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COUNSELING THE IDOLATROUS FAMILY
 

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dolatry is a prison of the unregenerate mind.  It is the direct result of pursuing or having our legitimate needs for love, affection, and approval met by someone or thing through means other than God's providential care.  In Matthew 22:36-40, the Lord expounded on this theme when answering a question about the commandments.  ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’  Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  ‘This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.’

          Idolatry is an addiction to people, behavior, or things in order to have valid needs met.  It means to be dependent upon someone or some thing instead of solely relying on God’s provision for our life’s needs.  The idolater attempts to control their life and emotions by controlling people, things, or events.  The need to control is central to every aspect of life.  The flesh pattern from a corrupt nature of the idolater is in control most of the time in order to satisfy their need. 

          The goal of this work is to begin to eradicate the immediate problem of idolatry.  The desire is to prevent damage in the future, to improve the believer’s quality of life, to make life more manageable, to help people gain control of their lives, to break the cycle of repetition (iniquity) and to avoid making serious mistakes.

          Independent of God, the false identity we retain from old flesh patterns will do anything to stay in control.  The voice of the false identity is ‘actively’ independent, causing obsessive/compulsive behaviors without regard to relationship, behavior, or feelings.

There are people who depend solely upon their ‘false identity’ to receive the love and affection they need.  The idolater needs to be satisfied by an idol in order to function in their everyday life. The idolatrous behavior of the family and the nature of the relationship helps and enables the idolater’s false identity to stay in control.

          Idolatry causes people to live quiet lives of desperation.  The idolatrous false identity’s nature in control will leave a person lacking a sense of self, hence, a false identity.   The persons true identity, created by God, comes under severe restrictions.  These people do not feel ‘connected’ to God being unregenerate since they are not under the protective covering of ‘born-again’, regenerate parents.  Anyone the person with a false identity in control are in a relationship that suffers the consequences of the unregenerate nature.

Often, an idolater is enmeshed with another person's personality and tragically so when the need arises to resolve their problems.  They preoccupy themselves with the lives of others.  These people are described as emotional vacuums, these idolaters lives out of other's life experiences.

Like a magnet, they attract other idolaters and justify each other’s behavior.  These people are enablers.  The person can be childishly dependent upon those around them, and at the same time rebellious and independent toward authority.  Sometimes embittered toward God, they often have no concept of grace and mercy.

The obsessive/compulsive behavior that often develops may involve a chemical dependency or dependency on a person or thing.  The substance abuse may involve alcohol or drugs (illegal or prescription).   The object of their compulsive behavior can also involve things - i.e., money, food, sex, work, etc..

          The significant other person in the relationship is often a spouse who allows the idolatry to continue in order to maintain some form of security.  The family adjusts their lives and their whole way of perceiving life to accommodate the obsessive/ compulsive behavior or addictions of the idolater.  What they consider 'normal' is abusive; these people cannot see the problem because of their ‘skewed’ perception and ‘world view’.  The grid of their own family experience is all they know.

The idolatrous relationship continues until exposure of the corrupt nature of a false identity begins.  Exposure to the Truth of our identity in Christ and total surrender to God will defeat the enemy.  The only way to overcome denial is by shattering the walls used to camouflage the presence of a false identity and surrender to their new identity in Christ.  

          The only way to treat the idolater and the family is to restructure their world view.  Restructuring the way people see God and themselves is necessary.  These people need truth as a basis of the way they see the world.  They must be willing to change and facilitate a brand new family dynamic.   Individually, they need to be re-parented to God.

          The predominant trait of an idolater is the driven state at which they operate.  This performance-based mentality often leads to one or more compulsions.  This often binds and torments the person in a similar way things were in the dysfunctional family of origin.

The idolater's self-esteem (and, frequently, maturity) is very low because their self-worth is based upon another person’s opinion of them.  He is certain his or her happiness hinges on others, while the idolater may feel inordinately responsible for others. 

          The idolater’s relationship with a spouse or significant other person may mar the relationship by a damaging, unstable lack of balance between dependence and independence.  When confronted, they are often a master of denial and repression.  They may worry about things they cannot change, and may well try to change them.  For these people, extremes punctuate their life.  They are constantly looking for the something that is missing or lacking in life. 

