Biblical Inner Healing

For personal and textbook use to deepen ones understanding of self and of relationship to God and to others. A marriage of living Biblical faith with scientific process and knowledge.

F. Earle Fox

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible

Emmaus Ministries
http://theRoadtoEmmaus.org

Published by

Edition 4.2
September 14, 2006

Copyright 2006, F. Earle Fox ISBN 0-945778-02-3

Printed and distributed in the U. S. A. and the U. K. by Lightning Source, Inc., a subsidiary of Ingram Industries, Inc.

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Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
A. A Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv B. Failure of Nerve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii C. Rebuilding Credibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii D. Anglican Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv

Chapter I

Who Will Let Gene Out? . . . . . . . . 1

A. a Christian Psychology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 A-1. Inner Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 A-2. Secular Enlightenment - Impersonal Replaces Personal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 A-3. Religion & Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 A-4. A Biblical Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 B. the Worldview Setting for Inner Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 B-1. The Enlightenment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 a.Secularization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 b.Enlightened Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 c.Philosophical Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 d.Empirical Drift toward Sanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 B-2. The Biblical Worldview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 a.Defining God. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 b.The Primary & Secondary Circuits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 c.Hearing Gods Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 B-3. The Perennial Philosophy - a Metaphysical Fall into Non-Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 a.Endless Cycle to Erewhon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 b.Three Stages in the Circle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 B-4. The Cosmic Contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 a.A Bad Bargain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 b.The Space Between... & Two Kinds of Belonging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 C. Imago Dei - Immutable & Unchangeable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 C-1. Gender... Depending on Your Cosmos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 C-2. The Inner Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 C-3. The Sacred Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 D. the 'Health' Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 D-1. Subjective or Objective? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 D-2. The Warp & Woof Health Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 D-3. Spiritual Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Study Guide for Chapter I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Chapter II

The Decision to Be Well . . . . . . . 40

40 40 42 44

A. Finding the Common Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1. Inalienable Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2. Christian Humanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-3. Five Generic Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A-4. Neutral & Metaphysical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Decision I - Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-1. Truth Will Make You Free? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2. Openness to Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-3. The Risk - of Being Teachable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-4. Responding to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.Elijah - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.Point of Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Decision II - Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1. What is the Spiritual Life? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2. What are feelings and emotions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3. From Where do my Deepest Feelings Come? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4. Responding to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.Only the gracious nature of God... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.Point of Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. Decision III - Personal Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-1. Who is Responsible for What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-2. in loco Dei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-3. Adult Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-4. Responding to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.Pagan/Secular Nobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.Boundaries - for Freedom & Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Decision IV - Morality, Law, & Our Purpose for LIfe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-1. Responsible to... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-2. Jesus is Lord... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-3. Responding to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.Moral Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.Point of Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F. Decision V Faith - Love - Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-1. The High Ground of the Kingdom Plateau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-2. Responding to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.The High Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.What is Love?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c.Point of Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. Putting the Five to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-1. The Growth of Personal Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-2. Five Levels of Repentance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c.Personal Integrity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . d.Obedience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . e.The Kingdom Plateau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-3. Building from the Bottom Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-4. Parenting & Childing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-5. Irreducibly Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-6. Clarification of the Christian Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 47 47 48 49 51 51 53 54 55 59 61 63 63 64 66 66 68 68 69 69 70 71 71 73 74 74 74 75 75 78 78 79 79 81 81 83 83 83 84 84 84 85 86 87 88

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H. Some Diagnostic Helps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-1. Moral & Spiritual Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-2. Track-Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-3. Moving from Discipleship into Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 90 92 93

Study Guide to Chapter II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Chapter III

The Healing Alliance . . . . . . . . 98

A. Wholeness, Holiness, & the Logic of Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 B. The Four Meanings of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 B-1. Breakdown of Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 B-2. Four Meanings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 B-3. Leaping into the Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 B-4. Faith & Operational Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 C. The Healthy Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 C-1. Head - Heart - Bowels Adult - Child - Parent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 C-2. Diaphragm - Hands - Feet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 D. The Damaged Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 D-1. The Deepest Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 D-2. Infantile Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 E. Metaphysics, Feelings, & Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 E-1. Relationships are... Metaphysical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 E-2. Once Burned, Twice Shy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 E-3. Heaven with God, or - Hell all by Ourselves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 E-4. Disintegration of the Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 E-5. Reality vs. Freud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 F. The Unholy Alliance & the Failure of the Cork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 F-1. Unwhole & Unholy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 F-2. The Unreliable Cork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 G. The Holy Alliance, the Fifth Commandment, & Childing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 G-1. I AM Intervenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 G-2. The Way, the Truth, & the Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 G-3. Childing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 H. The Holy Alliance in Revelation History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Study Guide to Chapter Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Chapter IV

The Warp in the Unconscious

135
135 135 137 138 138 139 141 141 142 144

A. The Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1. Healing and Common Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2. Why an Unconscious? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Man at One Within . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-1. Naked and Unashamed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2. Sacramental Unity of Body & Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. What Is the Unconscious? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1. Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, & Carl Jung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2. Relying & Attending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3. Being before Doing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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C-4. Mothering & Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-5. Archetypal vs. Concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-6. Objectifying the Unconscious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-7. Building Selfhood with the Five Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. The Unconscious - Both Rational & Conscious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-1. Two Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-2. The Friendly Unknown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-3. Conscious Precedes Unconscious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-4. Light at the Bottom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-5. Two Levels of the Unconscious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-6. Keeping Things Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. The Flat Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-1. A Standard Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-2. Cause & Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F. The Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-1. Innocent - but Not Mature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-2. Split & Collapse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-3. The Pit of Unreality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-4. ...the Imagination of their Hearts... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-5. What is Truth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. Choose This Day -- Ground of Being or Foggy Bottom...? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-1. The Root of the Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-2. Forward to the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-3. Letting Go, & Letting God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H. "Default" Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. The Light at the Bottom of the Shaft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-1. At the Bottom of It All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-2. Our Unconsciousness of Being Mothered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 146 147 148 149 149 151 151 152 154 155 158 158 160 161 161 163 166 166 169 170 171 171 173 175 176 176 179

Study Guide for Chapter IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Chapter V

Imaging Jesus the Healing of Memories . . . . . . 184

184 184 186 187 190 192 193 194 195 195 197 198 199 199

A. The Imagination & the Incarnation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1. Reality & Myth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2. Incarnation & Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-3. Intellect, Imagination, & Story-Telling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-4. God & Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-5. Reparenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-6. Incarnate & Imaginable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-7. Personal Relationship with God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. It's Never Too Late to Have a Happy Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-1. Into the Bottle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2. Out of the Bottle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-3. Rescuing the Inner Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Laying the Foundation for Walking with Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1. Opening the Cork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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C-2. Pebbles & Drops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3. The Healing of Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4. Starting the Walk with Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-5. Transferring Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-6. A Wimpy Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. The Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-1. Three Sets of Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-2. Sanctification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-3. The Possible & the Real . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-4. Three Healing Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-5. The Long-ago Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-6. Metaphysical Grace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-7. Psychiatric Medications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Personal and Portable Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F. Imagining -- the Spirit vs. the Flesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-1. Thoughts, Images, & the Real Leap of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-2. Feeding on Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-3. Images: Holy & Unholy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-4. An Imagination - Better Informed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-5. Spiritual Static . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-6. Grave-Digging, Resurrection, & Pentecost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 200 201 203 203 204 204 206 206 207 208 210 210 212 214 214 215 217 218 220 222

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Chapter VI

The Healing of Memories Biblical or Occult? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

226 227 230 231 233 233 233 233 236 238 238 240 241 242 243 244 246 246 247 248

A. Sacramental Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1. The Sacramental Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2. The Revelation Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-3. Graven Images? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-4. Psycho-somatic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-5. Mystery vs. Mystification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Pagan/Secular vs. Biblical Inner Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-1. The "Perennial Philosophy" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2. Affirmation or Denial of the Unconscious? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Healing the Faith-Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1. Our Brokenness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2. Child vs. Adult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3. Parents: Good or Bad? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4. Sacramental Split . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-5. Mind over Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-6. Permission to Imagine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. The Real Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-1. Just My Imagination? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-2. Taking the Initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-3. Why Pretend? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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E. Testing the Spirits.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-1. Objectivity in the Spiritual Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-2. Biblical Tests for Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.The Worldview Test. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b. Special Revelation Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c.Christian Community Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . d.The Faith Test. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . e.Inner Peace Test. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-3. Faith - & the Healing of Truth-Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F. The Metaphysics of Visualizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-1. What is Metaphysics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-2. Subjective - Objective Private - Public Child, Mother, &... Trust . . . . . F-3. Trusting our Imaginations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-4. Practical Mysticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-5. The Healing of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 250 251 252 253 253 253 254 254 256 256 257 259 260 262

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Chapter VII

Being the Real I . . . . . . . . . 266

266 266 267 269 270 270 270 272 272 273 274 274 275 275 276 276 277 278 278 278 278 279 279 279 279 280 280 281 281

A. Wholeness & Holiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1. A Parish Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2. The Problem of Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-3. Standing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-4. Seven Basic Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Something Received, Not Done . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-1. Being a Creature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2. Grasping with our Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-3. Gods Gift to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-4. Selfhood as Creaturehood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-5. Thank You, God, for the Self You are Giving Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. The Five Decisions to Be Myself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1. The Faith Decision - Openness to the Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.Separation -- and the Common Ground. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.Our Participation in Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c.Spiritual Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . d.Openness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . e.Maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2. The Dependency Decision - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.Separating Out from Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.The World Trap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c.Spiritual Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . d.Maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3. The Personal Responsibility Decision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.Truth-Speaking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.Defining My Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c.Spiritual Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4. The Moral Responsibility Decision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-5. The Love/Community Decision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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D. "Self-Assertion" in Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-1. Getting My Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-2. Self Giving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-3. Claiming My Self in a Broken World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-4. Spiritual Backbone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-5. Strong-Willed... & Correctable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-6. Banging on Gods Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.Ontological Sloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b.Pecking Through the Closed Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c.Reasoning Together -- & the Crucifixion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. The Conscious Taking Charge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-1. Freewill & the Unconscious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-2. Objectifying the Unconscious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-3. the Primacy of the Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-4. Taking Charge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-5. The Healing Alliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F. The Healing Power of God's Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-1. Stiffening Our Backbones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-2. The Great Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. The Dialogue of Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-1. The Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-2. Pushing the Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-3. Forming our Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-4. Dialogue to Wholeness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H. Beyond Narcissism: The Cross Life ~ Stage One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-1. Enlightened Narcissism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-2. Feeling Good vs. Relating Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-3. Carnal Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-4. The Split Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-5. Death to the Pseudo-Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. Finding my Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-1. Biblical Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-2. Attending to What We Rely Upon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-3. Saved by Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-4. Like Riding a Bicycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-5. A Dark Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-6. Resurrection on the Common Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-7. The Harrowing of Hell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-8. The Place Where Dreams are Born . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. Maturity: The Cross Life ~ Stage Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J-1. Ascension & Pentecost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J-2. The Living Sacrifice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J-3. The Real Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J-4. For the Joy that is set before Us... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J-5. Beware the Circling Serpent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K. Freedom in Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K-1. Freedom For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 282 283 284 285 286 288 288 289 291 292 292 293 294 295 297 298 298 300 301 301 302 304 305 307 307 309 311 312 314 315 315 317 318 319 320 321 324 325 328 328 329 331 332 334 335 335

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K-2. The Community of the Independent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 a.Bind us together, Lord, bind us together... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 b....with cords that cannot be broken.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

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Chapter VIII

Repentance, Forgiveness, and the Healing of the Will . . . . . . . . . . . 342

342 342 343 345 345 348 351 351 353 355 357 357 358 359 359 361 362 363 365

A. The Will's Need for Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1. A Will Damaged by Sin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2. The Consequences of a Broken Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Choosing Ones Life Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-1. Two Trees & Two Commandments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2. The Weight & Momentum of My Own Ultimate Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . C. The First Step of Repentance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1. Overcoming Blocks to Repentance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2. Perfection - our Friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3. Being, Doing, & False Guilt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. The Second Step of Repentance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-1. Repentant - or Just More Successfully Self-Centered? . . . . . . . . . . . . D-2. What Works? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Forgiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-1. What is Forgiveness? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-2. Being the Forgiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-3. Safeguards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-4. Being & Doing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F. Some Helps to Confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Study Guide to Chapter VIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Chapter IX

Inner Healing in the Parish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

369 369 371 373 373 373 374 376 376 378 379 380 380 381 382

A. Pointing on to God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1. Living in the Church - Going Out to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2. Evangelism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-3. A Four-Fold Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. The Maturing Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-1. Dismal Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2. Core Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Sex and Non-Directiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1. The Black Hole of Subjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2. Objectivity & Directiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3. Feeling Good & Relating Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. Clear Judgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-1. Love that Kills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-2. The Elect Judging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-3. On to Maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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D-4. Churchianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. The Worshiping & Healing Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-1. Hospital, not Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-2. Worship: the Smithy & Forge of our Souls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-3. Core Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-4. Here & Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-5. The Place of the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F. Family & Marriage Counseling in a "No-Fault" Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-1. The Non-Directive Attitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-2. Intellectual, Moral, & Spiritual Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-3. But! I do not love you anymore! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-4. 2 Principles - 10 Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-5. From Meat Grinder to Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-6. No-Fault Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-7. Defeating the Real Adversary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-8. Gender Solution - the Warp & Woof of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. The Sacrament of the "Other" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-1. The Gap between God & the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G-2. Grandchildren of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H. Gender in the Parish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-1. Mothering & Fathering Congregations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-2. Brothering & Sistering Congregations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-3. Hieros Gamos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-4. Counseling & Gender Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-5. Spiritual Renewal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H-6. Age Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. Inner Healing Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-1. Intellect & Imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-2. Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-3. Miracles & Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-4. Into the Future... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 385 385 387 388 389 391 392 392 394 396 398 401 402 404 406 406 406 409 412 412 413 414 415 417 418 418 418 420 422 424

Study Guide to Chapter IX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

Chapter X

The Role of the Bible in the Healing Community . . . . . . . . . . 429

429 429 431 434 435 438 440 440 442 442

A. The Faithful Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1. Authority, Epistemology, & a Christian Disconnect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2. Christian Humanism & the Generic Common Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-3. Secularism Coops Science & the Church Retreats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-4. The Biblical Commitment to Testable Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. The Constitutional Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. The Reliable Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1. The Focus: God in History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2. Six Revelation Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a.The Faith-Dependency Foundation for Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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b.Community Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c.Revelation through History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . d.Progressive Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . e.Baptizing Pagan Lore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . f.Welcoming Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3. A Testable Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. The Unreliable Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. The Infallible Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-1. Grandchildren are only Half Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-2. Definitions are Infallible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-3. The Infallible Faith Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F. The Anglican Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-1. Scripture, Tradition, & Reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-2. a Teen Age Rebellion & a Church Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-3. The Weight of our Being on the Three Legs of the Stool . . . . . . . . . . . G. The Healing Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444 444 446 446 447 447 449 452 452 453 454 457 457 458 460 462

Study Guide to Chapter X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

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Table of Figures
1-A. The Biblical Worldview .................................. 18 1-B. Two Circuits - Illustrated by Transformer ... 19 1-C. The Secular/Pagan Worldview ....................... 23 2-A. The Power of Being Our Basic Faith-Dependency Relation 56 2-B. The Spiritual Center Our Place of Dependency .................... 57 2-C. My Doing - My Responsibility ........................... 67 2-D. Authority for Doing - Moral Responsibility .. 73 2-E. Mounting up the Five Decisions ...................... 76 3-A. The Healthy Soul .......................................... 106 3-B. The Damaged Soul ......................................... 110 4-A. Layers of the Unconscious ........................... 146 4-B. Spiritual Transformers the Primary & Secondary Circuits .... 155 4-C. The Souls Defenses ..................................... 163 4-D. More Internal Defenses .............................. 165 6-A. Closed-Circle Faith-Dependency Relation ... 240 7-A. Being vs. Doing .............................................. 271 7-B. The Three Is .............................................. 313 8-A. Life in the Faith-Dependency Relation ........ 346 8-B. Life in the Closed-Circle of the Forbidden Tree ...................... 347 8-C. Ultimate & Particular Purposes .................. 350 9-A. The Sacrament of the Other ..................... 409

Preface
A. A Journey
As with most things that deeply concern one, I have come to my involvement with inner healing and psychology partly through my quest to find out how I tick, and why ticks are so often out of sync with tocks. My upbringing had prepared me in good fashion for an intellectual life, but very poorly for an emotional life. That led to a haunting feeling through most of my now seven decades that there were two of me, that on one hand I was moving along and progressing and growing extremely well, but also that there was another me that was not doing well at all. Trying to come to a sense of unity within myself in the midst of growing up, and then myself raising a family, being a teacher, an Episcopal priest, therapist, director of an ex-gay ministry, and writer has led through many paths, painful and pleasant, out of which has come much of this book. Naturally, I tried my best to spend time where I excelled, not where I lacked, which meant in the intellectual realm. My interest in psychology began at the early age of about ten, if I recall correctly. My year-older brother had come home from school with stories about "psychology", which he reported as a rather scary method by which someone could look inside of you to know all of the bad things down in there. I resolved that night in bed, with all the determination that a ten year old can muster, that I would not allow any psychologist to scare me, and that I would not be afraid of what I found inside of myself -- little knowing what was to come. But it was a new step on a venture of self-discovery which continues unabated into my seventy first year. Many years later I was pastoring a parish. I had been trained as a pastoral counselor and had taught college level courses in psychology and religion. In 1971, I found myself sharing life with a small community of persons in my parish who declared themselves willing to do whatever God might require in order to make our strife-ridden parish come spiritually alive. It did not take long to discover that the stresses of being a pastor were beyond the emotional resources that I had readily available within me.

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Much of my ten year ministry there was spent exploring ways of making our Christian spiritual life more available to persons who, despite the sacraments and all the traditional teaching and growth programs, still felt themselves lacking in their sense of joy and peace as children of God. It became clear that many were not experiencing themselves as children of God at all, or at least only when surrounded by the affirming Christian fellowship. Out in "the world", facing the stresses of family and job, the presence of God often "evaporated". There were many times when I felt exactly that way. The emotional part of my inner being was limping lamely along, miles behind my intellectual understanding of the spiritual life. So I had great personal motivation to seek for ways of removing some of those inner blocks to an open and clear relation with God and with my fellow human beings. A great deal of this present book was being formulated during those parish years from l971 to l981. It has been, and still is, a puzzle and great disappointment to me that the healing ministry is such a small part of Christian teaching and preaching. Even Christian counseling does little to relate the healing process to one's relation to Jesus Christ. Christians have all but handed over healing to secular physicians, psychiatrists, and psychologists. Psychology has become a substitute for religion in America. We are thought to be able to heal (or stuck with healing) ourselves. And the typical pastor is ill-schooled in understanding how contemporary Christianity can stand toe-to-toe with secular modes of healing. Nevermind that secular emotional healing has never produced what it promised for the society. A large part of the reason for the Churchs ignoring of the healing ministry is lack of belief that anything would happen, a long phase of which I went through myself. But there also a is dearth of materials integrating honest Biblical faith with honest psychological studies. And behind that is the very destructive suspicion that reason is of the devil, as opposed to faith which is of God. That opposition is untrue to the Bible, as I hope to show. Faith and reason are part and parcel of each other. Neither will survive without the other. More will be said on that in Chapter X on The Role of the Bible in a Healing Communty. The only substantially viable psychology is, I believe, that emerging out of the Bible. The deepest problems which face us all, including secular psychology, are ultimately unresolvable in any other framework. The study of the psyche from a secular point of view has yielded many good results wherever people with an honest desire for truth were conducting the study. But the study of the soul (psyche) is inherently a religious (metaphysical) enterprise, so that the secular attempt, despite the (more or less) good press it gets today, always runs aground on the most interesting and vital issues that we all face -- the sta-

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bility and the meaning of life. The stability and meaning of my life. Can I be loved for who I am rather than for what I do? What is love? Can we be fully human without being sexually active? And on it goes. That such questions have more human-friendly answers in the Biblical, Judeo-Christian, worldview than in secular views does not by itself make the Biblical worldview true. We might just be out of luck. But it does create a powerful and justifiable incentive to investigate as to whether it is true -- and, other things being equal, creates a very rightful predisposition toward the Biblical view. The truth is that, not only does psychology necessarily have to do with God, psychology is essentially and inevitably about our relation, or the lack of it, with God. If therapists understood that, their efforts would bear far more fruit. Unless it can be shown that we humans are, or can become, independent autonomous decision-makers, secular psychology will be always incomplete and incapacitated. It is worth noting that the Biblical view can incorporate any truth found by secular research. There have been no facts discovered by secular researchers about the psyche that the Biblical view cannot incorporate -- and indeed make better sense of. But the reverse is not true. Many things religious people find common place are foreign ground for secular folks, and unassimilable by them. Difficult, if not impossible, for example, for secular psychology to deal with is our inherently dependent nature, objective meaning in life, guilt, and moral standards. All of these are very important to our psychology. But all this requires a major overhaul of Biblical theology -- which has, in its presently understood form, proven itself incapable of meeting the challenges of modernity and post-modernity. Biblical Inner Healing is itself a part of this much wider effort by Emmaus Ministries to show that the epistemology, the worldview, and Gospel of the Bible offer the only substantial and enduring resolutions to the great raft of problems with which the human race fitfully grapples. This book is part of, and nestled in, a much larger apologetics project, which can be accessed on the http://theRoadtoEmmaus.org website. The Road to Emmaus is a "school of Judeo-Christian apologetics" covering the wider issues of Biblical worldview and the Christian relationship to the natural sciences, epistemology, psychology, politics, economics, and education. Many of the footnote references will help link the reader to this wider context. Several major written works are planned in the above areas. * * * Three notions have guided my thinking and commitment to emotional healing. First, I was determined that faith must make sense. It must be related to everyday life in a manner that does not fly in the face of logical common sense. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, once you see it, seems mind-bogglingly commonsense. That does not rule out mysteries or the unexpected. But it does rule out

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flat contradictions. God is a God of reason and order, not chaos, not intellectual chaos any more than emotional or spiritual chaos. God, not secular philosophers or secular scientists, holds the intellectual high ground. Secondly, something in me rebelled against the idea that the truth was the domain of the "experts". The Bible never gives any hints that it is the experts in anything that get into heaven, not, at least, by reason of their expertise. They get in by being in touch with basic reality of the sort with which any one of us can be in touch. That meant that basic Biblical theology must be within the grasp of a fairly ordinary sort of mind. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is common sense -- of a sensibleness common to the human race (that to which Paul appeals in 2 Corinthians 4:1-2). I am hoping that the following will recommend itself in that way to the reader. Again, that is not to rule out grappling with difficult and abstruse problems by the experts. But the basic understanding of the revelation of a personal God is not something one needs a college degree to grasp. One needs only to be a reasonably healthy person. Thirdly, and related to the above, something kept telling me, in often strange ways, that truth is inherently sacramental, that is, that spiritual truth is fundamentally related to this world of space and time, that the invisible and spiritual is quite at home in and manifested through the physical and material. The whole Judeo-Christian worldview, including the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is common sense intellectually, and also sensorily. We are made in the Image of God -- in (of all things) our sexual nature.(1) The physical manifests the spiritual. These three notions seemed to me fundamentally related to the Biblical doctrine of creation, that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and ourselves in His image. A theology of the Imago Dei is absolutely fundamental to our conveying the Gospel to a modern world. That means that no theology can be Christian without first being Judeo. The Hebrew doctrine of creation, which is the foundation of all true monotheism, separates the Biblical worldview from all other philosophies, religions, psychologies, and anthropologies. (The single except to that is Islam, which is, in a sense Biblical, but being its own special case -- is incapable, I believe, of the kind of theology or psychology to which this book points. But that is an issue for another book.) Today I am absolutely sure that these things are true. All of this was poured into the crucible of my life, along with the content of an extraordinary education at a (more or less) Episcopal college where I received a BA in philosophy, a beginning-to-deteriorate Episcopal seminary, and a (more or less) Anglican university where I did my doctorate on the relation between science and theology.(2)
1. See Chapter I below. 2. Trinity College, Hartford, CT; the Episcopal General Theological Seminary, in New York City; and Oxford University, England.

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A large percentage of what is said in this book is Biblical or JudeoChristian, because it is built on the Genesis account of creation, on the principle that the basic entities in the cosmos are persons, not things (atoms, molecules, etc.) or essences or abstractions, and that the primary value in life is personal relationship. Our primary relationship is with God (first Great Commandment) and our secondary relationships are with each other (second Great Commandment). Our brokenness and wholeness all has to do with holiness, our being made in the Image of God. The specifically Christian part of this book has to do with salvation and the healing of the brokenness, how, through Christ, God makes Himself present to us.

B. Failure of Nerve
Western Civilization is properly identified by its two crown jewels: science and due process in civil law (as in a democratic republic under God). Both of these (contrary to received opinion) are rooted in the Biblical worldview, not in secularism -- which means that Western Civ. is Judeo-Christian Civ. But the Christian community has managed to reject both jewels, which have been thus coopted by the secular community, to the dismay and ruin of Western Christendom. Even since the first writing of this book in the late 1980s, Western Civilization has continued to erode ever more rapidly, now to the point of collapse. Europe is on a course to demographic self-destruction, hostile Muslims are filling the void, and the intense rejection of Judeo-Christian religion deepens. Europe is no longer even reproducing itself, and America is just barely doing so. We kill one fourth of our children, and replace our shrinking population only by immigration -- much of it illegal. We are being eroded from within by so-called liberal democracy (which is neither liberal nor democratic) and by pagan sexuality, and attacked from without by a militant Islam, with little effective response to any of these from the divided Christian community.(3) Annie Dillard tells of watching frogs jumping away from her path as she walked along the edge of an island. One did not jump:
He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my very eyes like a deflated football. I watched the taut, glistening skin on his shoul3. Americans, of all people, should know from our founding history that democracy, by itself, is a problem, not a solution, and rejected by the founding fathers in favor of a constitutional republic under God. This, of course, has democratic elements, but they are guided by a constitution which limits the power of the majority.

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ders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon, part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing. I gaped bewildered, appalled. An oval shadow hung in the water behind the drained form; then the shadow glided away.(4)

The shadow was a giant water bug, which inserts an enzyme into its victim, dissolving the body contents but not the skin, which are then sucked out by the bug. Western Civilization has had an acid enzyme inserted into its system which has all but dissolved its immune system, its truth- and righteousness-discerning systems, and the Dark Shadow bids fair to suck the contents from the collapsing remains. Historian and social critic, Christopher Lasch, author of The Culture of Narcissism and of The Minimal Self, wrote in the latter book:
With the help of an elaborate network of therapeutic professions, which themselves have largely abandoned approaches stressing introspective insight in favor of coping and behavior modification, men and women today are trying to piece together a technology of the self, the only apparent alternative to personal collapse.(5)

Christine Rosen, another commentator, notes:

In a much-discussed 2004 article in Psychology Today, Hara Estroff Marano bluntly argued that the hothouse parenting techniques of todays mothers and fathers are creating a nation of wimps. With few challenges all their own, kids are unable to forge their creative adaptations to the normal vicissitudes of life, Marano wrote. That not only makes them risk-adverse, it makes them psychologically fragile, riddled with anxiety. In the process theyre robbed of identity, meaning, and a sense of accomplishment, to say nothing at a shot at real happiness. The result, Marano said, is new levels of psychological distress among the young, including rising rates of depression, whose occurrence among children in the 1990s surpassed that of people over the age of 40.(6)

Western Civilization is experiencing a failure of nerve such as experienced by the High Hellenic period of ancient Greece, which flourished for a very short time, and then, unable to sustain that marvelous vision of beauty and balance, fell headlong into the Hellenistic lowlands.(7) And, apart from the magnificent balance manifested in art form, Greek culture was in many areas very unbalanced -- half of the population being slave to the other, and women treated like chattel. The driving force in secular or pagan societies will always drift toward pleasure, power, and pride. Or, good feelings, coercion, and self. Or, libido, aggression, and survival. Ancient Greece was no exception. Gender roles were unbalanced by a fierce masculinism. And the rule of the strong, despite extraordinary philosophical efforts to find the meaning of justice, prevailed both philosophically and in practice over the weak. Might made right. Greece was continually wracked by inter-polis warfare. Greek culture did not have the
4. 5. 6. 7. Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 5-6. Quoted by Christine Rosen in The Overpraised American, Policy Review, October/November 2005, p 43. Christine Rosen, ibid. P. 34. This tragic cultural decay is described by Gilbert Murray in The Five Stages of Greek Religion.

