Relational Sanity Pt 9: Are they the Persecuted or the Persecutors?

I’ve spent the last few months posting about the historical context of scriptures but since my book is almost done I wanted to take a break and go back to where my heart truly is – relational and character issues.

We’ve all seen them – people who post on their facebook, google+ and twitter walls how persecuted they are for speaking the truth, how mean everyone is to them but how they love God so much that they just don’t care and will keep on enduring. And they invariably have at least a few people encouraging them and cheering them on – assuming that this person, this often self-proclaimed prophet to the online masses, is actually undeserving of the treatment they are getting – that they are on the receiving instead of the giving end of abuse.

Well, let me tell you that in all my years on social media, I have rarely seen one of these chronic sympathy seekers who wasn’t actually asking for it. They go onto other people’s pages not with truth, but with an agenda and a lot of anger and defensiveness, and then they start bashing (even if they have to twist people’s words to accomplish it) and when they’ve gotten people good and angry they run away and cry persecution on their own walls. Their buddies who never see the fruit of their actions (nor do they have to clean up the mess their abusive friend left behind) just take their word for it and give them what every Munchhausen by proxy mom loves – a ton of sympathy. And you know what – that’s exactly what these people are.

Munchhausen by proxy is a personality disorder characterized by severe narcissism. These women are so incredibly determined to receive attention that they actually poison their own children, keeping them sick and then wallowing (or as my friend Joel says “wollering”) in the sympathy that they are so addicted to. This sympathy, based not upon facts but instead upon listening to gossip and becoming outraged with absolutely no evidence, is just what the narcissist needs to spur them on to do it again.

Make a new friend. Go abuse them. Run away. Cry persecution. Reap the rewards from people who assume they aren’t being used and deceived. Go out and do it again.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Tragically, the majority of the offenders are religious in nature because religious people just really enjoy being “persecuted”. I mean, not really persecuted, because that would entail bodily injury, loss of job, etc. and these folks never seem to lose their jobs over the “truth” that they are preaching – which tells me that they are really only interested in preaching “truth” in places like facebook where it won’t actually cost them anything real. In fact, it buys them something – a rather pathetic but satisfying audience.

How do you win with these people? Once you are friends with them, the only way to win is by hitting the block button, because they don’t care about you unless you are a member of their audience and then they won’t list a finger to hurt you. If you aren’t in the audience, then you are a potential victim – it’s just a matter of time and the more high profile you are, the bigger target you make. These people function according to a twisted version of honor and shame that is rooted in deception. They attack you while making it look like you attacked them – they win. If you see on their profile that they do this and don’t accept the social media request, they cry persecution and they win. Like all narcissists, they have rigged the game and you can’t play it and come out on top – all you can do is limit your participation.

So please, the next time you see someone scream persecution, ask them for a link to the thread in question so you can see how everyone treats “poor abused them.” After all, if they have been beaten up, wouldn’t they want everyone to see?

But more than that – no one who calls themselves a prophet should be whining online about persecution, rejection and abuse. I’d like to say to them right now, “It comes with the territory, babycakes, and if you were a real prophet you wouldn’t be online screaming about it. If you had the character of a messenger of God you’d just keep on keeping on instead of whining incessantly and recruiting pity party attendees.”

Honestly, persecution looks like what ISIS is doing. There’s a big difference between being persecuted for faith – which results in starvation, homelessness, imprisonment and dismemberment – and simply having to face the consequences of acting like a cowardly, self-righteous jerk safely launching virulent attacks online. No one who has the audacity to go around making trouble has the right to compare themselves in any way, shape or form to the people who truly are speaking truth and suffering for it – as opposed to just blabbing their opinions and being shown the door.