The most significant cause for idolatry in the family is unmet emotional needs through deprivation of the God-given need to love and be loved.  In a dysfunctional family, satisfying the desires of their false identity preoccupies the members. In a graceless, dysfunctional family, the parents’ relationship with God may drain the child of love as well as others around them.  Idolatry throws the way the family looks at things off kilter. 

In a normal functional family, both parents transmit love to the child. In a normal functional family, the bond is mutual love and respect, a genuine friendship.  The parents receive God's love and freely give it to the child.

 

         Role transference is transferring the feelings of one relationship to another.  In essence a person attributes the characteristics of their natural father to God as the father figure.  They see God in human terms.  The person unconsciously attributes the same human imperfection to God that they see in their human relationships.  Where the skewed relationships reign in life, people can believe dysfunction also reigned in the family of origin.  The false identity can be exposed when people understand ‘why’ the dysfunction embraced the family of origin.  The preconceived ideas and vain imaginations of the false identity come from a skewed perception of reality.  The person colors their world from the grid of their own world view.  The idolater only sees through the eyes of the dysfunctional family relationships.  Until God intervenes, as the Holy Spirit quickens them, they are lost.

          The sin of idolatry in a nominal believer may cause emotional predisposition by idolatrous bonds, pre-conceived ideas or vain imaginations.  The idolatry mutes the prayer life severely.  He or she will be unable to enjoy and appreciate the loving nature of God, unable to attain an intimate relationship with God, and miss the whole point of the Gospel -- mercy and grace.  The misbeliefs of an idolater will cause them to have trouble putting their full faith in God.  Things are subject to gross misinterpretation by the person.  They cannot hear and respond to God adequately.  The person's perception of God from the family of origin  usually polarizes around the skewed view.  The skewed individuals often locks onto performance-based acceptance as the norm.  This contributes to them feeling bad about themselves emotionally, feeling inadequate and unworthy.  If the home was idolatrous, these people will see God as unloving, unforgiving, unattainable.  Children often have a fundamental sense of condemnation and try to win God's approval through legalism, perfection, self-sacrifice, self-abuse, and performance-based acceptance.



 

          In order for healing to take place we can no longer allow denial. Until we expose the false identity, denial will exist.  Idolaters are masters of denial.  They are people living a lie.  Yearning to know God, people fill the days with pretending and wishful thinking.  Idolaters emotionally resist addressing the past and often have a loss of recollection of their childhood because they grew up with a skewed view of God.  The phenomenon is what we call role transference.  The false identity may not even be aware of God. 

          There is a warping effect because of idolatry that keeps people from seeing clearly.  They make the same errors repeatedly, the repetition complex.  Idolaters attract each other like magnets; these people support one another’s corrupted view of life.   The person seldom addresses the visible glossed-over symptoms or character flaws and the obvious sin.

          The only way an addict can remain in their addiction is if somehow they can maintain their denial.  Denying the consequences or reducing them through magical thinking make them become manageable.  With denial broken for a short time, the revelations expose the addiction cycles and they see what they are possibly for the first time.

          Another issue with idolatry is that while the idolater must deal with only their own problem, the idolater’s family is also dealing with several problems.  Denial itself can become an obsessive compulsion.  They become very frustrated and angry blaming everyone else for their problems denying personal responsibility.

          Idolaters build elaborate relationships, going far beyond the obvious substituting one role for another in the back rooms of their minds.  In a new relationship the idolater seeks to recreate with the persons available the original family dynamic, the original family pain, the original family situation.  The false identity habituates toward the ‘normal dysfunction’.  This is the iniquity or tendency to commit the same mistakes from the past.  This time around the mountain, they believe: the problem will mend, the pain ease, and the situation will be corrected.  Unfortunately, until the death of the false identity the dysfunction repeats.

          The relieve the pain and suffering.  The idolater must be made aware of his subjection to the emotional dynamics of his own family’s idolatry and the roles they play.  The roles people in the family play reveal they have no faith in God or they have a spurious faith that is really no faith in God at all.  These people feel they need to help, they need to fix things up, and they need to be everything to everyone.  They do not have a personal relationship with God or lack knowledge and understanding of the providential care of God as their parent.

          The healing process in the family relationship begins with:  1) realization about the past step by step; 2) resolving the anger over what their past did to them; 3) grief over the loss; and 4) cleansing through forgiveness that will result in healing.

