Archive - March, 2011

Theological Anxiety: Underneath All the Theological Debating

March 30, 2011 in Ministry-Theology with 2 Comments

I believe that underneath all of the current theological debate is a theological anxiety that is intolerable to many people. The need for certainty in everything is a way to assuage one’s anxiety…an anxiety that is normal as we wrestle with the things of God.

We must be able to live with a certain amount of anxiety…it is a part of faith.

“A partisan of the most rigid orthodoxy may be demoniacal. He knows it all, he bows before the holy, truth is for him an ensemble of ceremonies, he talks about presenting himself before the throne of God, of how many times one must bow, he knows everything the same way as does the pupil who is able to demonstrate a mathematical proposition with the letters ABC, but not when they are changed to DEF. He is therefore in anxiety whenever he hears something not arranged in the same order. And yet how closely he resembles a modern speculative philosopher who found a new proof for the immortality of the soul, then came into mortal danger and could not produce his proof because he had not his notebooks with him.”
Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Dread (Anxiety)

‘Taking’ a Triune God Into Our Pastoral Counseling Work

March 17, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling with 3 Comments

A book that I read about seven years ago, and have flipped back and forth through on occasion in the last few years…I have just recently picked back up again and started re-reading it because of my interest in the integration of theology and psychology, especially pertaining to pastoral counseling in the context of the Christian community. The book is a wonderful book, and one that I recommend for all pastors, counselors, etc…those who are trying to integrate these two disciplines (psychology and theology) into their counseling work.

The book is called Theology and Pastoral Counseling: A New Interdisciplinary Approach by Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger. In the book Hunsinger applies the theological method of Karl Barth to pastoral counseling, and I think the outcome for the reader is a real deep appreciation of how the disciplines of theology and psychology can so effectively work together in bringing about transformation in people’s lives.

In the opening chapter of the book Hunsinger draws on the work of Shirley C. Guthrie and his article “Pastoral Counseling, Trinitarian Theology, and Christian Anthropology. Hunsinger goes on to say:

Guthrie’s article is perhaps best characterized as an exercise in theological application. Drawing on central insights from Barth’s theological anthropology, Guthrie asks how a (Reformed) Christian doctrine of the human person might inform the pastoral counselor’s work. Guthrie is thus not interested in interpreting Barth so much as in using Barth’s anthropology to make his own constructive contribution. Guthrie’s essay sheds considerable light on our question of what it means to bring a theological perspective to the therapeutic task. Pastoral counseling’s distinctiveness as a profession, he argues, comes precisely from its theological self-understanding. (p. 18)

Guthrie writes:

What makes Christian pastoral counseling unique is that fact that without arrogance but also without apology the work of counselors is based on the attempt to understand both themselves and their counselees in light of the God who is Creator, Redeemer and Life-Giver and thus the answer to questions about the ultimate origin, meaning and goal of life which lie behind all other problems and questions. (p. 18)

What are the implications of this then in our work as pastoral counselors? Hunsinger says:

From the above quotation it is already evident that Guthrie has adopted Barth’s methodological procedure of basing his theological anthropology on the doctrine of the Trinity. Following this method, Guthrie outlines a Christian doctrine of the human person on the basis of a doctrine of the triune God. Human beings are thus understood from a threefold perspective: first, as created in the image of God (derived from knowledge of God the Creator); second, as sinners who fail to live out God’s purposes and who stand in need of redemption (derived from knowledge of Christ, the Redeemer); and third, as people who are promised a new humanity in Christ (derived from knowledge of the Holy Spirit). Guthrie emphasizes the importance of the pastoral counselor’s keeping all three aspects of human reality in a kind of creative tension, so that the created goodness, the sinful fallenness, and the promised new life of human beings are all clearly seen and affirmed as being simultaneously true….Counselors are ministers who may indeed have specialized skills but who, like their counselees, are themselves ‘limited, fallible, sinful human beings who themselves are judge, need reconciliation and salvation, and can only receive the wisdom and power they cannot produce from themselves to help others. (p. 18-19)

Beautiful. I love the idea that we must keep a ‘kind of creative tension’ between those three aspects of the Trinity as we do our work in the context of pastoral counseling.

Moving Towards, Rather Than Excluding One Another With Our Theological Differences

March 8, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 6 Comments

In all wars, whether large or small, whether carried out on battlefields, city streets, living rooms, or faculty lounges, we come across the same basic exclusionary polarity: “us against them,” “their gain–our loss, ” “either us or them.” The stronger the conflict, the more the rich texture of the social world disappears and the stark exclusionary polarity emerges around which all thought and practice aligns itself. No other choice seems available, no neutrality possible, and therefore no innocence sustainable. If one does not exit that whole social world, one gets sucked into its horrid polarity. Tragically enough, over time the polarity has a macabre way of mutating into its very opposite–into “both us and them” that unites the divided parties in a perverse communion of mutual hate and mourning over the dead.

……….There may indeed be situations in which “there is no choice,” though we should not forget that to destroy the other rather than to be destroyed oneself is itself a choice. In most cases, however, the choice is not constrained by an inescapable “either us or them.” If there is will, courage and imagination the stark polarity can be overcome. Those caught in the vortex of mutual exclusion can resist its pull, rediscover their common belonging, even fall into each other’s arms. People with conflicting interests, clashing perspectives, and differing cultures can avoid sliding into the cycle of escalating violence and instead maintain bonds, even make their life together flourish. (pp. 99-100) — Exclusion and Embrace by MIroslav Volf

What I know about myself is that in a theological disagreement…if I am not careful…I can become angry…and I can very quick exclude those that I disagree with. It becomes an I-It (Martin Buber) relationship, detached and void of any reciprocity.