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Biblical worldview, in which alone such poise and balance as it attained in the arts could be sustained. It remained a vision, a hope -- and then, as a political force, disappeared in the eternal power struggle under the heel of Phillip and Alexanders rising Macedonian empire. Western Civ. is steadfastly demolishing its own Biblical roots, and so experiencing the same inner erosion of spirit and personhood. As St. Augustine, in The City of God, warned Rome, any culture which does not submit itself to the purposes of God will eventually disappear. The West, signaled by the French Revolution (with America about 75 years behind the European Continent), launched into a rebellious and fatal attempt at independence, not from Louis XIV or George III, but from God. In the name of secularized (not real) science, the West has systematically depersonalized its worldview -- all the while promoting the illusion that we ourselves could continue on as personal beings. Following Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner wrote his behaviorist psychology and philosophy as the summit of rationality, not realizing, apparently, that in doing so, he had eradicated himself as a rational human being, now only an accidental consequence of the accidental of forces impinging upon him. Why would any rational human being (should any be found) choose to listen to one whose own psychology destroys him as a psychologist? But, following these pied-pipers of behaviorism, Westerners have depersonalized their world, and therefore themselves, probably at a deeper level than any other culture in history, and so have become numbed and calloused to the spiritual world -- not because that world does not exist as our fundamental basis, but because we have blinded ourselves. We are living in denial, so neither dependency nor obedience makes sense. Other less technically advanced cultures are more open to the spiritual life and thus to the Gospel. They, too, will fall victim to the massive depersonalization as technology spreads -- if we do not rediscover God as the Creator of heaven and earth, including technology. We have taken at face value the words of Satan to Eve, You will be like God, knowing good and evil, discounting the words of God, for on the day you eat of it, you shall die... We try to experience ourselves as the impossible -- as independent, autonomous decision-makers, as ontologically and morally self-sufficient. We defeated darkness and distance, and then brought communication and information to heel, and thought our technology had won the day for us. We no longer experience ourselves as creatures, creation being a notion which we have rejected for impersonal evolution. No longer creatures, we want to be the Creator, some believing that we can control the levers of evolution. And so we have become like what we worship -- increasingly depersonalized, numbed, and insensitive to personhood itself, and to the mothering and

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fathering by which alone persons can be raised up. And thus we become numbed to the nature of community life, sharing, and healthy mutual interdependence. We hardly know how to love (make our lives available to, lay down our lives for) our neighbor as ourselves, or even want to. It just does not fit any more. Neighborhoods, except in the least meaningful geographic sense, hardly exist in America. Nineteenth century secularism launched a full-scale attack on the Biblical foundations of Western Civilization, much of it dishonestly and subversively, aided and abetted by a newly discovered psychological tool, mind-control, transmogrified into progressive education and a mandatory public school system.(8) Christendom had no credible resources of defense, let alone offense. Christians lost the battle for the 19th century, and whimpered their way into the 20th with tails between their legs, pleading for a place at the table. With just a few exceptions, we were driven from the public arena. If you put a weapon in the hands of American manhood and point him at a real enemy, he still does a credible job, almost as though he has again found himself. But American manhood has no intellect, stomach, or backbone for the spiritual war which rages. We have become a nation, as Robert Bly has said, of soft males.(9) Apart from sex and violence, manhood and womanhood are almost total mysteries to most Westerners -- including Christians, and the Biblical version is anathema (where it is even anymore understood). But secularists, who thought they had won the war, did not reckon with our dependent human nature -- which mandates that we will be formed and shaped by the very impersonalism of the world in which we have come to believe. We are being depersonalized, our personhood is being eroded -- a fact to which Westerners have yet to catch on. We are becoming more and more like that which we worship. In the name of secularized science, we are systematically de-ontologizing, de-moral-izing, dis-integrating, dis-easing our own nature as persons. But our personhood cannot withstand the dissing. We are, at the start of the 21st century AD, well down that path. There is hardly a spiritual leader, a clergyman, anywhere to be found, a politician, an educator, a public leader of any sort -who has the intellectual, moral, or spiritual capacity to call (for example) the homosexual agenda publicly -- with truth and grace -- to account.(10) Western Christians are largely oblivious -- unaware and unarmed in the
8. Read, for example, B. K.Eakman, The Cloning of the American Mind - the Eradication of Morality through Education. Or, Samuel Blumenfeld, Is Public Education Necessary? and NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education. Or, John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education. 9. See Robert Bly, Iron John. Bly is a secular, perhaps pagan, person, with no apparent ties to the Biblical worldview. But he sees something terribly amiss in our gender roles and relationships. 10. See Homosexuality: Good & Right in the Eyes of God? the Wedding of Truth to Compassion and Reason to Revelation in Bibliography. Also, http://theRoadtoEmmaus.org for abundant materials on the homosexuality issues. Go to the Top Page or Road Map for Sexuality libraries.

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spiritual battle raging for Western Civ. We are waving a rubber sword with our britches falling down around our knees. Robert Bly describes the soft male, which he finds epidemic in the West -- the failure of the warrior, the father who will stand and protect his family, not only militarily, but more importantly, spiritually.(11) Western Civ. -- which has had its great and noble moments -- is today a pathological and sinful culture inhabited by pathological, sinful, and oblivious citizens. As one writer put it, Fifty years ago, no one would have thought that real men, who instinctively protected women and children, would transmogrify into eunuchs who send women into combat and murder the unborn.(12) The critique of the West from the Muslim world is much too accurate for comfort. But the independent, autonomous decision-makers of our brave new world have lost their way, and do not know how to repent. We, at one point, were killing one third of our babies in the womb. Mercifully, that dropped in the 1990s to only one fourth. But the emotional and spiritual spin-off from that silent holocaust is devastating to the perpetrators and to the apathetic, as well as to the babies. The pathology is apparent, especially and increasingly among our youth. The Independent (London, July 27, 2004) wrote of an epidemic of self-harm, 170,000 a year in England, most of them teens and young adults. In America we have, probably for the first time in human history, children in school taking up deadly weapons against their mates -- for fun. We are increasingly treating ourselves like machines -- trying to fix this and that with chemical cocktails. We are becoming more and more like the world in which we think we live. And it is not working. Not working... For most people, I suppose, that would mean something like setting us free within and among ourselves to pursue truth and righteousness with a loving spirit. If that is the definition of working, it is not working. And worse, many people appear not to even be asking the question as to whether their life is working. We are seduced and satiated by a welfare, nofault, entitlement mentality so that we hardly think we ought to take care of ourselves. Someone who owes it to us will see to it. That is a pathological and a sinful society. We have not, as Freud thought, scienced ourselves into a new realitybased culture. We have imagined ourselves into our own cosmic tomb, a depersonalized world which eats up persons -- like Annie Dillards giant water bug.(13)
11. Robert Blys book, Iron John, put before the public one of the most serious erosions of Western culture, the collapse of masculinity. Since the beginning of Promise Keepers, a ministry for men, and The Church Impotent, a book by Leon Podles, there has been a slowly escalating addressing of this issue. 12. R. Cort Kirkwood in Roe vs. Wade for Men?, Chronicles, May, 2006, p. 6. 13. See Freud & Religion: a Psycho-Historical Reality-Check in Bibliography.

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C. Rebuilding Credibility
But some are catching on. By the grace of God, the waters of life continue to well up in the middle of the desert. A reality-based (what other kind could there be) Christianity alone can save Western (Judeo-Christian) Civ. from continuing and total self-dissolution back into a despairing paganism. Spiritual renewal requires a renewed understanding of our own human nature. And that can be found only in a renewed understanding of the Living God -- in whose Image we are made. In the latter 20th century, sprouts of serious Christian intellectual and artistic renewal began, in small pockets, to resurface. The 21st century promises to be quite another story as, around the globe, Christianity is steadily converting the world. But not yet in the West. The almost total collapse of Christian intellectual credibility in the West brought with it the collapse of moral and spiritual credibility as well. Christians have yet a long way to go before recapturing either the intellect, imagination, or spirit of Westerners. Why this focus on cultural decay in a book on personal inner healing? Because one cannot separate personal from cultural wholeness. A pathological culture breeds pathological citizens. And because citizens who are spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally healthy (rooted in and obedient to God) can transform a sinful and pathological culture. The collapse of Judeo-Christian culture led directly to the horrendous carnage of the 20th century, and to a culture which does not know how to raise up sturdy, capable, and free persons. Only God does, and we have abandoned Him in the public arena, paying attention (more or less) to Him only in our truncated private lives. Two issues dominate the problem, but most Christians, including pastors, today are unaware of either problem, let alone the solutions. The two problems are epistemology (how we know what we know) and worldview (in what kind of cosmos do we live?). For at least two centuries, Christians have not been able to explain how we know the truth of the Christian faith and Gospel, so we are not thought to have intellectual credibility. And we have almost completely lost track of the Biblical worldview and its astonishingly unique character, so we have not been able to respond convincingly to secular materialism. The recovery of our faith credibility, our Biblical worldview and a Biblical understanding of human nature will go a long way towards raising up those persons who will one day reclaim the West for God. That project is already underway around the world. It has been said that God wrote two books, not just one. God wrote the

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Book of Creation first, and then He wrote the Book of Scripture because we messed up the first book. We decided that we did not want to be creatures, we wanted to be independent, autonomous decision-makers. The Book of Scripture was written to bring us back to the first Book, to lead us back again into creation, back to our own creaturehood. If the most stable and unchangeable thing in existence is the Image of God, then persons fully made in that Image will be the second most durable and stable beings. How would one read the Book of Creation? By accurate observation and by careful reasoning from those observations to conclusions -- by the methods of science. Christians ought to be the best scientists available. But because we violated the principles of reality contact upon which the whole of Biblical religion is built, because we managed to make an enemy of science and gave it into the hands of secularists, we therefore lost the battle for modernity. We became more interested in being Christian than in pursuing the truth. Nevermind that Jesus advised us that truth would set us free. Any Christianity arrived at in contradiction to truth-seeking will not pass muster with Jesus. The result for the last several centuries was a steady erosion of the Biblical worldview, a steady erosion of Judeo-Christian credibility in the mind of the public. And a steady drift back into legalism because we had lost contact with our own Biblical roots -- which tell us of a world which is fundamentally and irreducibly personal -- the creation of a personal God. Most Christians today, if what one hears bandied about is any indication, do not understand the connection between basic Christian doctrine and personal relationship. The problem goes back to the earliest days when Christians were first advancing into the pagan world of Greek philosophy and Roman government, which were based on a worldview and a philosophical structure which were inherently and irredeemably impersonal. What, then, would it look like if we lived in a cosmos which is essentially personal? A cosmos created by Someone whose very Image was the definition of personhood? And what difference would it make to be created (or redeemed and recreated) in His image? What difference would that make to our understanding of our own human nature? And how would that help us to become healed, strong, vibrant, joyfilled witnesses for God in Christ? Those are the questions we will be exploring. We will be forcing the antithesis rather than clouding the issues to be nice. Clarity always favors truth and unclarity always favors falsehood. Clarity also creates conflict, an antithesis, (as per John 3:19), but that is the price for truth to prevail. And when truth wins, everybody wins. We will be learning, among other things, how to read the Book of Creation, how to frame issues in terms that are generic, terms which any person would understand. We will learn how to ask questions which everyone is ask-

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ing just because they are alive, not merely questions which Christians are asking. We will, in that manner, be able to show that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is of (at least potential) interest to every human being, not merely to Christians, and that the answers which comprise that Gospel are the best (indeed, the only) viable, answers to those universal questions. We will be able to show compelling reason why any person might want to investigate this person Jesus, to see whether He can come through with His promise to lead to the Father. The material in this book will make major paradigm shifts away from commonly accepted notions, for both secular and Christian people. I do not believe that there are any infallible things within the created order, certainly not myself. So these thoughts are offered as fodder for continuing discussion and testing. Many of the ideas herein are just germinating, some perhaps misstated. Hopefully they will be filled out and corrected in the public debate. I am conservative in most of my conclusions about life, but I am a classic, Jeffersonian liberal in process, in how we get to those conclusions -- truth will emerge as we keep honest, candid, and mutually respectful discussion alive -as in, Come, let us reason together... (Isaiah 1:18.) Chapter One provides a brief introduction to some of the basic worldview and gender issues of emotional healing. But the reader is encouraged, if he wishes to delve deeply into these issues, to undergird this present reading with a set of video (or audio) tapes, Yahweh or the Great Mother?, which describes the radical differences between the Biblical worldview and its opposition, the secular/pagan worldview. Also very helpful will be a dual set on sexuality and gender, Man & Woman in the Image of God describing the Biblical gender order, and its opposite, Human Sexuality: the Secular Debacle, describing the massive and tragic failure of the secular/pagan attempt at being sexual. This present book will stand on its own feet, but a knowledge of the worldview and gender issues will help make some of this book leap off the page more readily.(14) I hope it will help open Heavens doors for you, dear reader.

D. Anglican Foundations
The Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church has been a branch, is a long, long way from being the Kingdom of God on earth. I have wondered at times why God had me in this branch of His Church. But I have never failed to appreciate a particular gift of the Anglican Communion -- to resist letting go of the various elements of the truth, even when we were not
14. See Bibliography for availability of Yahweh or the Great Mother? a comprehensive description of worldview issues.

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quite sure what to do with some of them or how they fit together into the big picture. Anglicans have a way of putting things on a back shelf which they do not understand rather than throwing them out, trusting that, in due time, God will show us where they fit. Christian denominations have tended to splinter along the lines of some particular doctrine or pet practice, often hurling anathemas, and sometimes rocks, arrows, or bullets, at folks who do not share their beliefs. The Anglican approach (at least after the Glorious Revolution of the 1660s), for better or for worse, has been to be very cautious about tightly defining doctrinal standards. We have no doctrine of infallibility or inerrancy, much to the chagrin of both the Roman Catholic and the fundamentalist-evangelical wings of Christendom.(15) Anglicans have felt it is better to err on the side of looseness to prevent reading someone out of the Kingdom whom God has allowed in, rather than the other way around. Such a strategy works only if accompanied by a serious and sturdy intellectual credibility, a passion for truth. Failure in these intellectual and theological realms, due as much to lack of moral courage as to lack of intellect, has led to a great deal of ambiguity and mushy thinking, for which the whole of the Anglican Communion, and especially the Episcopal Church, are today paying a very dear price.(16) But it has also allowed unrecognized truth to survive in an otherwise hostile environment. One might not guess it from the standard of education and spiritual awareness typical of an Episcopal congregation in America, but the Anglican Communion stands four square on the Bible as the standard of teaching. Nothing may be taught as necessary for salvation which is not reasonably provable from Scripture. And the Book of Common Prayer, until the backsliding of the 1960s and 70s, gave to serious worshippers a diet of Scripture second to none in Christendom. The Anglican Communion also is very much aware of the value of tradition as the gift of God through our forefathers. And, as a part of our sacramental ethos, we are committed to the full use of our experiencing and reasoning powers in our search for truth and understanding of who God is. On the other hand, although I started off a rather staid Episcopal priest, I have found it wise to ignore denominational boundaries. The staidness was killing me. Most of my prayer partners over the last twenty years have been Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, and Catholic of one brand or another. Yes, there are legitimate theological issues, but the Spirit of God, for the most part, ignores our denominational nonsense. It is my belief that the true Church will combine, in Godly order, the evangelical, catholic, and charismatic tradi15. See Chapter X on the authority of Scripture for further comments about how infallibility fits rightly into the Biblical view. 16. This story is documented in Homosexuality: Good & Right in the Eyes of God? chapter III, The Church Has AIDS.

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tions. As we are told (Ecclesiastes 4:12), a three-fold cord is not easily broken. All of these elements have been part of the mix which has produced myself and this book. So Biblical Inner Healing is, in a sense, my own story. There is little in the book which has not been tested, and indeed discovered, in the trenches of my own life, which means that I owe much of this to countless persons who have in various ways discipled me, sometimes without either of us knowing it. My hope is that in some significant way God will speak His truth and that the healing ministry of the Church will be furthered and strengthened through these pages. This book aims at those who want to dig into the intellectual issues, to have minds transformed by truth, as Paul urges in Romans 12:1-2. The transformation of the mind is not merely intellectual, but it is at least that. We must learn how to explain why we believe what we believe. Christians have lost their intellectual credibility, and terribly dishonored God by passing that reputation on to Him. We will be talking much about the transformation of mind, will, and imagination because our wholeness depends heavily on our reality contact. God has only reality to offer, so we had better learn how to identify it. My testimony is written out, for those interested, in the preface to Homosexuality: Good & Right in the Eyes of God? the Wedding of Truth to Compassion and Reason to Revelation. It is also available at http://theRoadtoEmmaus.org. * * * Much of this work has been previously made available through courses I have taught and through cassette tapes made from the lectures and workshops of those courses. For those interested, the following is the list cassette tapes whose material has been used in this book, although the book goes well beyond most of the tape material. B-1 The Decision to Be Well B-1.1 Being the Real I B-2 The Healing Alliance B-3 Imaging Jesus B-4 The Healing of Memories - Biblical or Occult? B-6 Repentance and Forgiveness: The Healing of the Will A-3.4 The Warp in the Unconscious Also of interest is Yahweh or the Great Mother?, a two cassette (audio or video) describing the Biblical and the Secular/Pagan worldviews, and its sequel, Man and Woman in the Image of God, describing the Biblical understanding of human gender and sexuality based on our being made in the Image of God -- male and female. Information on these and other items may be found in the Bibliography.

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* * * This fourth edition is different from the third by reason of the new paperback formatting. And some of the content has been significantly updated, amplified, and text tightened. In chapter II, the original four decisions to be well have become five decisions, the third being split into three and four, which clarifies the issues of responsibility. Much of my understanding of the connection between feelings and relationships, which has emerged over the time (since 1989) of my ministering to those coming out of homosexuality, has been incorporated, offering, I think, some powerful new ways of integrating psychology with Biblical faith. I want to thank those who have been so helpful in making the book possible, including my former parishioners and the many persons who have come for help and shared their lives so openly and poignantly. I thank my wife and three children who puzzled through the original writing about why I used to spend so much time at my typewriter, and then, with the coming of higher things, peering into that world of thoughts and concepts which seemed to lie behind the computer screen. I am especially indebted to the team and board members who helped minister to persons in East Haddam, Connecticut, Norwalk, Connecticut, Ambridge, Pennsylvania, and Alexandria, Virginia, as Emmaus Ministries and I moved to these places. Thanks also to Vision International Education Network in Ramona, California, and its president, Dr. Stan DeKoven, who have used this book for many years in their counseling courses, and who urged me to complete the publishing process by getting it into its present paperback form. Dr. DeKoven has also consented to the use of his study guide, to be found at the end of each chapter, thus enhancing the books value for those who wish to dig deeply into the materials, into themselves, and into their relation with God and their fellow human beings. Their version is here adapted with alterations and additions. And finally and especially I want to thank God for my own growth and healing, and for the extraordinary healing ministry that is e v e r s o s l o w l y developing in His Church among persons, clerical and lay, who have been touched by His healing power and have responded to His call to be channels of that marvelous grace. Gratia Deo. In the spring of 2006, after nearly a year with the Christian Community of Family Ministry in Vista, California, Emmaus Ministries and I moved to La Habra, California, to teach at Biola University nearby, and to become part of the raising up of young adults into intellectual, moral, and spiritual maturity as part of the new Gideon Army which will retake Western Civ. for Jesus. As I edit this fourth edition, the Episcopal Church is self-destructing. The

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bridge of the ship has been taken over by sexual revisionists and purveyors of other assorted anti-Christ agendas -- that is to say, by pagan and secular people parading as Christians. (And America shows all the signs of treading down the same murky path.)(17) The (more or less) orthodox minority has shown no signs of standing up to the nonsense. But with help from foreign (chiefly African and Asian) Anglicans, we might be able to establish an alternative orthodox Anglican province in North America, and leave the once flagship Episcopal Church to break up on the reefs of heresy, apostasy, and rebellion. There will, I believe, be no healing possible for the Episcopal Church in either direction unless the pathologically polite Anglicans (and other spiritual and political leaders of the West) will challenge sexual revisionists to defend their behavior in public. This self-destruction of the Episcopal Church in the name of sexual progress is yet one more evidence that Judeo-Christian (i.e., Western) culture has long been in serious (but temporary) retreat. A Dark Age of neo-barbarism is upon us, thus putting us back again in a pre-Christian era. Our task is to prepare for picking up the pieces when the sham about relative truth, inclusiveness, and pseudo-pluralism, not only in the Church but across Western Civilization, collapses -- as signs are already showing. We Episcopalians have failed in the service of our God because we did not have (among other things) that inner spiritual fortitude to which this book points. Picking up the pieces will require Christians of emotional and spiritual stability -- forgiven, healed, and well-educated Christians. In any event, there is always a way forward in the Lord for those who desire wholeness in Him. Learning about inner healing, how to be our real selves, will be a major part of participating in that renewal as it comes.(18) For additional resources, go to the Road to Emmaus, a School of Christian Apologetics (see website below), which will have resources in Christian healing, and will note updates as they may occur to this volume. La Habra, California, Summer, 2006 http://theRoadtoEmmaus.org

17. See Homosexuality: Good & Right in the Eyes of God? the Wedding of Truth to Compassion and Reason to Revelation. Information available in bibliography, and at http://theRoadtoEmmaus.org This book, by David Virtue and myself documents almost all relevant issues on homosexuality -- the Biblical base for understanding human sexuality, how the West got sexualized, and how we are going to win this war for sexual sanity. 18. Ibid.

Dedicated to the continued recovery of the Healing Ministry of the Church, to the Norwalk, Connecticut, Emmaus Ministries Team which helped in so many conferences, and to all souls venturing in that direction.

Chapter I

Who Will Let Gene Out?

A. a Christian Psychology?
A-1. Inner Healing
The world of mythology, older sister to psychology, is full of symbols and images representing our own inner drives, desires, goals, both positive and negative. Most of us are familiar with the magic genie in the bottle from Tales of the Arabian Nights, who, when uncorked, will do the bidding of the possessor of the bottle. This genie can symbolize our yearnings for that free sense of selfhood, bottled and corked up within us. But the Jeannie or the Gene within was not corked up by a sorcerer's magic. Rather, Gene or Jeannie was a part of myself, as we shall see, which I shoved down into the bottle -- because I felt compelled to protect, or I could not tolerate the presence of, that part of myself. Or both. Who will let Jeannie out? Imagine yourself reliving a past memory. Think of the place -- who was there -- the emotional atmosphere -- the colors and sounds. Perhaps one of those hard times of your life when part of you got shoved into your bottle. Recall the details. Remember how you yourself felt being there. Then suppose something new to happen. Suppose, in addition to all of those circumstances you can recall, that one thing was different, namely that Jesus walked physically present into that situation just as you might have met Him on the streets of Jerusalem, A. D. 30, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Suppose Jesus showed up. It may seem an absurdly unimaginable supposition, but for God, that is not an impossibility. Ask yourself -- "What effect would His presence have had in that scene in my life? How would I have felt differently? How would the other persons there respond if I were to introduce them to my friend Jesus? Such a seemingly innocuous and childlike "what if" flight into fantasy may occur many times in a therapy process known as "the healing of memories", or more broadly, "inner healing". The discovery of the healing potential through use of the imagination has given us extraordinary insight

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into the nature of the human personality. This book is written to put this insight into its proper Biblical context. "Inner healing", in my usage, is the process of getting one's spiritual life together with one's emotional life. It a general term referring to a specifically Christian psychology, to be distinguished from "the healing of memories", which is a specific kind of event within inner healing -- walking back with Jesus into a memory for the healing of that memory. Inner healing also needs to be distinguished from spiritual formation or spiritual direction, which is the normal process of growing up into spiritual maturity. Others use the terms more narrowly. William Barry and William Connolly write in their book, The Practice of Spiritual Direction:
As we have come to understand it, spiritual direction differs from moral guidance, psychological counseling, and the practice of confessional, preaching, or healing ministries (although having affinities with them) in that it directly assists individuals in developing and cultivating their personal relationship with God. P. ix. We define Christian spiritual direction, then, as the help given by one Christian to another which enables that person to pay attention to Gods personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally, communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship. The focus of this type of spiritual direction is on experience, not ideas, and specifically on religious experience, i.e, any experience of the mysterious Other whom we call God. ...the focus of interest is the prayer experience of the directee. P. 10-11.

Inner healing as presented in this book might incorporate elements of any or all of the above mentioned modes of spiritual or psychological help. The typically imagined wall be-

tween secular psyche and spiritual soul vanishes. The wall exists only between the worldviews which different persons might hold. But as human beings, in the Biblical world, there is no distinction between soul and psyche. Psychologists are dealing with souls, although they may be dealing with those souls from a disadvantaged (secular) worldview. One might need inner healing when the spiritual maturation process gets derailed because of inner emotional turmoil such that the normal processes of spiritual growth -- prayer, worship, Bible study, etc. -- are not working. We each have a "bottle of repression" into which we stuff our unwanted feelings and emotions, with a cork sealed firmly on top. A part of ourselves becomes imprisoned in that bottle, unable to function with the rest of ourselves, yearning to get out, pressing up on the cork. We are unable to let ourselves out, and other persons seem to help only very partially. Who will let Gene out? Will Jeannie ever run free again? The Biblical claims for healing center finally on the person of Jesus. He told His disciples that if He went back to the Father, He would send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God, to dwell within us (John 14-16). The presence of the Spirit was associated with healing and abundant life. God was doing a specific thing to answer specific problems in our human nature. There was and is a discernible human nature to which God was addressing Himself, that very human nature designed by God. If we have a human nature, and if God is working to save that nature in us, then that human nature ought to be some-

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thing we could learn about so that we might better cooperate with the process of salvation and healing. That is (partly) what both revelation and psychology are about. We learn not only of God, but of ourselves - made in His image -- male and female. Although Christian spiritual healing will focus on Jesus, most of what is said in this book will, I believe, be compatible with a Jewish understanding of spiritual healing. At a time in history when both Jews and Christians are targeted culturally, politically, and militarily for extinction, it is well for Westerners to understand that Western culture is not just Christian, it is Judeo-Christian. Basic Christian theology, and certainly the theology in this book, comes out of the Torah. And since we are made in the Imago Dei, our basic anthropology and psychology must also come out of the Torah. How far we can go in working together in such matters without compromising our distinctive beliefs and testimonies remains to be seen, but we must make the effort. or ideas or essences, are the basic building blocks of the cosmos. -- what might be called a "personalist" view of the cosmos, a "personalist" philosophy. The basic reality is persons and their relationships. All else, including all of nature, is subsidiary to that. We do not emerge or evolve out of a prior and more basic substrate, neither a physical stuff (as in secular humanism) nor a spiritual stuff (as in Eastern religions). We are not cosmic accidents, a bit of accidental debris blown about on a cosmic sea of accidental debris, we are deliberately planned by a personal Creator and Sovereign over all things.(19) When we view life that way, all the rules change, including the rules for emotional healing. They also make more sense, and are more effective. Life, growth, healing are then all about our relation with God. In the beginning of the Christian Church, it was not imagined by anybody that the healing of souls would be separate from one's spiritual life. It was assumed that God was indeed the healer, and that as one came into a relation with Him, healing would take place. God was the source of healing.
19. Christians are beginning to recover their intellectual credibility in the debate with evolutionists. Many previous supporters of blind evolution are seeing that the cosmos is much too complex to have evolved by chance. The well-known atheist, Anthony Flew, in the 1990s decided that there must have been an Intelligent Designer -- in order to explain how a single cell has more information packed into it than the whole of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Scientists who are Christians have been in the forefront of the discussion, which has focussed as much on the honesty of the discussion as on the issues of evolution. For an excellent introduction, Touchstone Magazine published a full issue on the subject. http://www.touchstonemag.com/ See also the Discovery Institute at: http://www.discovery.org/ See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics.

A-2. Secular Enlightenment Impersonal Replaces Personal

Is a Biblical psychology possible? Would it be any more than a smattering of prayer pasted over secular psychology? Or would it mean an intrusion of anti-rational religion, Scripture quotes, and moralisms into the realm of scientific study? Can Jesus really set Gene free? Even in the dark realms of those hidden memories? A Biblical psychology rests on the Biblical worldview and the contention that we humans are modeled on the Image of God. In the Biblical view of reality, persons, not things, not atoms

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That was true also in the earlier paganism. Philosophy, psychology, and religion were all of a piece. But, secular attitudes arose, beginning in the late Middle Ages, emerging in the Renaissance and coming to full bloom in the secular side of the Enlightenment. Modern secularism was the triumph of the impersonal cosmos of paganism over the personal cosmos of Bible, with evolution diverting and overshadowing the real Enlightenment and the development of science in the personalist Biblical framework. Secularists were abetted by gross intellectual and moral failure among Christians, causing the split between the sacred and the secular to grow until the bridges between them collapsed into the widening chasm. Both Christian and secularist withdrew into a fortress mentality. Contrary to most Christian thinking, the Enlightenment (as defined by a commitment to reason) was not a secular event, it was inspired largely by the intellectual ferment of the Middle Ages which was coming to fruition, spurred partly by the rediscovery of ancient Greek philosophy. Greek philosophy had contributed a very valuable introduction to some of the tools of intellectual pursuit (observation of fact and logical deduction), but Hellenic culture was strapped by its pagan worldview, in which the intellectual grasping of the great questions was predetermined to fail.(20) The rise of science was a Biblical, not a secular or pagan, event, but Christians were frightened of the potential for honest intellectual inquiry to prove their case wrong, and so backed off from this venture into intellectual honesty, i.e., backed off from living in the light. And so the Enlightenment became defined as commitment to reason -- as opposed to the arbitrary authority of religion. The incapacity of Christian leadership for sustained intellectual inquiry on fundamental religious issues was largely responsible for the religious wars following the Reformation. Christians, rejecting the lead of Christian humanists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam. They were not willing to submit their views to open, public discussion based on the merit of their cases. The resulting mutual barbarism among alleged followers of Jesus during the post-Reformation religious wars was catastrophic, and used by many to justify the rejection of religion. So the real (i.e., Biblical) Enlightenment, was sabotaged by Christians themselves. God had given us both science and due process in civil law. But Christians have built walls between themselves and both politics and science. God could not have been pleased. The emergence of science paralleled the growth of secularism, but science was neither cause nor foundation of secularism. Scientific method was a gift from God to His own people (and, by its very nature, to anyone else
20. Read The Five Stages of Greek Religion, by Gilbert Murray. Murray does not defend the Biblical worldview, but he does trace the failure of the high Hellenic era, deteriorating rapidly in what he calls, The Failure of Nerve. My contention is that the Hellenic worldview could not sustain those heights, and that the true emergence of the intellectual pursuit would have to wait for the Biblical world to establish itself, i.e., for the rise of science at the end of the Middle Ages. See also, Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcey. Her chapter 2, especially p. 74 ff., contains one of the best summaries of why and how Hellenic philosophy undermined the whole of the Biblical worldview. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics.

