You may have noticed a new section on the right: "My Blog List." These are some of the blogs I read on a regular basis that I thought were worth advertising here.
Why not take a look?
Also, I have added a print button to the posts. To access the bottom click on the post title (for example, "My Blog List & New Print Button") and you will see the print icon at the bottom of the post. The print button will allow you to print a post without all the annoying headers and stuff that comes when you simple use your browsers print command. In addition to the post, you should also get the comments on that post. So please give it a try and let me know what you think.
Thanks!
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
My Blog List & New Print Button
“Sanctify Those Who Love the Beauty of Your House”-Part I
When people first enter the Orthodox Church they often comment about the beauty of the experience. This happens whether they attend a baptism or wedding, Vespers or Divine Liturgy, or even if they walk into a church. For Orthodox Christians beauty is a key element of the spiritual life. So important is beauty to the Church's spirituality that the 19th century Russian author Fydor Dostoyevsky goes so far as to say, "Beauty will save the world." Another great Russian writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in his Nobel prize lecture says of beauty that it bears within itself its own confirmation: concepts which are manufactured out of whole cloth or overstrained will not stand up to being tested in images, will somehow fall apart and turn out to be sickly and pallid and convincing to no one. Works steeped in truth and presenting it to us vividly alive will take hold of us, will attract us to themselves with great power- and no one, ever, even in a later age, will presume to negate them. And so perhaps that old trinity of Truth and Good and Beauty is not just the formal outworn formula it used to seem to us during our heady, materialistic youth. If the crests of these three trees join together, as the investigators and explorers used to affirm, and if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up to that very place and in this way perform the work of all three. For Solzhenitsyn Beauty, has he says, "a special quality." Beauty "is absolutely indisputable" and is able to tame even the heart that is "strongly opposed" to it. While a "political speech, an assertive journalistic polemic, a program for organizing society, a philosophical system," might be well constructed and well argued, these are "built upon a mistake, a lie" that often remains "hidden." The "distortion" at their core is not necessarily "immediately . . . visible," and indeed the polemic, the social organizational theory or elements of a philosophical system often are "well constructed and . . . smooth, . . . everything will seem to fit. As a result, we will have "faith in them—yet [in so doing, we have] no faith" at all. "It is vain to affirm," Solzhenitsyn "that which the heart does not confirm." This is not meant to be a defense of relativism, but rather an affirmation that beauty, consonance, harmony, communion (these are, if not synonyms, so closely related that one cannot be understood apart from the others) is the fundamental character of creation because creation reflects the character of God. Unlike polemics, Beauty invites me to come along, to step out of myself; Beauty woes the heart, it inspires me to be more than we are. Like polemics, Beauty can challenge me; it can even break my heart. But again, and unlike polemics, when the beauty of the Beautiful breaks my heart it does so with a certain joyful melancholy which, if I allow the pain to do so, can move me to repent of all that is Ugly, Wicked and False in me. More tomorrow… In Christ, +Fr Gregory
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Superman Song
Crash Test Dummies, "Superman Song":
HT: Steven-Paul at Pithless Thoughts, the Superman Song.
Of this song, Steve writes:
One of the best songs of all time.
For all you superheroes out there.
It makes me weep.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Polemics, Zeal and St Isaac the Syrian
Isaac the Syrian is probably the most eloquent patristic witness for the position I have been sketching out (you can read that post here). The saint writes that "Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth. Someone who is considered by people to be zealous for truth has not yet learnt what truth is really like; once he has truly learnt it, he will cease from zealousness on its behalf." [Kephalaia IV.77; The Wisdom Commenting on this passage, David Goa, writes that like relativism, the zealousness that informs our polemical attitude "fail to discern aright what stands under the desire we have for that which is true." Both relativism and zeal, deform our desire for the truth "into an appetite." Once the pursuit of truth becomes an appetite, a passion in patristic terminology, Whatever we come to look at and care about is then forced into conformity with the idea, image, or ritual that we have erected as absolute. We begin to hang all our hopes and dreams on the truth of our chosen framework, our precious absolutes (including the relativists' precious absolute that there is nothing of ultimate value). Our longing is captured by an absolute of our own making. It follows, almost without saying, that once we hang all our hopes and dreams on something that we claim as absolute, it is a short step to hanging all our fears on it as well. In this moment the holy longing of the human heart and mind that lies behind the search for absolutes becomes polluted. Zealousness for the truth frames how we see and understand and reshapes our response to the fragility of the life of the world. Goa continues by observing that the symptom our passionate pursuit of the truth is a need for enemies. My passion (pathos) for the truth can only be sustained insofar as I stand in opposition to someone or something. But this approach is one "that reduces complexity and purpose to frame [my assumed] conclusions." But for the Christian "this is a false start for it begins neither at the heart of human nature or in the presence of God's love" but in fear. Again, Goa: "For St. Isaac, zeal for truth is itself a symptom of a spiritual disease. Or, perhaps, it is a condition that tends to develop at a certain stage in the spiritual life and is itself simply a marker of that stage. It is the spiritual equivalent of adolescence where the young try out all sorts of ideas and actions with the conviction that no one else has ever had these thoughts or feelings and they are exploring them for the first time. How can it be that no one else has ever seen just how important and ultimate these thoughts and feelings are?" There is a sense in which our zealous pursuit of truth "is part of the process of maturation." So when as a spiritual father I see the "zealousness for truth" spoken of by St. Isaac, I understand that it is "a stage in the spiritual development of the person. But just as with adolescence, if the condition persists, spiritual growth is arrested. One is stuck in the adolescent stage of the spiritual life." Christ however calls us to wholeness of being. Part and parcel of this wholeness means that by God's grace and our own efforts "we are freed from the habit of taking refuge in abstract notions of truth. If we taste of truth at every Eucharist we know better. If we taste of truth every time we, like the disciples, find ourselves in Emmaus breaking bread with someone we didn't know we knew, we know better. We know better every time our hearts are moved with compassion." But as I mentioned earlier, polemics, a zealous approach to the truth has a strangle hold on us because we do not wish to grow, to change. Our conversations are polemical because more often than not, our thinking about ourselves is static and rigid. Catholic/Orthodox polemics—at least as we see them in contemporary practice—are only accidentally theological. In the main (and I will address this more in another post) our polemics reflect our own lack of wholeness, of balance, of our own lack of virtue. We are, as I said earlier, neurotic At the risk of misapplying the theory, I will in the next essay explore the different neurotic styles that seem favored by Eastern and Western Christians. To anticipate, Eastern Christians tend to see themselves as standing "against" others, even as Western Christians tend to move "toward." But that for another day.