          The tendency to repeat the idolatrous family of origin’s dynamics is the factor behind the repetition compulsion.  The symptoms are the homing instinct, magical thinking, wishful thinking, vain imaginations, and the self-made guilt trip.  The homing instinct is a primal need to recreate the familiar, the original family situation, even if the familiar is destructive and painful.   The symptoms are magical thinking, wishful thinking, and vain imaginations.  ‘If I do 'X', then 'Y' will happen.’  Guilt and magical thinking often play off each other in the following manner, ‘If  I had only tried harder, I wound not have failed.’  This lends itself to the dynamic of the self-made guilt trip in which a child takes on the responsibility of another for success, happiness, etc.; ‘It must be my fault!’ 

          There are three reasons for the continuation of the repetition compulsion.  The first reason is the erroneous belief that, ‘I can fix it’; or, ‘ I can cure the pain.’.  The second series is that it is their fault, ‘I must be punished. ’or, ‘I deserve pain.’.  The third option is that these people yearn for the familiar, the secure.  The persons who try to recreate the dynamics of the familiar often perceive an untruth (vain imaginations) to complete the picture.

 

ROLES OF IDOLATROUS FAMILIES

          The roles people share in the idolatrous family are: 1) the Hero-the one who fixes situations;  2) the Scapegoat - often restless, non-conformist, a free spirit with unorthodox behavior;  3) the Mascot - the suffering merrymaker, comic relief is his normal way to ease tensions;  and 4) the Lost Child - the nice child, our miss goody-two shoes.  The problem is not in their behavior, but in their identities.  They lack a strong sense of identity, of being their own person.  They don't really know what they need from life. 

          The dysfunctional family roles continue because of deception.  The deception enables a family's self-destructive tendencies to continue.  The idolatry would no longer exist if it weren't for the enabler. Enablers support and keep the idolatry in the family going because they do not know the truth.  Illusion keeps the idolatrous sin secret and deceives the family through lies.  By adjusting to the idolatrous belief system all the family members play the role of the enabler.

          The role’s the family plays in order to continue are the Placater, the Martyr, the Rescuer, the Victim, or the Persecutor.  The Placater is a born negotiator who is going to make it all better somehow.  The Martyr sacrifices time, energy and happiness to alleviate the family situation, but they will not be able to make a difference in the dependent’s habits.  The Rescuer administers first aid to keep the family dynamic going.  It is their way to salvage the situation.  The Victim is intensely self-pitying and doesn't feel they deserve or should ask for anything.  The Persecutor lays the blame everywhere but on the self.  They tell everyone what they're doing wrong and why they haven't achieved perfection.

 

          Physically abusive parents tend to isolate themselves and show any number of the following traits.  They usually have a poor self-image, lack of sensitivity to others' feelings, were physically abused themselves, were deprived of basic mothering, have unmet needs for love and comfort, are in denial of problems and the impact of those problems, feel there is no one to turn to for advice, have totally unrealistic expectations of children, and expect their children to meet their needs for comfort and nurturing. When children fail to meet their parents needs, they interpret this as rejection and respond with anger and frustration.  They tend to deal with children as if they were much older then they are.  In homes where spouses abuse the wife or husband, witnessing the abusive events equivocates to the child abuse.  The witness is also a victim of violence and learns to victimize too.


 

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ymptoms of abuse may be visible with the compulsive thinking and irrational behavior of idolatrous relationships.  The abusive relationships appear in families or in social organizations and businesses.  The relationships usually distort by what happened before in their family of origin or through life experiences.  The abuse may be overt or covert and often comes in differing forms and methods.  The degree of abuse is measured in severity and by consistency.  Love deprivation is also common.  Significant emotional problems bind them and they can never meet the need for acceptance, nurturance, security, and commitment.

          The abuse victim or idolatrous person may manifest behaviors such as out of control spending or workaholism.  These people must take work home.  Their work habits are out of control and they put off -- time off, they find it difficult, if not impossible, to relax.  Their secret life may involve activities such as reading skin magazines, erotic videos, pedophilia, slasher movies, lewd literature, the services of prostitutes, or other illegal activities.  If they marry, they may have obsessive thoughts concerning their spouse.  In any other relationship, the significant other person’s behavior comes under intense scrutiny.  These people may all be using addictive agents or involved with compulsive behaviors.  These activities might include rageaholism, repeated plastic surgery, gambling, devotion to an organization or cause, television, computer games and programs, card or board games, sports or other activities including workout regimens.  * This is only a partial list of possible addictive agents or compulsions.

