Sour Grapes:
Why Should Anyone Ever Be Bitter?

by Bruce Renehan

In one of this Summer's blockbuster movies, The Spy Who Shagged Me, what has probably become the world's most dysfunctional family, Dr Evil and his son Scott, continue a spoof from the first episode where Scott tries to express his opinions to his father and his father abruptly interrupts his son, "Zip-it! Zip! Zip-it!...Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, ex-ZIP-IT A..." and so on. The obvious point being that dysfunctional families just don't communicate.

Judging from some of the mail that Ed has been posting lately, it seems apparent that there is still an old myth being perpetuated in the milieu of the Worldwide Church of God. It is the myth about bitterness. A percentage of people are still commenting that the Painful Truth site is full of sour grapes and bitterness and that Ed should just get a real life. "Stop your whining!" They complain. "All that stuff is history now."

It's interesting to see how long myths can be perpetuated. Some myths are passed on from child to child, generation after generation. "Step on a crack; break your mother's back." Some myths are apparently used to control others through fear. Teenage boys are sometimes teased about masturbation causing blindness. I don't know of any supporting evidence for that belief but the fear of going blind, I'm sure has been on the mind of many a young man through the ages. Cultures too have myths that are passed on generationally. For instance, I have been told that there are myths in the old traditional Mexican culture that a pregnant woman must avoid getting the evil eye (ojo) from someone. If she is given the ojo then she will surely have a bad pregnancy and possibly a deformed child.

Some myths are very strong within some cultures. I counseled a young woman once who had been afraid to testify about a felony (and possibly a murder) her boyfriend had committed because his mother practiced voodoo and threatened to place a curse on her. This young woman was so frightened that she was willing to lose her baby to foster care and do jail time rather than be a witness. After I explained why I wasn't afraid of old women with chicken bones, the young lady went ahead and testified putting the young man in prison. And need I say--there was no curse.

My questions to those of you who condemn Ed's commentaries is, "Why do you want people to ignore the feelings they've held in for years? Why should hurting or angry people be censored?" If you bear with me, I'd like to show those of you who see nothing but bitterness in the Painful Truth site why it is important for some people to work out their bitterness before they get on with life. But first, let us examine the myth itself. Why did it ever get started in the old Worldwide Church of God?

I first started attending the Worldwide Church of God in 1969 in Oakland, California. I was then 18 years old, and I can see, looking back, that I was very naive. I don't believe that there ever was a time that I went to Bible Study or Sabbath Services that some type of subtle threat was not cast upon church members about what would happen if they were disloyal to the ministry. There were a lot of boogie men stories floating around. At one of those early Bible studies I remember Worldwide Church of God pastor, Tony Hammer, shamelessly alleging that while on a Sunday drive with his family, he was startled to see a horribly contorted, tormented, filthy, wild-eyed person walking down the sidewalk, talking to himself. The man's hair was matted and long and his clothing torn and ragged. Hammer said that it dawned on him that this man had once been a member of the church. As he drove there came the instant flashback, that man just never could submit to church authorities and finally became--BITTER! Of course, the congregation could only deduce from that story that bitterness leads to demon possession or insanity. As the years went on, I saw this mind control tactic practiced over and over to the fiendish delight of controlling ministers. The warning not to become bitter originated in their perverted and sadistic minds as a device for control.

So, among the repertoire of unique Worldwidisms like "the brethren," "the church," "the work," "the world" and so on, there was this unique concept about "bitterness" that didn't quite match up to the common term Webster defines as, "extreme enmity; sharpness; severity of temper; biting sarcasm; painful affliction; deep distress of mind." To Worldwide Church of God influenced critics, bitterness could be construed from someone having an open and legitimate forum, examining documented history, comparing notes, seeking fair retribution and apology, applying higher learning, growing in autonomy, exposing corruption and crime, disproving fallacies, or practicing freedom of thought and speech. All of which, ministers from Herbert Armstrong on down said caused people to become reprobate and insane.

Lacking any real evidence that people have left the Worldwide Church of God and become reprobate or insane, the only conclusion that can be drawn about the use of such fear tactics is that they simply hold people mentally captive and fearful of questioning authority. Too afraid to look under the bed.

Now this begs the question, is this good behavior for authorities to practice?

The No-Talk Rule

Family systems therapists do not counsel individual family members but focus upon their dysfunctional systems. Murray Bowen and Salvador Minuchin, two of the giants in family therapy, explain that there are two extreme types of dysfunctional family systems, those that are too rigid and those that are too diffuse.

In rigid systems, boundaries are impermeable. There is little or no communication between family members and members are never allowed to challenge parental authority. The children are not encouraged to freely express their ideas or to show emotion. Oftentimes children are simply not allowed to show anger. They grow up believing that anger is a very bad emotion. Not showing emotions like anger is unhealthy because emotions just never simply evaporate. If a person swallows anger, it will resurface in a multitude of ways throughout life (including health problems). In the juvenile justice system, I counseled one young person who had planted an explosive device in a public area. In reciting her family history, she stated she was never allowed to hug her mother and she was never allowed to show anger at home growing up.

Interviewing thousands of dysfunctional families with rigid and diffuse boundaries, psychologists have discovered a universal rule they all share in common. They all practice the "no-talk rule." There are usually many family secrets and the secrets are never talked about--not only outside of the family but inside the family as well.

