They are known by many, but not knowable in part because they possess personas, an assumed identity, but not discernable personalities.  They feel that they have been forced to play rolls in life, to wear masks (one of the original meanings of “persona”), which is exhausting and depletes them of integrity and healthy self-confidence.  Integrity makes us conspicuous, and it is always painful.  It’s important to realize that the word Jesus used for “hypocrite” while denouncing the Pharisees literally means “wearer of masks” (Matt. 23:13).

They know the right words to use in marriage—they know how to perform—but they don’t know how to deeply love another person.  This is what personas do: they are like holograms and holograms by nature are all surface, no substance.

They think that never showing indignation (which includes as part of its original meaning “much to grieve”) or other forms of healthy anger toward anything or anyone and always remaining gentle are among the highest forms of spiritual maturity, even though Jesus wasn’t always gentle and pleasant.  More so, their spiritual training has them believing that it’s wrong to not be gentle.  But if this is true, then Jesus was wrong.  Jesus sinned.

For example, one son of a pastor who asked me to help him overcome passivity in marriage told me how his mother’s “gentle spirit” made her the perfect Christian woman.

“She was always so gentle,” he said warmly.  “She never got angry about anything.  She was perfect!” he gushed like a child.

My inner Dr. Phil came out.  “Perfect?!” I exclaimed.  “In more than 25 years of ministry, she had to have seen wickedness and evil tearing people apart.  She had to have seen divorce, adultery, child abuse, drug addiction, homicide and even suicide.  And she never became indignant when she saw that kind of destruction, the way Jesus was indignant?!”