The Danger of Reaction Formation
There is a term we use around the institute I direct to talk about a phenomenon we often see in students. This is a “normal” (but also unfortunate) dynamic of developmental maturation in the faith. Before I get to it though, I want to highlight something about maturation.
When the Bible talks about spiritual formation it often uses the image of maturation. In other words, the analogy drawn from nature is maturing from a child into an adolescent, and then through adolescence to adulthood. Just like in nature, there are ways to be human that are both appropriate for our “stage,” that would be inappropriate for other stages of growth.
In both natural and supernatural formation, there is a stage where we are on “milk.” Likewise, for both, it is weird and unfortunate that an adolescent is trying to drink from a baby bottle. What was good in one stage is immature in another. That said, the transition from one stage to another is often clunky and difficult. It often feels like things are going wrong rather than like growth. The way God matures us through these various seasons of the soul is what so often confuses people and leave them feeling like the spiritual life isn’t working (and, also, is the main theme of the new book John Coe and I have coming out When God Seems Distant, and, just so you know, it is 40% off of preorders here).
One of the things that often happens as we mature from one stage or another, or when we realize that some of our former beliefs were misguided , is what we call reaction formation.
Reaction formation is when we respond to our former confusion, ignorance, or immaturity by jumping to an opposite view.
Typically, when this happens, we enter what folks sometimes call a “cage-stage” season of our formation. We join a new church, movement, network, or just change to a new group of teachers, and instead of it leading us into humility, it leads us to be puffed up with pride at finally being right about everything.
My whole family became Christians at Willow Creek Community Church. We owe that place a lot. But as I grew up and started learning about other traditions of Christianity I lost my appreciation for what that place provided me. I wasn’t able to see with my eyes what that place rescued my parents out of because I was too young to know of their pre-converted lives. I also didn’t know what direction my life would have taken without that place introducing me to Jesus.
Instead, in college, I left angry, I burned bridges, and I went to the church in town that was full of people who had left Willow angry.
This is reaction formation.
It didn’t help, of course, that there were a lot of true critiques I had that further validated my rage. But even though I would name those critiques to anyone who would listen, deep down, if I would have just stopped and been honest, my rage had nothing to do with that. I was blaming them for my own pain and hurt, and I was refusing to own my own failures in the midst of it all.
Reaction formation is both normal developmentally while also being unfortunately immature. It is often a sign of adolescence in the faith. It is teenagery, we might say.
Reaction formation is almost always self-justifying. It is like the teenager who knows for certain how to parent rightly, or the newly married couple who looks down on how people parent, not realizing that their certainty derives from their ignorance.
What maturity requires is to recognize how much of our lives are not lived in wisdom, but in bouncing around as we react to one thing or another. Maturity requires that we begin to own our decisions instead of placing the blame on others. It could be that they are in the wrong, and it could be that they have failed you. You have certainly been wrong and no doubt you have failed others as well. Seek the kindness of the Lord and seek to be a peace-maker rather than someone who is divisive and tossed by the waves of this world.
Reaction formation is often why converts are so belligerent. They leave their former denomination and instead of saying sober and grace-filled things about the people who nurtured their faith, they strawman, take shots, and shine a light at the worst of their background.
Reaction formation almost never leads with grace, mercy, or patience, but exudes their opposite. It is “normal,” in a sense, to want to react this way. It is normal to feel this way when we recognize how we have been failed. The Lord calls us to more.
If the events with Bill Hybels happened within a decade after I left, I think I would have probably gloated, and that is horribly sad. I’m not proud of that fact, but that is where my heart was. I was hurt. I was angry. And I was looking for any way to validate myself. But when all of that came out, I had a very different experience, after having worked through a lot and seen a lot of my own failure.
After those events happened I wrote this article for the Religion News Service to walk through my experience a bit, in case you want to read more. I hope it helps as you may be navigating your own pain and anger over the ways you’ve been let down by the church.
For my paid subscribers, I want to share a bit more about my own biography and failure to do this well. I hope that my own failures and immaturity throughout my life can be helpful for you.