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Monday, February 8, 2010Cynicism: Thumos-Freezing
Cynicism is one of my guilty pleasures. I have a sharp tongue and can quickly turn a phrase. Within a sentence or two I can drain life from another person with a cutting jest. My Irish ancestors should raise a pint in my honor.
No one but me knows what's on the edge of my tongue that would prop me up loftily while making another person—my "subject"—the object of ridicule. I've worked hard to restrain this slice-and-dice propensity. I've learned (and am still learning) not to let the wrong thoughts become unleashed comments, though for much of my life doing so was one of my strongest features and most regular actions. I came to realize that using this ability that way is destructive to thumos—both other people's and my own.
So today I avoid media that are steeped in cynicism (Rolling Stone magazine being just one example). If I don't, a native voice soon beckons me, calling forth a cocksure and musky disposition that ascends an almighty throne, places a scepter in my right hand, and pronounces judgment upon all of God's creation. It comes so naturally; I rapidly find myself writing, in my head, with a crowd-pleasing flair. Through cynicism, I somehow can get several times too big for my britches.
During my cynical years, I cursed the darkness around me but didn't have the thumos to step out and try to shine some light. Now, having been on the battlefield awhile, I find myself the target of cynicism from others, usually younger men boozed up on ideology, just let loose from chilly academia. They're calling or writing to rain down the fire of cynical judgment from their ivory towers; I've discovered that they tend to assign motives to me about which they could not possibly know.
I used to contact some of them so I could tell them to get off their blessed assurance and go do something useful, but now, fortunately, I have neither the time nor the interest. I also hear from men who have become cynical about having been burned by organized religion; sometimes they accuse me of being a mindless parrot. Yet traditional church leaders along with aging hippies are among my loudest critics. Even as I actively endeavor to turn from it and tame it, cynicism has me coming and going.
Over time I've come to see that cursing the darkness was better than going through life not even seeing or acknowledging it. But not much better. Pointing my finger at those I deemed naïve, gullible, and hyper-spiritual didn't bring about anything good—it didn't create any light, love, or hope. As I've done many times, I mistook the quarrel for the battle. At some point, this happens to most everyone who has a fighting spirit, so if it's happened or is happening with you, don't beat yourself up about it. You do want to learn how to sidestep this mistake, but not at the cost of laying down your weapons for fear of using them imperfectly. Resolve to keep going, being aware that those with thumos spirit usually misspend it.
Cynics are made, not born, and the main sources of cynicism are common to our human experience, like dashed hopes, unmet expectations, and discovering no benefit from "playing by all the rules." To keep growing and strengthening our thumos, we need to expose cynicism's fundamental weaknesses. What we want in place of cynicism and its opposite, naivete, is what I call healthy suspicion, which historical Christianity has embraced but which is undernourished today. (For instance, think of all the teachings you've heard that have exhorted you to embrace innocence [of a dove] without emphasizing or even mentioning also becoming shrewd [as a snake].)
Cynics are frustrated idealists who sense or intuit how the world should be and are grieved and angered by how it is currently. But they have mishandled their grief: Instead of insulating its heated energy (as with a Thermos) and then funneling it toward noble ends, they let it fly or fire it off in either bitterness or rage. Indignation is a God-given capacity, one we're commanded to exercise; instead of allowing it to spur them toward problem-solving, though, cynics fail to hold on to and focus it (picture a small child trying to manage a fire hose at full blast). This unfruitfulness makes matters even worse, for it drains others of courage by depleting us of both heroes and hope.
The vast chasm between what life is and what life should be is enough to stretch out and snap our thumos. For many it does, but the broken nature of the cynic's boldness often is well disguised because he makes it look muscular, sophisticated, and tough. This discrepancy, and the lack of honesty that it builds, causes further pain and disillusionment, which unfortunately causes the cynic to retreat like a turtle into his shell for solace and protection; the shell is comprised of his mind, and his mind alone. There he comes increasingly to mistake criticism for action and denouncements for animation.
It's not that cynics aren't accurate in their criticisms—they often are. That's usually only part of the story, though; the issue is that their pronouncements overreach and are slanted by presuming to understand matters they cannot possibly know. In this manner, cynicism really is a form of cranky gossip, a safe place where we can look tough and in the know, a safe zone not too far from life's playing field that insulates its inhabitants from injury while being just close enough to give the impression of participation and involvement.
