Emotional Immaturity, Narcissism, & Evangelicalism

A deeper dive into the overlaps and why they occur

Photo by Callum Skelton on Unsplash

Hello beautiful people (or “sentient balls of stardust” — I love those words of @KC Davis of Struggle Care!). I wrote previously about the *suspicious* overlap between white evangelicalism and narcissism. There are so many layers to this: there’s the general cultural attitude of white American evangelicalism, with its savior complex and colonialist attitude and blustering attitude that hides hidden insecurities that they are clearly becoming more and more irrelevant. Then there’s the way the religion functions in church settings, where congregations are primed to listen to authoritarian leaders, a vacancy gladly filled by narcissistic, power-hungry pastors who are there much more for their own gain than serving the common good.

Then there’s the topic we’ll be focusing on today, which is how I believe evangelicalism as a psycho-spiritual approach teaches people to ignore and distrust their own emotions and intuition, at the cost of any genuine growths in mental and emotional health. It also teaches people to submit to authorities (e.g., Dr. Dobson as an authority) and view children as beings to control and shape for the system’s own motives and purposes.

Whew. That’s not a lot to cover…not at all. 😳

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First let’s get some definitions in place. I will not be referring to full-blown narcissistic personality disorder, because that’s beyond the scope of this newsletter to diagnose anyone! But I will be talking about narcissistic traits that have reached unhealthy levels. As mentioned last time, these include:

• sense of grandiosity (beyond arrogance or vanity: a belief that they are much more special than other people)

• lack of empathy (or might put on a show of empathy to look admirable, but is not genuine)

• need for admiration

• willingness to exploit others

• excess sensitivity to criticism because of deeply-held but unconscious insecurities.

I will also be talking about emotionally immature parents.

D.L. Mayfield

recently hosted a book group about recovering from emotionally immature parents, so the term might be familiar to many of you. In my observation, emotionally immature parents have many characteristics of narcissism (probably because at its heart, narcissism is caused by deep emotional immaturity). The Venn diagram overlaps a lot but is not a perfect circle. And it can be easier for us to have empathy for emotionally immature parents who haven’t ever really grown up, than for narcissistic ones who also haven’t grown up but are actively okay with exploiting or harming others.

I describe an emotionally immature parent as one who lacks skills of self-soothing and emotional regulation, and in various ways depends on the child to be the emotional regulator (including by not allowing the child to express emotions, or expecting the child to soothe the parent, etc). According to Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Dr. Lindsay Gibson, emotionally immature parents come in 4 main types:

• Emotionally unstable and anxiety-provoking

• The driven parent who needs their child to be/perform a certain way, for the benefit of the parent’s self-image

• The passive, avoidant parent who won’t talk about anything upsetting

• The rejecting parent, who is dismissive and even derogatory of the child and their needs

I believe many evangelical parents are emotionally immature, with some of those also displaying narcissistic traits. But why? Why would a religion have such a common impact on its adherents?

Evangelicalism encourages growth of its members…provided it’s in a prescribed direction and in accordance with the value system of evangelicalism. Women can grow into being more humble and submissive caregivers (of children, of their husbands, of general patriarchal society). Men can grow into being stronger leaders (in the home, church, or society), devoting themselves to furthering the political causes of the religious right. (I mean, I’m not wrong…)

But if you don’t follow those prescribed, proscribed roles, you run into trouble.

I’m sure many of you can resonate with this: I was a very “good kid” growing up; I was quiet, submissive, decidedly un-rebellious. Didn’t drink until I was 21, didn’t date (or hook up) all throughout college. I picked a field of study admirable for females: child development and later, mental health counseling. I was praised for these things.

But kids are smart and intuitive. I knew that I was praised and admired for making choices that seemed to align with evangelicalism’s value system. I knew that this praise and support was absolutely conditional on continuing to follow the rules and roles laid out for me.

I won’t dive into too many details, but I was correct: once I clearly and vocally stepped outside those rules, it did not go well. There was quite a backlash that, while painful, also gave me the clarity to see what I had suspected all along: the contingency of my belongingness and acceptability.

In a way, I feel sorry for all these evangelical parents of the Dobson generation. They were taught that if you raise your kids “God’s way,” complete with authoritarian or authoritarian-lite parenting, corporal punishment, mandatory church attendance, and mandatory beliefs, then all will turn out well and your kids will become shining-star Christians. I’ll note: I do not extend such compassion for the cunning leaders of the movement, who have intentionally and willfully manipulated multiple generations of Christians and are currently forcing their agenda on a national level.

At any rate, this approach to child-rearing has clearly backfired, as evidenced by all of us running out the doors of evangelical churches and gathering in exvangelical online spaces. (Joke’s on them!?)

But my feelings of pity, or perhaps empathy, can exist because our parents’ emotional growth was stifled. They had a fear-based theology shoved down their throat and learned to distrust themselves and anything outside what evangelicalism told them was correct. Their sense of okayness and belongingness was contingent on these external measures of success: a family unit that was together, that showed up for church on Sundays, that followed the Christian rules. Most church spaces, even if they pretend that “all are welcome here, come as you are!”, do not do well with people in the messiness of a life lived outside the comfortable church boundaries. Many of them had few emotional resources to handle the challenges that come with stepping outside the community that seemed to be protecting them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not too sorry for them. ;) If I and all of you can change our minds, they are more than capable of that too. Their refusal to do so speaks volumes. But it does help create a tiny bit of compassion for people who have swallowed a teaching hook, line, and sinker, and are now discovering that this might have come at the cost of real relationship with people (us) who saw that lure and knew how dangerous it was.

If, of course, they are able to see that cost — the loss of genuine, authentic relationship. Because they might be too busy vigorously defending the same beliefs that cause the problems in the first place. A hallmark of emotional immaturity is refusing to see when you are wrong, refusing to see another perspective outside your own, and being unable to learn from your mistakes.

And this is where we come back to narcissism. A narcissistic parent takes the emotional immaturity to the next level and is greatly offended by the idea that they did anything wrong. (Narcissists HATE admitting they’re wrong!) They assume there is nothing to learn from their kids (or really, from anyone else). They will intentionally twist the narrative (i.e., gaslight) to try and make you think you’re the one in the wrong and maybe you’re crazy for thinking there was anything amiss in your upbringing. They will do whatever they have to in order to protect their self-image and the way they are perceived by others.

It can be really tough to be deconstructing faith in this kind of family environment and try to hang on to your sanity while also hanging on to your family. Sometimes it’s not possible. It certainly involves a lot of internal, emotional work, not just theological / faith shifts!

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Now that we’ve taken a deeper dive into the dynamics of emotional immaturity as it relates to evangelical parents, next time I’ll turn the camera on the children of these parents: us! (Or at least many of us, if you’re reading this newsletter!) How can we heal ourselves from the dynamics of these relationships, and move forward without lingering in hurt forever?

If this post resonated with you, would you press the “heart” button or leave me a comment? Or share with a friend who could use it! I’d love to hear your stories of interacting with people / parents who may be emotionally immature or on the narcissistic spectrum, especially while navigating faith shifts. Do you have any questions or topics you’d like me to grapple with in upcoming posts about this issue?

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