of Saint Isaac the Syrian, translated by Sebastian Brock, (Fairacres, Oxford: SLG Press Convent of the Incarnation, 1997), p15.]
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Tradition and the Passions
In an earlier post, I argued that a tradition exists, enhypostatically, that is only by way of the person. What might this mean for East/West conversations? Let me suggest that if the tradition only exists by way of the person, then tradition is not simply, or even primarily, an objective content. Rather tradition is a virtue and virtues wax and wane. In other words, a tradition is only more or less revealed by how I live my life. Complicating this further, is that I do not live or embody only one tradition. Rather each human life is lived as the intersection of multiple traditions. So yes, I am an Orthodox Christian, but my experience of that tradition has been co-formed (as van Kaam would argue) by the variety of other traditions in which I live. For example, I am an Orthodox Christian, but I am also an American. Currently my wife and I live in Ohio (yet another tradition), though we have lived in Pennsylvania, California and Texas. My wife grew up in Oregon, I grew up in Connecticut—so there are two more traditions that form our lives. Complicating this further, my understanding of what it means to be an Orthodox Christian is strongly influenced by my becoming Orthodox as an adult, by being a psychologist, my service as a mission priest and a college chaplain. All of these are central to me and so to how I come to embody the Tradition of the Orthodox Church. And this is all before we look at my own unique genetic and psychological characteristics. And if this is true for me, it is also true for my Catholic partner in a theological conversation. Add to this outside observers, each of whom live at the confluence of multiple traditions and with their own unique backgrounds, who may "eavesdrop" on our conversation and how complex the conversation between us becomes! Does this mean that we should not engage in theological conversations across traditions? No. It does mean however that we need to attentive to how these other traditions influence us personally, our perception of both our own theological tradition and that our partner in conversation, and really the whole of our encounter with each other. Given the complexity of the situation it might at first seem that a theological conversation is pointless. It isn't. BUT, and this is an important point, each of these traditions carries with it what van Kaam called life directives or "oughts." We may agree or disagree with these directives, but they influence us in either case. To the degree that we are unaware of these directives they rob us of our freedom to respond in charity. All of this is to say that even if the content of our conversation with each other is lofty, we are still under the sway of the passions. We are motivated by a desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain—and unless we are well formed in the spiritual life, and psychologically sound, what we are mostly likely to give voice to is not the tradition of the Orthodox Church or the tradition of the Catholic Church, but our own passions. And this, I would suggest, is true regardless of the objective validity of any given statement that we might make. The example I use with my own spiritual children is this, it may in fact be objectively the case that I am stupid and my mother dresses me funny, but it is unlikely that telling me this truth is sufficient to change my life. Still less is telling me this likely to encourage me to trust you and give you a place of authority in my life. And let us make no mistake here, in any conversation I have, I only listen to the views of those who I see as authoritative—I might or might not trust they authority, but I still must see them as an authority for me. As I said earlier, far too often and for too many of us, our attachment to our religious tradition is an escape, a refusal, of the dynamic and gratuitous quality of our own lives that van Kaam does such a effective job of delineating for us. Often we embody this refusal in our polemic attitude and conversation with others. Whatever the reason, sharp disagreements are inevitable when we are looking together at what divides us. Polemics, however, seem to me to begin with that sharp disagreement. In so doing, they are intellectually unchaste embodying as they do an underlying lack of respect for the limitations of both self and others. In our polemical attitude we are freed from any consideration of our own passions in the pursuit of the Truth. The fact that we often say things which are true does not remove from us the burden of intellectual dishonesty.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Psychology Professor Develops New Model For Collaboration Between Clergy And Clinicians
ScienceDaily (Jun. 2, 2008) — Many of the clergy who lead America's 260,000 religious congregations turn to psychologists who share their religious values when they refer congregants to social workers. However, this approach could impede people from getting the care they need, maintains Dr. Glen Milstein, Professor of Psychology at The City College of New York (CCNY). For the past decade, Professor Milstein has led a multidisciplinary team of researchers in developing a new model for relationships between clergy and clinicians that is religion inclusive rather than faith based. Known as C.O.P.E. (Clergy Outreach and Professional Engagement), the approach is design to reduce burdens on both professions. It was described in detail earlier this year in the American Psychological Association's journal "Professional Psychology: Research and Practice." The key to the C.O.P.E. model is the recognition that mental illness is a chronic disease with which patients sometimes can function and other times can not, Professor Milstein explains. "Clinicians and clergy perform distinct, complementary functions in treating these syndromes. While clinicians provide professional treatment to relieve individuals of their pain and suffering and move them from dysfunction to their highest level of function, clergy and religious communities provide a sense of context, support and community before, during and after treatment." The program aims to improve care of individuals by facilitating reciprocal collaboration between clinicians and members of the clergy, regardless of either's religious affiliations. It is based on two principal ideas: The first is that clergy and clinicians can better help a broader array of persons with emotional difficulties and disorders through professional