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who would listen). Reason and revelation are the two edges of the Sword of the Spirit. That was God's intention for His Enlightenment. But John 3:19 prevailed, and Christian leaders left the open and level battle field and headed for the safer shadows.(21) The emerging secularism was based largely on the impersonalism of the Greek philosophical worldview, i.e., on rejection of the Biblical doctrine of creation. Hellenic thought patterns had been widely adopted by Christians, though poorly adapted, and hence eventually overshadowed much of the personalist foundation of Biblical theology.(22) Christians, from the very earliest times, had rightly made use of the philosophical tools developed by Greek philosophers, but in doing so had mistakenly imported much of the impersonal worldview as well, wreaking subtle havoc in the development of Biblical theology. Science was rooted in the Biblical worldview as much as in Hellenic thought tools, but science was used far more effectively by secular than by Judeo-Christian forces in the spiritual warfare of the developing modern era, so that the scientific way of looking at things soon came to be seen as proving the irrelevance or non-existence of God. Science has never done anything of the sort, even though secular scientists have championed that ef21. See Reason, Revelation, and Politics in bibliography for the story of how Christians dropped the ball with science and reason, and how they will recover the high ground. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics. 22. Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey is an excellent summary of the disconnect between Biblical and Hellenic thought, and of the damage done to Christendom by the undercurrent adoption of Hellenic worldview via philosophical presuppositions.

fort. It should be noted that, even giving secularists their whole argument for evolution (which is undeserved), they gain only an alternative explanation for existence, they do nothing at all to disprove the Biblical explanation. But Christians interpreted the rise of evolution as a defeat. The defeat was emotional and spiritual, not intellectual -- a PR coup.(23) The historical truth is that science developed in one and only one culture in human history, despite the fact that many other cultures had the technical foundation for such an event. Science developed in Western Europe at the end of a thousand years of culture steeped and saturated in Christian thinking, believing, and practice. That Christian culture was often deeply marred to be sure, but it was Biblical and Christian to an extent that few other cultures of that size and duration had ever been. Science did not develop in opposition to the Biblical worldview, but as a natural, even necessary, flowering of it. Science required the Biblical view of life in order to develop.(24)

A-3. Religion & Psychology

In the last two centuries, nevertheless, the Christian community had become persuaded that the real healing of souls belonged to that growing army of those who hung out their shingles as secular psychotherapists.
23. To pursue the evolution/creation matter further, visit http://theroadtoemmaus.org/1NET/LibSits/ 0ApolSts.htm, or http://www.reasons.org/index.shtml. Touchstone magazine had a whole issue dedicated to the recent demise of evolution. 773 481-1090 or http://www.touchstonemag.com/

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gion for many, the hoped-for source of well-being and inner peace which people had previously sought in their religious traditions. The quest for an authority-less cosmos was in full swing, symbolized by the 1962 Engel vs. Vitale case in which the Supreme Court banned prayer in public schools, marking an immediate downhill plunge of American culture.(27) That was followed in 1973 by Roe v. Wade legalizing the killing of human beings in the womb at will, all on the grounds of an illusory moral autonomy, supported by several other Supreme Court decisions. The course of psychotherapy, however, has been anything but smooth, and the secular version has Such neuroses are the products of unnecessary and artificially imposed infenot proven to be the supplier of inner riority, guilt, and fear, commonly known as emotional peace and well-being for sin... These neuroses, of course, develop which many had hoped. Secular psybecause of morality, the concept of right chology has never even begun to beand wrong... Psychiatry must free the stow the joy of life which the Church race from the crippling burden of good has experienced in any age when it has and evil.(26) been Spirit filled and intellectually He would have certainly included alert. The American mental health religion in general. Except that... secprofession and its program designed to ular psychotherapy became a new relimeet the needs of society have been under sustained criticism from many 24. Personality, Empiricism, and God is the title of my doctoral thesis on the relation between theology and quarters, both within and without the Almost without exception such persons were persuaded that traditional Judeo-Christian religion was either an illusion and a symptom of neurotic tendencies (as per Sigmund Freud), or at best an optional extra (for those who like that sort of thing). Real healing certainly did not require belief in God, and probably would get along better without Him. God was seen by many as a bad father figure at best, a finger-shaking parent whose primary attitude toward is disapproval.(25) G. Brock Chisholm, first director of the UNs World Health Organization, argued that we must free the human race from the negative power of morality:
science. In that I show why empirical science as a matter of logic cannot get off the ground without the Biblical notion of a personal Creator God. Be on the lookout for its publication by Emmaus Ministries (www.theRoadtoEmmaus.org). See also the excellent work of Hugh Ross who heads Reasons to Believe, a ministry of Christian apologetics. Ross is both a pastor and an astronomer. His ministry can be reached through their website: www.reasons.org or telephone: 626-335-1480 Phillip Johnson has written Darwin on Trial, among the first of a spate of books critiquing Darwinism, which, at the turn of the new millennium, is in serious trouble from the philosophical and scientific point of view. See bibliography for works of these authors. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics. 25. The popular psychology book of the late 1960s, Im OK, Youre OK, by Thomas Harris, feeds on this hostility towards authority figures. The parent figure is always the finger pointing, critical parent, never the loving strong father or mother. Harris wants us to believe that the kenosis, the self-emptying of Jesus, was His exclusion of the Father, not His devotion to the Father. The kenosis would then be the final freedom from authority outside of ourselves (the only kind there can be). P. 267-8 Avon Books, 1969. The death of Father-God was, in essence, the death of God of the 1960s. 26. Reported by Dorothy A. Faber in the July/August issue of The Christian Challenge. 27. See David Barton, Original Intent, for the astonishing story -- available from www.Wallbuilders.com

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profession itself. Psychiatry itself has, in the last twenty years, centered much of its efforts on drug therapy, and been thereby partly responsible for the burgeoning drug usage to which a large segment of our society is firmly addicted, and for the quest for an easy way out, a quick fix, rather than dealing with the essential spiritual and moral issues of our lives. It would be unfair to say that secular psychology, including the legitimate use of drugs, has brought no blessings or new understandings of human nature. But something very deep and important is missing from the picture. Carl Jung has been taken by many as pointing to a reunion between religion and psychology. Jung had a very positive attitude toward religion as such, and was not, as Freud, openly hostile toward the Biblical tradition. But Jung made no secret that his wedding of psychology and religion was inspired primarily by Eastern sources, Hindu scriptures, in particular. Jung and the Hindu tradition not withstanding, it is impossible to bring the Biblical tradition together with that of eastern religions. The Bible gives us a picture of the cosmos which is not compatible with that of the Eastern mindset, and any attempt to wed the two will result only in the Biblical view being twisted to fit into the very framework which is its archenemy in the spiritual warfare being waged.(28) This is not to imply that aspects of Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian, or other secular psychologies cannot be used by Christians. Truth is truth wherever it appears. There have been many
28. See chapter VI-B below, Pagan/Secular vs. Biblical Inner Healing on page 233.

helpful discoveries by those outside of the Biblical camp. Christians, to our shame, have often dogmatically rejected aspects of truth discovered by others. Secular psychologists have often rightly chastised Christians for being morally judgmental and lacking in understanding of the inner need and brokenness of the human race, for a narrow focus on sin to the exclusion of healing. The secular error was thinking that they, not God, had the answer to both deep needs -- sin and brokenness. But the Biblical worldview is the only cosmic framework within which the various truths of life can be put together in such a manner that we can live these truths in a non-self-destructive way. In short, if the personal God of Scripture is not at the center, life will not work. It will come to a point of failure no matter how many bits and pieces of truth we might have collected. To have many pieces of the puzzle of life is not yet to have put that puzzle together into a life-giving whole. However, I am not attempting to prove a case against secular psychologies in these pages (though I will take an occasional pot shot...), but chiefly to present a part of the Biblical case. I offer this challenge to promote open discussion on some of the most vital issues we humans face. I believe that as the Biblical case emerges, it will carry conviction by its own inherent common sense and the inner testimony of the Living God.

A-4. A Biblical Psychology

The decades of the '70's, '80's, and '90's have witnessed a reawakening (if painfully slow) of Christian people to

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the depth and breadth and power of their own spiritual heritage -- not least, the healing ministry of the Church. More out and out miracles of healing are happening today than at any time in human history, because more Christians are believing God and submitting their lives to Him. From the Kingdom point of view, healing is not an extraordinary event. It is of the ordinary. Jesus considered it a matter of course that He would heal the sick, and marveled at the lack of faith among those to whom He ministered. That is because Jesus considered a personal relationship with God to be of the ordinary. I had the good fortune to study under Dr. Edmund Cherbonnier, professor of religion at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, in the l950's, who taught courses both on the Bible and on far Eastern religions. There are only two ways of looking at the world, he taught, the Biblical way and the way of the Perennial Philosophy". The Perennial Philosophy is typified by far eastern religion such as Hinduism, which has made great inroads into Western Civilization.(29) He further taught, much to our surprise, that of the two basic choices, only the Biblical worldview has a clear logical consistency and is therefore philosophically respectable, a view which I still hold. Not only is there such a thing as a Biblical psychology, this book is written on the premise that likewise a Biblical psychology is the only empirically workable and logically consistent psychology. Nothing else can
29. Aldous Huxley wrote a book, The Perennial Philosophy, describing that worldview, a classic on the subject. Fontana Books, 1958, London.

explain so effectively and helpfully our human nature. Psychology is the study of a Goddesigned human nature. It ill behooves Christians to turn up their noses at the mention of "psychology" as though it were a secular disease. Everyone has a psychology, that is, a belief about human nature. It is not a question of whether we "believe in" psychology, but of whether or not the psychology we do believe describes us human beings as we really are. One cannot oppose the Bible to psychology, for the Bible has its own unique psychology, its own teaching about what human nature is -- what constitutes health, what constitutes illness, and how we get from one to the other -- centered on the Imago Dei. Conservative Christians have often not seen the world as God's world, focusing on the fallenness of things and on doctrines of salvation without sufficient undergirding of creation doctrine. One meets an attitude that there is something smelling of the enemy about psychology itself, and that to be involved in psychology is already to mark oneself as tainted and sold out to secularism. But scientifically investigating our souls is not selling out to secularism. Rather it is a necessary part of the fulfilling of the mandate to have dominion over the world in a Godly manner (Genesis 1:26 ff.). Liberal Christians, on the other hand, often have a hard time distinguishing the Godly from the worldly (sometimes even God from the world), and reject anything "too Biblical" as perjoratively "fundamentalist". The present book runs risks from both camps. My methodology is liberal in the old, classical sense: I accept

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scientific method as a legitimate and necessary part of the Biblical tradition, indeed of any tradition that seriously claims itself to be teaching the truth about life. Scientific method is a gift from God, one of the primary fruits of Biblical culture. Science could not have happened without that Biblical culture.(30) Christians are thus bound to respect the truth from any legitimate source. My conclusions on the other hand are fairly (some would say radically) conservative. The Bible does indeed convey to us a unique and unequaled revelation from God about Himself. The liberal, i.e. scientific, approach of free inquiry leads to the conservative view of the content of Biblical Christianity.(31) There is much to be said about a Biblical psychology beyond the process of inner healing itself. A psychology is Biblical to the degree that it understands the soul in Biblical terms, that we are created in the Image of God, that we have a nature defined by God, with a purpose given by God, and that we persons live (despite the Fall) in a person-friendly world, not a world essentially impersonal and therefore inherently destructive of personal values and realities. A Biblical psychology, in other words, is rooted in Biblical theology and anthropology. An honest and competent psychology (from the Biblical point of view) is a description of the soul, how it works, and of its inherent need for God.
30. Stanley Jaki has written extensively and brilliantly on this matter. See bibliography for a listing of his writings. See also footnote, page 6. 31. The Jesus Seminar not withstanding, see Chapter X on The Role of the Bible for more discussion on this matter of conservative vs. liberal.

Like any other worldview, the Biblical worldview will have to stand on its own merits and fight its own battles against the competition. But that is where a Biblical psychology and anthropology stand. When Christians compromise their understanding of psychology by importing fundamentally secular or pagan ideas, as we have over the last two hundred years to make ourselves relevant, we lose our own integrity and have little to show for our errors by any measurable standard. The Bible has a clear and comprehensive view of human nature, including our unconscious and our sexual natures, which surpasses anything the secular or pagan worlds can offer. Although the Bible is a book neither on philosophy nor on psychology, it nevertheless does give us a comprehensive cosmic picture which contains implied within it both a philosophy and a psychology. The basic psychological and philosophical presuppositions of the Bible are true and substantial, and can be shown to be so. A Christian psychology or inner healing is not a warmed over secular psychology, it is not an end run around Jesus or the cross life. It is not a diversion from the grace of God. It is not another "do-it-yourself religion". It is not a "quick fix". A Christian psychology has its own unique identity rooted in the two defining aspects of the nature of God -- Creator and Sovereign, in whose image we are made -- male and female. It is rather yet one more means of bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, emphatically including discipleship and the cross life, into those deep unconscious areas of our lives which, due to our fallen psychology, have be-

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come inaccessible to the ordinary conscious means of preaching the Gospel and inaccessible to the ordinary means of discipling. It is an extension of the Gospel and of our evangelism to the unconscious. Assistance in our normal spiritual and emotional growth comes under the heading of discipleship or "spiritual direction", and is assisted by sermons, worship, Sunday schools, Bible studies, and all the other sorts of things that Christians normally do together. There is a fairly clearly definable path that we must follow in order to accomplish our proper psychosexual, psycho-social, and psycho-spiritual maturity. Much of that has been delineated by work among secular researchers simply trying to find out the truth about human nature. But when that normal progress goes amiss, when, try as we might, we cannot get back on the track of growth and maturing, we then need intervention in our lives from those who are specialists in healing. It is this helping process from a Christian point of view which we are investigating. If one is repairing a house and does not know where the inner structure lies, where the load bearing beams, the electrical conduits, or the plumbing run, it is very difficult to make repairs. Having a blueprint will not in itself do the repair job for you, but it will certainly make the task easier. Having a Biblical psychology is like having God's blueprint to human nature. You still have to walk through the process of healing, but you have a more clear idea of where to walk. A true blueprint is a reflection of the mind of God, and can therefore assist us in collaborating with the Holy Spirit in our healing. God works on the basis of truth, including the truth about our human nature. Which He designed. And for a purpose. Our healing requires our moving in collaboration with the Holy Spirit in that design and purpose. The healing of memories has turned out to be a very effective means of helping persons who have been damaged by faulty or destructive dependency (as in parent-child) relationships. Those unhappy memories, which we stuff down into the "bottle" because we cannot tolerate them, nevertheless come back to haunt and plague, warping and twisting our attitudes and behavior despite our best efforts. When we stuff a memory down into the bottle of our bowels, a part of ourselves gets stuffed. There is a little child in me trapped within the corked bottle. And for good reasons. The adult in me really does not know how to handle that child -- and the child may feel terror, fear, rage, or rebellion against the adult, especially against parental figures. The child in me is locked in a dungeon, largely of my own making. But I do not have the resources within me to set the child free. Who will do it? Who will open the bottle so that Gene (or Jeannie, as the case may be) can emerge to be him or herself in the manner to which God is calling us? If the child in me cannot be set free, then I will never be able fully to experience myself as a child of God. I will try desperately to not be a child of anybody -- but rather to be my own independent, autonomous decision-maker. There are two fundamental areas with which psychology tends to busy itself -- the unconscious and sexuality. We will address the area of the uncon-

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scious primarily, but sex and gender issues are never far away, if only because our unconscious is largely occupied with memories of our early life of being mothered and fathered, i.e., our psycho-sexual (or more accurately, our psycho-gender) development.(32) Miracles are often thought of as rude intrusions into the world of nature. But healing in the Kingdom is expected. The first and basic miracle occurs not in disjunction from nature, it is the very creation of nature, Genesis l and 2. Redemption simply means making nature work right, as intended in the first place. The miracle of healing is God making human nature work right, which requires letting Gene out. And..., "if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:36). A Biblical psychology is possible if and only if there is first possible a personal relation with God. That is why therapy as conducted in so many "liberalized" Christian circles shows
32. See below, The Inner Marriage on page 30 for distinction between sex and gender.

no significant departure from secular therapy. The personal faith relation is often missing -- the central dependency about which all else is oriented. A Christian psychology means coming to understand that trust-andobey relationship with God for the healing of our feelings, emotions, and relationships. It is asking: "What has a personal relation with God through Jesus Christ got to do with the way I feel and react to others in this world, - and what has it got to do with the way I perceive the world emotionally?" A Biblical psychology is man consciously cooperating with God in the effort of making things work right, learning how God designed the human nature part of the world, and learning to cooperate with God in that plan. We will explore in the following pages: Just what distinguishes Biblical inner healing from other sorts? What is the specifically "Biblical" element in Biblical inner healing?

B. the Worldview Setting for Inner Healing

God's purposes to his own. And, over the previous four centuries, we have a. Secularization indeed come, in astonishing ways to Inner healing does not happen in a understand the technological side of vacuum or independently of the nature our world and how to control it. of our world. We, with our own speAmerica was founded on Biblical cific human nature, live in a cosmos principles.(33) Since the mid-1850s, also with a specific structure and nahowever, the secularization of what ture. were originally Biblical Enlightenment principles, a secularization cast Modern man has made a monumental attempt (the natural sciences) in concrete by the French Revolution, to discover the nature of our cosmos, had taken deep root in America. often with an eye to bending it from

B-1. The Enlightenment

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Study Guide for Chapter I

Who Will Let Gene Out?

These study guides can be used for individual or group study to help the reader focus on key issues. The reader who follows through with each question will build a solid understanding of the issues, chapter by chapter. I. Summary:
primary deficit? 14. What did Biblical thinkers often import from Greek philosophy along with useful intellectual tools which compromised their Biblical theology? II. Questions on Chapter One: 15. What hope did secular psychology A - a Christian Psychology? give to those that were hurting inside 1. In the authors usage, distinguish and in need of true help? between inner healing, the healing of 16. What would be the pros and cons memories, and spiritual formation. of a Biblical psychology from the Biblical 2. How are soul and psyche different, and secular points of view? and why is that important? 17. Describe the relation which devel3. How are the Jewish and Christian oped between Biblical spirituality and vies of human nature linked? secular psychology. 4. Describe the one place and culture 18. What parts have Freud, Jung, and where science was able to develop, why Adler played in the relation between psyit was the only place, and explain the chology and religion? affect this had on Christians. 19. Critique the assertion that only a 5. In light of what many believers have Biblical psychology can supply an adecome to see -- what is inner healing and quate description of human nature and what is it not? thus be the most useful in healing. 6. As we stuff our bad memories into 20. Why is it foolish to call psychology the bottle, what else gets stuffed into that a secular disease? bottle? 21. How does the author consider him7. How are human nature, psychology, self both liberal and conservative at the and revelation all related? same time? 8. Describe the personalist foundation 22. What characteristics will a Biblical which makes a Biblical psychology psychology have? unique. 23. Why is a true psychology important 9. What are the good and the bad in the healing process? sides of the Enlightenment? 24. Why do liberalized attempts at 10. Why did Christians tend to see sci- spiritual healing seldom show no better ence as an enemy of the faith? record than secular attempts? 11. What is the relation between sci25. How should the Christian respond ence and secularism? to secular charges that religion is arbi12. By whom and to whom was scitrary and has no intellectual credibility? ence given? B - the Worldview Setting... 13. What was the helpful contribution 26. Name the three foundations of the of Hellenic philosophy, and what was its secular Enlightenment, and critique In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as is appropriate:

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them. 27. Describe the differences between the secular and the Biblical enlightenments. 28. What is the cosmic Murphys Law? 29. Discuss Sigmund Freud and Brock Chisholm versus the Biblical view of morality. 30. What kind of culture breeds philosophical depression? 31. Why is the alleged transcendence of the self a terrible mistake? 32. Explain philosophical depression, and how that is different from psychological depression. 33. Describe the differences between a health-promoting and a health-damaging cosmos. 34. Of what significance if the break by Freuds followers with his emphasis on inner drives? 35. What prediction could one make from the Biblical point of view which evidence seems to support? 36. Compare and contrast the Biblical Cosmos with that of the Fall, describing the changes that took place. 37. How is hearing God related to the Biblical worldview? 38. How is story-telling in the Bible radically different from knowing God in pagan philosophy? 39. Describe the three stages through which the pagan cosmos cycles. 40. If we were truly the autonomous beings that we have been led to believe, what then would have been the result of the Fall? 41. Describe how the Biblical worldview looks like an electrical transformer. 42. Explain the difference between an open- and a closed-circle cosmos. 43. What is the space between mother and father, and its significance, both relationship to God and of parents to children?

C. The Imago Dei...

44. Why, on the Biblical worldview, can we not tinker with gender roles? and, How is the fallen world tinkering? 45. What is the most immutable item in all existence, and what has it to do with gender? 46. What is the warp and woof of creation, and why? 47. Why are the differences between the two worldviews unavoidable? 48. What is the alternative to death in the Perennial world? 49. How did the American Psychiatric Association illustrate the subjectivism into which much of (alleged) science has fallen. 50. Why are explanations of the cosmos by a personal creator and by evolution out of a primordial stuff radically and inevitably opposed? 51. Explain the inner marriage and its relation to the hieros gamos. 52. Which God died, and how is that related to gender issues?

D - the Health Problem

53. Explain the five implications of the Biblical worldview for the meaning of health. 54. Explain the moral side of health. 55. Why does God have to define health? 56. Describe the moral obligation upon any person permitted to be a member of the medical profession or who takes the oath of Hippocrates. 57. What three questions should parents teach children to ask themselves throughout life? 58. Explain what one must do with his inner self in order to engage in effective spiritual warfare.

III. Chapter Reflections:

59. In your own words relate what new insights you have gained from reading and meditating on the information contained within this chapter.

Chapter II

The Decision to Be Well

A. Finding the Common Ground
A-1. Inalienable Decisions
Getting well emotionally is neither simple nor easy. The sorts of emotional pits into which we fall are seldom a matter of simply climbing out into the light of day. The deviousness of the world, the flesh, and the devil in all of their sin and darkness and ignorance, and the intricacy of the web of self-delusion and defensiveness we manage to weave around ourselves are hopelessly paralyzing when experienced from inside the darkness. There is no way out -- unless Someone comes in from the outside to lead us out. Our biggest problem is the paranoia that inspires our pathological distrust of anyone helping us. So we end up locking ourselves into our self-constructed dungeon, even from God. Sometimes especially from God. Labyrinth is a recurring theme in New Age circles partly because people are unaware of its meaning. But the theme has ancient roots in many ancient cultures. The labyrinth, or maze, is a closed circle from which escape is impossible or all but impossible. One gets lost once he enters those endless and confusing pathways. Sometimes there is a dangerous figure lurking, as the legendary Minotaur in the labyrinth on the island of Crete. Theseus, a citizen of Athens, volunteered to be part of the yearly sacrifice given to Crete, under which Athens was in bondage. The sacrifice was offered by the Cretans to placate the Minotaur. Theseus hoped to slay the Minotaur and free Athens from the curse. Ariadne, the kings daughter, fell in love with Theseus and gave him a ball of twine, which Theseus unraveled as he went into the labyrinth. He killed the Minotaur and found his way back out by following the twine. The labyrinth is an apt symbol of the closed circle of Uroboros into which the Fall plunges us. There is no way out other than by the intervention of God from outside the closed circle. Much spirituality associated with the labyrinth is an attempt to use the resources of the closed world system for our healing. But we seal ourselves so completely in the smoke and mir-

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rors largely of our own making that we cannot find our way back to reality. The defensive walls which we hope to be our fortress sooner or later becomes our tomb, the Pit, the Abyss, Hell, Erewhon. But there are things we can do and five decisions to make, no matter what our circumstances, that will always further the process of our moving into the light of truth and freedom. These decisions are inalienable because they belong to us just because we are alive, and, importantly, because at their deepest level, these decisions appeal to a realm beyond the control of the world, the flesh or the devil -- the metaphysical, spiritual realm. Having a proper understanding of how human nature works is essential to making progress along the path of spiritual growth. Once therefore we have digested certain key truths and we begin to pursue those decisions, things will almost inevitably begin to work better. Whereas without these truths and these decisions, we will for sure remain stuck in our darkness. Proper spiritual direction from a spiritual advisor should always include consideration of where we stand in these essential decisions. Without an assessment at this level it will be difficult to know whether or how to proceed with therapy. It is not true that "if you believe it hard enough, it will happen." We do not in our own strength believe or will or choose ourselves into health. Nevertheless we must believe and choose and will the truth, and the truth we believe must be ultimately positive, or we will not proceed very securely or very far on the road to health. If the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or something like it, is not the truth, then our hope of ultimate healing is in vain. Our very human nature requires it. We must believe in order to get well, and we must make decisions. But we do our believing and deciding in the context of a real and objective world and with a real and determinate human nature. And therefore those beliefs and those decisions must be both realistic and in the context of a hopeful universe, or they are in vain. By making the Five Decisions to be well, to be whole, to be what we are created to be, we begin consciously to participate in our own creation -- or re-creation. We become co-creators with God of our own personality by choosing to be made in His image. The ultimate choice -- we build heaven with God, or hell all by ourselves. Being made in the image of God is not merely an obscure religious sentiment. It is a basic principle for child raising and for maturing into freestanding adulthood. If I want to know who I really am, I must get to know God, and getting to know God is making the Biblical choices for this fivepart decision. One of those objective facts of life which we have utmost difficulty in facing is our dependent nature. During our very dependent times, primarily infancy, we are the most vulnerable. When we are in a dependent situation we can most easily suffer the damage which may lead later to emotional stress, depression, suicide, drug dependency, etc. But dependency is inherently a relationship. It is in dependency relationships that we are either nurtured and matured or that we experience damage. And therefore it is in healthy dependency relationships that we find the

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cure to the damage we suffered in unhealthy relationships. Knowing the truth about such relationships and making decisions about them therefore leads to the deepest kind of emotional healing. That is the subject of this chapter. This is not to say that merely making decisions will catapult us into health. But, if we do not make those decisions, the child, the Gene or the Jeannie down in the bottle, will never be set free and we will never come to the fullness of who we are as human beings. Those issues involve getting our emotional life together with our spiritual life, allowing our relation with God to become that key relationship in terms of which all lesser relationships can be brought into order. We must allow God to draw us into that dependency relationship with Himself so that He can inform and redeem all of those earlier damaging relationships, for it is clear that there is no relationship within the world which can fully redeem the past for us. Only God can do that, who dwells outside of the cosmos and who called us and the cosmos into being. Christians have talked about this key decision as the decision to follow Christ, to come to the Father through Jesus, to be born again, or to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. In this chapter I want to unpack some of the psychological implications of that decision, and to show how our decision to follow Christ is indeed the key to our wholeness as human beings. mean man putting himself at the center of the universe - Man is the measure of all things. But if by humanism we mean becoming most fully and richly human, then following Christ is the way to humanism, becoming who we truly are at the deepest level of our being. This is the Christian humanism toward which Erasmus and a few others pointed at the time of the Reformation. They were, unfortunately, outvoted by the major leaders of the Reformation. But the truth remains, if you want to be truly human, you must be like Jesus, the only true measure of humanity and of humanism. The Imago Dei is the measure of all things, the yardstick for our own being and doing. With that in mind, I want to put the decision to be well in the context of basic human needs, needs that are common to all mankind. The decision to be well is, as I conceive it, Five Decisions, five matters with which every human being, like it or not, has to grapple. They are built into the human situation. We are by nature goal oriented. We choose an ultimate purpose for our lives, and work toward that purpose as nearly as we can. But we are made for a purpose also. We are designed for a specific goal by God. Should we choose less than that goal, we will be trying to function as something less than that for which we are made, and often in contradiction to it, thus aiding and abetting sickness. Choosing the proper goal for our lives is an inherent part of choosing to be well. This book is written by a Christian, primarily for those who might be interested in a Christian understanding of emotional healing. But the underlying issues are those common to all

A-2. Christian Humanism

Humanism has often been pictured as the enemy of Christianity. And that is true, if by humanism we

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of us, Christian or not. And so this book is offered also as a challenge to non-Christians. I want to say that there is no better way to answer these basic issues than that offered by God through the Biblical community and specifically in His son Jesus. The ultimate goal God offers us is sonship and daughterhood in the family of God. God is creating family. That is the meaning of the cosmos. The family of God is where we find that ultimate affirmation of ourselves as persons, where we can stand straight and tall, as Adam and Eve, naked and unashamed before one another. We can live out our manhood and womanhood in the light as free and rational and loving persons. The Five Decisions then represent five basic questions about life, five areas of life with which we must come to terms, five areas which structure our basic and ultimate goal in life. The issues therefore will be couched in general terms, terms common to all of us. The Gospel of Jesus is not an answer to questions that only Christians are asking. If the Gospel is meaningful, it is an answer to questions that we ask as human beings. And if the Gospel of Jesus is true, it is not merely an answer, it is the best answer, and ultimately the only answer. But the Gospel must stand on its own feet to maintain that position. It is not true merely because the Church or the Bible says so. It is true because it is. Truth is what is. It is in the objectivity of its truth that it can reveal itself as true. It is in the objectivity of God that He can reveal Himself as God. The real God is the One who will show up as He promises. (Ask Elijah -- I Kings 18) The objectivity of the world requires that it be common to all observers, in principle, at least, observable by all. Paul appeals to just such objectivity and commonality:
We renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with Gods word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every mans conscience in the sight of God. 2 Corinthians 4:2

There is no point in renouncing underhanded ways, there is no possibility of an open statement of the truth nor of everyman having a conscience to which one might appeal apart from an objective and therefore commonly experienced reality. There is a common human nature trying work out its future in a common world. It is thus precisely in those questions common to mankind that Christians find a common ground with nonChristians. And there is the opportunity for evangelsim and apologetics. Those common questions imply a common experience, common puzzlements. We may have different and contradictory answers, but there is a common arena in which we all live, known as "the world". And given certain basic conditions, we can find a common ground for communication and understanding. This truth is fundamental to an understanding of the Biblical view of healing. The primary "basic condition" for this common ground is that there be an objective truth out there which we can discover. The quest for that truth provides the arena of the common ground. If we are indeed truth seekers, we shall find ourselves bumping into each other on the ground common to us all. If all this seems rather obvious, and if it seems needless to point to the

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necessity of believing in an objective truth, one only need point to the strong and growing current flowing through Western society which operates in denial of objective truth.(63) Often this denial runs under the banner of a "pluralistic" society and offers items (as does Planned Parenthood and similar groups) such as "value-free" sex education and unisex or homosex or (increasingly) multisex answers to gender identity questions. It runs also under the banner of deconstructionism, deconstructing (a polite word for destroying) the objectivity of truth. As a factual description we are certainly pluralistic, i.e., we have a smorgasbord of options open to us, apparently acceptable, even though mutually contradictory, to many citizens. In learning to live with ambiguity and contradiction, many people have given up the belief that there really is a truth out there, a real God, for example. It is felt impolite, even oppressive, to say that the other fellow's viewpoint is wrong. In the struggle over abortion we hear it said, "I do not think abortion is right, but I don't want to push my beliefs on other people," suggesting that if you believe in abortion, it is all right for you. If truth is relative, so is morality. What we believe about the universe (our philosophy or religion) will determine what we can believe about human nature (our psychology), and will have a great deal to do with how healthy we can be emotionally. For several decades there has been a
63. Yahweh or the Great Mother?, a four hour video series in six segments, contains an in depth analysis of the Biblical vs. secular worldviews. See bibliographical note on Emmaus Ministries for availability. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics.

strong push away from objective truth and objective authority in the name of personal freedom, so you can, as the fast food advertising says, "Have it your way!" But in our efforts to lessen the oppressiveness of belief systems and authority systems, we have brought ourselves to a world drifting rapidly into moral meaninglessness -- and therefore also into totalitarianism, the very enemy we sought to evade. Moral chaos then impels us to impose our own order, or to get someone, anyone strong enough, to impose their order to preserve us from self-destruction. Moral chaos is thus sometimes created by the would-be tyrant which will permit him to impose his own order. Meaning and order (and therefore also emotional health) require objective morality to save us from the choice between chaos and tyranny. Most of the world's religions and philosophies do not believe in an ultimate and objective truth, or, at least, not a truth knowable by the human mind. Religions of the Eastern sort believe in the ultimate relativity of all truth, moral and philosophical. That is so because their conception of the ultimate reality is held to be totally beyond any possible human conception. Hence any statement of truth is in the final analysis no more true than its contradiction.(64)

A-3. Five Generic Decisions

In the early l980's I spent two years working as chaplain and counselor at a school which ministered to junior and senior high school students
64. See next chapter, section Four Meanings on page 101 on the meaning of faith.