Study any important facet of life—faith, marriage, parenthood, friendship, civic duty—and there you will find scores of cynics who once believed in that arena but were somehow hurt in it. Their hearts and visions have been broken; people need heart and vision to grow thumos. Among the saddest examples are those who speak in harsh or bitter or dismissive tones about the very institutions that bring vitality and healing to so many (for example, wounded divorcees, in regard to marriage).
Churches that emphasize ever-lengthening lists of rules and prohibitions are a Petri dish for spiritual cynicism. There's always another piety hill to climb, so there's no rest, and there's no peace that connects people. Likewise, formulaic churches—"Pray, then X and Y will happen"—are cynic factories because they consistently create, inflate, and then shatter hopes and expectations.
According to many letters I receive, wealthy churches that spend millions on buildings and programs but fail to lift burdens through ministry also create cynics. I know one pastor who simply grew sick of it—his thumos rose up and said Enough! What are we really doing?! So his church contacted a nearby elementary school and said that they wanted to adopt it.
"What do you need?" he asked. "Computers, fresh paint, some ceilings fixed; stuff like that," he heard. That's what they're providing right now. In this very practical process, probably unknown to many, they're also providing a powerful antidote to spiritual cynicism by putting their faith and love into action.
Only one person on this earth has ever had perfectly pure motives, and he's now in heaven at his father's right hand. The intentions of everyone else are suspect, and yet even within healthy suspicion I've found many, many good and honorable motives. I've been fortunate enough to meet and serve with many ministers across this country, and we've teamed up to help men, marriages, and children, to do our part in helping them toward more abundant living. These leaders are screwed up, just like me and you; they're doing good, and they're making tangible progress in tangibly loving others, imperfectly fulfilling (but fulfilling nonetheless) the good works put before them.
Paul Coughlin is the author of numerous books, including Unleashing Courageous Faith, No More Christian Nice Guy and No More Jellyfish, Chickens or Wimps. He also co-authored a book for married couples with his wife Sandy, titled Married But Not Engaged. Paul is founder of The Protectors, the values-based and faith-based answer to adolescent bullying, which provides curriculum for public schools, private schools, retreats, and individuals who want to diminish child-based bullying.
Visit Paul's websites at: http://www.theprotectors.org, and http://www.paulcoughlin.net
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Sunday, January 24, 2010Materialism: Thumos-Numbing
I think Robert Lynd said it best all the way back in 1915:
There are some people who want to throw their arms around you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.
We don't need some gray-haired Swiss scientist on PBS to tell us our family and community bonds are unraveling. Daily life confirms it. If we're honest, we'll admit that our wedding vows often apply more to our jobs than to our spouses. The average person spends much more time at work, thinking about work, getting ready for work, commuting to work, trying to make work happy, or working at home than they do with their family. Some have no choice. But many have plenty of choices that materialism steals.
Here are some facts about increased affluence that Madison Avenue won't tell you. In a study of one thousand lottery winners, a surprisingly high number were less happy six months later. Many had turned to drugs, and even more suffered a sense of isolation.
The average size of a home fifty years ago—when families were bigger—was the size of today's three-car garage, around nine hundred square feet. The average home by 2000 was almost three times larger. Furthermore, family incomes have increased 85 percent since the 1950s, yet polls show Americans overwhelmingly were happier fifty years ago.
Today, put an average family in a nine-hundred-square-foot home and they likely will think they are children of a lesser god. They may be tempted to sit in ashes, tear their clothes, and denounce their faith in the real God. But it's not like he hasn't warned us about the devastating results of having full coffers and an empty soul. In the parable of the rich landowner, the Lord calls him a fool; his soul is harvested that same night.
Sometimes Jesus said things that require some figuring out. But on the destructive ills of consumerism his message is streamlined and crystal clear: We can't serve God and money at the same time. His clear admonition to us? Choose.
Hear this, though, as well: We don't want to transpose the mistake and glorify poverty for poverty's sake. There's a balancing act of sorts in regard to possessions. We could say, "Don't make me so poor, Lord, that I resent you. And don't make me so rich that I forget you."