collaboration than they can by working alone, and secondly, that the program's success is predicated on collaboration easing the workload for both groups. Professor Milstein describes the approach as "religion-inclusive" since it calls upon the therapist to both assess the role of religion in the patient's life and to educate themselves about the patient's religious tradition. Often that education includes contact with the patient's clergy. Faith-based approaches, which call for the individual to be referred to a clinician from his or her own faith, can restrict care by excluding access to professionals best able to treat the condition, he maintains. Professor Milstein cites a research study comparing the work of religious psychotherapists with the work of nonreligious psychotherapists in treating religious Christians. The study found that nonreligious therapists who provided religiously informed psychotherapy achieved the best clinical outcomes for this group. Working from the National Institute of Mental Health's four prevention categories, Professor Milstein and his team developed two handouts, one for mental health professionals and the other for clergy. They provide descriptions in a hierarchal format of the four care stages and illustrate when it would be appropriate for clergy to contact clinicians and for clinicians to contact clergy. The goal of C.O.P.E., Professor Milstein explains, is for clergy and clinicians to provide a continuum of care, whether the person is fully functional, is under stress, requires treatment or is trying to avoid relapse. The approach has been used to facilitate collaboration between expert clinicians and clergy from a variety of faiths including: Armenian Orthodox; Roman Catholic; Ethical Culture; Hindu; Muslim; Judaism, as well as evangelical and mainline Protestant denominations. Because clergy tend to see people throughout their lifetimes and in different circumstances, they often are in a better position to identify whether or not someone is functioning properly, Professor Milstein points out. For example, they are likely to distinguish between someone who has lost a loved one and is going through a normal bereavement process and someone who could be clinically depressed. "Recommending an intervention for someone who may be depressed relieves their (clergy) burden," he adds. Similarly, religious communities can relieve the burden on the clinician by helping people reenter everyday life, Professor Milstein adds. "Religious communities are primary areas of social support for most people. If religion is an important part of an individual's life, the clinician needs to make that connection. They should contact the clergy and let them know to look out for and welcome the person back." Conversely, he points out that the approach would not be helpful for patients who have had negative associations with religion or religious leaders. "The model is not a panacea, but, rather, an option to engage the whole person. Patients need to be assessed and treated individually without judgments about whether religion is good or bad." Professor Milstein's research collaborators were: Amy Manierre, an American Baptists minister currently pursuing as Master of Social Work Degree at University of Houston; Virginia L. Susman, M.D., Associate Medical Director and Site Director at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Medical College, and Dr. Martha L. Bruce, Professor of Sociology in Psychology at Weill Medical College. The research was supported by grants from: the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Research Fellowship Program in Psychiatry; the National Institute of Mental Health; the American Psychological Association and the Professional Staff Congress – CUNY.
Statements on upcoming meeting between pope, patriarch may be diplomatic move
Moscow, June 3, Interfax - The Moscow Patriarchate doesn't rule out that the statement made by Cardinal Walter Kasper saying that Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Alexy II will meet in the nearest future may be a diplomatic move by the Vatican. Kasper, who heads the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, recently said the pope and the Russian patriarch may meet in the near future. "Such commentaries by one of the parties are sometimes a diplomatic move intended to put certain soft pressure on the negotiating parties. It's like they are saying 'We are glad, we are looking forward [to a meeting], why are you avoiding us?'" Deacon Andrey Kurayev, a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, told Interfax-Religion on Tuesday. Kurayev said he did not participant in the negotiations between Kasper and the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church and therefore cannot say which precisely nuances of the dialogue gave the cardinal a reason for optimistic comments. At the same time, Kurayev said he is hoping tat "some progress has been achieved in our relationship, and it is connected with the fact that the current pope, unlike his predecessor, is not personally responsible for the tragedies in the history of Orthodoxy in Western Ukraine in the early 1990s, when Greek Catholics literally ravaged three Orthodox dioceses."
http://snipurl.com/2ccmn
Monday, June 02, 2008
Through a Glass, Darkly: Secrecy and the Catholic Church
One of the charges that we sometime hear in Orthodox Church circles is that this or that bishop or idea is "Catholic" and not Orthodox. Often by "Catholic" what is meant is a decision or idea that (rightly or wrongly) appears to its critic as authoritarian.Inside Catholic: What moved you to write a book about secrecy in the Church?
Over the years as I have heard this type of complaint made I've had a number of different thoughts. One is to question criticizing an idea or policy by associating it, unfavorably, with another Christian community. This isn't like saying "You throw like a girl" when we mean to say that a boy lacks athletic skill.
The second though I have is that, frankly, there are times when I wish the Orthodox Church was as well run as the Catholic Church (and yes, I heard the gasps--from both my Orthodox readers who are appalled and my Catholic readers who must be wondering "How poorly is the Orthodox Church run if he admires us?!") Let me say quickly, I don't have desire to throw over Orthodox ecclesiology. Nor have I any illusions about the administrative operations of the Catholic Church. What I do have is a desire to see both communities draw closer together and as a step along the way I think both can learn from each other about the day to day goverance of their respective communities.