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most of whom had come out of troubled situations, broken homes, jail, kicked out of school, etc. The school held to a fairly strict discipline on the grounds that the students needed a crash course in self-control. Needless to say, many of the students had chips on their shoulders, a deep resentment against the discipline. They wondered, some of them being eighteen years old, why they could not make their own decisions. Why could they not have a smoke? Why could they not take an evening off if their homework was done? Why could they not visit the girls dorm? Etc. Many of them had a "victim" approach to life. They felt they were continually being "told what to do" by someone else. And indeed they were. As the headmaster often said, "If you will not control your life, someone else will." The students, of course, were missing his point. They indeed wanted to "control their lives", but meaning only to "have my own way". The headmaster was pointing beyond merely having one's way to being cooperatively a part of society. He was indicating that if they would control their behavior within the bounds of reasonable social acceptability, then society would not have to control them. It became apparent to me that the students, like the rest of us, did not need to feel like the victims they often made themselves out to be. They could indeed take helpful control of their lives. There were certain decisions they could make, and indeed only they could make. And if they would make the decisions, they would in fact move toward being free persons. These have become the five-part decision to be well: 1. The faith decision; 2. The dependency decision; 3. The personal responsibility decision; 4. The purpose for life decision; and 5. The community-love decision. No one can prevent these decisions from being made. Even very hostile circumstances, one can choose to do these things because, at their deepest level, the appeal beyond circumstance to substance. They are the sorts of decisions that work to bring one's personality into completion and fullness and strength. These decisions are an inherent part of the human heritage and potential given by God. They are decisions that bring us closer and closer together on the common ground of reality. Without these decisions, one's personality and one's sense of community and meaning in life will always fall prey to that notorious law of entropy, that is, tend toward disorganization and disintegration, and neither Gene nor Jeannie will be let out of their prison. Persons who feel they "must do it all themselves" are often wanting to do what they should not be doing, and not wanting to do those very things they ought to be doing. It is often rather a desire for moral license than personal integrity. They are pushing for the freedom to do whatever they want rather than the freedom to make the five essential decisions which lead to wholeness and freedom. Freedom not based on those Five Decisions will turn out to be no freedom at all, but bondage in camouflage. Pseudo-freedom will define the good life in terms of good feelings rather than good relationships. And

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world? The various religions (or spiritual lives) try to give answers to those general questions. The soul, the psyche of psychology, is that which lies behind the general stuff of psychology -- rat-running, psychological testing, psychiatric medications, psychotherapy, etc. Without the metaphysical soul (psyche), psychology has no reasonable grounding. Every psychology has to answer four epistemological and metaphysical questions: (1) Are the basic cosmologA-4. Neutral & Metaphysical ical entities persons or things? (2) How do they interact? (3) How do We tend to think of the spiritual life in terms of our own religions an- they communicate? and, (4) Is there a healthy, optimal, or right swers to the spiritual life questions state?(65) (as, the spiritual life means a life in Christ). That is circular answering And every psychology must anbecause a life in Christ is only one swer four personal questions: form of a spiritual life. A generic def- (1) Who am I? (2) Do I endure (have inition would be a general category eternal life)? (3) Do I have meaning which applied equally, generically, and purpose? and, (4) How do I fit and neutrally to all possible spiritual into the metaphysical issues? lives -- Christian, Hindu, atheist, or The Five Decisions upon which whatever. The real human questions we have expounded provide a downare generic, questions we all have to to-earth start at those metaphysical answer, not those specific to one reli- and personal questions. The Five Degion. The questions are, in that sense, cisions are generic in that they apply neutral, not circular and self-limiting. to all persons neutrally, we all have to It is the answers to those questions answer them out of our own worldthat are religion-specific. There are view. Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, Christian, And so the Five Decisions and the Jewish, and other answers to the getwo sets of metaphysical and personal neric questions. questions provide a good diagnostic The spiritual life, then, is psychol- test of ones own personal growth, and ogy at its most basic level, the metaa neutral, un-tilted ground on which to physical level. It asks the metaphysi- compare the various answers which cal question: What is behind the phe- specific religions and philosophies nomena of life? What is the real I give to those generic questions. which struggles to reasonably navigate this bumptious world? Is there 65. See Chapter I-D, the 'Health' Problem on page 33 Something or Someone behind the obligations will belong to everyone else, but not to themselves. They do not want what God is offering. Genuine freedom, on the other hand, will define the good life in terms of good relationships and the self-discipline to form them. These five decision point us toward that common ground upon which alone deep community can be formed. And that is where God builds His Kingdom.

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Study Guide to Chapter II

The Decision To Be Well

I. Summary:
In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as is appropriate: do not? 18. How might you explain the reasonableness of Jesus comment that your faith has made you whole to a world which sees faith as intellectually irresponsible? 19. How do Abraham, Elijah, and Paul illustrate faith #1? 20. How is our Christian testimony eroded when we violate faith #1? 21. How does St. John call us to faith #1? 22. How is truth-seeking an assertion of ones own integrity?

II. Questions on Chapter Two: A. Common Ground

1. Describe the labyrinth of the Fall. 2. Comment on the principle that, If you believe it hard enough, it will happen. 3. Why is the Image of God so important to our emotional health? 4. What Five Decisions must be made in order for an individual to move towards freedom? 5. What effects can infancy have on your life as you grow older into maturity? 6. Is humanism right for Christians? 7. Why is it important to couch the Five Decisions in generic terms? 8. Why is it that a Christian approach to psychology can work for both Christians and non-believers? 9. Describe the dangers of intellectual and moral relativism.

C. Dependency
23. What is the relation between addiction and idolatry? 24. Give concisely your answers to the questions raised in sections C-1, C-2, and C-3. 25. How might the Fall be described as the separation of feelings from relationships? 26. Why is it important to define the spiritual life generically? 27. Dependency is a lack of what? and what is the deepest level of that? 28. How have the Russians dealt with feeling loss in a vacuum? 29. Describe the meaning of dependency as a Christian. 30. What part does dependency play in our spiritual life and our relationship with God? 31. Discuss how little children do and do not trust. 32. What would you say to someone who replied, But dependency is not a spiritual concept...? 33. Why can secular psychology not deal well with dependency issues? 34. Describe the three aspect of the soul. 35. Describe the task of the coach of

B. Faith
10. Why is it so hard to believe that truth will set us free? 11. What is the relation between an honest spiritual life and reality? 12. How early does faith begin? 13. What is the sword of the spirit and what is its purpose and use? 14. What could it mean to Tamper with Gods Word and how does the author describe this act? 15. Do you agree or not with the authors definition of faith #1 as openness to the truth? and why? 16. Why does faith #1 often frighten us? 17. What does Jesus know about our faith adventure that, in the beginning, we

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the soul. 36. Why will the God question always intrude itself into our attempts at selfunderstanding? 37. How do we tend to equate feelings with emotions, and how is this view not congruent with reality? 38. Describe the difference between intellectual & intuitive perceptions. 39. Comment on the notion that every sane subjectivity is a response to an objectivity. 40. What might you hear typically in response to, Our deepest feelings come from our spiritual life? and, how would you respond? 41. If I want to change how I feel, what must I work on? and why? 42. Why is decision #2 the stability decision? 43. Why might Christians proclaim the Biblical answer to Decision #2 as the only reasonable answer? 44. Why is intimacy without God cannibalism? 45. Do you agree with the paraphrase of Frank Lake on page 51? and why? 46. How does the Biblical answer to the dependency decision substantially increase freedom? How does what looks like a paradox turn out to be perfectly reasonable? 47. Elucidate: To be an adult in the world, you must be a child in God. 48. Explain whether or not healing comes through toughing it out. self-caused damage. 53. Why is the difference between taking responsibility for my being vs. for my doing so important? 54. How does taking personal responsibility reflect my emerging self? 55. In what sense is the adult in m responsible for the child in me? 56. How does failure to take personal responsibility undermine my freedom? 57. How do decisions #2 and #3 aid in effective repentance?

E. Moral Responsibility
58. What does important and unimportant meant to a small child? and why? 59. Could you defend the view in the public arena that all moral obligation rests on our having purpose for existence, which can come only from a Giver of existence? 60. How is moral responsibility different from personal responsibility? 61. How do the first three decisions provide the foundation for the fourth? 62. When one asks Jesus to be their personal Lord and Savior, what other things go along with that? 63. Since evil is not the nature of anything as created, what does it mean to be a sinner and from what does sin flow? 64. Explain the significance of being in the world versus of the world.

F. Faith, Love, & Hope

65. What is meant by the Kingdom Plateau? 66. How would you explain to some49. Describe the simple idea of perone how God stands on the high sonal responsibility and how an individground, and why no one else can apart ual can get it. 50. What new element is added to the from following Jesus? 67. What is the spiritually mature conpicture of our relation with God in the nection between feelings and relations? third decision? Explain the significance 68. How is loving different from pam51. What is the connection between the freedom to steer my own life and tak- pering? 69. Explain the different ways the word ing personal responsibility? love is used. 52. Explain the difference between the 70. What role does Gods version of damage caused by others to myself and love play in our relationships with the

D. Personal Responsibility

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community of creation? 71. In what sense does the self disappear with spiritual maturity? 72. Discuss the different kinds of freedom offered between the fallen world and Kingdom. any better than that! How would you defend this publicly? 81. As a personal exercise, the reader might assess his or her own life in terms of the Five Decisions, and how a separation of feeling from relationship may have distorted emotional/spiritual progress. 82. How is track record related to the principle that love is for free, but trust is earned?

G. Putting the Five to Work

73. How are decisions 1, 3, and 5 different from decisions 2 and 4? 74. How are decisions 1, 3, and 5 different from decisions 2 and 4? 75. Describe the growth of personal freedom through the discipline of the Five Decisions. 76. How might irreducible complexity apply to human beings? 77. Explain what happens when you try to love other people with the Love of God (Level Five) without establishing the first four levels. 78. Explain how each of the five stages of decision bring with them a new level of repentance and what this means in the life of a believer. 79. What is childing, and how are those skills important to personal growth? 80. If the Gospel is true, then logically we should be able to say, It does not get

H. Diagnostic Helps
83. Describe the possible results of attempting to counsel with someone without first doing a moral and goals assessment on the client? 84. Describe the type of Christianity that could be called an inoculation and why is this not what God intends. 85. Would you, the reader, want a serious moral and spiritual assessment from a counselor? And why?

III. Chapter Reflections:

In your own words relate your new insights from reading and meditating on the information contained within this chapter.

Chapter III

The Healing Alliance

A. Wholeness, Holiness, & the Logic of Dependency
There has been a tussle in the Christian community between those who see repentance for sin as the answer for our problems and those who see the healing of our brokenness as the answer. That is a false division which impairs the healing and maturing process. Both healing and repentance are needed, which means we must learn how to tell which one. In a fallen world, there will be both sin and brokenness, so, properly understood, the therapeutic mode is spouse to the spiritual growth mode. Generally, healing for wholeness represents the mothering side, renewed wholeness, and repentance represents the fathering side, renewed holiness. But in the plan of God, the two require each other. Godly mothering is wedded to Godly fathering. That part of me which is not whole cannot be holy. Wholeness is the substance of holiness, for, after all, it is the whole of me that is to become holy. I am to be wholly dedicated to God. Wholeness and holiness therefore represent our two basic dependencies for being made in the Imago Dei, dependency for our being and for our direction, our ontological and our moral dependencies. The early Christian community had -- to a depth that few cultures have experienced since -- a faith relation with God out of which their lives flowed. Their lives flowed not only from God, but to one another, and beyond the borders of their communities and their nations to turn the course of world history. God was not just an idea or an ideal, but a living reality, the Creator of all the world Whose children they knew themselves to be. One can experience no deeper or more powerful affirmation of selfhood. Therapists talk of the "therapeutic alliance" between therapist and client, an emotional and intellectual bonding within which the resources of the therapist can become part of the life of the client. The therapist becomes a "God" figure for the client much as parents

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had earlier been. The client is being "re-parented" as the damaged internal images of mothering and fathering are brought into a more healthy and life giving state. But the therapist may be attempting something which only God can do. As a matter of common sense logic, the world cannot parent me to become an adult in the world because the world cannot set me free from itself. The world can, at best, make me an adult-child-of-the-world, which is always a compromised adult. That is so because I will always be dependent on, and therefore not an adult with respect to, that part of the world which is parenting me. That is why, in order to see the Kingdom of God (real adulthood), we must be born again. To be an adult in the world, I must be a child in God. To be "born again" (as Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3:1 ff.) is to become a child (a dependent) of God, no longer of the world. Nicodemus could no longer rely on his Jewish identity, his being a son of Abraham, to complete his spiritual journey. He would have to become a son of God. With all of us, God will have to do the final reparenting. That is a logical fact for which, to understand, one needs no special revelation from God. If one understands the logic of dependency, one will understand much of the logic of Biblical salvation. The therapeutic alliance must finally be established with God, not with any human being. Unless the world can show that we humans are truly autonomous beings, needing only to discover that marvelous fact, the world will have to face up to its inherent dead-end. It cannot raise up real adults, persons who can stand emotionally and spiritually independent of the circumstances of life. The whole course of salvation history can be seen as God leaning down from heaven to draw us back into that alliance and bonding of faith relationship where alone we can safely rest our dependency independently from the world.

B. The Four Meanings of Faith

In our time, faith has come to carry a flavor at which the first three Christians have been teaching for centuries of Christians would have 20 centuries the doctrine of salvation blinked, of being contrary to "real" by faith. The first, second, and third (i.e., scientific) knowledge, and therecentury AD experience of that truth fore to suggest being out of touch with strikes one as far more powerful than reality. That would have been far that of any later century, with perhaps from the thinking of early Christians, a few localized exceptions of spiritual who understood themselves to be surenewal. But the meaning of 'faith' premely in touch with reality. has altered drastically over those interFaith did not have that negative vening centuries -- reflecting that flavor in the first three centuries bedownhill slide.

B-1. Breakdown of Meaning

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Study Guide to Chapter Three

The Healing Alliance

I. Summary:
In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as is appropriate: soul. 15. Describe the attributes and requirements of the healthy soul. 16. In what parts of ourselves do the child, adult and parent reside?

II. Questions on Chapter III: A. Wholeness, Holiness...

D. The Damaged Soul

17. Explain where the deepest damage to our soul usually takes place, and describe the affect this can have on inner healing. 18. From memory, draw and explain the picture of the damaged soul for some other person. 19. What is the incapacity of a small child which almost ensures the childs negative reaction to severe abuse? 20. Give an example of an early trauma and explain its affects later in life B. The Four Meanings of Faith as we grow into adulthood. 5. How did the intellectual failures of in 21. Describe what is locked up in the Christian community life help lead to a memory hole. split between religion and healing? 22. Describe the importance of self6. How should wholeness and holiness sufficiency in the lives of all individuals, be related? and the difference between isolated self7. Why is openness to truth a necessufficiency and honest adult maturity. sary foundation of faith? 23. Describe how the first two deci8. Explain the place of the blind leap sions to be whole are often undermined in faith. by infant experience of abuse. 9. What is the difference between leap24. Explain ontological feet and ing into the light vs. into the dark? closed-circle feet. 10. Discuss faith as avoidance vs. 25. What does the author mean by engagement of reality. infantile autonomy? 11. Why will the blind leap, however 26. What does the author mean by, small, be a permanent feature of creamom is the primordial and original perturely faith? ception of all? 27. Explain: Healthy people find ways C. The Healthy Soul of living beyond their philosophies and 12. From memory, draw and describe religions. the picture of the healthy soul for some E. Metaphysics, Feelings... other person. 28. What does metaphysical mean? 13. Describe the relationships between Give examples. And in what sense is the internal adult, child, and parent, the discernment of other persons a including the special virtues of each. 14. Describe the body areas and how metaphysical event? 29. Why is every personal relationship they represent aspects of the healthy 1. Describe the therapeutic alliance and the position in which it puts the therapist. 2. Comment on the competition between the need for healing and the need for repentance. 3. Describe what Jesus might have meant when He would say, your faith has made you whole. 4. How does repentance fit into the healing process?

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a metaphysical event? 30. Explain defensive attachment and why it is a metaphysical event. 31. Describe the deeply damaging results that come from the splitting effect. 32. In what way is dealing with pain subverted by separating feelings from relations? 33. What is sexualizing, and how is it an example of the wrong way to fix pain? 34. How would you respond to the Sartrian comment that Hell is other people? 35. How has God made relationship the key to His Kingdom? 36. How does splitting feelings from relations lead to depersonalization? 37. Outline St. Pauls description of the Fall in Romans 1. 38. Explain how the six aspects of the soul are disintegrated by the split of feelings from relations. 39. How are the Freudian and Biblical views reversals of each other? ent from the unholy alliance. 45. How does a person rooted in I AM experience life in a manner opposite to those rooted in the world? 46. Describe what I am and am not able to do as the healing alliance forms. 47. What are childing skills, and why are they important? 48. Why, knowing how poorly some parents behave, does God require all children to honor their parental relationships? 49. Illustrate how Jesus ability to live his life was in sharp contrast with how the majority of us live and show ourselves to be. 50. What can we do with our selfdestructive memories when we have made a holy alliance with Jesus.

H. Holy Alliance in History

51. Describe the law, the intention of the law, and what the existence of laws says about our relationship with the One giving the laws. 52. What is the relationship between the law and grace? 53. What alone can integrate the law with grace? 54. When Jesus came, how did He change and redeem the law to make it into a personal relationship? 55. Explain how the Summary of the Law in Matthew 22:34 ff. is the meaning of Psalm 85:10b, and how that might effect our attitude toward morality and obligation.

F. The Unholy Alliance...

40. Describe the unholy alliance that can develop between the heart and the head in situations where children are regularly subjected to trauma. 41. Why is this alliance unholy? 42. What parts of the disintegrated soul might likely be still available for attempts at reintegration? How do they try to work together? 43. Describe the unreliability of the cork.

G. The Holy Alliance...

44. Describe how I AM makes possible the Holy alliance, and how this is differ-

III. Chapter Reflections:

In your own words relate what new insights you have gained from reading and meditating on the information

Chapter IV

The Warp

in the

Unconscious

This chapter on the nature of the unconscious will deal with concepts that may be hard to grasp, but which will be very helpful in dealing with some of the issues related to a Biblical view of human nature, and with some of the objections to such a view. I encourage the reader to soldier on, read it twice, or more if necessary, as it will provide additional and important foundation for understanding the bottomless chasm between the Biblical view and the secular/pagan view of psychology. Persons familiar with either Freudian, Jungian, or Adlerian psychology may object that I am dealing too lightly with those pioneers. I have

expressed my thoughts on each of those psychologies in other places, and wish to keep the argument of this book clear of diversions.(126)
126. Two as yet (June 2005) unpublished works deal with these two authors: On Jung, a manuscript entitled, Yahweh or the Great Mother? A video summary of Yahweh or the Great Mother? is already available, but does not contain an analysis of Jung's psychology. The video explains the chasm between the Biblical worldview and the secular/ pagan view, the implications of which are evident for Jungian psychology. On Freud, I have a manuscript, Freud and Religion - a Psycho-Historical Reality-Check, dealing with the misunderstanding Freud had of Biblical religion and with the poor logic in his own argument. See bibliographical note on Emmaus Ministries for information on availability of these items.

A. The Problem
there is no need for psychological inControversy has been generated tervention. In Jesus we are already over the healing of memories, often made whole and new. revolving around a misunderstanding What might seem like good Bibliof the unconscious. The issues tend to center around visualizing, which is labeled "occult", "pagan, or a sell out 127. See Chapter VI, The Healing of Memories -- Biblical or Occult? to secularism.(127) Some will say that

A-1. Healing and Common Sense since we are new creatures in Christ,

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cal principles often are used in a manner out of touch with reality. We are just as responsible for reading the Book of Creation as the Book of Scripture. Reason and faith are allies, not enemies. If I have a broken arm, and those who pray for me tell me to "claim my healing", implying or saying that God has already healed me, and it is only my lack of faith that keeps me from experiencing that healing, and if yet my arm remains broken despite the best efforts at cranking up my faith that I can put forth, what am I to do? I may be counseled, "Believe and act as though you are already healed because you are. Believe it on the Word of God." Again, the implication is that I do not experience the healing because of my lack of faith. In my respect for these persons as my counselors and friends, I am likely to pay more attention to their advice than to the obvious truth of the matter, and consequently am liable to feel guilty for not living up to their expectations. We may be confusing what God is expecting of us with what well meaning (or over-controlling) Christians are expecting of us. It is perfectly possible, of course, that indeed my faith is lacking, and that that is a part of the block to the healing. But if my arm is still broken, it is still broken. It does not glorify God to claim that it is in some mysterious, invisible sense "healed". Christians are called to truth, not to wishful thinking. I will know perfectly well when my arm is healed -- when it behaves like a healed arm. A lack of faith in God will disorient me concerning the most basic matters of trust (ontological security) and obedience (meaning of existence). And that can certainly hinder healing - even on a physical, medical level. Doctors know that patients with a positive spirit have a higher chance of healing. If my faith is indeed lacking, I do better to set about on an intelligent journey of growth in my faith rather than spending time feeling guilty and miserable for not meeting someones mistaken expectations. The same kind of situations occur with emotional sickness and healing. We want to believe that God desires to heal us and that as we come to Him in sincerity, we will be healed within as well as bodily. But the obvious fact staring us all in the face is that countless Christians, born again, baptized in the Spirit, ministering powerfully at times, are still plagued with emotional and spiritual difficulties (as Paul describes in Romans 7). It does not help these people to say that they do not have enough faith unless there is reason for believing so independently of their not being healed. If we take this approach to healing, we have two choices, either to say that they have not really been born again, or to deny that the alleged disease really does exist. Either option is out of touch with my experience of reality, and I suspect with that of most Christians. We have good reason to believe that many of those in question have indeed been born anew in Christ and also that their disease or discomfort does indeed continue to exist (as Pauls thorn in the flesh). That is not to say that the question of genuine faith should not be raised, but it is to say that it is only one of the possibilities, and that it should never be raised in an arbitrary manner.

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A-2. Why an Unconscious?

One of the fruits of the last two hundred years of secular psychology has been to uncover and elaborate on the notion of the unconscious aspects of ourselves. Sigmund Freud did not invent the idea, but he did develop the notion more fully and dramatically than anyone prior to himself. Freud's view was materialist in outlook. He thought of the ego as subject to the "drives" of the unconscious, the id, and the superego. He was quickly followed by his rebel students, Carl Jung with his notion of the objective or archetypal or collective unconscious, and then Alfred Adler who thought of the unconscious as the "not understood" part of ourselves. These three in the early part of the 20th century contributed their own unique formulations of the unconscious, quite in disagreement with each other in essential issues. Others have contributed likewise since the original three. This is not the place to delve into their respective views, excepting to say that none of the three was a Christian, and none of the three rested his psychology on the Biblical view of the world.(128) If forced to make a choice, I would nominate Adler's view
128. Two as yet (June 2005) unpublished works deal with these two authors: On Jung, a manuscript entitled, Yahweh or the Great Mother? A video summary of Yahweh or the Great Mother? is already available, but does not contain an analysis of Jung's psychology. The video explains the chasm between the Biblical worldview and the secular/ pagan view, the implications of which are evident for Jungian psychology. On Freud, I have a manuscript, Freud and Religion - a Psycho-Historical Reality-Check, dealing with the misunderstanding Freud had of Biblical religion and with the poor logic in his own argument. See bibliographical note on Emmaus Ministries for information on availability of these items.

as the most compatible with Biblical Christianity, the many supporters of Jung not withstanding.(129) But from a Biblical point of view, although elements can be taken from each of their psychologies and used by Christians with profit, the Christian must carefully inspect to ensure that the items he is importing from secular sources are indeed compatible with the Biblical framework. The notion of the unconscious was developed among secular therapists for much the same reasons that Christians find themselves considering it, namely to account for behavior and feelings and reactions that we do not seem to be able to account for on the strictly conscious level. The fact that secular people developed the notion first with secular values and a secular view of the cosmos gave the notion of the unconscious a reputation as being a means of explaining God and religion away. Unfortunately Christians did not get there first because it all depends on which worldview you begin with. One's psychology is ultimately determined by his philosophy or religion, not vice versa. If you begin with a secular philosophy, you will have a secular psychology. And if you begin with a Biblical cosmology, you will have a Biblical view of human nature, including a Biblical understanding of the unconscious. It is that which we will discuss in this chapter. There are miracles. People are sometimes healed instantaneously. And we can be indeed new creatures in Christ. But there are no "quick (i.e.,
129. I have not written on Adler's views of the unconscious, but they are very well presented in The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, by Heinz and Rowena Ansbacher, Basic Books, New York, 1956.

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out of touch with reality) fixes" in the Kingdom. Some things just have to be worked through slowly and painfully. That is not a denial of the power of God. It is rather an invitation to explore more fully and deeply the wonder and the power and the complexity of God's creation, and the fullness of the means He has appointed for our deepest and richest healing and maturing as His sons and daughters. If no accommodation is made for the unconscious, religion will drift toward rigidity and legalism because it will put on the conscious level burdens which require the unconscious to handle. Religion will tend to become a haven for sick and neurotic religiosity. It will tend to embody a denial of that which it outwardly proclaims, the effective grace of God in our lives at every level of our being, because there will be many situations for which the Gospel will appear to be ineffective. On the other hand, if the Bible really does contain, as I believe, the only workable and livable philosophy, then then it will also contain a workable psychology, a workable understanding of human nature, of how we are to be ideally, how we fail from that ideal, and how we can get back to it.

B. Man at One Within

sense of identity, purpose, and worth. It implies two persons whose faith-deAnd the man and his wife were both pendency-obedience relationships naked, and were not ashamed. were of the highest quality, such that (Genesis 2:25) This verse must qualify as one of their basic needs were perfectly met, the ten most misunderstood verses of freeing them each in their humanness the Bible. It has an obvious physical to be open to those about them to offer each to the other their gifts of mascumeaning, but it has a much deeper linity and femininity, and thus to be emotional and spiritual impact. The perfectly at one in their relationship. meaning lies as much in the word It is for this unity that Jesus prays 'ashamed' as the word 'naked', which (John 17:20 ff.), a unity so unfamiliar attracts the greater attention. to the world that, were it to happen, Clothing and nakedness have even the world would have to say that strong symbolic meaning in all culGod produced it. It would be convinctures, including the Biblical. ing evidence even to an unbelieving The shame associated with naked- world that Jesus really was from God ness implies vulnerability and impoif He could create that kind of unity in tence striking deeply into the human and among people.(130) psyche. For two persons to be naked It was an openness of security, not before each other and not feel that vulof naivet. A common error in readnerability is surprising indeed. ing Genesis 2:25 is to associate Adam It implies two persons, a man and and Eve's condition with naivet, a a woman, secure in their own ability blindness -- which they shed in the to be themselves and in their own

B-1. Naked and Unashamed

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Study Guide for Chapter IV

The Warp In The Unconscious

an unconscious and why people are interested in its study. 14. How did Freud see the unconscious and how does this view differ from that of Jung? II. Questions on Chapter Four: A. 15. Why do the Freudian and Jungian The Problem concepts of the unconscious fall short? 1. Describe the controversy that exists 16. Summarize the authors high around inner healing and what that indi- school story of rowing in a crew, and cates about how some see the study of make the practical application that it prepsychology. sents. 2. Is it legitimate for Christians to use 17. Give examples of your own experielements of secular or pagan psycholence of unconscious processes. ogy? 18. Explain to some other person the 3. What is the best evidence for a heal- unconscious process as given by the ing? author. 4. How can an arbitrary appeal to faith 19. How is education related to the undermine ones reality contact with unconscious? respect to being healed? 20. Describe the freedom to be ones 5. What drives us toward the notion of self that Adam and Eve were able to an unconscious? experience in the garden of Eden. 6. What are the dangers of denying the 21. Why is our being the deepest reality of the unconscious? Have you aspect of our unconscious? ever run into such situations? 22. What is ontological security? and how is that related to mothering? B. Man at One Within 23. Explain the difference between 7. Describe the literal vs. the symbolic archetypal and concrete, and how meaning of naked and unashamed. that relates to the conscious, uncon8. What is the error in the idea that scious, and the layering effect. being ones self should be the easiest 24. What is objectifying, and how is thing to do. objectifying helpful in dealing with uncon9. What does naked and unashamed scious issues? have to do with Jesus final prayer in 25. Why do we often resist probing the John 17? unconscious? 10. Relate naked and unashamed to 26. How do rings on a tree help explain the faith-dependency-obedience relathe present existence of my past? tionship. D. Rational & Conscious 11. What is the relationship between 27. Why is the unconscious not irrationaked and unashamed and being ones nal? true self, and why can that be so diffi28. In what sense can the unconscious cult? 12. Under what conditions are we free itself be conscious? 29. Why is our personal awareness of to share the center of our lives? the unconscious not always able to proC. What is the Unconscious? duce a reliable report on the nature of 13. Describe the origin of the idea of In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as appropriate.

I. Summary:

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the unconscious? 30. What is the importance of the friendly unconscious? 31. Explain to some other person how there can be light at the bottom of our unconscious. 32. In ancient mythology, how were the mysteries of the unconscious represented? 33. Compare our relationship with God with the misty concept that many have come to hold as the truth. 34. When Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus about being born again, what psychological concept, among other things, was he implying? 35. In what sense was Jesus telling Nicodemus about a metaphysical rebirth? 36. Explain the reference to running a reality check on ones own internal spiritual life in section D-4. 37. What are the two different fundamental levels of the unconscious? 38. Discuss the three conditions necessary for the dark of the unconscious to be filled with light. 39. Explain what the author is saying when talking about experiencing darkness as light. 40. What is the difference between a good and a bad mystery in the unconscious? being as impersonal rather than personal?

F. The Warp
46. Describe the confusion that takes place when an individual begins to separate from God. 47. Describe the two directions of the souls defenses. 48. Describe the child/adult relationship as it is seen in Figure 4-D. 49. Explain the evil imaginations of man using the authors example from the book of Genesis. 50. After the flood, when God looked on Noahs heart and still saw the evil imaginations, what did He have to say? Explain. 51. How can an inadequate spiritual life be like living off the principle of ones monetary investments? 52. Describe the salvation by works brought about by our failure to be realistic about our dependency. 53. Why is the Fall always into unreality? 54. What damage to the souls reality contact is caused by the separation of feeling from relationships? 55. Describe the ways we are split within ourselves. 56. How, in the authors view, is the Flood story relevant to the warp in mans soul? 57. What distortion of the imagination is pictured in the Flood story? 58. Why is the warp humanly unfixable? 59. How does the statement that everything dissolves into relativity show (or hide) a felt need for culturally determined rules and regulations?

