Nice Guy Syndrome

I never consciously decided to quit church. The weekend anxiety had begun several years before my husband’s death. After his funeral, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t muster up the strength to put a smile on my face and pretend that I was okay among God’s people.

About two weeks after burying my husband, a group from the church we were attending was scheduled to go to a conference in another state. I had signed up to go months before and they convinced me that getting away would be good for me. So, I climbed in the van and went with them.

It was all okay, generally a good conference. On our last night in town, one of the leaders from our group wandered across the highway from our hotel. He was gone for several hours while many from our group were hanging around the pool area at the hotel.

Later in the evening, this church leader stumbled back across the highway, falling down, drunk, and puking in the pool area where others were hanging out. One of the people present for this spectacle was my 19-year-old daughter.

When we first started this church, I had asked the pastor early on how he planned to prevent the church from becoming dysfunctional or even toxic. He said that the church didn’t have by-laws. The church had conversations. When stuff happened, we would have hard and careful conversations.

About two weeks after the group returned from the conference, I hadn’t heard any mention of the things that had happened by the pool. I asked pastor if there were going to be conversations about what happened. His reply was “If I fire everybody who is not qualified to work at the church, I’d have to close the doors.”

I couldn’t even process that response. What does that mean? How many skeletons are in the closet? If it’s supposed to be a phrase that means “nobody’s perfect”, I understand that. I hear that mantra from church people more than any other group. We are only human. We all make mistakes. But is that what scripture teaches? We all make mistakes so forget what happened? Or are we called to repent, confess, make restitution, speak to someone about their sin?

To me, it meant that no matter what someone else does, there will be no accountability, no difficult conversations to call a brother to repentance, no remorse, no restitution. If I didn’t like it, just like at every other church I’d ever attended, that’s too bad. Get over it or move on. I was expected to show up on Sunday morning with a smile on my face and a heart full of brotherly love.

What is Nice Guy Syndrome?

“Nice guy syndrome” is a phrase I picked up over the decades of practicing religious Christianity. I was afflicted with this perverted kind of moralism because I had been trained to believe that my convictions were silly notions if they were inconvenient to the faith community. I was stubborn, a troublemaker, over-emotional, too sensitive. If I wanted to be a good member of the community, I needed to be quiet and silently nod my head up and down.

Nice guy syndrome, the desire to be a useful and acceptable part of a community without making any waves, makes it difficult to hold another person to a standard outside of self. Nice guys are loving, forgiving, and understanding. Nice guys do what they are told. Nice guys have poor boundaries for self and others. And some faith groups and leaders take advantage of it.

I have come to believe that nice guy syndrome is a selfish kind of piety. On top of that, taking advantage of someone who has been religiously brow beaten into being a nice guy is a whole other level of evil. The only way for a nice guy to become a genuine follower of Christ is to follow the scriptural examples of living. The only way for a faith community and its leaders to be authentic followers of Christ is to follow scriptural examples of dealing with the world.

Jesus Wasn't a 'Nice Guy'

Jesus wasn’t afflicted with nice guy syndrome. He spoke hard truths when they were needed because his mission of love required a straight and narrow path. Boundaries are not unkind, unforgiving, or judgmental. Boundaries protect God’s people, God’s mission, and God’s message of love.

I knew I couldn’t be a nice guy anymore. I knew the religious life I had been living was a lie. The internal tension between what I was living and what I knew to be right and true was so great that I began to have panic attacks on Saturday nights. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t wrangle my anxiety into submission. The first week of missing Sunday service turned into two weeks, then three, then four. Next thing I knew, I had been out of church for a year.

My daughter still avoids church. Church people tell her how wrong she is for not going to church. I don’t say a word about it. She doesn’t need another church experience. She needs an encounter with Jesus. In my experience, I know that she might not find Jesus at a church. But Jesus will meet a person anywhere they are.

Say a prayer for the disenchanted, the disillusioned, the disassociated. They didn’t get where they are without good reason. And they won’t find their way back without good reason.

May we each be the reason someone encounters Jesus today.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples; if you love one another.” (John 13:35)

Copyright@ TA Boland 2023

Photo: TA Boland 2019