All this is by way of a longish introduction to an interview with Russell Shaw posted on Inside Catholic. Shaw, a regular contributor to Inside Catholic, has just published his 20th book, Nothing To Hide: Secrecy, Communication, and Communion in the Catholic Church (Ignatius Press), in whcih he "takes a candid and sometimes surprising look at the abuse of secrecy in an ecclesiastical context."
While the whole interview is worth reading, I would draw the attention of my Orthodox readers to some of the following in Shaw's interview (my emphasis and my comments).
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Russell Shaw:I guess I first became conscious of the problem in 1969, when I went to work for the bishops' conference as director of information. At the time, the bishops' relations with the press were in terrible shape, and much of the tension focused on the bishops' general meetings. They were entirely in executive session, with no reporters and observers allowed in. Yet the bishops invited reporters to come to the meeting and cover it -- which they did, partly by means of briefings and partly by means of leaks. Needless to say, there was no good reason for all that secrecy. The situation was a mess and very harmful to the bishops' own best interests.
Don't you think there's a place for secrecy and confidentiality in the Church?
Of course there is. As a matter of fact, I make the case for secrecy in the book. The seal of the confessional is the strongest example of strictly obligatory secrecy, but the duty to preserve privacy pertains in pastoral counseling situations. Furthermore, the Church has the same right to confidentiality to protect its legitimate interests that any other group has, along with the common obligation to respect people's privacy rights.
My point isn't that there has to be total disclosure of everything. It's that the assumption in doing the Church's business should be in favor of openness and accountability, with the burden of proof resting on those who favor secrecy in any particular case. [One of the things that the parish I serve does very well is hold open monthly parish council meetings. In addition to annoucing the time and date of the meeting, they also post the minutes on the parish bulletin board. Most important, in my view, is that comments and questions form visitors are encouraged by having a visitors' forum on the monthly agenda.]
....
[Is] there anything special about the abuse of secrecy in the Church?
Yes, there is. The clergy are the management class in the Church, and in that context the abuse of secrecy becomes a typical tool of the clericalist culture. It's clericalism at work.
Furthermore, abusing secrecy is contrary to the Church's nature as communion -- a communion or hierarchically structured community of faith in which all the members, as Vatican II taught, are fundamentally equal in dignity and rights. But you can't have real equality in dignity and rights in a community in which a large body of members are routinely denied information that they need to function as full, equal members. That's how things are now.
....
But ever since Vatican II haven't we had structures and processes of consultation to prevent what you're talking about -- pastoral councils, finance councils, things like that[and the Orthodox Church had had these in place especially in America since the beginning of our time here]?
On paper, yes. But in many places, if not most, they don't seem to be working very well. What did diocesan and parish councils do to detect and prevent sex abuse? Nothing -- evidently they were frozen out, kept in the dark. In lots of parishes and dioceses, nobody knows who the council members are or when they meet or what their agenda is or what they do. There's a common impression that very often -- there are exceptions, of course -- the main role of these bodies is to be a sounding-board and rubber-stamp decisions by the authorities.
Isn't the problem larger than secrecy?
Yes, it is. As I say in the book, the abuse of secrecy has a number of cousins -- stonewalling, happy talk, spin, deception, failure to consult, rejection of accountability, things like that. The family resemblance is that, like secrecy, these are all breakdowns in the open, honest communication that ought to be the rule in the communio of the Church.
Has the Church officially taken a position on this question?
Well, it hasn't said a whole lot. But you will find some excellent statements of principle in Communio et Progressio, a pastoral instruction on communications published by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in 1971. It calls for a "steady, two-way flow of information" between Church authorities and the faithful, and says people have a right to "all the information they need to play their active role in the life of the Church," while secrecy should be limited to cases of necessity.
This Vatican agency has returned to the same subject several times in documents it's published since then, and Pope John Paul II touched on the theme in his last public document before he died, Il Rapido Sviluppo (The Rapid Development). Pope Benedict laid down the basic principle of internal communication in the Church several years ago. "We cannot communicate with the Lord if we do not communicate with one another" is how he put it.
What do you suggest be done?
My book ends with some practical recommendations. For instance: adopt policies that guarantee openness in conducting the business of dioceses and parishes and religious institutes; make a fresh start with pastoral councils and finance councils by giving them a real say in decisions and making their proceedings public; give qualified lay Catholics a consultative voice in the choice of their bishops and pastors; put freedom-of-information policies in place in Church institutions; allow diocesan newspapers to be more than house organs and operate as reliable sources of information and vehicles for public opinion. We have to revive the ideal of shared responsibility, too -- not as part of a power struggle, but so that we can all work together for the welfare of the Church.
Basically, what's needed is a new way of thinking -- a commitment to the proposition that openness and accountability really are the way to go because they're expressions of what the Church is and how it's meant to operate. When people grasp that, the abuse of secrecy ought to fade away But I'm realistic enough to recognize that, human nature being what it is, the temptation to go behind closed doors and practice secrecy will always exist.
► This is the third entry in a multi-part, multi-week series on the issue of clericalism in the Catholic Church. The project will continue tomorrow with a discussion/dialogue on whether or not faithful Catholics may criticize a bishop publicly, and will conclude Friday with an online symposium, including dozens of prominent Catholics from various perspectives, offering their own analysis and solutions. All the articles will be gathered into a single printable volume, available for free download at the end of the week.