E. The Flat Table

41. What analogy does the flat table have with the spiritual life? 42. Describe the authors story of the flat table and its relevance to the study of psychology. 43. What is required in order to be able to test value judgements without a great deal of human error? 44. How can the ideas of cause and effect be used to describe our relation with God? and how is that related to our understanding of objective vs. subjective? 45. What are some of the consequences of experiencing my ground of

G. Choose This Day...

60. What meaning does the author give to the trees and roots to which John the Baptist says the axe is being laid.? 61. What two meanings can be given to John the Baptists cry for repentance? 62. Describe the new thing that Jesus

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accomplishes, pointed to by John the Baptist. 63. Describe the place of faith #4, and give Scriptural and personal examples. 64. Describe the authors interpretation of what will pass away and what will remain. 65. Explain why we do not know how to pray and how this applies to what Jesus said in His last breaths. 66. According to the author, what might the perfect be, of which Paul speaks in I Corinthians 13:8? similar? 69. Describe the unique aspect of Biblical psychology detailing what it is able to do in contrast with secular psychology. 70. Why are situations of desperate need able to become situations of light and hope in a way that the forces of darkness cannot stop? And, what has this to do with our unconscious? 71. How does the testimony by Robert Cummings illustrate the gender marriage in God? 72. Explain why we tend to think of God in masculine terms, according to the author.

H. The Default Settings

67. Describe the two main default settings of the soul, and how they are founded in Genesis 1:26-28.

III. Chapter Reflections:

In your own words relate what new insights you have gained from reading and meditating on the information contained within this chapter.

I. Light at the Bottom...

68. How is the Communist devastation of Russia like the devastation of the Fall to our souls? And how are the solutions

Chapter V

Imaging Jesus the Healing of Memories

A. The Imagination & the Incarnation
A-1. Reality & Myth
The Prologue to the Gospel of John is the New Testament creation story -- a cosmic and archetypal sweep of creation.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (John bore witness to him, and cried, 'This was he of whom I said, "He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me."') And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. John 1:1-18.

We know that something extraordinary is happening because, as is generally true of the Bible, the cosmic and archetypal lens very comfortably zooms down to the particular and concrete, in this case, John the Baptist and Moses. Only in the Biblical world does it make sense for the archetypal and metaphysical reality to mix with the mundane, created reality. In the secu-

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lar world, there is no archetypal or metaphysical, and in the pagan world, the archetypal is wholly other than, and therefore incompatible and incommensurate with, the world of time and space. Cosmic and archetypal mix with the particular and concrete through myth (secular/pagan) or through history (Biblical). The extent to which Christian theology had been Hellenized is shown by how often Christians felt it necessary to go beyond personal images of God, that personal images were anthropomorphizing God, intellectually condescending to give the infinite a merely finite form. So personal pictures of God were discounted as mere analogies, not anything like literal pictures. Not every scene in Scripture is meant literally. The Bible is well acquainted with metaphor, analogy, and poetry. But, from the Biblical point of view, the concept of personhood is a close and understandable rendering of both divine and human being. Of all the concepts we have, personhood is perhaps the most literally applicable between God and man.(169) That is the logical meaning of being made in the Imago Dei. Persons, beginning with God, are the basic entities of the cosmos. The primitive, pre-historical, prescientific mind did not clearly distinguish between myth and history as we try to do. Zeus was thought to be an historical figure dwelling on Mt. Olympus. But with the advent of more sophisticated modes of distin169. For further information on these ideas, see bibliography on Personality, Empiricism, and God. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics.

guishing truth from falsehood, it became more difficult to keep the cosmic and archetypal Zeus consistently related to daily experience of the concrete and particular Mount Olympus. No one could find Zeus up on the mountain in question. Most of modern secularism has given up the attempt, and relegated our contact with the archetypal to the realm of myth (meaning just a fable), or now out-of-favor metaphysics, all of which is a part of the modern bent toward "relative" rather than objective truth. For most philosophers, metaphysics is dead. The history of certain brands of nominalism and the death of God" from Hume to Kant to the 1960's is the story of the loss of the sense of the archetypal, cosmic, and metaphysical significance to our lives. Few historians of the last two centuries have believed that history was going toward an objective moral end. It was evolving randomly according to the current (chaotic? irrational?) forces at work. Young children, like primitive mankind, do not make a clear distinction between myth or imagination and reality. A four-year old was asked on Christmas Eve whether Santa Claus was real or not. "No", he asserted clearly. "Is he coming tonight?" "Sure", he replied with no trace of doubt (to the quizzical smile of his father standing nearby). A similar quip was heard from one of my seminary professors concerning "those students who believe firmly in the virgin birth of Jesus, but who have grave doubts about the existence of God." Our contemporary world is having great trouble sorting out the relation of the cosmic and archetypal with the concrete and particular. A rejec-

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tion of the so-called scandal of particularity (why should a particular event, such as the Resurrection of Jesus, be important for everybody and everywhere?) has become a stock in trade of modern life. What was being disproven was the pagan view of metaphysics, not the personalist Biblical view. The Bible stakes its claim to truth on our ability to distinguish between, on one hand, Santa Claus and Zeus, and, on the other hand, the real and credible events of salvation history. Scripture refuses to be de-historicized in its essential claims, and stands firmly on the proclamation that through people like Moses at the Burning Bush, the crossing of the Red Sea, John the Baptist preaching at the Jordan, and supremely in Jesus, God really did enter human affairs on our level of personal experience. Sometimes empirical evidence forces the metaphysical question.(170) Entering human affairs is not a problem for the God of the Bible, being Himself a Person who called us into being as fellow persons. It is a problem only for those who as a matter of principle find God inherently impersonal and unimaginable. The historical rootedness of Biblical religion is not just a quaint foible of an outdated sect. It is a matter of how
170. For a stunning presentation of the empirical evidence for the Exodus event, see The Exodus Revealed, a documentary of the evidence for the presence of the Hebrews in Egypt and Canaan at the times indicated by the Biblical account, the location of Mount Sinai, the path of the Exodus, and the actual crossing of the Red Sea. The DVD/video is available from Campus Crusade. Go to http://www.campuscrusade.com/ It would be difficult to explain the evidence clearly there for all to see without appeal to the intervention of God. (I will not spoil the story by telling you...)

Christians have always looked at cosmic reality.

A-2. Incarnation & Reality

As one ponders the mystery of the Incarnation, one might well wonder why God had to go to such lengths as to invest Himself personally into the world process as a participant from within, that is, as a creature. Why was the Old Testament revelation process not sufficient? Why was the revelation by the Spirit of God into the heart of man not sufficient? Why was the word of God through Moses and the prophets not sufficient to accomplish His purpose? There are no doubt many things God had in mind as He decided to do this almost unimaginable thing. As centuries of debate, not only between Christians and non-Christians but also among Christians themselves, has shown, it is very difficult for us to imagine God coming to us in our own clothing. And yet He did it very naturally and at ease. Apparently it was not beyond God's imagination to do such a thing.
Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of as servant, being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:5 ff.)

Not only did the Son of God lower Himself, He also thought it would be a good idea if we did the same. But that is precisely what we are unable to do in our own strength -- because we cannot tolerate our own weakness. We are compulsively striving to be as God -- independent, autonomous decision-makers. We will not be able to stop until we find a safe

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ground upon which to rest our dependency and a loving authority to obey. And that is what the Incarnation is all about -- drawing us back to the hand and voice of God. The Son of God did not have to twist Himself all out of shape to become human. We are made in the image and likeness of the triune God. Having become one of us, He could still say with perfect accuracy: If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.... John 14:9 The basic underlying reason for God revealing Himself in the first place, beginning with Abraham, was, of course, that we did not know Him as we were meant to. One has to reveal oneself only to those who do not know one. We did not know God either personally or intellectually. We could not imagine the truth of who God was either theologically or relationally. Our imaginations had been distorted in our separation from God so that our imaginations could picture God only in ways that were untrue to His nature, one of the most devastating consequences of which was to imagine God as -- unimaginable. God begins to reveal Himself with Abraham and the promise (Gen. 12) sealed in the blood covenant (Gen. 15), but there was more to come. There was Moses and the Exodus, there was the Law and Mt. Sinai. There was David, the prophets, the Temple worship, and the growing sense of a Messiah to come, the Babylonian Exile, and the development of the synagogue, each contributing something to the Hebrew's understanding of God. But it was aiming toward a knowledge of God that was deeply intimate and personal, such that Jesus could talk of God being our Father, and of our being His children. Jesus came to make God intimately and personally imaginable.

A-3. Intellect, Imagination, & Story-Telling

For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it a chaos, he formed it to be inhabited!): "I am the LORD, and there is no other. Isaiah 45:18

The imagination has often been treated, especially in modern western culture which places a high priority on the intellect and linear reasoning processes, as a kind of toy, a plaything that one outgrows when he arrives at the age of reason. "Oh, that's just your imagination!" is a universally understood rejection of a given possibility. That cannot possibly be true!" Imagination and phantasy are generally opposed to the more respectable faculties of logic and reason. John Macmurray was right. All thought is for the sake of action, and all action is for the sake of relationship.(171) And, we would add, feelings are perceptions of relationships.(172) The intellect deals with the abstract, mathematical, logical, measurable side of life, but is not itself a source of knowledge. It is a tool for assessing the accuracy of claims to truth from other sources, all under the general category of experience. Experience is not, as secularists
171. This is a theme throughout Macmurray's writings. Macmurray wrote two books which are important reading for any Christian philosopher: The Self as Agent and Persons in Relation, Faber and Faber, London, 1957 and 1961. 172. See above, What are feelings and emotions? on page 59.

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reason, so in real (i.e., relationship) life, imagination and reason must work together. That is true because the primary entities of the cosmos are persons, and persons live in relationship. All relationships are bound by the canons of reason or they run amuck. When I become inconsistent and unreasonable in my relationships, they fall apart. It is no accident that one of the characteristics most commonly attributed to God in the Bible is faithful and true. The world is meant to be inhabited, not chaotic. which explains why the Biblical cosmos is designed by God to be orderly, why God speaks to us in reasonable and testable ways, and why we are bound to hold ourselves to reason in our dialogue with God and each other. The laws of God, for example, are given in clear and precise form for the culture to which they are given. And we are expected to be clear and precise in our obedience to those laws. Clarity always favors truth, and unclarity always favors falsehood. A test for the true God in the Bible is to see which alleged divinity can keep its promises. God puts Himself under that same gun. The Kingdom of God is built on truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or it is not built at all. Living in the Light. The sabbath was made for man, not man Our imagination and our intellect for the sabbath. Mark 2:27 therefore work together to form the inner roadmap to reality -- which can The sabbath stands here for the then be a guide for living out our stowhole law. God is interested in perries. If the map can be shared (if truth sons, not legal abstractions. The abis objective), then we can share our stractions are important for understories. Imagination without the intelstanding ourselves, but they have no importance apart from the welfare of lect runs riot and is entirely unreliable. We must continually cross check ourpersons. selves with both concrete experience When making truth claims, our imagination is bound by the canons of and abstract logic to remain on target. often claim, to be limited to the five senses. It must include all possible kinds of experience, including intuition, feelings, emotions, etc. Religious experiences, just as much as any other, are grist for the intellectual mill. Reason is one of our most powerful reality-checkers. It analyses, takes apart, abstracts, and compares. It tests for logical consistency. It is a-historical in the sense that it deals with generalities rather than specifics. Time is irrelevant, so it seems to have universal application. Reason deals with laws which, given the same conditions, apply universally, whether natural, moral, or spiritual. The imagination is our creative, picture-making, and story-telling faculty. It is not just an image-producer, it is a story-teller, a history producer. It tends therefore to be very historical and relationship oriented. Every person has a story to tell, that is a fundamental, essential part of being a person. Every person wants to tell his story, to share it with others. That is what relationship is about. The abstract laws of nature, morality, or spirituality are important only when applied to specific situations, that is, when they are applied, via the imagination, to our own stories and histories. That was the point of Jesus remark:

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That is true in all aspects of life, including the spiritual. The truth is that the imagination is a fundamental and absolutely necessary part of ourselves, without which we would be totally and irremediably disabled. The imagination is not a frivolous and childish aspect of our minds, it is at least as fundamental to our knowing and perceiving functions as is the intellect, if not more so. If the imagination deals with concrete and particular knowledge, and the intellect deals with abstract and general knowledge, one would hate to have to choose between the two, for they are clearly both necessary to a whole human being. In the realm of the particular, the imagination is the storehouse of past memories. Without it we could have no sense of the past. The past, by definition, is not immediately present to me, and so I have to "remember" the past, I have to recall it from out of the storehouse of the imagination. Our contact with the future is likewise dependent on our imagination. For, like the past, the future, also by definition, is not immediately present to us, and therefore our only contact with the future is to be able to imagine what it might be like. Without an imagination. therefore, we could have no sense of either past or present. Only with a past, present, and future can we have a story to tell. Our knowledge would be limited only to that which we have immediately present to us. And that knowledge would be totally meaningless to us, for we would have no possibility of connecting our immediate present experience with any other experiences whatsoever. No story. So, as powerful as the intellect is, it is dependent at every stage upon the much depreciated imagination. It is indeed the imagination, feeding upon concrete and particular experience, which supplies the material upon which the intellect then gets to work, doing its abstracting and generalizing, comparing and categorizing. The intellect might give us a thought such as, "Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit". That is a general statement about what water will always do at a certain temperature. It is a statement of the sort that, unless your name happens to be Fahrenheit, probably does not get you very excited. But if you have fallen through a hole in the ice on a lake, you might exclaim with gusto, "Boy, this water is cold!". Or if you had just gotten a new pair of ice skates and ventured out to the neighborhood pond, you might get excited, "This ice is thick enough for skating!" Those would be an experiences of concrete reality which much more readily involves the imagination rather than intellect only. Experiences involving imagination draw us more readily into relational involvement than do statements of intellectual truth. That is partly because we ourselves are concrete and particular beings with concrete and particular interests and relationships. Much criticism has been directed at the analytic attitude of the 20th century, on the grounds that that attitude was able to take things apart but not able to put them back together again. We analyzed morality and meaning away, and even, in the radical behaviorist movement, analyzed our very selves away. The cure for that is to go back to our relational experience, which is the original source of all knowledge to begin with. When we analyze ourselves away, we should

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know that we have tumbled down a black hole of nonsense (a cause of much philosophical depression), and need to get back to our origins. Important as the intellect is, in the final analysis, the intellect is always the servant of the concrete and particular, i.e., the servant of persons. The role of the intellect is to bring order and reason to our imaginations so that there can be order and reason in our behavior and our relationships. John Macmurray again: All thought is for the sake of action, and all action is for the sake of relationship. Recent studies have indicated, furthermore, that our imaginations, far from receding as we mature, gain further competence, enabling us to think and calculate more quickly. A child's understanding, for example, of the sequence of days in a week is at first memorized in order, a "verbal list" system of memory. But about tenth grade, or age 15, we become able to form a mental or pictorial "image" of the week, like a picture of the calendar in one's imagination. One can scan visually backward on a calendar as easily as forward. With that image it is almost as easy to calculate backwards in time as forwards, not possible with the "verbal list" system. Try saying a list such as the alphabet backwards.(173) None of this is to demean the intellect. We cannot form an accurate inner mental map of reality without the analytical, critiquing power of the intellect. It is only to say that these
173. See Psychology Today, "An Image in Time", July 1987, p. 20. Research by William Friedman at Oberlin College appeared in Child Development (Vol. 57, pp. 1386-1400). See also Psychology Today, September 1989, p. 35, Everyday Intuition.

partners in the managing of ourselves must work together. The imagination, then, must aim at dealing consistently (logically) with real relationship issues, not at substitutes for, or escapes from, reality. And the imagination must aim at obedient relationships, not at relationships or experiences which are evil, judged by our purpose for existence.

A-4. God & Gender

The Garden of Eden story in Genesis 3 is the story of the Fall of human nature out of its faith-dependencyobedience relationship with God into the compulsive striving after security, self-sufficiency, and comfort in a selfcontained world. The image of God, meant to be carried to us by our parents, is distorted by our parents' dislocation from God. My parents cannot adequately bear to me the image of God because in them it is distorted. My parents, who are in the role of God to me in my infancy, thus set me up for idolatry, defensiveness, immaturity, and life in the closed circle of separation from God. My parents are meant by God to be a delivery system. My father is a delivery boy for a package, namely Godly fathering. My mother is a delivery girl for a package, namely Godly mothering. But in their fallen state, the package I in fact receive is the image of God filtered through their sins and ignorance. I receive a very distorted experience of those primal archetypal realities, Mothering and Fathering. My experience of God, then, is itself filtered through those bad images of God. If my father was cold and distant and demanding, then I will tend to experience the presence of

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God in those terms. Part of the price God has to pay in the process of revelation is the price of breaking through those bad images of Himself, in much the same way we must do with one another when someone gets false impressions of us. Our God-images are distorted by the spiritual realities of the world, the flesh, and the devil -- the unholy trinity. The Holy Trinity is God's revelation to us of community life, and it is that life in the Trinity into which God wishes to draw us. There is a kind of community within God Himself. When Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:1 ff.) that he had to be born again to see the kingdom of God, the birth image refers to our becoming a child of God, that is, that God becomes our Parent in the sense that we become dependents of God rather than of our earthly circumstances. But it means more than just dependency. There is a specific kind of dependency, suggested not only by the birth image but also by the fact that we are created in the image of God, male and female, that within God there is something of which males and females are unique images. There is currently a great deal of discussion about the matter of gender within God. This writer has for over thirty years been teaching that the Trinity is a triune family image, and that the masculine and principles are very much within God and reflected by our own human nature. The Father is the masculine principle, the Son is the child principle, and the Holy Spirit is the feminine principle. There are many questions to be raised by such a notion which must be answered, but for this present work we will merely state the position and refer the reader to another work for the detailed argument of the case.(174) We need as children to experience clear images of the masculine and the feminine roles working out that unity which is a reflection of God, which God has assigned to us separately. Men are given the gift of authority to pass on to their children and to administer in their place of headship in the family and social setting. And women are given the gift of power to pass on to their children and to share within the family and social setting. Power is not the worldly ability to control circumstances. Nor is authority the right to get my way. Authority is the commission to see that God gets His way, and power is the ability to be myself in the circumstances around me. Power is the primal gift of security given by the mother to the small infant, the experience of the ground of being, without which the infant would simply die. The total context of security with which the mother surrounds the child is the prime example of that meaning of power. The sense of purpose in life, the freedom to do that for which I was created, and moral backbone are examples of the authority which father is to convey.(175) This is not to imply that women have no authority or men no power.
174. See the two-cassette, four-hour video, Yahweh or the Great Mother? describing the chasm between the Biblical and the secular/pagan worldviews, and also two two-hour videos, Man & Woman in the Image of God and Human Sexuality - the Secular Debacle, on the opposing views of human psychology and sexuality emerging from the opposing worldviews. This material, and much more, is available in audio cassette form under the title, A Theology of Hetero-Sexuality. See bibliographical note on Emmaus Ministries for further information. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics.

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Self-hatred often issues out of that relation to a parent who conveyed negative feelings toward us, the father in whose eyes I can never measure up, the father who has no time for me. The self-hatred comes in an attempt to buy the father's good will -- "If I hate myself, then will you love me?" The person above has seen that her own unforgivingness binds her to the abusive parent, and that she is acting out her hatred of her father on herA-5. Reparenting self, or on the image of father within We have referred often to the pro- her, the internalization of her father's judgement upon her. It is impossible cess of reparenting. All too often our parents fail to convey to us the gift to objectify successfully any image meant by God for us to have of secu- upon which we are emotionally relyrity of being and authority for doing. ing for our own sense of self-acceptance. That upon which we rely has We are then bereft a healthy experiroots deep in the unconscious and ence of the two archetypal sides of life, mothering and fathering, from the therefore is unable to be separated out from our own self image. Hence the union of which children arise. hatred of the abusing father turns into A young middle aged woman hatred of oneself. wrote the following in her diary reThis client brought the following vealing the "bad father", the image of also to the same session, this time a rethe Accuser: flection on "bad mother", the empty, What is the result of sin unforgiven? The non-nurturing womb of life, barren sins of my parents that I am unable (unwilling) to forgive will be repeated by me. mother nature:
Why? Revenge? I act out the abuse inflicted on me and my family suffers the fallout. I try to get revenge and so become the abuser and the abused. That is why I can do to myself what I could never do to my parents. I say things to myself that I could not say to my parents. I lift the knife and stab myself again and again. Eventually I no longer exist. I want to kill myself -no, I want to kill the abuser inside me. If there is no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the foundation of all, there lay only a wildly seething power, which writhing with obscure passions, produced everything that is great and everything that is insignificant, if a bottomless void, never satiated, lay hidden beneath all -- what then would life be but despair? If such were the case, if there were no sacred bond which united mankind, if one generation replaced another like the song birds in the forest, of the human race passed through the world as the ship goes through the sea, like the wind through the desert, a thoughtless and fruitless activity, if an eternal oblivion were always lurking hungrily for its prey and there was no power strong enough to wrest it from its maw -- how empty then and comfortless life would be.

Rather it is to say that we are to "major" in the gift specific to our gender and to "minor" in the other. We all need to find that balance within ourselves of both of those gifts. It may also shed light on our mutual dependency and on how we might resolve that fierce "battle of the sexes" which has been waged so hotly down through history.

175. These issues of gender and sex roles are fiercely in contention today. Yahweh or the Great Mother? gives an extended argument from a Biblical point of view supporting the distinctions for these roles. Also helpful, Man & Woman in the Image of God, another video drawing out the implications of being made in the image of God, male and female and the Biblical understanding of gender roles. See bibliographical note on Emmaus Ministries for availability.

And what if that is reality?

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What if, indeed! But that is how many are introduced to life by inadequate fathering and inadequate mothering. In the end, only God can adequately "re-parent" us and bring that radical healing which sets me free from bondage to those old images. In my family, not only do I need to experience those gifts of power and authority coming to me from my parents, I also need to experience my parents willingly, joyfully, and in a mutually supportive way sharing those gifts with each other. Such an experience of parenting will provide the child with the strongest and most secure platform that parents can give from which the child can venture out into discovering his own adulthood and his own childhood in God. Inner healing therefore aims at the reformation of those basic archetypal images within us to conform more closely to the image of God, thereby introducing the child more fully and deeply to the life of the Trinity. Far from being a spiritual abstraction appreciated only by theologians and mystics, the life of the Trinity is an extraordinarily earthy, sacramental, and total involvement of being human, including very much our gender nature - the warp and woof of creation. The accomplishment of that reparenting is the effect of being born again, of being led by Jesus to being mothered and fathered by God, to become, that is, a child of God. All radical emotional healing is being reparented by God. can experience the reality of who He is -- and therefore who we are. The Incarnation is the revelation, the Selfdisclosure of the Father. God looks down from heaven and sees several billion people focusing on things of the world rather than on Him. No matter what He says or how He says it, we either fail to listen, or we distort what we hear, or we disobey what we do understand. Speaking to us by His Spirit in our hearts was a start, but something more had to happen. He saw us focusing on the things of the world and thinks -- "If that is where they are focusing, then that is where I will go. I will become part of the world they are so fascinated with. If they have tunnel vision, then I will go down and get right into their tunnel! Then they will have to look at Me." In the Incarnation God is saying to us, "Now you have to deal with Me directly. No more excuses. You will no longer be able to say, 'I didn't know'. From now on, if you do not know the truth about Me, it is because you do not want to know the truth. You will have met Me as I really am.... and you will have made your choice." That is exactly the theme of revelation from Abraham on, but in Jesus we meet God eyeball to eyeball, in the flesh. No more rumor, no more secondhand experience, no more theory. Now it is face to face experience. God as He really is suddenly becomes very imaginable, and either we choose "yes" or we choose "no". Our judgement on God becomes our judgement on ourselves. Jesus speaks sternly:
The Father who sent Me has Himself borne witness to Me. His voice you have never heard, His form you have never

A-6. Incarnate & Imaginable

The revelation of God from start to finish is God drawing us into a relationship with Him within which we

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seen; and you do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He has sent. You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to Me: yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life. John 5:37 ff.

A-7. Personal Relationship with God

Jesus comes into the world to reestablish in us that deep, faith spiritto-spirit dependency relation. He begins by creating that relation directly between Himself and His twelve disciples. Jesus comes to draw His disciples into the deepest kind of dependency which will reach far below the conscious level, far below the level which they can control and maneuver consciously. Only a dependency that deep will draw them through the cross life into the resurrection that awaits them down the road.(176) The dependency created between me and the Savior must reach to and expose that bottom level of the "flat table", the ultimate ground of my being, the standard by which I measure reality. That part of me above the unconscious level, the tip of me above the waterline, will normally get to know Jesus faster than that part of me below in the unconscious, especially if I have erected defenses and walls which split off my conscious from my unconscious sides. That part of me down in the dungeon will not easily be allowed to come into the presence of God, for that part of me will be the part that does not yet experience or believe the Good News. If the Holy Alliance sufficiently forms between me and Jesus,
176. Two cassette tapes (#C-3 - Why Jesus Had to Die, and #C-4 - The Price Jesus Paid) are available from Emmaus Ministries (see bibliographical note) on the theme of Jesus death and resurrection, and the establishment of the dependency relationship. Also the 4 tape series, #C-5 - Spiritual Transformers. These tapes discuss the ways in which our personal psychology is drawn into the process of salvation and why that is necessarily a part of the salvation process. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics.

God, who has never been seen or heard, now in their presence, seen and heard, in whom they can have life.
If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him. (John 14:7) That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life -- the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us -- that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. I John 1:1 ff.

Clearly the Father was not bashful about wanting to make Himself known to our imaginations. And the Son followed suit teaching in parables rather than academic lectures, precisely because they appealed to the simple folk-imaginations of Galileans and Judeans. How often have we felt, "Lord, I understand the English language! Why don't You speak plainly?" -- to which God sometimes replies, "I am not speaking to you now in English, but in the universal language of the heart." Sometimes that gets translated into English, as is indeed right and necessary, but even when it does, it needs to be retranslated back into the language of the heart which is the language of love, more akin to a hug, a kiss, an affirmation, a look. It is the intuitive language of the spirit which responds simply to being in the presence of One greater than ourselves.

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then I will have courage to venture down into that dungeon with Jesus to bring the Good News and to fulfill the Great Commission to my unconscious. The hurting child, the rebellious and bratty child, the resentful child, the misinformed child in me all need to hear the Good News. We cannot be dependent on someone we do not know personally. If I know only about Jesus, not Jesus Himself, then the dependency relationship is not yet securely established. When a crisis comes, I will instinctively turn to that which I have experienced over that which I have only heard about. I will turn to that created object which I still experience at that deep unconscious level to be the ground of my being, the sustainer of identity and wholeness. That is why the Church has maintained for 20 centuries that we must have a personal relation with God in Christ, not merely head-knowledge. Head-knowledge will help us focus the resources we have, but if the resources we have are, by their very nature, inadequate, I am still a lost soul. That is, head knowledge alone will be adequate if we are in ontological fact independent, autonomous decisionmakers (as the Serpent lured Adam and Eve -- You shall be as God...). But only a healthy faith-dependencyobedience relationship will solve my problem if I am by nature a dependent being -- a creature. That is a logical, and therefore inescapable, fact. An accurate head knowledge of God (good theology) is, like a good roadmap, important. But by itself, it cannot save us in the presence of the demons and dragons of the suppressed bottle. Only a resurrected Christ who can indeed accompany me into my hurting past can save me. We must "know" God in the Biblical sense of the word, that is in the intimate sense of personal contact, in the sense of having lived in one another's presence. The imagination has directly to do with this area of the bottle and the bowels, the storehouse of concrete memories and experiences in which reside my Parental images through which God presents Himself to me.

B. It's Never Too Late to Have a Happy Childhood

to why we so readily fall into idolatry. We are looking for that God-figure. Much damage to our reality conBut as we grow up, if we have tact is caused when we are young and vulnerable through faulty parental re- separated ourselves from God, and if we, as so often in the west, think lationships. Because those parents were in the role of God for us, it will growing up means becoming scientake another God-like figure to rescue tific (i.e. secular), then we will be bereft of any true God-figure to help us. us and restore us back to a healthy faith-dependency-obedience relation- We will have to make do with theraship with reality -- which is a clue as pists and friends -- whom we know

B-1. Into the Bottle

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Study Guide to Chapter V -

Imaging Jesus: the Healing of Memories

I. Summary:
In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as is appropriate. attempts at maturing inhibit the deepest healing? 14. What was the cause of shell-shock, how were those who had experienced this trauma healed, and what has this to do with inner healing? 15. What negative relationships can develop between ones inner child and adult? 16. How is our past still present? 17. Why is my past not the real problem? and what is? 18. Why is it never too late to have a happy childhood?

II. Questions on Chapter Five: A. Imagination & Incarnation

1. Give your own example of how children are unable to make a clear distinction between myth and reality. 2. Why is the Biblical world able to combine the cosmic and archetypal so comfortably with the concrete, historical, and personal while the secular and pagan worldviews are not? 3. Explain the imaginations importance to ones reality contact, contrasting it with the role of the intellect. 4. Why can the Biblical believer say with intellectual integrity that God is imaginable? 5. Explain the relationship between intellect, imagination, and story-telling. 6. How is the question and answer above related to the notion of persons being the fundamental entities of the universe? 7. Describe the delivery system that God intended our parents to be and what this delivery system is meant to deliver. 8. Describe self-hatred and what the individual may sub-consciously be trying to attain by this type of behavior. 9. How does the author understand the family image in God? 10. Explain how reparenting is related to the healing of memories. 11. How does the Incarnation force a choice on the human race? 12. Why does Jesus want to make us dependent on Himself?

C. Laying the Foundation...

19. Describe the difference between the pebbles and drops, the different ways of handling each, and how that illustrates aspects of inner healing. 20. Why do past memories need to be brought into the presence of God? and why will other persons, even very good persons, not do? 21. Describe the ways one can help a counselee become comfortable walking and talking with Jesus. 22. What is objectifying the offending person, and why is that necessary? 23. Describe the trust in Jesus that is an essential requirement for the healing of memories. 24. How does one detect a wimpy Jesus? 25. What are some of the reasons for someone believing in a wimpy Jesus?

