I often hear someone talking about a leader in their church being passive aggressive. One example from a while ago was when the pastor was obviously talking about certain people in the church in his sermon, but he didn’t name names. And he used the bible to criticize the people concerned.

They were humiliated in front of their peers. The attempt was to discipline them and get them back in line. The result was they left. This was followed by letters similar to the sermon. No names mentioned, but tons of scripture and sermonics obviously aimed at them.

This isn’t passive aggressive behavior. Just because someone used a weapon rather than their bare hands doesn’t make it passive aggressive. Just because someone wounds you from a distance rather than skin to skin doesn’t make it passive aggressive. Even though boxing gloves are padded they still hurt when delivering an upper-cut. The only passive aggressive part is talking to everyone else in code rather than the concerned party face to face.

This goes on all the time. “These aren’t my words, but God’s!” thereby proving themselves innocent. In fact, they’ve made themselves violent extensions of a violent god.