Friday, May 30, 2008
More on Metropolitan Nicolae
Thank you everyone for your comments both those on the site here and emailed to me privately regarding Metropolitan Nicolae's reception of Holy Communion at a Romanian Catholic celebration of the Divine Liturgy. The central point he makes is this (my emphasis in bold): It is not my place to say whether it was in the event helpful to the cause of ecumenism for the Metropolitan to choose this course of action. It is even less my place to say whether it was right from an Orthodox point of view to infringe the discipline of his Church in view of what, as I said at the beginning, we must presume he believed to be a greater good. I have said why, as a Catholic, I believe that it was right for his request to receive communion from a Catholic altar to be granted. Some will see his gesture as a prophetical sign destined one day to bear fruit by the very reason of its provocative nature. Others will say it is well-intentioned but in reality premature and counter-productive. Others still will think it scandalous and sacrilegious. It is not given to me to know which judgement is correct. Only let those who cry "scandal" remember that scandal in its theological meaning is not, as in common parlance, the shock which an action causes to our sensibilities and our comfortable presuppositions, but that which causes us to sin. And let them ask themselves whether complacency in the face of a divided Christendom is not a sin, however much it hides behind rhetoric about not sacrificing truth to gain unity. In the end, truth and unity are the same thing; sin against unity damages our ability to see the fullness of truth. I cannot help wondering if in fact we—Orthodox and Catholic Christians—really wish to be reconciled to one another. And given that the rancor I've seen on at least one popular Catholic blog regarding Metropolitan Nicolae's reception of Holy Communion is every bit a foul and bitter as what I hear when we as Orthodox Christians rip into each other, I can't help wonder if we even want to be reconciled with those in our tradition much less with those with whom we disagree. Could it be we are estranged from each other because we are estranged among ourselves? And if we are estranged from those with whom we share Eucharist, how can we ever hope to reconcile the wound inflicted on us all by the Great Schism? And since the it's come up--isn't my estrangement from my neighbor simply the symptom of my own sinfulness and my heart being divided against itself? Where does the line of schism run accept through the human heart? Again I disagree with Metropolitan Nicolae's actions. At the same time I hope and pray that whatever else might happen as a result it encourages the faithful in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches not only to desire the reconciliation of the two Churches, but for us to actively seek and prepare for reconciliation. You see that's really what strikes me most about the "Timisoara incident." Even granted the inappropriate nature of His Eminence's actions, the character of the responses suggest to me that most of us—Catholic and Orthodox—are at best indifferent, and even actively hostile, to the reconciliation his actions imply. Well, there you go. In Christ, +Fr Gregory
Image via Wikipedia
First off, let me please remind everyone whether they post comments or not, while it is one thing to disagree, even strongly, with Metropolitan Nicolae's actions, his status as an Orthodox bishop, much less the state of his soul, is NOT for me to judge. Again, I would not have done what he did—and I think Chrys has given a rather elegant and charitable explanation as to why Metropolitan Nicolae's actions are not acceptable. But until the Holy Synod tells us otherwise, Metropolitan Nicolae is an Orthodox bishop in good standing.
That said, whatever might have been His Eminence's intent or however we might characterize his actions, one thing that has come out of this is a conversation about the relationship between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. What I find distressing, however, is that the conversation (1) seems largely limited to Catholic blogs and (2) is rancorous to say the least. Mind you, the rancor is not between Catholics and Orthodox as much as it is among Catholics. Be that as it may, however, accept for this blog I have come across no conversation about what Fr Paul (the online pseudonym of a Catholic priest serving in Greece) over at the blog De unione ecclesiarum calls the "Timisoara incident."
What Grace Doesn’t Do: Some Thoughts on Orthodox/Catholic Conversations
Now that my more academic research is finished (for the moment, I'll be starting a new project on the passions and levels of consciousness in S. Freud (psychoanalysis), A. Beck (cognitive psychology), and A. van Kaam (existential-phenomenological psychology) in the next few weeks), I have time to put in writing a talk I gave at the Society of St John Chrysostom. The talk discussed, rather poorly in my view, why conversations between Orthodox and Catholic Christians so often degenerated into polemics and ad hominem. As part of finishing up that work, I thought I would offer a few thoughts here and invite your comments. What Grace Doesn't Do One of my professors in graduate school, Fr Adrian van Kaam (to download a pdf that summarizes van Kaam's life and work, click here) pointed out on more than one occasion that though it was a great blessing for which we should be grateful an experience of God does not exempt us from the laws of human development or "an evident need for psychotherapy." In other words, not matter how profound my experience of God, it is ought not to be confused with either maturity or healthy psychological functioning. And why would it? For van Kaam, a cheerful and committed Thomist, the answer is that grace perfects, but does not replace, nature. While I don't disagree with my professor's explanation (which I have merely summarized in slogan form), I would add to it. To assume, as many seem to, that an experience of grace exempts me from the normal process of human growth and development is Christologically unsound. It to deny that in Christ the whole of human life is sanctified. We read in the Scriptures, that "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." (Lk 2.52) Taking Jesus Christ as our example, we can argue that the normal ebb and flow of human development is not necessarily opposed to sanctity and wisdom. Indeed, and again looking to Jesus as our example, it would seem that each stage of human developmental is capable of participating in the divine nature, even as in each developmental stage of His life, Jesus was Himself the Theanthropos . To borrow from Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution of Divine Revelation from the Second Vatican Council: For this reason Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth. Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal. For Christians, Eastern or Western, Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, is the whole of His life that is revelatory. His voluntary and life-giving death and glorious resurrection from the dead on the third day, together with Ascension into heaven and bestowal of the Holy Spirit, is the confirmation of what is true for the whole of His life. If this is true for Jesus Christ then it is (at least potentially) true for those of us who received His Name in Baptism. This idea is probably not one that most of us would contest. Though I suspect that, in some cases at least, the agreement reflects more sentiment than rigorous anthropological reflection (but, as another of my professor's once asked, "Who am I to do things for the right reason? I know what's right and should simply do it. My thinking will, hopefully, catch up with by doing."). What is more controversial is the suggestion that an encounter with God does not bring with it mental health. I need to be careful here. When I say "mental health" I do not mean this in a narrow, culturally bound, sense of the term. One of the most encouraging developments in the profession and science of psychology is the growing realization just how bound the notion of mental health is to the experience of one relatively small segment of contemporary American culture. So when I say mental health I mean it in the broad sense, of the integrity of the person's cognitive, emotional and social functions. In classical philosophical and theological anthropology, this life of integral living is the life of virtue. By necessity virtue means for me that there is a certain degree of tension in any psychologically healthy life. Why? Well because, just to take one example, my social situation might be such that a virtuous response demands of me social isolation. Or virtue might even require of me that I live in a state of relative conflict with those around me. Mental health then, reflects a convergence of internal and external factors. And like human development, it is dynamic. Within the limits of his/her life situation, the psychological healthy human being is flexible and adaptable in his or her thinking and behaving. Indeed though it is often (wrongly) conflated with political liberalism, a central characteristic of mental health is the ability to change, to become if you will, evermore who I am. Mental illness, to return to the second of the two human realities that an experience of grace does not exempt us from, is the precisely the lack of this ability to change in a positive direction. Psychotherapy is concerned with those times in human life when we are unable to exercise our cognitive, emotional and social functions in the service of becoming more fully who we are. In a broad sense, psychotherapy serves the life of virtue. Think for example of the alcoholic. The problem with alcoholism is not that the alcoholic enjoys wine. The problem, the real sorrow of alcoholism, is that the person only enjoys wine—until of course his or her indifference to the other joys of life and his or her fixation on wine becomes so pervasive that even wine is no longer enjoyed and its consumption becomes a compulsion and what yesterday reflected human freedom, today is the sign and source of freedom's lack. Returning now to the centrality of virtue to any anthropologically sound view of mental health what can we say? Virtue, as Aristotle and the Christian tradition, understands the term is about finding the mean between extremes. It is moderation that is the key to wholeness—and moderation is learned. An experience of grace then does not allow us to leap frog over the typical stage of human growth and development. Just as we grow from child to adult, we also grow (ideally anyway) in virtue, in wholeness of being. To be human, to borrow from existentialism, is to live a life of dynamic openness to the future. But as Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel remind us, the future, as future, is always unknown and unknowable. Or, to us van Kaam's phrase, to live a constant human life means that we remain open in awe, trust, and gratitude to the Mystery of Being (God) and becoming (human life as a life of dynamic openness). So, what has this to do with the difficulties we often see in Catholic/Orthodox conversations? Though it needs to be developed more fully, I would suggest this: We often talk as if the Catholic/Orthodox dialog is a conversation is between two different, even competing, traditions. In fact these conversations are always conversations between human beings who in their conversations with each other, make selective appeals to their own understanding of the past, both their own and the other's. Traditions, to state the painfully obvious, do not have conversations—only human beings can speak, can enter into a conversations. Tradition, as Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) has pointed out in Being in Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, only exist enhypostatically, that is, by way of the person. Too often conversations between Eastern and Western Christians are not understood as human encounters. In fact, I would suggest that the reason that our conversations are so often polemical, is because we imagine that there is nothing of ourselves in our talks with each other. Let me go even further, we are so often polemical because we are striving not to encounter one another. We do not wish to know the other, because not only do we do not wish to be know by the other, we do not know, or even wish to know, ourselves personally. Any human encounter is necessarily one that demands from me both self-knowledge and change. To refuse one or the other of these is to refuse the encounter, the gift of the other person and so to refuse to receive my own life as a gift from God. For too many of us, our attachment to our religious tradition is an escape, a refusal, of the dynamic and gratuitous quality of our own lives. We do not wish to grow, to change. Our conversations are polemical because more often than not, our thinking about ourselves is static and rigid. Catholic/Orthodox polemics—at least as we see them in contemporary practice—are only accidentally theological. In the main (and I will address this more in another post) our polemics reflect our own lack of wholeness, of balance, of our own lack of virtue. Or, to borrow from psychology, our encounters so often go wrong because of we are neurotic. And, to push things a bit further, Eastern and Western Christians tend to favor different neurotic styles. As always, your questions, comments, and criticisms are not only welcome, they are desired. More later. In Christ, +Fr Gregory
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Orthodox bishop shares Communion with Catholics
Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu receiving Holy Communion at a Romanian Catholic celebration of the Divine Liturgy.
Christ is Risen!
I don't know what to think--I do not understand why Metropolitan Nicolae asked to receive nor why he was allowed to do so. I'm not sure what will happen as a result of this, but I pray God something good come out of all of this.
+Fr Gregory
I don't know what to think--I do not understand why Metropolitan Nicolae asked to receive nor why he was allowed to do so. I'm not sure what will happen as a result of this, but I pray God something good come out of all of this.