People in nations that are developing, moving out of widespread impoverishment, usually say they are happier with increased wealth. No surprises there, for poverty brings burdens that can crush a spirit. However, so can the weight of excess, and in a more seductive way.
Glenn Stanton, Director of social Research and Cultural Affairs for Focus on the Family, pinpoints what this does to families. "Affluenza, the unnecessary accumulation of possessions, is about misplaced priorities. It sends the message loud and clear that life is about stuff, no people."
Affleunza disintegrates spiritual vitality, and as
Materialism, the will toward pleasure, not purpose, does far more than disconnect us from transcendent causes, which provide true meaning and real peace. Materialism is not passive—it's aggressive and pernicious, and it actively opposes such a connection. It's a seductive, attractive form of infidelity, a kind of fatal attraction. Materialism stops us from building our marriages, from playing with our kids, from providing for widows and orphans. Materialism seduces us to keep our mouths shut when we see clear injustice and heinous cruelty.
Our situation is worse when we realize that contemporary life is set up for a cautious man, not a courageous one. Culturally we define a good man as one who "makes the right moves" throughout life; the thrones and pedestals on which we place such apparently superior men often lead to behind-the-scenes compromises of integrity that slice into their already deflating or deflated thumos.
Modern liberalism is the largest external cause of the failure to exercise noble thumos, because it prescribes assertiveness for selfish reasons. We have replaced the manly man with the safe company man: "Professionals treat each other with ‘professional courtesy' but never with chivalry." They want longer and more trouble-free lives instead of potentially shorter or more difficult lives with substantially greater accomplishments and purpose.
And as G.K. Chesterton showed, materialism gradually destroys humanity: "I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human." Note: hope, courage, and initiative are all attributes of thumos.
Materialism is somewhat like the most addictive drug in history. Nicotine relaxes and stimulates at the same time; it brings "calmness" that by masking anxiety seems to invigorate, allowing for productivity and even clarity. And materialism does animate us, but in the wrong (selfish) direction and with the wrong (selfish) will, and so it's squarely in the category of shadow thumos. Materialism marries our affections to the immediate and the temporal, not the eternal, and certainly not the transcendent.
Every major philosopher and theologian worth his salt has told us this. We can ignore it if we want; we also must realize that the words ignore and ignorant come from the same linguistic root. Conversely, we become people of courageous faith when we measure ourselves against factors far more significant and substantial than the standards and endeavors of time and place. Right now, both inside and outside the church, the standard and the endeavor is materialism.
I'm a product of the American Dream. My parents, as you may know, were Irish immigrants.
One last warning about materialism: Many who are infected with it don't know it. You will appear weird when you withdraw from it and begin to stand against it. Doing so will be among your most worthwhile achievements, and our collective thumos—our courageous faith and our integrity—depends on it.
Materialism, consumerism, Affluenza, love of money—this poison goes by several names. It's a disease that not only attacks noble thumos but also breeds shadow thumos. It's evil, for it provides the illusion that we are the self-contained captains of our own souls, and, in defiance of God himself, its foundational premise is that we must be preserved instead of redeemed.
Paul Coughlin is the author of numerous books, including Unleashing Courageous Faith, No More Christian Nice Guy and No More Jellyfish, Chickens or Wimps. He also co-authored a book for married couples with his wife Sandy, titled Married But Not Engaged. His articles appear in Focus on the Family magazine, and he as been interviewed by Dr. James Dobson, FamilyLife Radio, HomeWord, Newsweek, C-SPAN, The New York Times, and the 700 Club among others. Paul is founder of The Protectors, the faith-based answer to adolescent bullying, which provides curriculum for Sunday Schools, private schools, retreats, and individuals that trains people of faith to be sources of light in the theater of bullying.
Visit Paul's websites at: http://www.theprotectors.org, and http://www.paulcoughlin.net
Visit
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010The Happiness Mentality
The Happiness Mentality has a uniquely American distinction. As a first-generation citizen with European roots, I know how suspicious constant-grin Americans appear to others. Most other humans on this planet can tell that something just isn't genuine, and here's what I think it is: Christians in the
Spiritual abusers also bank on guilt and shame. Though they would deny it, these leaders believe deep down that being human is itself somehow sinful. They do not acknowledge our divinely endowed glory and dignity.
