Most pastors are inherently “nice people”. Abusers take advantage of them, and they take it. They may even think that this is a sign of humility and faithfulness to the Lord. Yet in fact, these abusers are consistently, chronically, and systematically stripping the clergy of every ounce of self-esteem they once had when they first responded to God’s call. Such victimization is exactly the same, and with the same result, as systematic spousal abuse, child abuse, racial profiling, and other forms of assault. And like these other forms of assault, it usually goes unnoticed, unreported, and unacknowledged.

As I coach pastors, one of the most pervasive issues is clergy anger. Anger, of course, is just one half of the vicious cycle of anger-depression. Clergy are more likely to admit to depression, because admitting anger makes them feel too guilty. Yet admitting depression … without admitting the root cause of repressed anger … is a form of dishonesty with self and God and sidetracks clergy into fruitless therapeutic jargon or superficial “fixes”. Eventually, failure to acknowledge and address chronic, repressed anger debilitates clergy and they are no longer effective leaders.

For example, clergy often excuse their depression as fatigue or frustration. Their “remedy” is to be more diligent about time off, or to take a sabbatical. Clergy often rant about fickle churchgoers, or blame culture undermining programs. Their “remedy” is to be more caustic in the pulpit, or take cold comfort in explaining failure as some confirmation of faithfulness.

Yet the real cause of clergy depression today is anger—repressed anger—and it is not anger at workloads or lazy volunteers. The proof of this is that even when they do take time off, or even when volunteers do show up for work, or even when programs are successful… clergy are still depressed. Further proof is that heavy workloads and lazy volunteers have always been true in the church, and you can read clergy complaints about it over hundreds of years … and yet those past clergy who probably labored harder and experienced more frustration that we do were happier and felt more fulfillment than clergy today.

The Root Cause of Clergy Anger

The reason many clergy are depressed is that they are angry. And the reason that they are angry is that they are consistently victimized by dysfunctional bullies who wield power inside the church. Victimization is about emotional, physical, and moral abuse. In the current collapse of Christendom (when many healthy Christian members have died, retired, or given up), the vacuum has been filled by dysfunctional and fundamentally self-centered individuals who intimidate, manipulate, and denigrate in order to shape the church around their personal aesthetic tastes, political viewpoints, amoral biases, and petty ambitions.

Clergy are particularly vulnerable in these decades of decline, because the financial security and health of their families are hanging by a thread; and their reputation in the world is already smudged and prejudiced; the cross-sector colleagues who once defended them are gone; and the denominational bodies that once protected them are understaffed and in disarray. So it is really quite easy to victimize clergy from within the congregation.

Of course we know that the real harm of victimization is not the mental, emotional, physical, or moral abuse itself. The real harm is that abusive, intimidating church insiders do what every bully does: they rob the pastor of his or her self-esteem. Often the pastor doesn’t even know they have been robbed! If they do, and complain, people refuse to believe it, do not understand it, or lack the courage to defend the pastor against bullies!

Most pastors are inherently “nice people”. Abusers take advantage of them, and they take it. They may even think that this is a sign of humility and faithfulness to the Lord. Yet in fact, these abusers are consistently, chronically, and systematically stripping the clergy of every ounce of self-esteem they once had when they first responded to God’s call. Such victimization is exactly the same, and with the same result, as systematic spousal abuse, child abuse, racial profiling, and other forms of assault. And like these other forms of assault, it usually goes unnoticed, unreported, and unacknowledged.

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