Dangers of Perfectionism, Part 1: The Lie and the Truth

The church seems to attract recovering perfectionists. And in fact, we almost play to that audience, for both good and ill. For good, if we proclaim a gospel that allows the perfectionist to relax and soak into the presence of God: his unaided, unconditional, completely free love that he pours out on us in his Son. For recovering perfectionists, that’s great news.

But the church can also be a place of manipulation, where a leader manipulates the recovering perfectionist in such a way as to guilt them into providing what the leader needs in a way that is entirely contrary to the gospel. “The ends justify the means,” they might say to themselves. 

The Lie: ‘If You Want God to Like You, Do What He Says’

If you’re in that place of perfectionism, you don’t read the Scriptures correctly. And there’s a lot of tradition in the life of the church that would even support the kind of perfectionistic interpretation that could keep you in the yoke of bondage. 

The book of Acts raises a poignant question, “ Why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:10).

That is the lethal impact of the kind of perfectionism that says at its heart, “If you really want God to like you—I know he loves you—but if you really want God to like you, do what he says.” That is the letter that kills. That is the yoke that keeps people in a place of subservient guilt. 

Living under that kind of perfectionistic guilt means the joy that is the breath-giving highlight of all the New Testament teaches is far from you. Instead, you live under the coercive weight of having to do the next thing. Because at the heart of the matter, you’re still trying to prove yourself—whether that be before your peers or, worse, before God. After all, you want them to like you, right? And you want God to like you, right? 

Remember what we said: “I know God loves you, but if you want him to like you …” It’s a cancerous lie. 

The Truth: ‘Abide in My Love’

People who bear the weight of perfectionism may do what you want because they’re trying to alleviate the guilt, but what won’t happen is described in the following passage: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept the Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete” (John 15:9-11).

Any interpretation of John 15:9-11 that doesn’t, in the end, offer joy, is not being true to what Jesus said. And yet the perfectionist hears this passage this way: “Oh great, I’m called to abide in the love of God, which means I have to live a particular way. The problem is that I can’t live in that way. You know, I’ve got to keep his commandments if I’m going to abide in his love, right? And there’s no way; I know the depths of sin of my own human heart. Therefore, I’m just stuck, right? ‘Abide in my love’–it’s not gonna happen.”

That’s how the perfectionist hears this passage, and it is dead wrong. You see, Jesus, for several verses, has been laying out a positional invitation. It starts off, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:5a). And the whole thrust of the passage is, in fact, inviting the disciples of Jesus to live into a relationship of contentment that in fact, is ours, because he has willed it. 

In other words, he didn’t say, “I’m the vine. Wanna be a branch? Step it up!” That’s not what he says. But that’s how you would read the latter part of the passage, particularly if you didn’t know the context and if you have that kind of inner perfectionistic, “Gotta do what I say, because who is God? He is making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.” It’s wicked. It’s hellish. It is not from the Holy Spirit. 

But the Holy Spirit has more truth for us around this topic. We’ll dig into it more in Part 2.

Have you suffered from perfectionism (your own or someone else’s)? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer. 

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on May 18, 2017, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.) 

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.