Once again, real guilt is good. As with the woman Jesus met at the well, real guilt helps us realize and deal with the wrong we do, so we can ask for forgiveness, make restitution, and return to or get on a better path. But false guilt isn't good at all. For example, some people feel guilty for disagreeing with another person, not because it's wrong but they've been conditioned since childhood to never question authority, upset others, "make a scene," or hurt someone's feelings, and so on.
The point is that feeling false guilt or shame—two hallmarks of damaging religion—leaves us confused and distracted, careening around in a soupy spiritual fog. It leads a person to depend too much on the opinions of others, which in turn leads to a life that is not one's own, which saps us of cheerfulness, decisiveness, animation, willingness, volition—all fruits of thumotic-born love.
When we become enslaved to the will of others, we begin to live lives that weren't meant for us. This depletes our ability to make vital and courageous decisions. Horrifically, we become lost in the very place we've been told we're found; the subsequent tension and anxiety strips us of our capacity to deeply love and cheerfully (euthumotically) give. We're so unsure about what to do that we become inert; eventually we just wearily sit down.
People who are low on thumos are better suited to play the spiritual shell games of legalism than those who have boldness and courage. One of the many significant attributes of thumos is that it impassions people to maintain their Christ-granted freedom and God-given dignity. Timid, inert people often find that it takes too much energy to be bothered by having their freedom and dignity stolen or crushed. Tragically, many such people find this a relief, because accompanying freedom and dignity are certain burdens and responsibilities.
It could be said that this is a benefit to being cowardly, since you usually don't get shot at if you never poke your head up. But the cost of this "safety" is incalculable. Caring so much about what other people think out of fearing disapproval, makes such people putty in the hands of those who mete out spiritual mistreatment. And the longer low-thumos people stay under such degradation, the lower their thumos becomes and the harder it is to turn the wagon around.
One of the most damaging results of legalism is confusion and bewilderment toward God's Word. Frankly, many times I'll come across a Bible passage and suddenly, like the voices of several dysfunctional siblings, I'll hear all the denominational bickering that is built up in my brain. I hear the party-line polemics arguing and shoving for their position over and against all others. I see red-faced zealots, rage-filled hard-liners, tight-minded hair-splitters, heart-miserly gnat-strainers.
Honestly, if you get enough of that stuff in your head, you're going to start opening your Bible and find it's like one of those greeting cards that plays a song. Except it's not a song—it's an all-out brawl of head-religion finger-pointing. People that bicker and clamor this way do not lead to love; if you listen to them you might begin to find that you don't know what to think. And when we don't know what to think, we don't know how to act.
I think theological discussions should end by making the following statement: "We've heard a lot of talk about God today," and asking, "What is one way the insight we've gained will help us love him and our neighbor more?" We will hear three types of answers: Nonsense, nonsense that looks true but isn't, and truth. Asking and answering this question, over time, could help us avoid a lot of misspent energy and the kind of ineffective disorientation that hinders our faith in action.
What should you do when caught in this type of a sticky spiritual net? In a word, leave.
I'm this blunt for two reasons. First, because Jesus was this blunt when he said of the first-century Jewish religious leaders, "Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
Second, because I must. The unfortunate reality is that most people who recognize that their church is abusive either will do nothing or will try to change it. The former is a disaster; the latter rarely works. Most spiritually abused people, in their current state, have neither the power nor the ability to strategically and effectively use it. This evil often is highly entrenched; what really needs to happen is for that individual church to die its own death.
Spiritually abusive leaders usually come from spiritually abusive institutions, and those rarely change unless and until they face extreme desperation: financial collapse, catastrophic health problems, or unavoidable scandal. Chances are they'll already have heard anything you would say—it won't be news to them. And some are just too spiritually immature to understand what you're saying.
However, don't miss this: Most spiritual abuse is not intentional. We still don't have to like it, but we do need to forgive. This doesn't mean we pretend damage didn't take place when it did; rather, it acknowledges that if we don't forgive we're like the man drinking poison across the table from his enemy and waiting for the enemy to die.
Resentment mistakes the quarrel for the battle. I believe that one reason Jesus said to pray for our enemies is that if we don't pray for them, we'll curse them. Cursing others is loser-speak. It doesn't generate any light, and it ideas to cynicism, which depletes thumos.