This is very easy to do in the world of online theological debate where often little to no relationship exists between those that hurl insulting and judging comments back and forth at one another. Just read John Dyer’s post, Love Wins and Truth Prevails, But Speed Kills ‘em Both.

But theological debate is very different when in the context of an I-Thou (Martin Buber) relationship, where there is a relationship of mutuality, and differences do not form reasons for exclusion. Rather, there is space for the other. For their doubts, questions, fears, and different opinions and interpretations. Because I have a relationship with John Dyer and Brent Thomas for example, it doesn’t matter that I went to Fuller Seminary, and they went to Dallas Seminary and Southern Seminary respectively. My relationship with them is of priority over any theological disagreement or difference we may have.

I wonder what theological discourse would look like if people were not so quick to exclude others who do not believe exactly as they believe? But I think in order for that to take place at varying levels, each of us must do the hard work of really understanding the roots of why we respond the way we respond when someone believes differently than us. And we must take responsibility for that. Own that. And if we do that, I think we can put ourselves in a better position to honestly and openly hear the other views of those that we disagree with.

I just know for me that I’m always going to push back on people who dogmatically have all the “right answers” to every theological question. It may have nothing to do with that person. But it probably has a lot to do with growing up in a pastor’s home, raised in a church, and feeling like I was expected by the community at large to be a certain type of Christian. It probably has something to do with some early traumatic experiences of theological interpretation (i.e. being told by a pastor that my mom’s and aunt’s cancer was due to the sin in their lives). It has a lot to do with attending Fuller Theological Seminary where I was taught a variety of theological positions, rather than being indoctrinated into one. It probably has a lot to do with pastoring college students for 10 years, a group of people that live in questions and desire the freedom to think for themselves.

So I have been wired a certain way. And so have you. And when your buttons are pushed you instinctively react to that feeling. You may not know it, but you do. So do I. I know what my hot/fear buttons are, and I know what I tend to do in the course of a heated theological debate. Do you know what your hot/fear buttons are, and what you tend to do in the course of a heated theological debate?

If we can all be aware of that dance that we do, and take responsibility for our feelings and actions, then, I just wonder if we can move toward each other and embrace as Christians, or do we have to continue to exclude? If we can move toward each other, then our relationality to one another may be what keeps us engaged rather than disengaged from one another.

Let me leave you with a very lengthy quote by Volf on the prodigal son and the priority of relationship:

What is so profoundly different about the “new order” of the father is that it is not built around the alternatives as defined by the older brother: either strict adherence to the rules or disorder and disintegration; either you are “in” or you are “out,” depending on whether you have or have not broken a rule. He rejected this alternative because his behavior was governed by the one fundamental “rule”: relationship has priority over all rules. Before any rule can apply, he is a father to his sons and his sons are brothers to one another. The reason for celebration is that “this son of mine” (v.24) and “this brother of yours” (v.32) has been found and has come alive again. Notice the categorical difference between how the father and how the older brother interpret the prodigal’s life in the “distant country.” The older brother employs moral categories and constructs his brother’s departure along the axis of “bad/good” behavior: the brother has “devoured your property with prostitutes” (v.30). The father, though keenly aware of the moral import of his younger son’s behavior, employs relational categories and constructs his son’s departure along the axis of “lost/found” and “alive (to him)/dead (to him).” Relationship is prior to moral rules; moral performances may do something to the relationship, but relationship is not grounded in moral performance. Hence the will to embrace is independent of the quality of behavior, though at the same time “repentance,” “confession,” and the “consequences of one’s actions” all have their own proper place. The profound wisdom about the priority of the relationship, and not some sentimental insanity, explains the father’s kind of “prodigality” to both of his sons.

For the father, the priority of the relationship means not only a refusal to let moral rules be the final authority regulating “exclusion” and “embrace” but also a refusal to construct his own identity in isolation from his sons. He readjusts his identity along with the changing identities of his sons and thereby reconstructs their broken identities and relationships. He suffers being “un-fathered” by both, so that through this suffering he may regain both as his sons (if the older brother was persuaded) and help them rediscover each other as brothers. Refusing the alternatives of “self-constructed” vs. “imposed” identities, difference vs. domestication, he allows himself to be taken on the journey of their shifting identities so that he can continue to be their father and they, each other’s brothers. Why does he not lose himself on the journey? Because he is guided by indestructible love and supported by a flexible order.

Flexible order? Changing identities? The world of fixed rules and stable identities is the world of the older brother. The father destabilizes this world–and draws his older son’s anger upon himself. The father’s most basic commitment is not to rules and given identities but to his sons whose lives are too complex to be regulated by fixed rules and whose identitites are too dynamic to be defined once for all. Yet he does not give up the rules and the order. Guided by the indestructible love which makes space in the self for others in their alterity, which invites the others who have trangressed to return, which creates hospitable conditions for their confession, and rejoices over their presence, the father keeps re-configuring the order without destroying it so as to maintain it as an order of embrace rather than exclusion. (pp.164-165)