D. The Healing
26. Describe the three different parents we all have, and how they figure in the healing process. 27. What image should ones inner parent be, and what possible influences might change this image into a source of

B. Its Never Too Late...

13. How, in a secular culture, can our

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hurt? 28. Why does Oswald Chambers say, ...no Christ for me if I do not have Christ in me? 29. Describe the extent to which the person with a bad parent image is limited in his/her ability to imagine. 30. How would one go about submitting his imagination, will, and mind to God? 31. Why is it important to imagine the possibility of what God can do even if He has not yet done it in me? 32. Describe the three events needing to be secured in the healing of memories. 33. As I am set free from possessive or immoral relationship, what is the difference between that which I can keep and that which I must renounce and return back to the other person? 34. What is gained by visiting with Jesus the past good events of our lives? 35. What is metaphysical grace? 36. Discuss the pros and cons of psychiatric medications. cess of feeding on truth to a friend, including (1) its relation to the unconscious, and (2) its relation to intellectual integrity? 42. Describe the reputation that religion has gained over the years and contrast this with Gods true intent. 43. How do eastern religions differ from Biblical religion in their ways of handling negative spiritual images, forms, and concepts? 44. Describe imagining in the flesh vs. in the Spirit. Give examples. 45. What would it mean to you personally for Jesus to be the Lord of your imagination? How might your life be different if you progressed in that relationship? 46. Describe the dynamics of the authors story of a patient receiving inner healing with Jesus from the memories of being put off by his father. 47. Tell the story to a friend. What response do you get? 48. Do you ever experience spiritual static? How have you handled it? or how would you handle it? E. Personal & Portable... 49. How is proper grave digging like 37. Have you ever engaged in your working on a car? own imaginative walks with Jesus? Are 50. How might the use of our imaginayou able on your own to pursue the heal- tions become a regular part of our spiriing of memories successfully tual lives, even when we are not so bro38. How might following up any of your ken as to need therapy in the technical own inner healing experiences with per- sense? sonal discipleship and discipline affect III. Chapter Reflections: your own spiritual wholeness? In your own words relate what new F. Imaging - Spirit vs. Flesh insights you have gained from reading 39. What does the author mean by and meditating on the information conimagining in the Spirit? tained within this chapter. 40. Describe the real leap of faith. 41. How would you describe the pro-

Chapter VI

The Healing of Memories

Biblical or Occult?
The word occult means hidden, but has come to refer to activities and beliefs dealing with magic, witchcraft, and other practices associated with paganism and the pagan worldview. They became more hidden as the pagan world in the West gave way to the rise of Judeo-Christendom, and then the rise of science. Secularism did not see the occult as an enemy, but as foolishness. But the long, slow demise of Christendom, and more recently of science as a way of life opened the gates for the now flourishing pagan revival. So Christians do well to beware of the incursions of paganism into Christian ranks. Because of the loss of an objective moral base, the non-Biblical world tends to drift strongly toward a power rather than truth and righteousness orientation. Persons engaged in the occult are very much driven by a quest for power. Magic is largely a side show. Those interested in power will want to control civil government, education, and the religious institutions. And so we can expect to find persons engaged in occult societies and practices also heading for the levers of control in those areas. But we must also beware of overshooting, throwing the baby out with the bath. We must pursue a reasonable assessment of occult charges leveled at inner healing from within the Christian community.

A. Sacramental Revelation
A rather fierce debate ensued during the 1980s and -90s in the Christian community over whether the healing of memories is an enterprise in which Christians might legitimately be engaged. In some instances, this debate is taking place quite apart from any clear experience of a Biblical form of inner healing, and conclusions are being drawn from principles that are only questionably Christian. The above five chapters are meant

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to give some sense of what Biblical inner healing is. In this chapter we want to take a look at why some Christians have condemned the whole process as smelling of the occult and having its roots in either or both of pagan spirituality or secular psychology. And we want to clarify the distinction between secular or pagan ways of healing and, on the other hand, what is consistent with the Biblical world. We have used 'inner healing' as a general phrase indicating a Biblical or Christian form of psychotherapy, a way of bringing our spiritual life directly to bear on our emotional problems. The healing of memories is the specific process of walking back into a particular memory with Jesus. Inner healing should always be seen as a part of the larger process of general spiritual growth, and never as a thing unto itself. It is a process to get us back onto the track of productive and creative spiritual growth. And the healing of memories is only one tool within the discipline of inner healing. It is a mistake for one to seek inner healing as a cure all. Inner healing is not a "quick fix" divorced from the long and often difficult journey toward the ultimate goal of all life, namely, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. There are two principles rooted in Scripture with which we must become acquainted if we are to understand the difference between Biblical and secular/pagan inner healing:
the sacramental principle -- the creation is an outward and visible manifestation of the presence, activity, and life of God. the revelation principle -- revelation of God always comes out of the experience of the faith-dependency relationship.

A-1. The Sacramental Principle

The Bible is not a "spiritual" book, it is a sacramental book. This statement is not a "give away" to a medieval or a Roman Catholic theology, as evangelicals might fear. It is simply a recognition that God means His world to be a reflection of Himself, and that His personality is stamped into everything He does. The generic definition of a sacrament is "an outward and visible sign of something inward and spiritual".(189) The word 'sacrament' may seem more at home in the catholic tradition than the evangelical, but the concept is thoroughly Biblical and evangelical. Because mankind is the highest level of creation (familiar to us, at least), mankind is said in a special way to be "made in the image of God". But it is true also that everything that exists, if it fulfills its purpose in God's plan, is to that extent made in the image of God, and bears the life and likeness of God -- a sunset, a rock, a plant. Because God is a personal God, not an impersonal thing or concept or essence or cosmic consciousness, it is persons who most fully and adequately bear that image. But because even the most impersonal of things are made by a Person, impersonal objects likewise to some degree reflect the nature of their Creator, a notion firmly implanted all through Scripture: "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims His handiwork." (Ps. 19:1.) The Bible might be called a "spiritual" book for two reasons. First, it might be called a spiritual book if it were simply about God, who is Spirit.
189. See the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, l979, Catechism, p. 857 ff.

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But the Bible is not about God only, it is about God creating, interacting with, and redeeming His creation. God gets very intimately mixed up with His creation, making the Bible a very earthy book so that the greater content of divine revelation is conveyed in language and imagery quite easily understood by common folk. The Bible is a book about God entering His fallen creation and bringing it to its fulfillment as a Spirit-filled creation, that is, a "sacramental" creation in the deepest and fullest sense of the word, a creation that shines forth with His life. The picture of the arrival of the Kingdom in Revelation 21-22 is not earthy and material because the author was not sufficiently spiritual to see beyond the material, nor because he was condescending to those of lesser spirituality. He was "telling it like it is". One need not take the physical description literally in order to appreciate the truth of the unabashed materiality of the Kingdom. The Bible, secondly, might also be called a "spiritual" book if it taught that reality is pure spirit and that material stuff is a mistake, an illusion, or a trap, or as Plato maintained, that the body is the prison house of the soul. Far from being the prison house, the body is, as Oswald Chambers says, the glory of mankind, the revealer of the soul.(190) The prison house view would be that of the Perennial Philosophy of Aldous Huxley's book by that name, the view which is the only ultimate alternative to, and mortal enemy of, the Biblical view.(191) The Bible is not a "spiritualist" book because it
190. See Chambers' Biblical Psychology, chap. II, and also p. 166 ff. Christian Literature Crusade, Fort Washington, Pa., l960.

does not teach, as do Eastern religions and Gnostic and Platonic philosophies, that reality is ultimately spiritual in such a way as to deny the reality and goodness of the physical and of time and space. It has been said that Christianity is the most materialistic of all religions. That is not to say that Christianity is materialism any more than it is the opposite, i.e., spiritualism. But it is to say that the Bible does not see a conflict between spirit and matter, since God, a Spirit, deliberately and with goodness aforethought, created matter with the intent of making it a part of His Kingdom, including all the basic realities of time and space. The Bible teaches unequivocally that the created order, though fallen out of the faithdependency relation with God, is per se good, and that God considers it worthy of the payment of an unbelievable price for its redemption. The depth of the Fall cannot erase the goodness of what God is doing in us. Of all the religions and philosophies of the world, only the Biblical framework has given us a successful way of bringing together both matter and spirit in such a way as to preserve the mutual reality and goodness of both, a fact which has enormous import for healing, since we ourselves are sacramental beings, with the physical being the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual. This alone gives us the possibility of a human being fully incorporating both physical and spiritual aspects of him or herself
191. Yahweh or the Great Mother? is a video presentation on the contrasts between the Biblical and secular/pagan worldviews, the two competitors for the soul of mankind. See bibliographical note on Emmaus Ministries for availability. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics.

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into a healthy and realistic self-image. We do not need to submit half of our nature to being explained away as a disease or an illusion by either the materialist or the spiritualist camp. If revelation is God communicating Himself and His nature to us, not only information about Himself, but His very life and presence dwelling in and among us, then God is creating a union between the eternal and the temporal. He is drawing the human race into a relation with Himself, using particular events and circumstances, beginning with Abraham, to picture, present, and model the Kingdom and Himself to us. Jesus' use of parables, stories with graphic sensory content, to convey profound and sometimes abstract spiritual truths about the nature of God shows a clear willingness to use the imagination. Whatever our objections to visualizing might be, as Christians they cannot arise from a presupposition that God is too spiritual and unearthly to communicate and present Himself to us in terms imaginable by us, or that He must use terms wholly other than the sorts of circumstances that we might all encounter in the ordinary course of our daily life and growth and maturation. The Biblical witness is that God meets us right where we are, the incarnation principle.(192) The catholic (lower case c) tradition developing over the first millennium of Christendom compromised the Biblical worldview just enough, failing to keep the distinction clear between Biblical creationism and Platonic (Perennial) evolutionism. Development of the doctrine of creation
192. For further discussion on the matter of revelation, see Chapter X , The Role of the Bible in the Healing Community.

was thereby inhibited.(193) The growing split between spirit and matter let to miracles being thought of as odd, unbelievable events, not things one would expect of God in a personal faith-dependency relationship. The sacraments then took on the character of magical intrusions into the normal order of things, or seemed like a mechanical explanation of something badly depersonalized -- rather than a sense that thats the way the cosmos is.... Western culture thus developed a sense of miracle which was an irrational intrusion into reality rather than part and parcel of our personal creaturely relation with the Creator. The Evangelical tradition springing out of the Reformation did little to counter this distancing of the spiritual from the physical, leading eventually to the 19th century Schleiermachian relegation of God to a subjective world of intuition and feeling.(194) The evangelical insistence on sola Scriptura often created an epistemology which drove Christendom in on itself, pitting Scripture against science, and thus perpetuating the negative outlook on the creation, sexuality in particular, which it had inherited from the Hellenized Middle Ages. Christians held reason suspect because they feared of reason would undermine Scripture, and thus made Christianity appear to be an enemy of science -- which was becoming skilled
193. For an excellent treatment of the effect of Hellenism on Christian thought, see Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. 194. Friedrick Schleiermacher in the early 19th century was a major proponent and turning point of the notion that religion was a private matter. Religion was privatized largely (and wrongly) to protect it from the acid criticism of secular Enlightenment scholars.

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edge, i.e. feelings. Without God on the throne of our spiritual center, the mind cannot know clearly the truth, the will cannot consistently choose love or righteousness, and feeling (relationship knowledge) cannot be satisfactorily integrated. Because only God can integrate our souls, our wholeness and holiness requires that we have accurate relational knowledge of Him. But, as reported in the Flood story: "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Genesis 6:5, cf. 8:21. Man unaided by God cannot imagine God as He is because the forces of the closed-circle world, the world walled off and separated from God, will always bend our imaginations in some perverted direction away from the truth. A-2. The Revelation Principle The proof is history itself. If Jesus really is "the image of the invisiThe second principle says that revelation occurs through our on-go- ble God, the first-born of all creing, historical experience of the faith- ation....for in Him all the fullness of dependency-obedience relationship -- God was pleased to dwell...." (Col. in which we come to know each other 1:15,19), then clearly the other efforts of mankind apart from the Biblical personally. The soul includes the mind, will, revelation to ascertain the nature of and feelings, with the imagination pro- God were far from the mark. No one came close to imagining God as reviding the furniture for the concrete representation of relationship knowl- vealed in Jesus. To have even true intellectual knowledge of God, let alone life195. See I Kings 18 for the event on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Elijah was changing, saving knowledge, we must willing to put the whole of Gods case on the logical come into His presence and learn of and empirical evidence. Either God would show up Him directly. We must experience the or He would not. Christians of the 19th and 20th centuries were not new faith-dependency-obedience relation, the flat table, the foundation of so willing, and thus abandoned the ground upon which God wins His case -- open, honest contest, as existence. Jeannie will never fully esin Come, let us reason together.... (Isaiah 1:18) cape the bottle until she meets Jesus. with dealing with the physical world (Gods physical world). The God of Scripture has no such fears. The recovery of the sacramental principle is tied to the Christian recovery of our intellectual integrity, and to our willingness to have open, honest Elijah contests to see whether Baal or the Lord really be God. If God cannot come through to assert convincingly His own case in the world of human relationships, in the time and space of His own creation, then, by Gods own standards, He loses the right to our loyalty.(195) Defensive retreat is not the Biblical strategy. The Biblical strategy is to engage reality, not to run from it. God wrote the book of Creation before He wrote the book of Scripture. We are to read both books and find out how God wrote them in harmony.(196)
196. See Introduction-C, Rebuilding Credibility on page xxiii

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A-3. Graven Images?

Christians occasionally misunderstand the second commandment of the Decalogue as a proscription against visualizing,
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. Exodus 20:4

Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon criticize the healing of memories on these grounds in their book, The Seduction of Christianity. They point out that we really do not know what Jesus looked like, so any visualizing would be just guessing and possibly misleading. But Jesus did have a face, and had there been a camera or an artist handy, it could have been photographed or painted. In any event, those who saw Jesus visualized Him in quite the most literal sense, and so visualizing Jesus is not in principle wrong. Hunt quotes J. I. Packer's book, Knowing God:
...we take the second commandment...as pointing to the principle that (to quote Charles Hodge) idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the worship of the true God by images." In its Christian application, this means that we are not to make use of visual or pictorial representations of the Triune God, or of any person of the Trinity, for the purposes of Christian worship.(197)

What, then, does Hunt make of, If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father...? Jesus apparently considered Himself something like a visible, sacramental image of the Father. Clearly Christians do not worship pictures or images. But that is quite different from pictures being associated
197. P. 166.

in conjunction with worship. One does not fall in love with a picture of his beloved -- but that does not prevent him from valuing the picture. Packer and Hunt will find themselves in trouble as Bible believing evangelicals with this kind of argument, for the same sort of charge can be brought against the use of the Bible, which after all is a visual object, and which does in many cases get in the way of a person's worship of God. There are many Christians more concerned with what the Bible is saying than with what God is saying, and precisely for the reason that they do not distinguish between the Bible, which is a book and a part of God's creation, and the Word of God, which is a great deal bigger than the Bible. Bibliolatry is not biblical. The truth is that anything at all can become an idol -- visions, the Bible, the sacraments, the Church, charismatic leaders, or evangelical scholars. And we need in every case to be looking beyond the object to God who is the Creator and Giver of it. That is both the glory and the danger of the sacramental world. God reveals Himself in and through the very world which we can mistake for Him. Objections to visualizing based on the Second Commandment ("...you shall not make for yourself a graven image..." Ex. 20:4) often carry an unbiblical freight with them, the notion that God is not imaginable or knowable by the finite human mind. That is good Platonic and Perennial Philosophy, but it is poor Biblical thinking, for it makes nonsense of the whole of Biblical revelation. The reason for the proscription against graven images is not that God is not imaginable, and that therefore it

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is sinful to try to imagine or visualize Him in any way. Rather, it was because statues and art forms were commonly, almost exclusively in some ancient cultures, used as objects of worship. That is the point of the verse following: "...you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God...." The proscription against graven images therefore was not given because God is unimaginable, but precisely because He is imaginable. If God were totally unimaginable, there would be no possibility of mistaking God for something in the universe. The mistake becomes possible only if God is indeed imaginable. We know that God is imaginable, for we, the human race, are made in His image. Our own very presence in some way makes God imaginable. The mistake warned against is not that we might mistake something totally unknowable for something knowable. Rather the danger is that we might mistake a knowable God for His also knowable creation, a very likely and common confusion. The Bible calls it idolatry. And that is precisely the result, always, of our separation from God. We begin to invest our faith-dependency relation in something within the creation rather than in the Creator of it -as per Romans 1:18 ff.(198) There is no doubt that much of God we will never know, conceptually, intuitively, or in imagination. But the Bible stands firmly on the truth that we can know what we need to know of God in order to understand and fulfill His commandments, that is,
198. See Chapter III-E-3, page 118.

His purpose for our lives. We can know and understand sufficiently about God so that we can respond in a reasonable, rational, and deliberate manner to His will for us. Far from inhibiting our imaginations, we ought to be immensely creative with them, an activity never forbidden in Scripture. We ought to be picturing perfection (as near as we can) with vigor and determination. We ought to find as many ways as possible to bring the Kingdom of heaven into painting, music, sculpture, architecture, and any other form of imaginative work. Unless the Shroud of Turin is in fact the grave wrapping of the body of Jesus and received the imprint of His features, we do not know what Jesus looked like.(199) But so what? Do we therefore forbid stick figures, baby Jesus in crches, paintings of the crucifixion? Jesus is still the very picture of health, and we ought to be constantly imagining what that might mean. What we cannot imagine we cannot attain or receive. The literal rendition of Jesus' image is hardly the point at issue. We are looking for the personality of the Father revealed through Jesus. "If you had known Me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know Him and have seen Him." (John 14:7) If the Church is the Body of Christ, then Christ can be said to have as many faces as members of the Church.
199. The mountain of evidence in favor of the image being genuine still stands against the reported negative findings of the carbon dating tests. And those carbon dating tests have also been called into question. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics.

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A-4. Psycho-somatic
It may be that shamans seek to influence by mind over body in ways that are not legitimate. But there is also a clearly demonstrated connection between the states of our psyches and the states of our bodies. The soul is in some sense in charge of the body. My will tells my arm when to move. Our immune systems react to emotional encouragement or to emotional discouragement. Laughter is often the best medicine for our sick bodies. So there is a clear and legitimate form of "mind over matter". In some sense, the spiritual throne room is the command post for much that goes on in our psycho-somatic selves. That is not a concession to the occult, that is just the way things work. We need thus to restore a Godly chain of command within ourselves as well as between ourselves and the world. Assisting the unconscious parts of ourselves to be part of that healing process is a legitimate part of the Christian healing ministry. We do that partly by imagining it. That is not intruding into the sovereignty of God, but participating in it. And that is not soulishness or carnal Christianity or infiltration by the occult. It is obedience to God in a sacramental creation.

A-5. Mystery vs. Mystification

God is trying to be clear, not mysterious. That is the meaning of "revelation". There are indeed mysteries, but true mysteries stand on their ownfeet. They are not the result of poor thinking or artificial barriers to investigation and exploration. A mystery is what remains after our best efforts at understanding, not the "mystification" created so often by artificial inhibition of exploration or of asking of important questions. Real mystery stands on its own feet, as does real knowledge of God. The Biblical world, then, is a world full of imagination in the deepest and richest sense of the word, beginning with the infinite imagination of God in which we participate, being made in His image. It is a world full of images, and being a fallen world, images which are often mistaken for God Himself. The process of Biblical revelation is not the process of removing all images from the knowledge of God, but rather the process of correcting those images and of bringing them into subjection to the truth and will of God as He really is. And as we should not tire of saying, that happens only by being drawn into a relationship of faith-dependency experience. All of this makes sense only in a cosmos where persons, and therefore relationships, are fundamental.

B. Pagan/Secular vs. Biblical Inner Healing

B-1. The "Perennial Philosophy" under the guise of some new and exThe non-Biblical world has a way of looking at life that indeed is perennial.(200) It crops up in every age, often
200. See above, Chapter I, Section B5, The Perennial Philosophy - a Metaphysical Fall into Non-Relationship

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Study Guide to Chapter VI

The Healing of Memories: Biblical or Occult?

I. Summary:
In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as is appropriate: graven images in the healing of memories? 14. How are mystery and revelation connected? 15. If we cannot know all of God, how much do we need to know?

II. Questions: Chapter Six: A. Sacramental Revelation

1. For what two reasons might the Bible possibly be called a spiritual book? and why do these reasons disqualify? 2. What is made in the image of God? 3. Why can it be said that the Biblical way is the only way to have successfully joined the spiritual and material? 4. Why could it be said (as one Pope did) that Christianity is the most materialistic of all religions and what does this mean? 5. How did early Christian thinkers compromise the distinction between Biblical creationism and Platonic (or Perennial) evolutionism? 6. How was sola Scriptura interpreted so as to encourage the perception of science as an enemy? 7. How might the notion of God writing two books help resolve the split between matter (science) and spirit (Christianity)? 8. Explain the revelation principle to a friend. 9. Summarize the authors explanation for Gods proscription against graven images. 10. How can we make an idol of the Bible? 11. Why does the author say that the Second Commandment of the Decalogue was given precisely because God is imaginable? 12. Explain the revelation principle to a friend. 13. How would you respond to Hunt and McMahons charge of worshipping

B. Pagan/Secular vs. Biblical...

16. Describe the five characteristics of Hindu cosmology. 17. How does the Biblical view contrast with the five points of the Hindu view? 18. Describe Hunt and McMahons objections to inner healing. 19. What is Hunts view of the unconscious? 20. What might St. Paul have to say about Hunts views? 21. Discuss briefly the seven principles of a Biblical view of life.

C. Healing Faith-Dependency
22. What is a major consequence of all human being born little pagans? 23. Why might the inner adult reject the inner child? 24. How can we grow into, rather than out of, our childhood? 25. Describe Thomas Harriss notion of the bad parent, and his solution. 26. What aspect of ourselves does the inner parent represent? 27. What is the sacramental split, and what are its consequences? 28. Why would a person reach a point where he is actually ashamed of his inner child? 29. (Figure 6-A) What is required in order to heal the faith-dependency relationship and what are the consequences of this action? 30. What response might be given to the charge of manipulating external reality? 31. If the past is not being changed,

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what is? 32. What is the importance of saying that God still has the whole package to deliver to us? 33. Why is it important to give our parents permission to change? 34. What happens if we are unable to imagine those people who have occupied the God-role as free and fun loving? 35. How young should we teach children to invite Jesus into their imaginations? 36. Contrast the common view of imagination held by many (perhaps most) adults with the reality of what the imagination really is. required in order to fulfill this goal? 46. Describe the five tests used to verify whether what one has presumably heard from the Lord actually came from the Lord? Do you see any loopholes? 47. Describe how faith (#1-4) has to do with the healing and correcting of our truth-seeking capacity. 48. Describe the dangers of the intellect and imagination without the safeguards of objective truth testing?

F. Metaphysics of Visualizing

49. Discuss the three disintegrations which follow from the sacramental split. 50. Give the authors definitions of subjective, objective, private, and D. The Real Jesus public. Describe how an event can be 37. How do we make God the lord of both private and objective. our intellect, will, feelings, and imagina51. Give the authors definition of the tion? term objective and an example of a men38. Discuss whether we should take tal even that is objective. the initiative in seeking the face of God, 52. How does ones early relation to and, if so, whether that should include mother illustrate the distinction between imagining Jesus as physically present. subjective and objective, and between 39. What might you suggest if your private and public? counselee is having some difficulty imag53. Why does the author say that peoining a scene? ple who live in phantasy trust their 40. How would you respond to a claim imaginations too little, not too much? that the pretending done in inner healing 54. Describe the two alternatives to is wrong? trusting ones own reality contact. 41. Why, or why not, is the healing of 55. What is the practical test to which memories a changing of the past? we can put our Christian spiritual lives any time we want? E. Testing the Spirits 56. Describe the practical mysticism 42. What are some of the conditions proposed by the author. under which the occult can flourish? and 57. Describe to some other person what can bring that flourishing to a halt? what happens when a past memory is 43. Why does the loss of God drive a healed, as it relates to time and imaginaculture toward relative truth? tion. 44. Why do not many Christians in the III. Chapter Reflections: West not worry much about the truth of In your own words relate what new words from the Lord? insights you have gained from reading 45. What is at the core of a rebellious and meditating on the information conheart, and what frame of thought is tained within this chapter.

Chapter VII

Being the Real I

A. Wholeness & Holiness
At some deep level we did not experience ourselves coming from God (being mothered, fed, nurtured) or going to God (being fathered, led, guided), and therefore our sense of childhood was insecure. Despite our churchly activities, at a deep level we did not know who we were. Deep down within many of us, there was a Gene or a Jeannie who said "nix!" to all this religion stuff. There was a part of us that did not want to be "I" because it seemed to hopeless, or did not dare to be me because it seemed so dangerous. A-1. A Parish Problem Largely out of this experience I During my time as a parish priest, began to develop inner healing seminars to help myself and my parishiowhile pondering the clear failure of spiritual life in so many parishes and ners overcome the barriers to experiparishioners, I was led back to the sac- encing their Christian identity at a deeper level. It is not enough to have rament of baptism, the sacrament of the best theology or the best liturgy or identity, our new creaturehood in Christ. We had failed deeply to expe- the best psychology. We need to experience Jesus, the greatest Lover of our rience ourselves as children of God, souls, One who is in favor of us being despite considering ourselves born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit. ourselves, and will draw us into a relaOur spiritual backbones seemed to be tion where He can show us how by His own presence and example. somewhat compromised. We continue, in this chapter, our exploration of the reality of personhood. It is grammatical, but not in current style, to talk of the real I rather than the real me. Nevertheless, I am using I because it is good grammar, but more importantly, the sturdy self to which I want to point is, physically speaking, built on the backbone. The backbone can be thought of as an I beam (as in construction), a symbol of strength and sturdiness. Our backbones allow us to be homo erectus.

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narcissism is the subversion of America, not the essence of it.) Definition of oneself is at the heart of contemporary secular and religious selfhood. But, unless we are as God, uncreated, we are logically incapable of self-definition. Creatures do not define themselves, they discover themselves, their built-in human nature already given by God. We can do that by working through the Five Decisions, or any other adequate spiritual growth process. As we discover A-2. The Problem of Self who we are, we can then begin to cooperate with God in the definition of The quintessential American Religion is ourselves. Without God we superinthe quest for the true and original self tend only the demolition, not the defiwhich is the pearl of great price, the ultimate value. Finding the true self requires nition, of our selves. Heaven with absolute and complete freedom of choice God, hell all by ourselves. unconstrained by any sources of authority The Fall can be described as the outside the self. Limits upon personal freeseparation of feelings from relationdom and choice are an affront to all that is sacred to the American Religion. When ship, putting our focus on how good the self determining self finds the real i, we feel rather than on how well we resalvation is achieved and the ultimate self late.(238) The feel-good theology has achieved contact with the ultimate which is attempting to pawned itself reality. Finding your true self is to the conoff as Christianity is just yet one more temporary Gnostic the same thing as findcultural variation of that perennial ing God. For the Gnostic, the purpose of Fall, the very thing from which God the religious community is to facilitate the reaches out to rescue us. quest and validate the results.(237) Nothing new under the sun. As This quest to become the autonothe connection drawn above between mous, independent decision-maker, current narcissism and ancient Gnosti- with its inevitable relative truth and cism indicates, the spiritual struggle of morality, leads invariably into sexual mankind has always been between feel-good promiscuity and violence self-centeredness and relationshipagainst the weak and helpless. centeredness. Sins of the flesh, notably sexual (One might add, however, that sins, are indeed some of the most diffiunique and distinctive qualities of cult things with which we grapple. Western Civilization and of America But the problem is not the flesh per se, in particular, are here because of our but rather our rejection of dependency Biblical underpinning. Our current and obedience, our alienation from our true Source. That rejection will al236. See bibliography on cassette tapes, Why Jesus ways lead to either the worship of, or Coming to understand the difference between being and doing was a major part of the project, but it took a long time to jell into a clear distinction. The distinction, however, will go a long way towards getting justification by faith understandable of the people because it clarifies the meaning of sin, faith, justification, and other notions central to the Biblical message of salvation in very down-toearth terms.(236)
Had to Die and The Price Jesus Paid. 237. The Rev. Leander S. Harding, The Disfigured Face of the American Episcopal Church, Mandate, March-May 2004. 238. See Chapter III-E, Metaphysics, Feelings, & Relations on page 114.

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the rejection and denial of, the flesh. Because our flesh is that mainly through which we appear to each other as individuals, the flesh becomes the object of worship or of rejection. It is a worship or rejection of selfhood, neither of which represents Biblical religion. The problem is not the self as such, but the distorted or destroyed relationship with God which our fallen selves imagine and pursue. We hear, for example, Put God first, others second, and yourself a poor third... The principle is well-intended and sounds holy, but it has a fatal flaw. It gives the impression that having a self is a bad idea, not approved by God, that the less self we have, the better He likes it. The second greatest commandment does not say to love your neighbor less than yourself, but as yourself, i.e., to include your neighbor in the good things of your life, not to have no good things. Jesus asked the rich young ruler to give all he had to the poor and follow Him, not to impoverish the fellow, but to enrich him, to show him how to find the real gold.(239) His physical possessions were not evil, just getting in the way -which was not the fault of the possessions, but of himself. The meek, after all, are to inherit the earth, not shun it. Emotionally and spiritually healthy people will not be damaged by sayings about putting oneself last, and will go about their business with common sense. But persons struggling with identity, whose mothering and fathering (or childing) has been less than helpful, will feel one more painful whack at their personhood.
239. Luke 18:18 ff.