+Fr Gregory
Timisoara , May. 27, 2008 (CWNews.com) - A Romanian Orthodox bishop has shared Communion with Catholics, causing a sensation in a country where Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox have a history of tense relations.
At the consecration of the Queen of Peace parish church in Timisoara on May 25, Orthodox Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu of Banat asked to share Communion. The Orthodox metropolitan approached the altar and received the Eucharist from his own hand.
Romanian Catholic Bishop Alexandru Mesian of Lugoj was the celebrant of the Divine Liturgy in the Byzantine Catholic church; Archbishop Francisco-Javier Lozano, the apostolic nuncio to Romania, was also present.
Although Orthodox and Catholic bishops often join in ecumenical services, and occasionally participate in each other's liturgical ceremonies, they do not share Communion-- an indication of the breach in ecclesial communion between the Orthodox churches and the Holy See. In Romania, tensions between the Orthodox Church and the Eastern-rite Romanian Catholic Church have been pronounced, adding to the surprise created by Metropolitan Corneanu's action.
With some Orthodox believers outraged by the metropolitan's sharing Communion with Catholic bishops, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Romania issued a statement saying that at the next meeting of the Orthodox synod, in July, Metropolitan Corneanu "may be asked to give an appropriate explanation" for his action.
The statement from the Orthodox patriarchate went on to say that ecumenical relations with the Catholic Church, "already quite fragile, cannot be helped, but are rather complicated," by sharing in Communion.
Metropolitan Corneanu-- who was one of the first Orthodox bishops to admit that he had cooperated with the secret police under the Communist regime-- has a record of friendship with Romanian Catholics. He was among the few Orthodox leaders prepared to return church properties that had been seized by the Communist government from Catholic ownership in 1948 and handed over to Orthodox control.
Memory Eternal! Khouriya Joanne Abdalah
It is with great sadness that I report that this morning Khouriya Joanne Abdalah, wife of Fr John Abdalah (together in the picture above) fell asleep in the Lord.
Please remember Kh. Joanne and her families un your prayers.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
From the web page of the Antiochian Archdiocese of America:
Kh. Joanne Abdalah of St. George Cathedral/Pittsburgh, Pa., fell asleep in the Lord on Tuesday, May 27, after suffering with ovarian cancer for more than two years.
She and Fr. John are the parents of three children: Gregory, a 2008 graduate of St. Vladimir Seminary in Crestwood, NY, Joseph of Houston, TX, and Maria at home. Please remember them all in your prayers.
Among other ministries, Kh. Joanne was co-editor of the WORD magazine and a past president of the North American Board of Antiochian Women.
The funeral arrangements are as follows:
She will be laid out at the Cathedral of St. George in Oakland, PA, Thursday evening, May 29, from 4pm to 8pm. Immediately after that at 8pm we will have the funeral service. The internment will be on Friday at the Monastery of the Holy Transfiguration in Ellwood City, Pa.
Condolences can be sent to the V. Rev. Fr John Abdalah, St. George Cathedral, 3400 Dawson St., Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
May she rest in peace.
Read Khouriya Joanne's story in the May issue of the Word Magazine (pp 3-4)
Read a dedication to Khouriya Joanne and learn more about ovarian cancer in Antiochian Women's Diakonia Magazine (pp 1, 6-7)
Friday, May 23, 2008
Brain Research and the Passions
On his blog, Neuromarketing, Roger Dooley has a though provoking post entitled "Money, Social Status Similar in Brain." In the essay he asks: Why do people do things that will gain them social approval? It turns out that the same parts of the brain are activated for a positive social outcome as for a monetary reward. In other words, the same reward circuitry is turned on both by social and monetary gains. Corporate marketers as well as non-profit fundraisers have always known that most individuals crave social approval, but these new findings show how our brains process these social rewards and how they relate to money. The anthropologist Mary Douglas offers a similar conclusion in one of her seminal works on the economics that she co-authored with Baron Isherwood, The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption (1979). In this work see tries to answer an obvious, but often unasked question, why do we want goods? Her answer is that we desire material possessions, for example money, not as ends in themselves. Rather we desire things for social status. For Douglas and Isherwood at the heart of this status is freedom. A wealth person is one who both has relatively more options than his or her neighbor AND who has to invest a relatively smaller percentage of effort to acquire that which s/he wants. So, a person is wealthy not on any absolute scale, but within a given social context. And who is wealthy? The person who, for example, not only has a relatively wide array of food options but who also needs to expend little effort (relative to others) to get the desired food. High options + low work = wealth. So back to the brain. Dooley writes that current brain research suggests, well in his own words, "that our brains are performing a balancing act when making a decision and that social benefits may be weighed directly against monetary costs." This he thinks is a possible explanation for what "a surprising number of people were early adopters of the Toyota Prius, despite the fact that any annual fuel cost savings would be offset by the higher initial cost of the car." For at least some of these early adopters, "driving an obviously 'green' vehicle would be a reward in itself and would justify the higher price." And so, to "continue the Toyota theme, could this reward system also explain why people will pay many thousands more for a Lexus than the equivalent Toyota model, even though the difference in features and function don't themselves justify the price differential?" In both cases, the owners see their purchase as a way to elevate their relative "social status." Current brain research, along with the early work of Douglas Isherwood, might also explain "why non-profit fundraising is always more successful when donors are recognized in a visible and public way." Successful fundraising requires it seems some recognition of those who donate. And so whether "it's as simple as calling a donor a "Gold Patron" in an event program or as significant as naming a building after him, public recognition is important to the vast majority of donors." While the brain research, Dooley's application of the research, and Douglas and Isherwood's work are interesting in and of themselves, what is left unexamined