Apostolic Friends Forum - Maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome, Papabear?

Papabear said:

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final note before leaving for I have things to do.

I am thankful for a wife that is willing to live and submit to these ideals that her pastor and mother taught her. If she was unwilling to follow that in her own devotion, If I were to continue pastoring, I would be to some degree have to figure out a way to ... justify what she is unwilling to do.

I say that because I know some preachers have compromised ... not because they believed it different but sister was unwilling to obey the scripture and had been incited to doubt and refuse for whatever reason and brother pastor must find a loophole in scripture to support his/her disobedience and or compromise.

I recognize the human reality in all this. I believe and hope for the ideal. I believe when perfection ceases to be our goal, we will attain to much less than God intended for us.

Have you considered the flip side to your conspiracy theory, Pastor Phillips? I have no doubt that there are many women in the holiness movement that have deep convictions and are well-rooted in their beliefs that a woman must wear ankle high dresses, wear uncut hair and not wear any cosmetics.

Yet, from my experience I have seen some of the fiercest, pugnacious female defenders of holiness standards not have a clue theologically about why they do what they do yet can mercilessly tear down anyone who does not as much look the way they do.

Often, these women will remark that they are submissive to their husbands - and that's why they do what they do. And often times I find their husbands to be extremely domineering and because they are concerned what their peers will think they argue incessantly, and maybe even abusively, with their wives if they as much as wear blush or have a slit in their skirt.

Or perhaps it can be a spiritually abusive pastor who takes this role? Or maybe the result of repetitious, dogmatic teaching that seeks to cause unhealthy amounts of guilt and shame? Or maybe it's theological illiteracy coupled with the innate human desire to belong?

And so maybe, Papabear, what we often mistake as willing submission is what some describe as Stockholm Syndrome. SS is described by Wiki as follows:

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Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed. The syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, in which the bank robbers held bank employees hostage from August 23 to August 28 in 1973. In this case, the victims became emotionally attached to their victimizers, and even defended their captors after they were freed from their six-day ordeal.

You may remember the Patty Hearst story?

You know - the millionaire heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. After two months in captivity, she actively took part in a robbery they were orchestrating. Her unsuccessful legal defense was that she suffered from Stockholm syndrome and was coerced into aiding the SLA. She was convicted and imprisoned for her actions in the robbery, though her sentence was commuted in February 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, and she received a Presidential pardon from Bill Clinton.

You see Papabear, group dynamics can be very powerful and often when a person cannot beat them, they join them. It's a defense mechanism called identification.

The defense mechanism identification is described as:

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The unconscious modeling of one's self upon another person. One may also identify with values and attitudes of a group. Examples: (1) without being aware that he is copying his teacher, a resident physician assumes a similar mode of dress and manner with patients. (2) a school girl wants her mother to buy her the same kind of shoes her classmates are wearing; she angrily rejects the idea that she is trying to be like the other girls and insists that the shoes are truly the best available and are the style she has always wanted. Conscious analogs of identification are intentional imitation of others and volitional efforts to conform to a group

So, maybe. Just maybe? It's Stockholm Syndrome that we misinterpret in some Apostolic women as zeal for Holiness?

According to the psychoanalytic view of the syndrome, the tendency might well be the result of employing the strategy evolved by newborn babies to form an emotional attachment to the nearest powerful adult in order to maximize the probability that this adult will enable — at the very least — the survival of the child, if not also prove to be a good parental figure. This syndrome is considered a prime example for the defense mechanism of identification (Wiki)

http://www.geocities.com/spootnek/Ei...attyHearst.jpg