A friend said it well: "You're only as sick as your reactivity." The more things you're reacting against, like allergens, and the stronger your reactions, the more likely that your soul will go sick and your ministry will go sour.
I've seen this happen to too many of my friends. I remember one who confided to a group of us, "I'm motivated by competition. I want to have the biggest, most creative church. I'm driven to be significant."
Another responded, "That motivation will destroy you someday. You should deal with that."
"Yeah, you're probably right," he replied. But he didn't deal with it, because in a way, it's what kept him going.
His deep reaction against small, dysfunctional, boring churches drove him to where his personal life deteriorated, ending his ministry. He was a good man, but reactivity got him.
Another friend had a strong reaction against legalism. It filled him with righteous indignation. He saw it make the Christian life tense and cramped instead of joyful and free; he saw it make Christian communities mean-spirited instead of grace-filled. So he went out of his way to exhibit his freedom from legalism.
Perhaps an occasional four-letter word or beer would have been harmless enough if it weren't linked to his reactivity. Soon he was using sexualized language that crossed all sorts of boundaries and made women feel unsafe and men feel dirty. His credibility was further undermined by excessive drinking. If his over-reaction had destroyed only his own ministry, it would have been bad enough because he is a gifted man, but he also brought down a lot of other good people with him.
Other people, sincere people with a lot of wisdom and depth, react against megachurches that they perceive as impersonal and shallow. In their over-reaction against "corporate image," they fail to set good "professional" boundaries, which too often results in personal burnout or family breakup. Their reactivity against corporate shallowness causes them to drift into a kind of elitism, strangely proud of how few people understand them. In their reaction against corporate organization, they find themselves stymied by mismanaged details and, often, debt.
Some have a reaction against churches doing things cheap and sloppy, and others against churches doing things expensively and "with excellence." Some react against "dead liturgy" and others against "charismania."
Former fundamentalists can react their way into relativism and agnosticism; former liberals can react their way into rigid fundamentalism.
Of course, reactivity is harder to see when it is socially acceptable. Here's where our denominations or networks can create problems for us; shared reactivity can become a badge of honor. The leader most reactive to the shared allergen is seen as the most faithful and bold. Unaware that this is a reaction, such leaders can lead their followers astray.
The hardest reactivity to detect, of course, is my own. It is, no doubt, one of the planks that I can tolerate in my own eye while I am so deeply grieved by the untreated splinters in the eyes of others. Even as I write these words warning about reactivity, I am susceptible to it, as you are as you read them, nodding in agreement (or not).
What to do?
It's tempting to present self-examination as the answer, but what if the standards by which I examine myself are themselves reactive?
Some of us have the blessing of criticism, which can point out our areas of reactivity, but then we can react against the criticism. After all, aren't they just working out their own reactivity?
We might present Bible study as the answer, since the Bible has an amazing balance. But as we all know, it is amazingly easy to focus on what reinforces our reactivity and miss everything else.
Having a spiritual director or a trusted friend from another theological tradition can be helpful here, as well as having friends who are not members of our church, or even religion, if we tell them, "Please, if you see me reacting badly, tell me straight."
There may be no fool-proof protection from foolishness, of which reactivity is one form. But we can admit that the best of us are susceptible to bad reactions, and then seek to protect ourselves not only from what we react against, but also from bad reactions. That sets us on a path, if not of safety, then of vigilance.
Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today
