the people around them from growing, changing, and thriving. They serve and serve and serve, long past the point of health and true effectiveness, because they are addicted to what serving gives them: a sense of value, preservation of the status quo, dependency in others.
Serving others is different from serving others' dysfunction. Yielding to others is different from letting them run us over. And sometimes true servanthood means refusing to participate in another person's process of destroying self or others.
Serving others is different from serving others' dysfunction. Yielding to others is different from letting them run us over.
McBean claims much of the church is run by codependency. The ways we ask for volunteer help are likely to attract people with codependent tendencies. She claims, "The church has a problem talking about codependency because to do so might be painful if we look at ourselves. Codependents are at church in force, looking for strength and encouragement to keep overfunctioning."
The church also has answers. Among what's new in the field of recovery and treatment is an increasing realization of the power of spiritual practices and a healthy spiritual life. According to McBean, "Now even secular recovery centers advocate the deep spiritual malaise that accompanies issues like addiction and codependency." The church is well-positioned to address these needs and to help people acknowledge the spiritual hunger that drives them to seek meaning and worth in other people.
Spiritual Questions
Yet the idea of codependency also raises spiritual questions. Isn't self-sacrifice a biblical concept? Isn't it Christlike to put others before ourselves? Codependency can sound like a term coined by the world around us to describe behaviors to which Christians aspire.
But codependency is different from the Christian ideas of self-sacrifice, selflessness, grace, and even dying to self. Jesus told his followers to "turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). This is different from following another person. Paul told Christians to "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:21). This submission is mutual and outwardly displays reverence for Christ, not for one another.
Philippians 2:3 instructs us to "be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves." But verse 4 makes clear that we are still to care for ourselves and what is important to us: "Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too."
Galatians 2:20 expresses the spiritual reality for all believers: "My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." Our old selves are dead so that our spirits can live free from the chains of sin and the fear of death. We are never asked to replace that with fear of another person. God never asks us to make a fellow human lord of our lives.
Following Jesus's example reminds us that he never let anyone else define who he was. He took care of himself. He willingly sacrificed his life for the sake of others, but he did not subjugate himself to us.
Likewise, God never asks us to extend grace in a vacuum. As Dr. Henry Cloud has said, "Codependency is grace without truth, judgment is truth without grace. True love is grace and truth together."[i] God's own love for us always includes truth, and his grace is revealed as a marvelous gift only in the light of the truth about ourselves—in turn revealed through God's law and our inability to live up to it (Romans 3:20). God's grace wouldn't rescue many if we never felt ourselves in need of rescue. Grace is not grace if it prevents people from seeing the truth about themselves. Sometimes letting someone feel the full consequences of bad decisions is the right thing to do for them and everyone else—and it can set the stage for grace.
Following Jesus's example reminds us that he never let anyone else define who he was. He took care of himself. He willingly sacrificed his life for the sake of others, but he did not subjugate himself to us. He "took the humble position of a slave" (Philippians 2:7), but verse 8 tells us "he humbled himself in obedience to God." His obedience and submission were to God the Father, not to humans. Mark 12:14 suggests Jesus was known for not bending himself around others; he was not swayed by others' social standing or manipulations. And he certainly wasn't invested in efforts to maintain the status quo. He did not give over his sense of identity for anyone else to define. He did not let others determine how he spent his time. Even in his death, Jesus laid down his own life, maintaining control until the end—and beyond in his resurrection.
Even when Jesus served others by healing diseases and transforming lives, he didn't force his work on those who had no desire to be served or changed. "Would you like to get well?" he asked (John 5:6). "What do you want me to do for you?" (Mark 10:51) he inquired. "Hurry and do what you're going to do," he told Judas, his betrayer (John 13:27).
Vernick draws an important distinction between selflessness and codependency, which she describes as a selfish way to live: "Codependency masks as selflessness, but you're sacrificing yourself to get what you need from the other person." People who are codependent don't develop their own lives. "They know themselves only in context of this relationship. They martyr themselves in order to get the crumbs of what someone else is giving them."
McBean claims the church has done a disservice by teaching that laying down our lives means doing whatever someone else wants us to do. She agrees that codependency is selfish. "It's about trying to get other people to behave the way we want them to so we feel better." She acknowledges that codependency can seem like good Christian behavior, but she asks, "Where is our capacity for discernment, if we don't have spiritual practices, boundaries, rest, time for spiritual seeking? It is in this way that God fills us, so that we can actually be helpful, rather than merely do what we think is helpful, or someone else tells us they need." Being truly helpful requires inner strength and care for ourselves and is often counterintuitive. It requires boundaries and a strong sense of what is our work and what is really God's work.
Necessary Changes
For churches that want to help break rather than reinforce codependency, the process starts with education. Ryan's Fuller Institute is trying to help clergy move from relying on intuition to understanding the dynamics of dependency and codependency in a family system: "Often the person with dependency isn't the sickest one in the group." But seminary isn't the only place to get education. Books are one source of information; attendance at a few recovery meetings might be the best.
Churches must realize that in families with addiction, abuse, ongoing mental illness, and other serious problems, codependency is almost inevitable. Church leaders must look beyond the person with the identified problem and help support health in the entire system. That means not only offering the church's resources but also encouraging family members to seek help in a program that addresses codependency.
The other key for churches is in teaching. Vernick encourages church leaders, especially those teaching children and youth, to be careful when teaching about "dying to yourself" without also helping kids know who they are. Emphasize that it's not selfish to know what you want or even to ask for it. "Teach that healthy relationships aren't martyr relationships. They're mutual."
VanVonderen encourages churches to be sure they're correctly teaching the Good Samaritan parable: "The man the Good Samaritan helped knew he needed help and wanted help. If you help someone who doesn't know or believe they need help, it actually hurts."
And in Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son, VanVonderen sees an example of helping by refusing to bow to codependency. It's no accident that the phrase "When he finally came to his senses" directly follows this: "No one gave him anything" (Luke 15:16-17).
As scientists continue study of addiction and codependency, they become more aware of the spiritual affliction associated with these problems. "As a church, that's our work," McBean says. "If we could return to that work—transformation, not programming—we could be salt and light to a very hurting world."
Hope Found
Laura's breakthrough came when she understood the slogan "live and let live." Months after she attended her first Al-Anon meeting, her children hosted a sleepover. As the kids watched a movie in the living room, John stumbled, glassy-eyed, into the kitchen. Laura remembered she couldn't change the fact that he was intoxicated, but she could choose how to spend her evening. She rallied the kids and spent the next few hours at a carnival, where they had fun and she let go of her compulsion to try to control John's behavior.
Laura now sees clearly how her efforts to help her husband actually hurt him: "My codependency fed his addiction. This saddens me to no end." But those days are over.
John hasn't yet sought help for his addiction, but their family is changing. And thanks to the help Laura found, she is stronger and now ready to help others like her. "When I stand before God," she says, "I'm not going to be holding my husband's hand and pointing at him. I'm responsible for how I live my life."
Amy Simpson is author of the award-winning Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church's Mission (InterVarsity Press). She also serves as editor of Christianity Today's Gifted for Leadership, Senior Editor of Leadership Journal, a speaker, and a personal and professional Co-Active coach. You can find her at AmySimpsonOnline.com and on Twitter @aresimpson.
[i] https://twitter.com/DrHenryCloud/status/385551994162659328