The truth behind such sayings is that we are to make ourselves a living sacrifice for God and one another, laying our lives down. But that does not have the same flavor as putting oneself last. To be helpful and obedient, I may have to put myself first -- as George Washington, who trained himself to be a leader from his youth up, and became one of historys most magnificent leaders -- because he understood leadership from a Biblical perspective. The opposite of self-centeredness is not self-hate or self-depreciation, or having no self at all. That puts the problem within the closed circle where it is insoluble. Christians should know better than to get tangled in the worldy fight of self vs. not-self. The problem is the closure of the metaphysical circle, not being a self. The opposite of self-centeredness is having the fullness of oneself both received from and dedicated to God, a happy state possible only through the mothering and fathering of God Himself. To see the kingdom of God, that happy place of ordered freedom, we must be born again. Aiming for heaven is not self-centered. You will get there only by the way of the Cross. But heaven is the most whole-some and holy state in existence. Bar none. There is nothing more joyful and wonderful we can pursue for ourselves, but it will not be self-pampering. One may, in a run of compassion, want to help other people get there first. But we cannot. Just as the airline stewardess tells us to put on our own oxygen mask before putting one on our child, we also must first be saved, first become whole and holy (or at least on the road), in order to be of

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any help to others. Otherwise we will be incapacitated or just get in the way. Good intentions do not make up the difference. As Jesus notes, it is easier to see to the mote in our neighbors eye without the log in our own. If we want to be helpful to others, we must do it from our position in heaven. And that can begin right here on earth. bodily off the porch, he landing in a heap of dust in the road. The pupil got up and angrily shouted, I am fed up with your nonsense about being myself. I have tried and tried and I quit! Im getting out and I am just going to be myself!!! Bong! The message hit like a ton of bricks. The pupil had at last successfully accomplished his teen rebellion, claiming the self which was his Godly birthright, independently of, at least, this earthly father figure. (Zen Buddhism does not have the right worldview context within which such an event really makes sense, to point on to the real Father, but we want to give credit for wisdom where wisdom shows up.) The real I has intellectual, moral, and spiritual backbone, able to stand straight and tall, no cowering. I spent much of my younger life thinking that perfection was akin to leaping to the ceiling and being able to stick there. I would occasionally have nightmares about being perched on a flagpole, panicked for fear of falling. One day the Lord informed me that, no, perfection is more like standing firmly on the ground and being real in relationships. The ground upon which we stand before the Lord, the ground upon which we prostrate ourselves before Him, is the Hand of God, the ground of our being. It is the ground of our creaturehood and thus the ground of true humility, for which we can be devoutly grateful. In the end, it is the only ground upon which we can stand, where we find security of both being and doing. As is said, You cannot fall off the floor. In the words of T. S. Eliot, it is

A-3. Standing Up
One might suggest, "Just be yourself," to which the response comes back, "I'm not sure who my real self is! Will the real I please stand up! Where is my I-beam??? It seems odd that we can be in doubt about who we are. But that is often the case. The whole human race has an identity crisis of major proportions, not only among those who are emotionally disturbed, but also among those who appear successful in their worldly pursuits. If the Bible is right, then none of us knows who we really are -- until we know ourselves as children of God. A story from a westernized Zen Buddhist background tells of a Zen master who was teaching his pupils about being themselves. He taught long and diligently about the subject, but one pupil just did not get it, try as he might. The pupil badgered the master over and over to explain one more time. The pupil was getting frustrated and discouraged. He visited the master for one last try. Knocking on the masters door, in a not very graceful manner he insisted on yet another explanation, implying that he was ready to walk out of the class. The Zen master picked him up by the seat of the pants and heaved the pupil

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the ground where we meet ourselves and know ourselves for the first time. Perfection is, by nature, quite ordinary, not out of the ordinary. lowing is a set of principles which will help in this effort:
1. Who I am is something I receive, not do. 2. I must want to be me -- the Five Decisions to be well are also the Five Decisions to be me at all. 3. Self-reliance and self-assertion are necessary parts of our life in Christ. 4. The conscious must take authority over the unconscious. 5. The real I can be found only in God's purpose for my life. 6. Finding myself is a dialogue of creation between me and God. 7. Only the cross life can rescue me from narcissism.

A-4. Seven Basic Principles

How can I get in touch with the "real" me? Can wholeness be united with holiness? In this chapter, we bring the questions to a sharp focus. There are further clues we can apply to get the real I to stand up and be identified, and practical things we can do to help us get in touch with the unknown part of ourselves, the Gene or Jeannie hidden down in the bottle, or simply that undeveloped part of our- We will look at each. selves that does not yet exist. The fol-

B. Something Received, Not Done

B-1. Being a Creature
The foundation of all Biblical religion and faith and practice is the doctrine of creation. We, and the whole of the cosmos, are creatures of One who Himself is not a creature. Being a creature means, by its very nature, being dependent for our existence. If we do not get our dependency straight, none of the rest of Biblical faith will hang together. Being a creature means that being myself, being the real I, is at bottom a gift I receive, not something I do. I do not be" me, God "be's" me. That is, I am His creature, and He is responsible for my being, not I. In the world, there is a perpetual confusion between being and doing which can never be resolved since the world without God has no adequate accounting for the nature of being. It therefore constantly slides into thinking of being ourselves in terms of what we do (see Figure 7-A).(240) The hand of God reaches down to be the ground upon which we stand, giving our ability to be ourselves. God also leans down and speaks to us.(241) The arrow with the scroll represents my capacity to affect the world, to make a difference. The scroll hanging from the arrow lists all those things I have done in the world, all of the ways in which I have touched another persons life or af240. The issues of being and doing are discussed in detail on two cassette tapes, C-1, "Born Again", and C-2, "Justification by Faith". See bibliographical note on Emmaus Ministries. 241. Cf. fig. 9, "The Primary and Secondary Circuits", chapter IV-D.

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Study Guide for Chapter VII

Being the Real I

I. Summary:
In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as is appropriate:

C. Five Decisions to Be Myself

16. What are the contradictory notions of waiting upon God? 17. Describe the discovery of the difference between mean me not me, and its II. Questions: Chapter Seven: importance. A. Wholeness & Holiness 18. How can self-reliance be a Godly 1. According to the Bible, at what time thing? do we come to know who we really are, 19. How can my need to live depenand until then, what do we have as it dently conflict with my need to live as an relates to our identity? individual? 2. In what sense is the self a prob20. What is the common ground we lem? must find as we become individuals? 3. How is self-definition a logical 21. How is selfhood inextricably related problem? to choosing? 4. If the flesh per se is not the real 22. Describe the spiritual warfare and problem, then what is, & why? paralysis which can erode our selfhood. 5. Would you support or reject the prin23. Describe the burden that goes ciple: Put God first, others second, and along with the decision to be a seeker of self last? & why? the truth. 6. What is the opposite of self-cen24. Describe each of the Five Deciteredness? Discuss the alternative sions vis-a-vis our growing into maturity. answers. 25. What is the importance of having a 7. Relate & apply the Zen Buddhist common ground established by the comparable. mitment of faith? 26. What happens to the person who B. ...Received, Not Done begins to compromise his integrity as a 8. As we come to stand on the hand of God, and listen to the voice of God, what human being? 27. Explain why we, as humans, are happens to us? the most objective entities alive and how 9. Explain to a friend why who I am is this relates to being subjective. something received, not done. 10. What have our hands and feet to D. Self-Assertion in Christ do with our self-image? 28. How would you respond to the 11. Activist homosexual persons often notion that self-assertion is not Chrisrespond to critics: Homosexuality is who tian? I am, not what I do. How would you 29. What does owning myself mean, respond? and how is that related to self-giving? 12. List some blocks you find to being 30. Explain the authors notion of salyour real self. vation beginning with faith #1. 13. Distinguish self-love from self-pam31. Explain spiritual backbone to a pering. friend, and its relation to being strong14. How is creaturehood related to willed. self-hood? 32. Summarize the authors explana15. What are blocks you experience to tion of the importance of a baby chick to thanking God for yourself? break out of its own shell and draw a

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possible application to your own life. 33. Explain ontological sloth. 34. Describe the nature of Jesus as it relates to His knowledge of self and how does this relate to us who are made in the image of God? 35. Why does reasoning together lead to a crucifixion? 36. What does this statement made by the author mean to you: For a Christian, living in the Spirit of God is never retreating, but always moving forward into and asserting the Kingdom. being is something received, not done? 48. Compare the materialist vs. the spiritualist versions of exploring the limits. 49. What must happen to rescue us from ultimate nihilism, and why? 50. What is the difference between exploring the limits of myself and the limits of God? 51. What have periods of apparent rebellion to do with exploring the limits? 52. The terrible twos and adolescent rebellion are caused by the searching for what? E. Conscious Taking Charge 53. Describe ways parents can guide 37. Why is the denial of freewill impos- children through their testing periods. sible to sustain? 54. Contrast what it means to be cor38. Explain objectifying, and why we rected with what it means to be artificannot emotionally objectify anyone cially forced to trust someone elses upon whom we are dependent. judgment about truth. 39. What is the only way for the con55. Explain the importance of feedback scious side of a person to take over and for maturing. what does this require in ones relation56. Describe the Biblical version of ship with God? Maslows self-actualization. 40. How does the conscious mind go H. Beyond Narcissism... about taking authority over the uncon57. What is the impenetrable ceiling of scious and how important is this? 41. Explain to some friend the healing our growth in a Godless world? 58. Explain why Narcissism could be alliance pictured in Section E-5. 42. What results from an unconscious seen as the chief enemy of all humanity. 59. In what sense is feeling good a whose foundation is anything less than Godly thing? the living God? 60. What is carnal Christianity? F. Healing Power 61. Explain to some other person the of Gods Purpose picture of the Three Is. 43. Discuss ways in which purpose 62. How have Christians attempted to stiffens our backbones. tie a legitimate value to the idea and 44. How would you respond to the importance of a good self image? claim that an atheist can have purpose 63. Explain what happens in the first for his life just like a believer? stage of the cross life and what causes it 45. Contrast what it means to have a to come about. life full of meaning with a life that seems I. Finding My Being to totally meaningless. 64. How is the secular view of being 46. What is the likely outcome of an attempt at inner healing without serious yourself destructive? 65. Describe the two contrary ways we and searching moral and spiritual invenmight to about getting in touch with our tory? beng. G. Dialogue of Creation 66. How might the scene of Moses at 47. In what sense is it not true that our the Burning Bush help illustrate the two

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different ways we find ourselves? 67. How is the risk and reward of the spiritual life like the risk and reward of learning to ride a bicycle? 68. Describe experiences where you have had to face some threat alone, and what resources you found. 69. Describe the authors notion of emerging through the dark to a common ground, and how we get there. 70. How might the Parable of the Talents help illustrate Faith #4? 71. What does the author say resurrection is in a sacramental, personalist world? 72. What is the meaning of Jesus taking off His gloves? 73. Find someone to whom you can explain the authors interpretation of Spielbergs Artificial Intelligence. to the identity of the Church? 76. Describe the authors notion of faith, hope, and love 77. How can we, like Paul, help complete what is lacking in Christs afflictions...?

K. Freedom in Christ
78. Describe the differences between Godly and worldly freedom. 79. How might you describe to someone the authors notion of Christ as the source of freedom in both the personal and public realms? and, What relevance might this have for congregational life? 80. What is the problem of the one and the many? 81. How does a believers independence in the world give him the freedom to be open to deep relationship in the world. 82. Why can these cords not be broken?

J. Maturity...
74. Describe the differences between the first and second stages of the cross life, and how they are related to the Five Decisions. 75. What is a living sacrifice? and, how does the author see this as related

III. Chapter Reflections:

In your own words relate what new insights you have gained from reading and meditating on the information contained within this chapter.

Chapter VIII

Repentance, Forgiveness,
and the

Healing of the Will

A. The Will's Need for Healing
A-1. A Will Damaged by Sin
If the faith dependency relation in its fullness and perfection defines the purpose of our existence, then its disruption defines the Fall and leads to all of the horrendous consequence of personal and social disruption. The prime and basic cause of the ills of the world is not the pain and insanity of so much of human life. Those are the consequence, not the cause. But, then becoming a reality in which we live, pain and brokenness become a secondary cause. The primal cause, however, is sin, the choice to be less than God has called me to be, the choice to sing my own tune, the choice to run my life independently of God, to ignore my reason for existence, and so be out of step with the direction of the whole cosmos. That choice is manifested in every decision we make. We are either building heaven with God or hell without Him. There is no other ultimate choice. All the little choices of our lives drive us in one or the other direction. That means that the healing of the world must be founded on the redemption of sin, making a different fundamental choice about the direction of my life. A psychologist at Riker's Island City Prison in New York City was lecturing one hot summer afternoon in 1959 to a group of seminary students about the prison's attempts to reform criminals. I asked whether curing the criminals neurotic tendencies would also cure their criminal tendencies, or whether it would only make them more well adjusted and therefore more capable criminals. He was honest

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enough to say that he did not know. Too much psychologizing has sidelined repentance on the assumption that our "real" problem is not deliberate misbehavior, but rather ignorance, pain, or brokenness. So we have focused on education without moral education, on healing pain without calling to account for how one intends to use his new wholeness. Scripture, Jesus included, makes clear that our sins have a great deal to do with our brokenness. One does not want to deny healing to anyone. God sends the rain on the just and the unjust. But healing without repentance is ultimately selfdefeating. The world works only one way, God's way. Everything else leads finally to death. And so to try to create a healed person or a healed society without rooting out the basic sin behind it all is to set oneself up for frustration and failure. A counselor (and other helping professionals) might want to weigh carefully where he spends his time and efforts -- with persons who merely want to become better manipulators and to defend their private, narcissistic worlds, or with those who are genuinely aiming to become the full persons God has planned for them to be. The will is thus usually thought of as the arena of repentance, not of healing. And rightly so. But if one of the results of sin is damage to the soul, the will is part of the soul. Even with the most well-intentioned parents, children can find themselves in unbearable situations. The will itself can be damaged so that we become unable to choose effectively. The disease of the mind is ignorance. The disease of the emotions is fragmentation, inner conflict, dis-integration. The disease of the will is the inability to choose effectively, so that choose as we might, we are unable to carry out our choices. We become unable to choose life. Our choosing becomes competitive, compulsive, blind, and split from reality. The will is the primary point of address by God -- "Thou shalt...." We are to conform our wills to His will. We are to choose His purposes for our lives. But we are also to do so freely and willingly, as a gift. Paradoxically, we are independently to choose to be dependent. Our free will gives us the freedom to be obedient as well as disobedient. We are made in the image of God, but that is a process. We are still being made in His image. Our freewill is part of our image in God, which allows us to be co-creators with God of ourselves. We are able to participate in our own identity establishment. We can choose, or not choose, to be made complete in the image of God. A part of that image is simply given. We have no choice about having freewills. But given the freewill, we have choices about whether we will cooperate with the Giver of the freewill.

A-2. The Consequences of a Broken Will

St. Paul relates with deep emotion in Romans 7 of his own wrestling with the damage he experienced to his own will:
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

This damage to the will manifests itself in several ways.

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Firstly, the damage shows itself in ignorance. One gets out of touch with reality. Our roadmap to reality becomes warped and skewed.(299) Secondly, the self tends to split, creating internal conflicts and an inability to choose consistently.(300) And thirdly, we develop a confusion between being and doing, between who I am and what I do. I begin to hate the sinner instead of the sin, which then leads to a compulsive justifying of the sin rather than the sinner. Self-hate is mistaken for repentance so that the real issues of my sin cannot be dealt with. Sin therefore leads to a condition where effective repentance is impossible. As Paul shows in Romans 7, we cannot effectively change our behavior by an act of will. The conscious will is nullified by something which acts like a foreign body within us. We traditionally choose two escape routes. There is first the "liberal" escape which tells us that we really are all good, that sin is simply a mistake, or the result solely of faulty up bringing. Just set us free from the trammels of social conformity and we will blossom into loving, mature human beings. Conservatives tend to take the opposite route, which tells us that human nature is all bad, we are totally depraved, as Calvin believed. Neither route is true to empirical evidence nor to the Biblical revelation. Contrary to the liberals, we do not naturally blossom, left undisturbed. And contrary to some conservatives, it is always, no matter what sins I have com299. See above, chapter IV, "The Warp in the Unconscious". 300. See above, chapter III, "The Healing Alliance".

mitted, good and right to be myself. There is a core of my being, that which is given directly be God, which is irreparably good. Our fallen condition leads to a delusion of freedom, that our freewill is "maintenance free", that we are free without having to follow the "user's manual", much as teenagers tend to act as though they were immortal. Our freedom is taken for granted. The irony is that it is granted, and we therefore can take it. But we must take it from the hand of the One who grants it. Taken from any other source, that source will betray us into bondage, not freedom. Freewill functions well only as part of the basic faith-dependency-obedience relation, a relation of trust and obedience to God. The fallen illusion of unlimited freedom becomes an increasingly selfdefensive, self-centered obsession with power and good feelings. The will becomes compulsively devoted to some idol which it hopes will ease its pain, and give order and meaning and stability to one's life. It becomes more and more impossible for the will to choose truth, righteousness, holiness, purity, or love. Paul describes the three steps of this tragic transition in Romans 1:18 ff. We first subvert truth, then we begin to worship the creature rather than the creator, and then we fall into compulsive and self-destructive behavior. Jesus, in the parable of "the eleventh hour" (Matthew 20), tells us that it is never too late to repent. On the other hand, He also gives stern warnings that we can be caught unprepared for the coming of the King (Matthew 25). Jesus is saying that honest repentance is always acceptable to God, but

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also that there is a final judgement. Sin does not go undealt with, and persistent sin leads inevitably to death. For unrepented sin, there is no forgiveness. There may come a time in my journey ever deeper into sin when I am no longer able to repent, a time when I have so locked myself into my sin that I have thrown away the key. I have made my sin so fundamental a part of my identity that I cannot separate from it. Instead of being a man who grumbles, and therefore a man who can repent, I have deteriorated to the point where I am merely a spastic grumble, and have therefore lost my personhood.(301) A person can still be saved, but a mere grumble
301. C. S. Lewis uses this example somewhere in THE GREAT DIVORCE.

must be thrown on life's trash heap, Gehenna of the Gospels, the trash dump outside of Jerusalem. Hell. The very giving of the law is an act of grace, leading to grace, illustrated by the Five Decisions. When we complain that God is always telling us what to do..., we would do well to remember what He is telling us to do: be truth-seekers, stable, free persons, righteous, and loving. He is not only telling us, He is telling us how. Which of the above would any rational person not want? Neither love nor grace (and therefore persons) can survive in a lawless, purposeless world. The law, morality, purpose for life is a call, not to bondage, but to the fullness and freedom of personhood.

B. Choosing Ones Life Purpose

B-1. Two Trees & Two Commandments
The two trees in the Garden of Eden are about human freedom, signifying the most important choice of our lives. The Tree of Life (see Figure 8-A) symbolizes eternal life through dependence on and obedience to God. It means cooperating with God in my identity establishment by coming to the place where I am finally receiving my power of being and my authority of doing through a personal relation to God, the very fullness of salvation. I become like the One in whose presence I live. It is life in the open circle of creation, held in the hand of God and obedient to His word. Living in such a relation with God we become increasingly made in His image, brought finally to that perfection for which He planned ourselves and the whole of creation. We experience a healthiness of soul, a will that functions single-mindedly, a will that can choose with the whole of my being, the totality of mind and emotion. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, on the other hand (see Figure 8-B), represents rebellion against God, choosing to step off the hand of God into a life of autonomy and independence. Our faith-dependency relation with God has been disrupted and displaced with dependency on the unholy trinity of the world, the flesh, and sooner or later the devil. We become made in the im-

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Study Guide to Chapter VIII

Repentance, Forgiveness and the Healing of the Will

I. Summary:
In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as is appropriate: conform with the purpose of God? 16. Describe repentance, detailing the things that it is and the things it is not. 17. What are the two primal questions that we must ask when we are in the act of repentance? 18. Explain the difference between true and false guilt, and the resolution for each. 19. What do the two court rooms in the parable symbolize?

II. Questions on Chapter Eight: A. The Wills Need for Healing

1. How does our free will act as a selfcreating and self-defining aspect of our humanity? 2. What is the primary cause of the worlds problems? & why it is. 3. What are the alternative answers often given? Which is right & why? 4. Why is healing without repentance self-defeating and why? 5. How does the will get damaged? 6. What is meant by a maintenance free will? & how is that related to the drive for unlimited freedom?

D. 2nd Step of Repentance

20. What is meant by More successfully self-centered, and what has that to do with repentance? 21. Describe legitimate and realistic repentance, how that is related to not being of the world, and how that means I can be fully in the world.

B. Choosing Ones Purpose

7. Explain the choice between the two trees in the Garden of Eden and what they symbolize. 8. How are these two trees related to the two Great Commandments? 9. What is the difference between the ultimate goal and more particular & concrete goals? 10. What effect does a sinful ultimate goal have on repentance? 11. What is the significance of the weight of my own ultimate goal in repentance? 12. Why must our own kingdoms not be of this world?

E. Forgiveness
22. Describe the three levels of forgiveness. 23. How does God illustrate and live out those three levels? 24. Describe the false view of God that many Christians have when it relates to the act of confession. 25. Why does the offended party have a need to forgive? 26. When I forgive someone, in what sense am I honoring that person? 27. According to Jesus, what are the conditions to which we must agree if we are to enter into the Kingdom of God? 28. Describe the idea that a badly set bone might need to be broken again in order for it to be set properly as it relates to our relationship with God. 29. What safeguards need to be observed in forgiving one who has been destructive toward us? 30. Why is Kingdom forgiveness neither a weak whitewash of sin nor a harsh

C. 1st Step of Repentance

13. Discuss three (or more) roadblocks to repentance. 14. Explain to some other person why perfection is our friend. 15. Explain what happens to a person when their ultimate purpose does not

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judgmentalism? How does God manage to go safely between the Scylla of rigidity and the Charydis of moral relativism? Catholic Church.

III. Chapter Reflections:

In your own words relate what new insights you have gained from reading and meditating on the information contained within this chapter.

F. Helps to Confession
31. Describe the rite of penitence and what happened, in relation to mental hospitals, when this rite fell slack in the

Chapter IX

Inner Healing
in the

Parish
A. Pointing on to God
hand, if it is close enough to reach out and touch, if we are to see the Kingdom of God, as Jesus said to NicodeThe previous chapters have mus, if some were not to taste of death focussed on healing of the soul. In before they saw the Kingdom of God this chapter, we focus primarily on come, then Christians ought to be livmaturity, asking what kind of congre- ing in heaven right where we are, and gation would be mature sufficiently to bringing all the power of God which encourage and promote healing Jesus promised to bear on the circumamong the broken? stances of life. Parish life is where most ChrisIt should be so because the tians not only get their boot camp Church, the Body of Christ, is the training, but also, along with family place where true engagement with life and job, live out much of their Chris- happens, not in the world which is full tian walk. We should be living in the of defenses. The world promotes the Church and going out into the world, illusion of being open and free in connot living in the world and going to trast to the morally constricted church. The Church is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. So, as Pastor Bill 311. See The Supernatural Power of the Transformed Johnson puts it, we should be living in Mind by Pastor Bill Johnson. Also two DVDs, 3 Leaves of the Mind - Learning to Live from the Mind heaven and going out to the world.(311) of Christ, and The Call - a Baptism of Fire. Website: If, as Jesus says, the Kingdom of www.BillJohnsonMinistries.com and www.Bethel.org. God is among us and thus right at

A-1. Living in the Church Going Out to the World

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Church. And, indeed, the Christian community must regularly repent of such failures. But the true Church is a truth-seeking community -- at any cost to itself. Secular science has claimed that mantle, but is itself as full of corruption as the Christian community has been. The world is inherently a place of self-protection, hiding, and defensiveness, and thus also, a place of predatory behavior, deceit, and powerstruggle. Training in scientific procedure does nothing to change that. Without a moral and spiritual transformation, it only trains people to be more competent sinners. The Church becomes like that when we let the world invade the Church. The Lord Jesus Christ comes to save us from precisely that state of affairs. When the Church to some significant degree begins to illustrate the freedom wherewith Christ has set us free, and the unity for which He prayed, then people begin to flock to the Church -- as the Roman Empire did in the early years of the Church. In the early years of America, right through the 1800s, Christians and non-Christians flocked to America because they found here, though far from perfect, a Biblical kind of government, a government rooted in honest, morally responsible freedom.(312) In the local church, the fundamentals of the Christian walk ought to be taught and lived so that those who are looking for a good roadmap and other equipment for their Journey Perilous
312. Sadly, Christians, by the 1800s, had lost their grip on their own Biblical worldview and government, leading to the secularizing of America. Immigrants come now, often, for welfare, not for freedom -- two quite different things. Only a strong Judeo-Christian spiritual renewal will turn things around.

will find them. This final chapter will offer suggestions as to how the preceding principles of inner healing and a Biblical view of human nature might be integrated into the normal life of a Christian community, be it parish, religious order, commune, or (most of all) family. This chapter, in other words, is not mainly about program, but about what a family or a parish community would look like if it were a truly healing community. Inner healing can be applied as a counseling program, and it might prove to be effective in the lives of those persons who so avail themselves. But if the principles of a Biblical view of human nature are valid, then they ought to permeate all levels and all aspects in the life of that Christian community. Counseling programs are indeed needed, but the truths of human nature apply wherever there are humans. Those truths need to be understood and integrated into the warp and woof of community life. In a fallen world, healing must be a way of life, not an occasional effort. Our Christian walk is predicated on our standing on the hand of God for the provision for our life and acting in obedience to the word of God as we hear it. If those two things are not happening, the Christian life is not happening. The level and stability of spiritual renewal often runs flat because we are better at hearing what God is saying than we are at experiencing His deep provision for doing what He has told us. Because most Western Christians are still trying to build a life of faith on top of a secular/pagan worldview, when they try to step out in faith, it feels as though the ground were erod-

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ing out from under them. And so they pull back and compromise their obedience. Our Christian communities then retreat into hot house defensiveness where we become preoccupied with "spiritual" things, seldom connecting faith with behavior in the world. We go to endless Bible studies and prayer groups, hardly seeing the depth and power of the sacramental relation to the world into which God is calling us. It takes only a few generations for the spiritual center of a community to evaporate as each generation loses a bit of the spiritual vision of the light at the bottom of the all things. The circle closes. Commitment to the truth-process is the key to sustaining the vision. The truth process can, and must be, passed on from generation to generation. Particular beliefs are important because truth is real and specific. But those truths are sustained more by a free spirit of truth-seeking which opens the spirit of man to the Spirit of God than by a rote catechism of creed and morality. Thus creed and morality must be sustained by the personal experience of launching out into life to find ones own vision of truth, in the context of a community committed both to that process of freedom as well as to upholding the communtys conclusions of those testings. The conclusions will hold only so securely as the process remains free. Confirmation and other rites of passage must embody this wedding of the freedom and the discipline of faith. We will then have ranks of young adults rising in our congregations rather than a herds of untamables searching for their illusive identities.

A-2. Evangelism
Everything we have said so far is founded on the assumption that the basic building blocks of the universe are persons. Persons are not only the basic building blocks, but also the primary valued objects in the universe. Absolutely nothing exceeds the value of a person. It was for persons that Jesus died, and it is within persons in community, the Church, that the fullness of the life and power and majesty of God intends to reside. Our understanding of persons therefore will never issue in a Biblical perspective if it is superimposed over a secular view of ultimate reality which believes that physical atoms or some form of material existence is the ultimate reality. In the plan of God, atoms and physical things have their own reality, but they are not ultimate. Persons cannot be understood as simply the offshoot of certain electrochemical or other impersonal processes. Either one begins with a cosmos, at the foundation of which is a Person, or one can never arrive at a cosmos in which persons will have a secure or significant place, neither God nor us. In the secular/pagan worldview, all die, both gods and people. At the heart and core of a Biblically oriented community, therefore, must be a teaching program which is built on that fundamental principle, "In the beginning, God...." Not just any old God, but the personal God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who is intimately concerned with His beloved creation, and who is calling us into that intimacy which touches us at the deepest parts of our being. The Muslim notion of God is the

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only significant competitor to the Judeo-Christian view because Islam shares with Jews and Christians a notion of a God who creates the world ex nihilo. But the cosmic circle of Islam is largely closed because humans cannot get to know God personally, our only contact with God being the receiving of the law through the Koran. It is blasphemy to call God Father in Islam. The Islamic picture of the person of God is therefore radically different from that of the Bible. The deep miracle of creation is persons in the image of their Creator. If persons are the basic building blocks of the universe, then building with them and being a part of forming them (us) into a Temple fit for the Lord is indeed the end-goal miracle of the universe. The miracle comes by picking up our crosses and following the real Jesus through the five maturity-building decisions of our lives. Other miracles, like feeding five thousand people from a few loaves and fish, are only pointers on to this family of God. Created persons, however, have the characteristic of being dependent at the very root of their being on persons outside of themselves. And the community into which God is investing His life grows into that temple only by our dealing directly, honestly, and adequately with that fact of dependency. The essential role of parish community life is to invite, aid, assist, and abet all persons into and through the spiritual journey to the fullness of their faith-dependency-obedience relation with God, living out the practical human relationship consequences of that journey here and now. All else is peripheral or worse, distracting. We become like those in whose presence we live. Our primary access to the nature of being human is other persons with whom we experience a dependency relationship. It is in the experience of that dependency that we come to know the meaning of being ourselves. A pastor tells of his earliest memory of his parents whom he remembers as the two most important people in his life kneeling before Someone else more important.(313) Their very lives were pointing him on to Someone beyond them. He was experiencing their faith and their dependency on God because they were willing to share it unselfconsciously with him. It is that "pointing on" that a living faith community will provide for others. As we emerge out of the family nest, stretching our circle of life and looking for the next step in the dependency relation, hopefully we meet a community of persons who have a living relation with God, whose personalities are to some significant degree formed in the image of God and who will be for us the models of that image. They will be for us the Body of Christ, the outward and visible sign of the presence of God on earth. As we then work through our dependencies with these persons, they will by their own mature dependency point us on to God. Those dependency relationships with Christian people will be worked out in pastorparishioner relations, Sunday School teacher relations, prayer groups, Bible studies, and all the possible kinds of get-togethers in which Christians might engage, yes, even bazaars. It
313. The Rev. Terry Fullam, former rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Darien, Connecticut, tells this story of his childhood.

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will involve nurturing, education, A-3. A Four-Fold Pattern friendship, correction, authority, and We have, in various degrees, submission (from both ends), it will looked at four areas of the Christian involve most of all learning to lay life which should be a part of every one's life down for one another in a Christian community: mature and responsible manner, liv1. Creation - our being made into ing the cross life. Clearly the leaderthe image of God, with the Five Deship of such a community will be of cisions as the pattern for growth. the highest importance. 2. Salvation - required because the Evangelism of those who do not Fall has interrupted the creation proknow Christ should emerge out of this cess. We are too separated from God kind of spiritually mature community. to proceed into the fullness of our It should begin with the challenge being without first being restored to to be seekers of truth because truth is trust and obedience in God by folall God has to offer and is the common lowing Jesus along the seven stages ground between ourselves and God. If of His life -- incarnation, ministry to we are not interested in truth, we candisciples, crucifixion, resurrection, not be people of faith. Evangelism ascension, pentecost, and second should thus begin with an explanation coming. Following Jesus requires of faith, all four aspects. A clear exwalking through all these stages of planation of faith as openness to truth, our own spiritual redemption.(314) making oneself vulnerable to other possibilities, wins the attention of peo3. Healing - needed when we are ple. It signals that Christians, like unable, due to inner brokenness, to God, are interested only in honest con- respond effectively to normal teachversions. ing and discipleship. Teaching about truth lays a pre4. Ministry and Mission - having evangelism foundation of honesty and reached a sufficient level of maturity integrity -- qualities for which Chrisand wholeness in Christ, moving out tians are not currently well-known -of myself to become a living sacribecause of which we must reestablish fice that others around me may come the reputation of God as offering a also into the Kingdom of God. graceful, honest, freewill covenant. Persons looking honestly for their own 314. Emmaus Ministries has a series of audio tapes foundation of being and security will which bring one along the path of the life of Jesus, describing our spiritual growth from creation and Fall, respond.
through the Incarnation, ministry of Jesus to disciples, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, pentecost, and second coming. Each Christian must traverse these steps with Jesus. See Bibliography for further information.

