- ABSTRACT.
According to Deborah Pegues, confrontation is a normal aspect of life and cannot be avoided, even though many Christians certainly prefer to do so. They believe in unity and harmony, turning the other cheek and following Paul’s admonition “as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.” Yet all people experience problems and conflicts in life, especially those who have been treated unjustly or believe they have been. Pegues is quick to emphasize that confrontation should never be confused with revenge or retaliation, which are evils and forbidden to Christians. Even David refused to retaliate by murdering King Saul, no matter that he realized the king was plotting to murder him. Even when confronting a person in authority, a Christian “must continue to respect and honor the person’s position while seeking to gain an understanding and resolution of the problem.” In confronting anyone, there should also be a clear plan of the desired outcome, including whether the goal is to change behavior or stop negative actions. It is not physically or psychologically healthy to repress anger and frustration, even though Proverbs teaches that “a man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.” This goes not mean that Christian believers should overlook a persistent pattern of sin and wrongdoing, even though they should also be the first to seek reconciliation. In fact, the ability to forgive and reconcile is one important sign of spiritual maturity. Similarly, a Christian who is being confronted should be mature enough not to react automatically with defensiveness, anger, rejection and hostility.
For people in positions of authority, Pegues describes for distinct types: Dictators, Accommodators, Abdicators and Collaborators, while recognizing that there are permutations and admixtures of all four. Most people do not care to be ruled by dictators, of course, no more than they wish to live and work in a totally chaotic situation under an Abdicator. They want to feel like they have some control over their lives without being left completely without guidance and direction. She admits that she is herself a Dictator by nature, and that sometimes this is necessary, as when Jesus cleared the moneychangers out of the Temple in Jerusalem. Sometimes a policy of tough love is necessary for children or for the head of household to maintain the “sanctity” of the home. She also points out that women in particular are often taught to be Accommodators “at an early age to please others”. Those who always defer and accommodate to others will never be successful in life, though. Aaron was an accommodating leader, for example, even allowing the Israelites to worship a golden idol in the absence of Moses, but he retaliated against them severely. Pegues then applies all these theories to family, work and social situations, and carefully preparing a confrontation by using the right words, listening, and negotiating future behavior.
- CONCRETE RESPONSE.
I cannot say that I have really followed any advice like this in my own life, and that it has often been hard for me to communicate my true feelings or to confront those who have offended me in the ways Pegues suggests. Nor have I really been very inclined toward forgiveness and reconciliation toward those who I believe have wronged me. When I was young my parents abandoned me and I never saw very much of them again. Basically, they signed me over to the custody of my grandparents and went their separate ways. This was hardly an ideal situation either, since my grandfather was an abusive alcoholic and my grandmother was a classic enabler, but I suppose it was better than being sent to an orphanage or put in the foster care system. My mother married again and moved to another city, so I only saw her once a year at Christmas, while my father moved far away. I later heard that he got involved with drug dealing and spent quite a while in prison. I do not think I ever really confronted them about how I felt or even examined my true feelings. I never tried to communicate with them very much nor did they ever pay much attention to me. It was only indirectly that I learned of my father’s death, and I traveled to the city where he had resided to settle his estate. From the people he knew there, I learned that he had never even mentioned that he had been married to my mother or that I existed at all. So that was that. Whatever there was to say, including any anger or resentment I felt will just have to be left unsaid in this world. I should add that I did reach out more to my mother after this time I we established a friendly if not exactly a close and loving relationship. This was the best I could do under the circumstances. On reflection, I suppose that I became a Christian mainly for the sake of my own survival under very difficult circumstances, and because I needed that sense of moral authority and guidance.
- REFLECTION.
My field of study is history and teaching was my chosen profession, and I suppose I can claim to have a great deal of knowledge about this subject area, even I cannot claim to be a great teacher. Not surprisingly, my style was rather on the dictatorial or authoritarian side, which is perhaps the result of my own background. I needed to become highly controlled and self-assured just in order to survive. I have to say that my experiences also made me sympathetic to all the ‘victims’ of history since very early on I learned to see myself that way. It did not necessarily make me a kinder or more forgiving person, though, as I assumed that Christians were supposed to be. I do wonder how all these lessons are supposed to be applied to historical situations or to the larger society even when we so often fail to do so in our own personal and family lives.
I once visited the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where millions of people were murdered, and I can only say that it felt utterly evil. I do not believe in ghosts, but if such things do exist on this earth then it would be in a place like that. It was a real hell on earth, just as all the books and survivor accounts indicate, and I could understand why someone in a camp like that could imagine that God was just absent—either nonexistent or that they had simply been abandoned by God and the human community. This was in my mind as I walked down the long railroad tracks to the opposite end of Auschwitz II, where the gas chambers were, passing row after row of barracks. At the Auschwitz I camp, I also walked inside one of the crematoria, which still smelled of burning and ashes after all these years. There is real evil in this world—satanic evil—and Auschwitz was a huge city that stretched from horizon to horizon, designed only for extermination and slave labor. These are very gloomy and depressing reflections, of course, but they just remind me how difficult it really is to apply the lessons of a book like this to real life.
- ACTION.
This is the most difficult part of all for me, since I often have the correct diagnosis of what the problem is, but often fail to take action about it. Indeed, I think this also comes from my childhood where I really felt victimized and powerless or helpless to change my circumstances. All I could do was attempt to tough it out and survive, which left me with certain very rigid patterns of thought and behavior. I have taken one action already, not long after my father’s death, in that I reached out to my mother and had many honest discussions with her for the first time. It turned out that she regretted very much what happened with me, but was very afraid of my father, particularly because of his very violent criminal activities and associates. Even then, he was the same way, and I was not surprised since I later learned that he might have been involved in some murders as well as drug dealing. At any rate, painful as it was, I listened to her side of the story and why she thought she had to escape from him. I could at least understand that because I also learned to just do what I had to in order to survive, when I was alone except for God. I would say that we have reconciled, even if we not exactly close and loving, and I am glad that I did this after the death of my father.
Another step would be to attempt to communicate with my half-sister, who I hardly know at all and did not grow up with. We really were strangers to each other and rarely had any contact at all. I have tried to reach out to her more and make some contacts, even though this has not exactly been very easy. We do not have very much in common and she also has her own financial and economic problems, and believes that I have been getting money from my mother. This is not true, and in fact she is the only one who has been getting that kind of help while I have always been very self-sufficient—rarely asking o expecting any favors or help from anyone. In this case, though, I will have to make another attempt, even though it is not necessarily a pleasant experience and has not worked out well to date.
As a third step, there are some other more distant relatives that I should at least try to communicate with, including an aunt who I haven’t seen in a long time. This project I have sort of kept as a vague goal for the distant future since it seems less vital to me.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pegues, Deborah S. Confronting without Offending: Positive and Practical Steps to Resolving Conflict. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishing, 2009.