Having interviewed many victims of incest, I can tell you that it is not uncommon for the perpetrator to threaten to kill his victim if she or he talks. Of course, this type of blackmail seems similar to a minister preaching that leaving the flock will result in insanity, demon-possession, and eternal damnation, through bitterness. There is a level of trauma that occurs to someone who remains silent while people are victimized. When someone is held captive by their own fear, they truly are tormented. The only way for such persons to remove themselves from the threats, shame, and fear is to speak out. But before mustering the courage to speak out, the victim must consider what is at risk.

It is quite common for a victim of incest who speaks out against abuse in the family to be shunned and threatened by the other family members. It is also very common for a victim of rape to be accused of causing the rape by being in the wrong place at the wrong time or dressed the wrong way. In summary, it is common for people to protect the perpetrator and blame the victim. This seems odd but there is a psychological reason.

Victim Blaming and the Myths About Rape

Predicting who might be more likely to vote not-guilty in a rape trial has proven illusive. Gloria Fischer administered a self-report test to determine college students who held relatively accepting attitudes toward forcible date rape. She then predicted that the same students would be more likely to vote "not guilty" in a simulated acquaintance rape trial. Her hypothesis was not supported in her research (Fischer, 1991). Jurors have been found to show more empathy for the rapist when the victim is found to be unattractive (Dietz, Littman, & Bently, 1982) or when the victim appears to have low moral standards (Borgica, 1980; Pugh, 1983). What emerges from real and simulated psychological studies of court cases is that jurors (and therefore the general public) has stigmatized the female rape victim as lacking credibility and social virtue thus making her victimization legitimate.

The social stigma about female rape victims, created by generally-held myths, is so pervasive that law enforcement officials are notably biased by them too.

Feldman-Summers and Palmer (1980) studied attitudes of criminal justice personnel--police officers, prosecutors, and judges-- and compared them to rape center workers. They found differences between members of the criminal justice system and rape center workers on a variety of issues, including ideas about causes of rape and how to reduce rape. '[Criminal justice system personnel's] beliefs about the causes of rape and how rape can be prevented tend to place a substantial degree of blame and responsibility on the victim as on sexually frustrated and mentally ill men (cited in Burgess, 1985).

Blaming the victim has been attributed by social psychologists to the desire to see the world as a just place (Aronson, 1994). Those who hold a strong view that the world is just, tend to blame the poor for their own predicament. When a crime occurs against someone, it is seen by these people as the result of carelessness or ineptness on the part of the victim. This is one of the reasons why it is generally believed that women who get raped deserve what they get. The motivation behind this attribution is the desire to believe that one has control over one's own life and even over one's world. If we were to see ourselves only as statistics we would tend to feel that we have little control over our lives and destinies.

Apparently, we find it frightening to think about living in a world where people, through no fault of their own, can be deprived of what they deserve or need, be it equal pay for equal work or basic necessities of life. By the same token, if six million Jews are exterminated for no apparent reason, it is somehow comforting to believe they might have done something to warrant such treatment (Aronson, 1994).

Why Does It Help to Talk?

If the rule of dysfunctional families is to hide behind closed doors and look the other way while the perpetrator threatens and abuses his victims, then it only seems to follow that to break the cycle of helplessness, someone in the system must openly speak out. Victims must do something in order to stop being victims. Those who sit back quietly can never truly gain self-respect.

It also helps to take a stand even though it is not immediately appreciated. As a young boy growing up in a segregated town in Texas, I really didn't understand what the Civil Rights movement was all about. Now when I see those old films of black and white people marching arm in arm in protest of racism in Alabama, I get goose bumps in admiration for those brave people who risked their lives for such a worthy cause.

When many people speak out against atrocities then inhumanity itself is threatened. Even though many of those atrocities may be a thing of history now, history is a valuable teacher. There are still young people in America who are getting tattoos of swastikas because they believe that they cannot trust historians. Those of us who have been close to evil will always be aware that it looms in the shadows.

Sour grapes? Maybe. But there is more to it than just bitterness. Bitterness against tyranny is what gave us the strength to escape from it and speak out. The next step is empowerment. It has been a tremendous growth opportunity in my life to ignore the boogie men and forge ahead in spite of threats that I would somehow be consumed by bitterness. Yes, there has been bitterness at times but also a tremendous amount of enlightenment.

Those of us who write about our experiences don't want to come across as people who don't have real lives. I think most of us enjoy our lives very much. But, we see this as an opportunity to share what we have learned, not just about one organization but about life itself. If you have left the Worldwide Church of God, you have suffered losses. It's okay to mourn, to be angry, even to be bitter. And, most importantly, it's okay to know that you are not alone. Ed's site has provided a tremendous vehicle for recovery.

References

Aronson, E. (1994) The Social Animal. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. P. 308-309.

Borgica, E. (1980) Evidentiary reform of rape laws: a psychological approach. In P. C. Lipsett & B. D. Sales (eds.), New Directions in Psychological Research. New York:

Van Nostrand-Reinhold. Pp. 171-197.

Burgess, A. W. (1985). Rape and Sexual Assault: A Research Handbook. New York, Garland Publishing, Inc. Pp. 191-192.

Deitz, S. K., Littman, M., & Bently B. J. (1984) Attribution of responsibility for rape: the

influence of observer empathy, victim resisting, and victim attractiveness. Sex Roles, 10, 261-280.

Fischer, G. J. (1991) Cognitive predictors of not-guilty verdicts in a simulated acquaintance rape trial. Psychological Reports, 68, 1199-1206.

 

 

 

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