B. The Maturing Community

B-1. Dismal Failure
The common failure of the Chris-

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Study Guide to Chapter IX

Inner Healing in the Parish

I. Summary:
In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as is appropriate

D. Clear Judgements
16. What is the love that kills? 17. Describe the spiritual life that should be manifest in every Christian community and the ideal result of this spiritual life. 18. How might the elect judge the world without arrogance? 19. What should happen on the inside of a broken or sinful person as they come into a healthy Christian community? 20. Contrast the teens view of maturity and their gauge for it with the reality of what maturity is. 21. In what sense must an elder let go and pass on the youngers? 22. Describe the refuge that many have come to see the church as being along with what these people are trying to escape. 23. Discuss the various standards of maturity. 24. Describe the difference between Christianity and Churchianity. 25. For a Christian 12-step spiritual program for discipleship, how might one formulate step one?

II. Questions on Chapter Nine: A. Pointing on to God

1. What relation should a church community life have to the principles of inner healing? 2. What has worldview to do with inner healing? 3. What has our dependent nature to do with the quality of our church life? 4. What is the significance of the preevangelism to which the author refers?

B. Maturing Community
5. What, according to the author, has caused the greatest trouble in church life? 6. What must be at the core of parish life in order for the experience to a healthy one? 7. List the things required for a maturing and healing community. 8. What does normal rightly mean?

C. Sex & Non-Directiveness

9. Describe the two funnels of institutionalized narcissism. 10. What is non-directiveness in therapy and education? 11. What were the Gloria tapes and what do they have to do with the nondirective therapeutic philosophy? 12. How is the Christian objectivity oriented? 13. How do directiveness and nondirectiveness rightly work together? 14. In what way is the notion that feelings just are dangerous? 15. What happens when you deal with a neurosis without dealing with the sin and the root?

E. Worship & Healing

26. Explain how maturing and inner healing are both founded in the act of worship. 27. How is cosmic dread related to turning churches into museums? 28. Why do some persons need first to simply soak themselves in a mature Christian community before embarking on a healing program? 29. Describe how Christian worship sets up our relying and attending so that we become capable of focussing on the world without being seduced back into it. 30. Describe the kind of leadership needed for a healthy and healing church. 31. How would you explain to some-

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one the here and now quality of the Kingdom? 32. What does this here and now quality imply for leadership? 33. In what sense should Christians be able to say, We are the Way, the Truth, and the Life....? 34. What does the author recommend as the right relation between family and church? 35. The purpose of the law is what as a person attempts to compare his/her own sense of being with the intent of God? moral discriminations? 48. List some signs of a no-fault culture. 49. What kind of judgement is forbidden, and kind is necessary? And why? 50. Why is it impossible (short of the 2nd Coming) to avoid adversary situations, and what does Jesus do about it? 51. What kinds of questions need to be addressed to both parties to a conflict? 52. On what two absolute and fundamental principles does all spiritual progress rest? 53. How is it that ones deepest arguments and deepest problems are with God, not ones neighbor? 54. How does our no-fault culture attempt to handle messy relationships and how does this differ from the way that God handles it?

F. Family, Marriage, & No Fault

36. What attitudes should a congregation have to support ministry to marriages? 37. How has the non-directive attitude affected congregational life? 38. How is the distinction between who we are and what we do important in marriage counseling? 39. What is the lie behind no-fault divorce? 40. Explain why the healing of marriages is an area where the Christian community ought to shine. 41. Describe the relation between the breakdown of objective morality, typical Western inability to make moral judgments in public affairs, and no fault divorce. 42. Why must the two basic principles both be absolute, i.e., hold for all possible circumstances of public policy? 43. The two principles and ten rules were designed for marriage counseling. Of what wider use might they be? 44. Explain why narcissism has come to the place where it is extremely difficult to spot. 45. What happens when we violate the way in which God set up the world to work? 46. What, more than anything else, rescues a broken person from the meat grinder? 47. What is the effect of making no

G. Sacrament of the Other

55. Describe the authors picture of a Spirit-filled community. 56. What is the time gap between seeing the things of God and seeing God Himself? 57. How can we be grandchildren of God? 58. Draw Figure 9-A and explain it to someone else. 59. What is necessary in the congregation for the passing on of new Christians into spiritual maturity? 60. At what moment were was it settled that we could not be attacked at the level of our being? 61. In Christian counseling, what is the primary diagnostic question to be asked? 62. When people in our Christian community do not experience the presence of God with power, what does that suggest about them? 63. What must one be willing to give up in order for there to be serious parish renewal? 64. What happens if the parental figures upon whom we depend lack the maturity to bear the weight of our depen-

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dency? 65. What is the authors notion of the perfection to which we are all called by God? was to be understood. 74. Describe how the parish family should be a reflection of the earthly family of origin. 75. Describe the need for age continuity.

H. Gender in the Parish

66. How is Jesus word about being born again related to parish life? 67. What is brothering and sistering? 68. In what sense is the Bride of Christ not merely a metaphor but a constitutive image of the Church? 69. What is the hieros gamos? 70. Why were (and are) pagan religions right to try to unite masculine and feminine imagery, but also bound to fail? 71. How does the author want to redress the gender balance in counseling? 72. How does the author explain the need for public manifestation of clear gender roles? 73. Explain the role that the primitive family had in determining how a nation

I. Inner Healing Program

76. How can program and alive spirituality work together? 77. What can be done to encourage cooperation between intellect and imagination? 78. How could the imagination be appealed to in the setting of the local church? 79. How are miracle and natural law to be reconciled in the Biblical worldview?

III. Chapter Reflections:

In your own words relate what new insights you have gained from reading and meditating on the information from this chapter.

Chapter X

The Role of the Bible

in the

Healing Community
A. The Faithful Bible
This chapter was written originally as an appendix because I was skittish about its content being read by conservative Christians who held firmly to the infallibility or inerrancy of the Bible. My own insecurities on the matter, however, have been overcome. The matter is too important to put off as an appendix, so it is now Chapter X, included in the basic text of this book on healing. How we view the authority of truth and truth-testing is too fundamental to our emotional and spiritual health. the authority of Scripture, which is a primary way we experience the authority of God. We have discussed how the Bible talks about healing. Now we discuss how healers might talk about the Bible.(350) What is specifically "Biblical" about the Christian community? What authority has the Bible when we also allow secular investigations to inform us, as psychology does in the realm of human nature, or astrophysics in the realm of cosmology? How are revelation and empirical investigation to stand side by side? Can one pull rank over the other? If we believe that the Bible is to be the standard by which
350. Chapter X has been published in expanded form as a separate booklet, entitled, The Authority of the Bible in a Scientific World. See bibliography for availability. See also http://theRoadToEmmaus.org for many resources on Christian apologetics.

A-1. Authority, Epistemology, & a Christian Disconnect

I hope that the connection between culture in its many forms and emotional health has adequately been established in the preceding chapters. We now focus on perhaps the deepest cultural issue of all regarding health --

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we are to judge teaching in the Christian community, how is that position to be upheld when we are also appealing to other sources of information? How we understand the authority of the Bible will either undergird or undermine our understanding of the Biblical community, of the nature of revelation, and of the nature of healing -- our central topic. How we understand our ultimate authority in matters of truth and morality will have a great deal to do with how we function as whole, rather than broken, persons. In other words, if the authority embodied by the Church is not seen by health-seekers as built on the ordered freedom of the law and grace of God, the life of the Church will fall (once again) into legalism and bondage. That means that we must address the issues of epistemology because how we know what we know will have a powerful influence on our notion of intellectual, creedal, and spiritual authority. If what we believe is important to our faith, then whether or not we can give adequate reasons for what we believe will point us either toward freedom or bondage. Although it is not possible to deal in depth with all of the issues here, I want to spell out in as clear terms as possible what I believe to be a viable and stable Biblical position on the authority of the Bible.(351) While I do not believe that a book or a person within the created order can possess infallibility, there is an even more powerful sense in which the revelation of God is infallible -351. An audio cassette tape entitled, Faith, Infallibility, and Spiritual Maturity, is available going into much more detail on the relation between infallibility, maturity, and faith. See bibliographical note on Emmaus Ministries.

discussed in Section E below. It reunites the tragic split between reason and revelation which has fractured Christendom over the last several centuries because Christians did not know what to make of science. The controversy revolves around one's notion of "faith". Faith has come to indicate for many people, not a living experience of hope and joy in ultimate personal meaning in life, but an ostrich-like, stubborn clinging to fossils of dead belief in the face of obvious contrary, overwhelming, and, supposedly, scientific evidence. We need to understand this discussion in the context of the radically shifting sense of knowledge-gathering, known as epistemology, over the last several centuries. Christians have allowed a hostile wedge to be driven between "faith" and "science". Theology, once called the "queen of sciences", came to be understood as the blind faith antithesis of science, which had come to be identified with either a purely rationalist, logical, mental approach, or, on the other hand, with a very this-worldly empirical, sensory approach. The notion of the personal creator God of the Bible seemed to have no place in either of these two ways of looking at things. The Christian intellectual community of 18th and early 19th century America was largely Calvinist, but it had lost its drive and credibility in the eyes of increasing numbers of Americans, including Christians -- hence the influence of Unitarianism, which appeared to have intellectual credibility.(352) The alternatives to Calvinism developing among Christians tended to seek refuge in personal (meaning private and emotion-driven) religion,

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which they thought would be immune from the intellectual attacks from secular folks, paying little attention to book larnin, and increasingly distanced itself from public policy debates -- other than firing occasional salvoes of Biblical language and quotations at people who were no longer paying much attention to the Bible. Because Christians were not able to keep up with, let alone respond to, the new developments in epistemology, they were not able to respond to the newly emerging secular worldview, nor to connect its own worldview with developments in science and culture. Marx, Freud, and Darwin, all of whom before the ending of the 20th century, had lost much of their original credibility, had defined the terms of debate for the 19th century. Their momentum carried right through most of the 20th, but finds itself slogging ever more slowly (and deeply) through the quicksands of post-modernism and relative truth. But in the meantime, the Christian world has suffered a deep loss of intellectual integrity and credibility, which has only in recent years shown beginning signs of effective remediation. Secular philosophers did not have any better grasp of how we know what we know than did Christians, but they had a much better PR program, and so won the public trust that only secularized science was indeed neutral, provided a level playing field, and was therefore to be trusted. Real science does all those things, but systematically and arbitrarily secularized science does none of them. But Christians, having for the most part, misunderstood and rejected science, we at them mercy of the secular momentum. Christians have struggled over the application of scientific principles to the Bible, an issue still, to our discredit, unresolved. After over a century absence from the public intellectual arena (with a few familiar exceptions: e.g., G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer), Christians at large, mostly outside the boundaries of official churchdom, are beginning to do some serious intellectual homework responding to secular challenges, and effectively reentering the open debate. The emerging Intelligent Design movement (which is transforming the worldview debate) is currently the clearest sign of this recovery, but many other signs are cropping up.(353) I recommend, for example, The Rise of Christianity, by Rodney Stark, who applies his talents as a sociologist to the early centuries of the Christian era with powerful results.

A-2. Christian Humanism & the Generic Common Ground

We have discussed above how emotional and spiritual maturity requires of us Five Decisions:(354) 1) Faith decision -- to seek the truth at any cost to ourselves; 2) Dependency decision -- to rest the weight of our being on that which is truly substantial and dependable;

352. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne represents the reputation which the then current Calvinist orthodoxy, rightly or wrongly, had placed upon it. Christianity had come to be seen as artificial, hypo- 353. See, for example, Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson, and the websites: www.discovery.org; and critical, demanding, and unjust. God was a kill-joy, www.arn.org. and the only way out was enlightened rationalism, the banner for which was carried by Unitarians. 354. See chapter II, The Decision to Be Well.

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3) Personal responsibility decision -- to take personal responsibility for our behavior and attitudes; 4) Moral responsibility decision -to accept my obligation to obey the moral authority of the universe, that is, to pursue my purpose for existence. 5) Love/Community decision -- to accept the purpose of God for my life, to love all other persons regardless of whether or not they love me. These decisions were designed to be generic, applying to all persons, not merely to Christians, in order to provide a common ground of discussion with all mankind. They are decisions which every living human being will make, well or poorly. The questions are generic. It is the answers which are partisan, competing with each other for human loyalty. There are Biblical answers to these questions and there are secular/ pagan answers. But the neutral, generic questions provide a level field upon which to compare answers. The first two decisions are most significant for unfolding the authority of belief. An emotionally healthy person will root his life in truth, the most significant truth of which is dealing with one's own dependent nature and the search for some object upon which to rest that dependency -- that is to say, the "God" issue. We also discussed the four levels of "faith" as the open the way to the common ground: 1) openness to the truth, 2) personal trust, 3) one's creed or belief system, and 4) willingness to risk the venture into the unknown.(355) Faith #1, openness to the truth, whatever it may be and at any cost to oneself, is the foundation making the other three levels of faith a meaningful and rational enterprise, distinguishing faith from blind guessing and arbitrary bias. It points to the ground common for all mankind upon which issues can be discussed, the ground onto which God invites us: Come, let us reason together... in Isaiah 1:18. Faith #1 presupposes an acquaintance with the methods of truth gathering and truth testing by which one can have a reasonable dialog with other persons. A common commitment to truth and a sharing of methods for getting and testing truth provide the only solid common ground for communication between persons. Any effective discussion of epistemology requires that the discussion be placed in this "common ground" where it is accessible to all parties who are genuinely interested in the truth of the matter at hand. No one has a copyright on truth. Truth exists forever in the public domain. It is the common ground of all life. And so any attempt to define (as against describe) truth in terms of a specific set of conclusions, whether Christian or otherwise, compromises the search for objective truth and denies the possibility of a common ground of inquiry. All theories of infallibility (except one) have the effect of defining truth in terms of a specific position on the truth.(356) Christian humanism, advanced by Erasmus of Rotterdam and others during the Reformation, is based on this
355. See above, chapter III-B, The Four Meanings of Faith on page 99 356. We discuss this exception below in Section E, The Infallible Bible on page 452.

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openness to academic researches and the public wrestling of differing minds with the questions of the day. JudeoChristian humanism is, in any culture, the strongest possible bulwark for responsible academic and scientific freedom and for the liberal arts tradition precisely because it has the determined authority of almighty God behind it. No Christian is allowed to fudge the truth, not even (nay, especially) in favor of God.
Will you speak falsely for God, and speak deceitfully for Him? Will you show partiality toward Him, will you plead the case for God? Will it be well with you when He searches you out? Job 13:7

God does not appreciate a dishonest defense of His case -- which dishonors Him just as it would any of us. God will risk His case on "living in the light" as per John 1 or I Kings 18:17 ff. on Mount Carmel. There is nothing in Biblical history to suggest that God is interested in brainwashed or braindead adherents to His Kingdom. This four-fold notion of faith implies that God Himself puts truth ahead of Himself. He wants us to believe in Him if and only if He is the real God. Elijah states Gods point with absolute clarity:
How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. Isaiah 18:21

As Elijah shows, God, in an astonishing act of grace, puts truth ahead of Himself in His relation with us. God, author of intellectual credibility, requires that credibility of His people, and so submits Himself to that test of truth. Before asking us to lay down our golden crowns, He first lays His in the arena. Kenosis. But in that arena, the stakes are all or nothing -- light or darkness --

heaven or hell -- John 3:19. And then, to engage in intelligent debate with non-believers about God, we too must stand there, inviting our respondents to stand with us on that level playing field where alone we can expect to meet -- and introduce others to -- the true and living God. As one lives in openness to truth (faith #1) and in his own vulnerability searches out what is dependable in life, he lives in a basic faith relation to that object of dependency. Whatever that object is will be his "God". This is the "faith-dependency" relation. One may be related to an idol, which, as the prophets pointed out, will eventually betray whoever depends upon it. Or one may be related to the living God, who alone is substantial and trustworthy. By that very dependability the true God shows Himself. The false God is unable to keep his promises. If one is committed to truth, then faith #2, one's perception of who is personally reliable, will have the only reasonable chance of being correct. Likewise, faith 3#, one's intellectual roadmap to reality, his personal creed (which evidence suggests begins even as early as conception), will have the most reasonable chance of conforming to reality.(357) And as the first three levels of faith operate, faith #4, the "blind leap", will progressively diminish from being a leap into the dark to being movement into the light. But so long as there is even a possibility of uncertainty, some as yet unresolved issue, our faith commitments will al357. See Cellular Consciousness and Conception in The Journal of Christian Healing, an interview with Dr. Graham Farrant by Steven Raymond, Fall 1989.

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ways have a certain blindness about them, a risk of being wrong. The logic of finite creaturehood tells us that only God has the impossibility of being wrong. That built-in blindsidedness is a heritage of our created nature which prevents infallible knowledge. We approach infallible certainty only as an unattainable limit, asymptotically, as we progressively move into the fullness of the faith-dependency relation with God. We can approach it, but, being creatures, we can never have it. We can, as it were, keep cutting the difference between ourselves and absolute certainty in half, but we can never eradicate it. The dynamics of these four levels of faith operate in any kind of knowledge gathering whatsoever, whether it be in the natural sciences, history, mathematics, philosophy, or religion. The differences between the intellectual disciplines common to human culture and life (e.g., between natural and theological science) do not lie in contradictory forms of "knowing", as some suppose, but rather in the different methodologies which the differing subject matters require in the gathering of the appropriate knowledge. We recognize an independent discipline of knowledge as a science when it can establish consistent and reliable rules for the gathering of knowledge which can be reasonably related to other bodies of knowledge, are publicly usable, and neutrally applicable to all participants. There is no reason to exclude theology from such a definition of science. There may be reason to exclude some theologians, but then there is, on the same accounting, reason to exclude some mathematicians, some physicists, and some chemists as well -- those who fudge the evidence, are intellectually lazy, or ill trained in their trade. A scientific community, by its very nature, requires a moral commitment to truth.

A-3. Secularism Coops Science & the Church Retreats

Controversy over the authority of Scripture arose because secular viewpoints, in the wake of Enlightenment rationalism and English empiricism, had coopted "science" and "scientific method" to their own ends, giving the impression that religious knowledge did not qualify as legitimate, i.e., scientific, knowledge. What they should be saying is the obvious, that religious knowledge does not qualify as secular or materialist knowledge. The Roman Catholic Church responded in the late 19th century to this secular success with an official pronouncement of the infallibility of the Pope. And Protestant evangelicals followed suit with their own doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture. Infallibility as a personal belief had been held among Christians for centuries, but it was not made a hard and fast article of faith until the Christian community felt its back to the wall facing an aggressive, hostile, and seemingly invincible secular culture. Christians then tended to withdraw from the arena of academic debate and increasingly to fire salvos of infallible Biblical quotations or Papal pronouncements at a society which no longer took either the Church or the Bible very seriously. Both Christians and non-Christians were operating on the false assumption that "science" had disproven or made irrelevant belief in God and

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things spiritual. And so Christians gained for themselves the paradoxical reputation of being interested in the Bible but not in truth, pasting that reputation on God as well. And, secularists have put themselves the equally paradoxical position of being interested in science but not in truth. But they have much more successfully (until recent Intelligent Design proponents began pointing out their failings) kept their reputation clean, if not their behavior. The result is evident in western culture which has all but abandoned the Bible as its foundation, not only for its cosmology, but, as would be inevitable, for its morality and spiritual life as well. For at least two centuries, the intelligentsia of western culture have looked with scorn at the Bible. And even within the Church at the beginning of the 21st century, it is difficult to find educated persons both willing and able to give an articulate defense of Biblical authority. But Christians and Jews are, of all people, the most committed by their faith to the truth of the matter, and therefore to a pursuit of truth, wherever that may lead. Faith #1, openness to truth, is the primary foundation stone of all Biblical revelation. A teachable spirit in Biblical history is not a gullible spirit, nor a spirit open to religious brainwashing at the hands of nefarious clergy. It is a spirit open to "what really is", examining with a critical mind all claims to truth. And Tradition is the unfolding and interpreting of that revelation within the community as the community faces the changing and challenging circumstances of life. Never once in Scripture is reason mentioned in anything but a favorable light. Our relation to truth is absolutely fundamental to our normal spiritual life and also to the emotional healing process. Authority in matters of belief is at the center of the fathering parental image and of our image of God. It is essential therefore to know just how that authority is supposed to operate in a maturing and healing way.

A-4. The Biblical Commitment to Testable Truth

It is tempting to conclude that the Biblical view of the Bible is that the Bible is an inerrant book written by the hand of God, verbally inspired. And some would read out of the Christian community persons who do not adhere to that kind of Biblical infallibility. But on Judgement Day, our Lord is not going to ask us whether we believe in the Bible, but whether we believe in Him, in what He did for us on the cross, and in what He continues to do for us today. Inspiration and infallibility are concepts which apply primarily to persons, not to books or objects. Written words are only the tools which persons use in order to communicate thoughts or intentions. Words and books are not fallible or infallible, only the persons who write or speak them. The category that applies to written or spoken statements, as contrasted with the person who produced them, is "true vs. false". We may want to know of a person whether he is fallible or infallible, but of a statement we want to know whether it is true or false. Fallibility or infallibility is not an option for statements, concepts, ideas, theologies, or the books that express them. In that sense, the Roman Catholic

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Church was at least more logically consistent than her Protestant brethren who chose to label a book as infallible. The Pope, being a person, was at least a logical candidate for the position, whereas the Bible (literally "the Book") never was. But the problem of circularity continues to dog any argument for the infallibility of a created being, whether of book or person. All this means that our primary concern with any statement, whatever its source, is whether it is true, and how do we know? If we know that God said it, then we have reason to believe it to be true, because God speaks infallibly. But that is precisely the point at issue: Did God really say just what the Bible says in precisely the manner that the Bible says it? If we have reason to believe that He did, then the issue of the truth of the Bible is a settled matter. If we do not have sufficient reason to conclude that the Bible is exactly as God would express it, then we have the problem of sorting out the wheat from the chaff. To respond, "Well, if there is any chaff at all, then that spoils all the wheat," is a sign of spiritual immaturity, not faith. Let us imagine ourselves in the uninformed inquirer's position. Suppose someone came with a copy of the Muslim Koran, someone else with the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, another with the Buddhist Tibetan Book of the Dead, and another with the Bible, each claiming his book to be the true word from God. How would we know who was telling the truth? Or if indeed any were? It is no help to assert that the Bible says it is the Word of God. Any book can say that. An argument that uses the item in question to prove itself is a circular argument. The book must have evidence not only from its own internal consistency but also from its relevance to the human situation and from external evidence. How then do we decide between them? Christians have at least two commitments prior to their commitment to the Bible: first, a commitment to truth at any cost, to stand on the common ground of truth, and second, a commitment to God. Again, according to Biblical covenant, God desires us to worship Him if and only if He really is God. He is willing to rest His case on His own ability to prove His case to us. That is the meaning of "revelation", and the lesson again of Elijahs shoot out at the Mount Carmel Corral with the 450 prophets of Baal:
So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel, and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people, and said, "How long will you go limping on two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." I Kings 18:20

Elijah made an appeal to logic, and then conducted an empirical nononsense test to see who in fact was God. This bit of scientific procedure took place about 900 BC, some four or five centuries before any philosophers appeared in Greece. At what university did he get his training? At the throne of the Father. He did what God told him to do. Science was Gods idea long before it was any of ours. As Paul says:
We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. II Corinthians 4:2 ff.

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How else could we "commend ourselves to everyman's (not just Christian man's) conscience" other than by an "open statement of the truth"? And what else could an open statement of truth mean but appeal to the sort of evidence that any honest investigation, not just a Christian investigation, would recognize as legitimate? Any open statement of the truth must be linked to a reasonable response to the question: How do you know that is true? How else could it be an "open" statement? Truth seeking is not something that you have to be a Christian to do. It is something that you have to do to be a Christian. Nothing else will "commend ourselves to every man's conscience", or, for that matter, to God (see I Corinthians 15:12-19). The conscience issue is, "Are you being responsible about the truth?" If we do not put our commitment to truth even prior to our commitment to God, we will compromise the very thing we are wanting to communicate, namely our testimony to God, for no one will have any reason to believe us if we are not first committed to the truth of the matter about who God is or even whether God is. That is the difference between being truth-seeking and being biased or prejudiced. If that is so, then Jesus statement in John 8:31 takes on quite a different thrust from that which Christians normally have attached to it: pled by Him. Following Jesus is a radical journey into the truth about life, and being His disciple is the deepest course in truth seeking upon which one can embark. Being a disciple of Jesus must therefore include that honest investigation and openness to the risk of life, no holds barred, with all four levels of faith operating. On the one hand, Jesus, telling us that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, is not stacking the deck in favor of a "Jesus" in-group. On the other hand, Scripture is not telling us of a pluralistic universe of relative truth where various equally true "ways of believing" compete for the following of men, not on the basis of truth but of personal preference and persuasive power -- or mind-control. Rather, Jesus is inviting any of us who desire into that journey, where truth-testing is of the nature of life and of revelation itself, and where the goal is to find what really is -- objective truth. Revelation is God giving evidence, giving us good reasons to believe in Him. How else could it be honest revelation? If it fails that test, it is not revelation. Only the enemies of God could benefit by getting us to pit evidencegathering against revelation and to relegate ourselves into defensive corners of "infallibility". Revelation is what happens when God steps into relationship with us and draws us (Come, let us reason together...) into a confrontation of honesty and openness.(358) If you continue in my word, you are truly Biblical history, indeed, all history, is my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. the record of our acceptance or rejecWe often hear the last part about tion of that relationship. truth setting us free, unaware either of One way will turn out to be right, who said it, or of the conditional first and the contraries will be wrong. That part of the sentence -- that the freedom of truth comes to those who are disci358. Isaiah 1:18

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journey into truth is the heart and soul of the liberal arts tradition, involving a testing of one's commitments against the best of the opposition. We cannot put God in a crucible for testing. But God is calling us into His crucible -- which is no less than life itself -- into which He Himself is already fully invested. And in that openness to life, because God is there, we will find the truth that will set us free. That is revelation -- and the stuff of which Biblical history is made. That radical openness is the "walking in the light" of John's first epistle. The Christian need make no apology for Scripture being built on faith. So is every other reasonable kind of knowledge. As defined above, every form of knowledge gathering, all intellectual and scientific integrity, rest on those four levels of faith. It is never a matter of having too much faith to be intellectually credible, but rather whether we have had too little faith.

B. The Constitutional Bible

The Christian's commitment to the Bible is therefore third in line, not first. Our first priority is to the truth, whatever it is. Our second priority is to God, whom we have found to be that substantial and reliable Being upon which to rest our dependency. We follow the Bible, then, thirdly as the constitutional basis of the Christian community because we have reason to believe that it reliably (not infallibly) reveals and describes the person and will of God. We choose a political constitution because we believe it expresses the highest possible political order. We choose the Bible as our creedal constitution because we believe it spells out the truth about the nature of God, the world, and ourselves. The worldview is not true because it is constitutional. Rather, we stand on it as our constitution because we are persuaded of its truth. But we cannot then turn that around and say that either truth or God are defined by the Bible, which is essentially what theories of infallibility do. To make the Bible infallible is to define truth testing in terms of the Bible (whatever the Bible says is true), which is always circular reasoning. God defines revelation, revelation does not define Him. Revelation describes God, which is a different matter. One cannot argue with a definition, but one can ask of a description: Is this alleged description of God in fact true? The authority of the Bible does not rest on God having spoken more more infallibly to people in Biblical times than to us. Its authority rests (1) on its verifiable worldview (with its faith-epistemology, and its ontological and moral stability); (2) on it record of lives lived in history touched by God leading to enormously fruitful consequences for the human race; and then, (3), on its "constitutional" nature in the Christian community as decided at the great Church councils.(359) A constitution "constitutes". That is, it defines the nature of that to which it applies. The Constitution of the United States is the covenant

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Study Guide to Chapter X

The Role of the Bible in the Healing Community

I. Summary:
In your own words, write a summary of the theme of this chapter, and make a personal application as appropriate: secondary reflection. 13. What did the author mean when the following statement was made: revelation takes place within the given context of history? 14. Explain the progressive nature of our relationship with God as it relates to the revelation that we receive. 15. How do we participate in the infallibility of God? 16. What is the purpose of reading what God did in the past and how does this apply to our faith-dependency relationship? 17. What is the correct Christian attitude toward science? 18. Give examples of the Bible being tested, and the results, good and bad. 19. How is the faith community tied to the historicity of revelation? 20. Give an example of legitimate baptizing of pagan lore. 21. According to the author, what does it mean to lean unto your own understanding and what does this process enable you to do?

II. Questions on Chapter X A. The Faithful Bible

1. Describe the Five Decisions that are required for emotional and spiritual maturity. 2. Why is the question of Biblical authority important for healing? 3. Between Christians and secularists, who had the better grasp on how we know truth, and why has one side been winning? 4. Describe the importance of faith #1, openness to the truth in relation to the other three kinds of faith. 5. On what principle is Christian humanism primarily based? 6. Explain the authors assertion that books are, in themselves, incapable of being either fallible or infallible. 7. Why does the author believe that ones commitment to the truth should come prior to our commitment to God?

D. The Unreliable Bible

22. On what foundation does every distinctly Christian teaching rest? 23. In what sense, according to the author, can the Bible become unreliable?

B. The Constitutional Bible

8. In what sense can the Bible be called the Christian constitution? 9. In their attempt to reinterpret the constitutions of the Christian community and the United states, what are the liberal interests doing?

E. The Infallible Bible

24. Describe the process of change that occurs when a person comes to Jesus and his/her dependency begins to shift. 25. What does the author mean by the faith process (rather than the text of the Bible) being infallible?

C. The Reliable Bible

10. Why is the testability of the Bible important? 11. Apply what John 5:38 says to the way Christians behave in their relationship with God. 12. Give examples which show that the writing of scripture was, in most cases, a

F. The Anglican Bible

26. What was the human races teen rebellion period? and How is that

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related to Biblical authority? 27. Describe the three-legged stool as advocated by the author, and the place of reason in it. how it relates to other truths.

III. Chapter Reflections:

In your own words relate what new insights you have gained from reading and meditating on the information contained within this chapter.

G. The Healing Bible

28. Describe the deepest truth and