Conversely, forgiveness keeps us vitally alive, which is crucial to our thumos courage. Forgiveness cleanses our thumos of fear, which allows even more growth. It also gives us an odd power in the relationship. Forgiveness is an indicator of an inner strength; as I have noticed during a conversation with a formerly abusive boss, this can put the abuser on his heels, especially when you project a kind, non-threatening demeanor.
Bullies don't know how to deal with this. They see that the handles they used for past control are no longer present on you. They move on, and away from you, because your forgiveness makes you harder to manipulate.
One of the unexamined reasons we don't want to forgive is that doing so makes us feel like we no longer have a boundary up against that person. Forgiving someone makes us feel vulnerable. But lack of forgiveness actually isn't a boundary—it's unable to keep him from hurting us again, and, in fact, it pretty much ensures that he can. Courage and wisdom are the best boundary materials. Because of what it bears—bitterness and resentment, for instance—unforgiveness is fragile, and it's easily exploited by a crafty adversary.
If spiritual abuse has been part of your spiritual heritage, submerge yourself in God's mercy and grace—these are two of the greatest expressions of his love for us. We can't deeply love others when we're disconnected from God's lovingkindness toward us. Well, we can, for a short while, straining forward on our own power to temporarily light up a few lives. But we won't make it on that road for the long haul; legalism is a spiritual undertaker that separates us from God's love.
There's no substitute for experiencing God's inexpressibly profound love, the kind with no strings attached, the kind that makes us want to complete good works for him—not because we're trying to earn our salvation, or because we're afraid of what will happen if we don't, but because we find him so good for our souls that it's a natural expression of our love back to him. We become reflectors of his love through our heart, mind, and (thumos) strength.
One final piece of hard-earned advice: If you have false shepherds in your life, don't think too much about them. When you do, think like Stephen did and ask God to be gracious to them and forgive them. Know that in most cases, most of the time, they didn't mean to harm you.
We must forgive, not for their good (most won't even be aware of their transgression against you), but for our own health and well-being. I do not believe for a second that Jesus wants us to forgive others because what they did was no big deal. He was too worldly wise to believe that nonsense. Again, I think this is the primary reason: Hold on to that anger, that unredemptive shadow thumos, and you will be manufacturing a form of soul poison. You'll be harming yourself, shriveling your soul, and misspending your courageous spirit on a fruitless venture.
Paul Coughlin is the author of numerous books, including Unleashing Courageous Faith, No More Christian Nice Guy and No More Jellyfish, Chickens or Wimps. He also co-authored a book for married couples with his wife Sandy, titled Married But Not Engaged. His articles appear in Focus on the Family magazine, and he as been interviewed by Dr. James Dobson, FamilyLife Radio, HomeWord, Newsweek, C-SPAN, The New York Times, and the 700 Club among others. Paul is founder of The Protectors, the faith-based answer to adolescent bullying, which provides curriculum for Sunday Schools, private schools, retreats, and individuals that trains people of faith to be sources of light in the theater of bullying.
Visit Paul's websites at: http://www.theprotectors.org, and http://www.paulcoughlin.net
Visit
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Monday, January 4, 2010Why Our Happiness is So Sad
Becoming a dispassionate spectator of life often happens to us from one of the most unexpected sources.Within the framework of Christianity, legalism is the belief that a Christian must always stay on the sunny side of the street, a requirement that hit me between the eyes two days after my mother died.
I was broken inside, as if I had fractured a soul bone or collapsed a lung. A lot of swelling had formed around the traumatic break in the inner me. I was numb to the core, and I thought church would be the right place to help bind up my burden. But given the kind of church I attended at that time, this decision was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.
After the service I was in a room with a young and energetic associate pastor. In a moment of what turned out to be both weakness and foolishness, I shared with him that my mother had just died and that I was in awful pain. He didn't even turn to look at me; his back was toward me while he rooted around for something—I think it was a patch cord for the worship band—and he said, "Consider it all joy, brother." He hadn't missed a beat, as if he were reading from a cue card.