          Forms of abuse may be active or passive.  Active abuse is out-in-front, easy to see, while passive abuse is covert.  Underlying passive abuse is not obvious and includes deprivation of time, attention, or affection.  Active forms of abuse include beating, battering, sexual molestation, extreme anger or rage, verbal violence, emotional beatings, guilt trips, and shaming.

          Passive forms of abuse may come from any of the following parenting styles.  There is a problem of over-protection; the child's not allowed to experience personal responsibility.  Then there is the denial of time, attention, or acceptance.  The parent may be emotionally unavailable and physically unavailable because of alcohol dependence, substance abuse, or workaholism.  There is a problem of perceived abandonment because of divorce, military service, or the death of a parent, even when it was an accidental death.  They perceive events as constant snubs.  The rejection also reveals itself in non-emotional encounters. 

          Passive verbal abuse may also manifest itself in a lack of praise, encouragement, joy or support in any of our relationships.  Passive sexual abuse causes a lack of appropriate touching.  There is no embrace, no holding, no playing, and no sexual discussion, teaching, or preparation.  The parental lack of love and affection between parents denies their intuitive sexual education.  A lost childhood comes from active or passive abuse.  Entire episodes, often significant portions of childhood in which abuse occurred become lost.

          There are other forms of abuse that may convey overt and covert messages, both spoken and unspoken.  They include character assassination, parental perfectionism, autocratic or authoritarian control, compulsive behavior or addiction, chronic depressions, legalism, or ritualistic living.

          The Parent/Child Relationship Abuse is the result of living by the law instead of grace, love and acceptance.  The idolatrous parents only convey acceptance to the child who performs.  The child therefore ‘hears’ estrangement and alienation.  Performance- based acceptance is the norm for the family and was the norm for the parents as well.  The child’s home life sets the standards and Performance Based Acceptance is considered 'normal' where no one finds grace in any relationship.   Remember ‘normal’ is a ‘subjective’ term.  It is also a setting on the clothes' dryer.  What occurred in the home of the child’s parent was normal for them.  Remember!  Hurt people hurt people!

          The problem of emotional incest caused by extreme role reversal involves distortion and transgression of appropriate family roles.  The parents drain the love from the child. The children may also become a sexual substitute, or children become a parent to the parent.  This frequently occurs in the alcohol dependent or drug dependent family. 

          The children may also become unwilling partakers in their parents unfinished business.  The abuse comes in the form of a desire or strong opinion of the parents transmitted to the children.  It is the business never completed by the parent.  The parent wants to live their dream vicariously through their children.  The children in this case are to live out the expectations of the parents.

          There is another problem for the children in that they will often externalize the parents internal struggle when emotional incest takes place.  This happens when the parents stay in the marriage and live only for the children.  This may happen when a parent makes a rotten choice for a partner.  Then the expectation of the opposite sex transfers to the child because of the terrible marriage choice.  The children live out a parents’ unfinished dream. 

 

          Every idolatrous relationship produces anger on both or all sides.  There are several different types of anger to resolve in order to end the idolatry.  Overt anger is seen in outward manifestations and covert anger that erupts in a subtle way.  Both examples damage the emotions, and there is possible physical damage as well.  Depression is anger that a person turns inside to ease the pain.  It's not the only source, but it's one of the first causes to look for when there is depression.  Denial by either partner causes anger to hide.  Anger may cause passive aggressive responses -- such as an unconscious action to provide an outlet for the spate of anger, the pressure relief valve. Sexual dysfunction is another common response to anger.

          The common sources of anger in an idolatrous relationship often originate from: 1) a lost childhood - inadequate nurturance; 2) a lack of completeness - a sense of personal identity; and/or 3) a lack of fulfillment by others - futile attempts to receive love from others, whose love then draws from another person, which results in a dry well.  (Only God can satisfy our need for love and acceptance.)

          While we hold these people in contempt, are we blind to the truth about ourselves?  Unresolved anger generates resentment, bitterness, and eventually hatred.  When we know understand these truths we know the way the corrupt nature of the false identity works in individuals, and only God can set them free from the iniquity through Jesus sacrifice.