This leader told me that when I thought about my mother's last hours, which brought a morbid rattle sound as she struggled to breathe, her lungs filling with fluid—that clogged-coffeemaker sound she made for hours through that dark night as she slowly drowned—I was to be consumed with joy?! To rejoice in the death of my troubled mother and her tormented ways, her unresolved soul, her fear-horrified and truncated adulthood, her unfulfilled little-girl desire to return to the land of her birth and beloved family, her strong but squandered mind, her wasted potential and complaining bitterness…I was to delight in the death of this courageous heroine who so egregiously lost her way, the woman so bitten by evil that she struck others with even more toxic venom… I was glibly to consider all this wreckage a wonderful matter.
The Lord knows and I know that this peddler of quick-fix religious pabulum didn't know what he was doing. I hold no ill will toward him today. He was parroting what he'd heard from others in the discombobulated world of legalistic religion. He was playing his role, too eager to do his part, to do his thing, to show his faith, to glorify his God with his "biblical" approach toward life and ministry. He was following the Official Script, saying what he thought God wanted him to say; after all, those words are found in Holy Writ.
Of course he tortured them by taking them out of context. The same Bible tells us to weep with those who weep, but his cocksure mind was liquored up on a tight-fisted theology in which God is safe and manageable and tame. Weeping with those who weep probably wasn't crossing his mind—maybe it never had crossed his mind. (Fact is, too often it doesn't cross my mind either, at least when it should.)
Here is the one pathetic, regretful word I said in reply: "Yeah."
I may as well have said, "Penguin."
What does one say while in spiritual shock, while coming face-to-face with a mentality that does not allow a man to be human, that bars a man from coughing up that grief in church, in God's house with God's people? I was like a man seeing actual concentration camp photos or footage for the first time. I was stunned, and as the stunned are prone to do, I spoke nonsense.
You can see how devastating is today's Happiness Mentality. It claims to be for the good of others, and it's intended to buoy sinking emotions; in reality it makes people callous to suffering, which leads to anger and resentment, which erodes a loving orientation toward others. It keeps life on a superficial plane, leading to shallow living, which renders indignation impossible. And I don't think this is a coincidence, either, since we desire comfort rather than thumos-born, love-born disruption.
And in order to grow thumos courage, we have to be able to feel emotions such as grief, sympathy, and compassion. They're raw material for your thumos mill, yet they're largely eradicated from our lives due to the spiritually abusive Happiness Mentality.
I used to attend a church whose leadership was trained not to enter into the suffering of others. They were to "point people to Jesus" and Jesus only. They were instructed to tell others to pour their heart out to God but to keep their distance from difficulty, as if the human-connection side of our lives didn't matter or even exist—another example of too much spirit, not enough soul.
Their denomination is extremely "anti-counseling," and I've noticed that the people who stay there begin to take on a plastic and homogenized nature. Deeper conversations and deeper expressions of faith just don't happen much. They're very pleasant (until you ask a weighty question) but certainly not ministerial when it comes to traversing life's weightier side.
And let's not pretend that today's prevalent mindset does not have a benefit for those who follow it. Much like the fake smile some people wear to hide overarching fear, the Happiness Mentality allows an effective hiding place for those who are terrified of brotherhood or sisterhood, which lends the appearance of spiritual maturity and wholeness. Woe to those unable to discern this kind of spiritual dissimulation; it can take decades, if ever, to unravel its corrupting influence in their life.
The Happiness Mentality has another related benefit: It helps ward off the disruptive nature of Christ. f everything we do serves the idol of happiness, and if we can pass off our "happiness" as peace and joy and spiritual growth, then we feel we're justified in not doing things that bring "non-happiness." We can avoid love-extension and keep life self-indulgent while retaining the appearance of purity and maturity.
Game over.
We hate thumos disruption so much we'll do most anything to avoid it. The courageous Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky explained this tendency in his ingenious and haunting book, The Brothers Karamazov. The story takes place in
Jesus heals the sick and resurrects the dead. The Grand Inquisitor has him jailed, and then at night, visiting his cramped prison cell, he asks Jesus, "Why did you come to bother us?" (What is it about religious leaders visiting Jesus at night?)
Christ's love is both penetrating and troublemaking—love so amazing that it inspires us to lose our life so we can have a better one. Good thing his love is all-consuming, because the truth is we will be consumed by something—every one of us. We'll either be consumed by our will, or someone else's, or a combination of both.
God's love consumes us, owns us, and then—we often miss this part—he gives ownership of our life back to us, except now we're connected to his love, assistance, guidance, grace, light, truth, and correction. It's his unique owner-protection program, a kind of dual stewardship that's impossible to explain or grasp in complete detail. That he does not give ownership of us to someone else helps us to avoid many aspects of spiritual abuse and shields us from one of the worst stumbling blocks to carrying out good deeds.
Jesus, as Dostoevsky showed, is a disruptive bother to the yet-to-be redeemed soul and to the soul in the process of renewal. In order to ward off his disruption, we have come to emphasize pet Scriptures that, by avoiding the rest of the palette, paint reality almost exclusively in pastels, colors that are only part of the mosaic and that cannot illustrate or reflect the real weight or real image of real life for long.
Consider this: Whatever we may glibly say and sing about God and life in a pleasantly decorated church, from pulpits, risers, and stages, must also be true when said over a burning pile of babies. Pastel Christianity is not only incapable of properly explaining such a horrifying event but it's also insulting to legitimate human sensibilities. Pastel Christianity is repulsive to our God-designed souls.
I experienced a less dramatic example of this when I attended the funeral of a loved one.
The minister said we should not shed tears for the man who'd just died because he was with Jesus now. "This is not a day of mourning but of celebration!" he bellowed, with enthusiasm that appeared contrived.
Celebration? I thought. I loved him. I will miss him so very much. Today I won't celebrate his death. I must and will grieve over this loss.
True to the Happiness Mentality we slavishly idolize, that minster did not allow for the expression of the whole spectrum of human life, love, and longing; this spectrum is not considered "spiritual," which, in some circles, is code for "disruptive." He didn't allow for both mourning and celebration. True to his training, he axed the negative soul-stuff and gave us a plateful of over-sugared metaphysical dessert. And instead of leading everyone toward a loving and compassionate orientation toward life as it truly is, he encouraged a selfish approach. Why express your condolences to the twelve-year-old daughter who just lost her father when our spiritual leader just told us there's really nothing to cry about? So she remains untouched and unloved. "Happiness" in this model actually yields inconsideration, coldness, and even cruelty.
This plastic world of our own making, one that serves to make the Christian faith appear more and more irrelevant, erases the need for courage training; why would we need it if life is meant to be lived on the mountaintops of human experience? We're so ill-prepared for valley living, where thumos is required for ourselves and for love-extension toward others. One ordained minister (also the son of a pastor) said to me, when I asked for insights regarding how important courage is to our spiritual growth: "I don't understand the connection between courage and faith." Let that sink in for a few moments.
In legalism there is no room for the courageous prophets, the rebellious but godly philosophers, for the person who loves God but loves him differently. This religious orientation is hell-bent on homogenization and taming at any price. It makes its converts double sons of hell, because these then take the battle against mystery and against thumos-building creativity to new diabolical levels. These churches hardly lift a finger on behalf of social justice.
Here there's no room for the dogged soul who sees wonder and tries to explore it; he finds his hand (or his soul) slapped when he does. There's scarcely room for the courageous artist whose work contains fire that grabs the world by the neck and won't let go. There's no place for people who dance to another beat—never mind that it's still God's beat. This way of life says it's trying to conform us to the character of Christ, but mostly it pressures followers to be conformed to the charismatic nature of the one in the pulpit and the status-quo nature of the Official Script.
Spiritually abusive institutions drive out creativity, which sees options and avenues for love-extension that wouldn't be seen otherwise. Creativity is a pathway to hope, and hope opens gateways to courage. A ministry that does not fit within "traditional" confines gets viewed and portrayed with dark suspicion through legalistic eyes and lips; usually all that's accomplished therein is the diminishment of our ability to be light in a dark world.
Paul Coughlin is the author of numerous books, including Unleashing Courageous Faith, No More Christian Nice Guy and No More Jellyfish, Chickens or Wimps. He also co-authored a book for married couples with his wife Sandy, titled Married But Not Engaged. His articles appear in Focus on the Family magazine, and he as been interviewed by Dr. James Dobson, FamilyLife Radio, HomeWord, Newsweek, C-SPAN, The New York Times, and the 700 Club among others. Paul is founder of The Protectors, the faith-based answer to adolescent bullying, which provides curriculum for Sunday Schools, private schools, retreats, and individuals that trains people of faith to be sources of light in the theater of bullying.
Visit Paul's websites at: http://www.theprotectors.org, and http://www.paulcoughlin.net
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009Grateful at Year's End
As the year draws to a close, we at Coughlin Ministries are excited to see how even in troubled times, people are able to change their lives for the good when they simply have the right tools. We hope you'll be as encouraged as we have been by the following letters we have received in recent months.
For a recent hockey tournament, my 15 year old son asked that I buy him a pea-coat. I made him a deal: "You read Paul Coughlin's Unleashing Courageous Faith, give me a book report, and I'll buy you the coat." He's got the coat. I've got a new son. Thanks for your great words of wisdom. I expect this to last him a lifetime. --
I just wanted to drop you a quick note, and tell you thank you for writing Unleashing Courageous Faith. I have just finished it, and I have to say I am blown away. This is what I have been longing for in my walk with Jesus. I have been so abused by church leadership, and have had every bit of gusto all but squashed in me. But I am still standing, and know that there is a reason for all of it. More than anything, this book is sparking a fire in me that had been extinguished. --
As a private school principal, the last thing I want is a child to stay at home because they're afraid to come on campus. With The Protectors, Paul Coughlin addresses an issue that crosses all ages and both sexes. It is the issue of bullying. The programs that schools are offered often address the bully, but do little to empower children to become more assertive, training them to stand up for themselves. The Protectors program offers a whole solution, not just part of the equation. People are able to see that both the bully and the one being bullied need help. The first line of defense in bullying should come out of our homes and churches. This is an issue we cannot be silent about any longer. --Lance,
After your anti-bullying presentation, our class discussed times when we might have been bullies and when we've been bullied. During this "think time," one of my students apologized for writing a mean note to someone in the class just last week. She said that your bullying presentation made her realize what a horrible feeling that must have been to have received the note. The two girls went home all smiles today. -- Fourth Grade Teacher
From a married couple in
I first heard of No More Christian Mr. Nice Guy and Married But Not Engaged on a June 2007 Focus on the Family episode. My husband and I both listened very closely that day. We had just come through a terribly difficult situation and our marriage was fresh on the mend. I was amazed that Paul Coughlin could have such insight into my own home. No one previously understood what it meant to be married to a "nice guy."
Simply put, Paul Coughlin writes the words that every man needs to hear. Never before had I realized what a selfish and damaging life I was leading until I read No More Christian Mr. Nice Guy and Married But Not Engaged. Paul calls a spade a spade, and in these books he nailed my personality dead on. I was mired in immaturity and passivity, to the point where I began to build up resentment within my marriage for issues I was causing. I hated confrontation (a trait learned from my CNG father), and every time my wife tried to talk to me about what I was feeling, I would clam up and try to end the discussions by apologizing or just giving her the silent treatment. Talk about a classic CNG. Amazingly, I had convinced myself that I was a man, yet that I did not have to act like one within my own house. My selfishness and apathy took our marriage to the brink, and it is only by God's grace and my wife's incredible commitment that we have come out the other side so much stronger and closer to God and each other. Paul's books showed us how to recognize this destructive behavior, deal with the underlying hurt honestly, and move forward in a bold life of integrity. -BrianEach month generous partners like you help us bring this ministry of hope, faith, strength and courage to people held captive and hopeless. So from our family to you and yours this Christmas, thank you for helping create Hope for Life.
Paul Coughlin is the author of numerous books, including Unleashing Courageous Faith, No More Christian Nice Guy and No More Jellyfish, Chickens or Wimps. He also co-authored a book for married couples with his wife Sandy, titled Married But Not Engaged. His articles appear in Focus on the Family magazine, and he as been interviewed by Dr. James Dobson, FamilyLife Radio, HomeWord, Newsweek, C-SPAN, The New York Times, and the 700 Club among others. Paul is founder of The Protectors, the faith-based answer to adolescent bullying, which provides curriculum for Sunday Schools, private schools, retreats, and individuals that trains people of faith to be sources of light in the theater of bullying.
Visit Paul's websites at: http://www.theprotectors.org, and http://www.paulcoughlin.net
Visit