is the role of human freedom in making the decision to exchange money for status, or for that matter status for money. That the same area of the brain processes money and social status (and other research suggests that the same part of the brain that processes spending decisions also processes pain; read about that research here: "The Pain of Buying") does not answer the question as to why I might by a Prius. How is it that I make that exchange? Here we enter into the rather murky world of human motivate. Psychoanalysis, for example, would argue what actually motivates me in a given situation is largely unknown to me. For many people both during Freud's life time and since, his argument was an affront to human freedom and dignity. "After all," or so the argument went (and goes), "I am not a cauldron of conflicting desires. I live by the light of reason" (or "the Gospel," or "common sense," or "ethics."). Well, not so fast says Freud and now evidently some brain research. For the Fathers of the Church, I am not motivated, at least initially, by reason, or the Gospel, or common sense, or ethics, but by the passions. The passions are my disordered desires. What makes these desires disordered is that they are self-referential. My desires serve me as I try and live a life of pleasure and avoid a life of pain. But what my desires don't do is draw me closer to God. For St Maximos the Confessor, for example, my passions are disordered because they lock me in on myself; I am forever running toward pleasure and fleeing from pain. And, the physiology of my brain is part of this process. But what's interesting is not simply the link between social status and money, but also the link between money and pain. All three of these share common physiological links. According to some research, "brain scans predicted buying behavior almost as well as the self-reported intentions of the subjects. In other words, absent any knowledge of what the subject intended to do, viewing the brain scan was nearly as predictive as asking the subject what he would do." But, the social context (and this, I would suggest, includes social status) is also important. The society is important because "it isn't just the dollar amount, it's the context of the transaction. Thus, people can spend hundreds of dollars on accessories when buying a car with little pain, while a vending machine that takes 75 cents and produces nothing is very aggravating. Auto luxury bundles are designed to minimize negative activation because their price tag covers multiple luxury items. The consumer can't relate a specific dollar amount to a particular item, e.g., $1000 for leather seats, and hence can't easily evaluate the fairness of the deal or whether the utility of the accessory is worth the price." Yes, yes, yes, I can hear you ask. But what does this have to do with the spiritual life? What has this to do with my struggles against my own passions? Simply this: The passions—what I desire, what goals are worth the cost of my efforts if you will—not only have a physiological basis, they are also highly social or if you will traditional. Broadly speaking, my tradition tells me what desire to value, what purchases are worthy making (and I make these purchase by spending money, time and/or effort). Likewise, asceticism—the effort needed to re-direct my desires so that they draw me closer to God—also has both a physiological and social or traditional character. We cannot grow in holiness, in real and lasting freedom, if we neglect either our physical bodies or our social situations. Yes I need to fast, I need to pray, I need to give alms, for example. But I also need to be a member of a community that values not simply fast and praying, and caring for the poor, but my fasting, my praying, my service to those in need. My ascent to grace is just as much bodily and social process as is my fall from grace. The body and our peers are both part of the problem and part of the solution. In Christ, +Fr Gregory
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
A Proposed Typology for Orthodoxy in America
I have received several private emails regarding my earlier posts on Orthodoxy in America. One idea that seems to resonant with people is the America is an experiment. Thinking about that one person suggested to me that Orthodoxy itself is something of an experiment. As I thought about it, it made sense to me that—since the Christian life is dynamic (it is after all, life)—it would necessarily have an experimental quality. Think about it for a moment—how do we learn to pray, for example, except by trying out not simply different ways of praying, but different mixes of the different ways. So I got to thinking, what comes to mind when I reflect on the possibility that the Christian life and the American life are both experiments? Growing in my understanding of Holy Tradition and growing in self-knowledge and self-expression are not opposed. In my experience, they come together—in fact, I can't seem to have one without the other. When you have a chance, dear readers, I would be most interested in your thoughts on this typology.
Image via Wikipedia
It is somewhat ironic that, on the right, many would deny this outright. For these people, both the Orthodox Church and America are presented as a completed work to which people (usually other people by the way) must conform. For me at least, the great strength of both traditions is that they provide people with the "tools" need for self-discovery and self-expression. Granted in the political arena this most often means being left alone, but still the absence of coercion by civil authority and a broadly respect for the conscience of the individual is no small tool. In the case of the Church, we have the whole of Holy Tradition. Far from being an abstract standard to be fulfilled, it presents us with 2,000 years of wisdom and a theological and spiritual unity grounded in human and cultural diversity. Taken up in the service of our growth in self-knowledge, I find the Tradition to be a source of unimaginable richness. As I read more in Orthodoxy theology and spirituality, as I find myself facing new pastoral challenges as a priest, as I have conversations with people (both those who are and those who aren't Orthodox), I discover not only new layers and depth in Holy Tradition, but new things about me.
Least I someone accused of taking sides, those on the left have their own characteristic way of denying the open end nature of both American and Orthodoxy. In this case the experimental nature of both becomes an end in itself. Yes, there is dynamism in both the American experiment and the Christian experiment. LIkewise there is room for, and even an expectation of, learning through what we might call trial and error (though strictly speaking we do not learn through error. It is only in coming, by trail, to know and understand the truth that we see the errors of our ways. But that for another day.) And above all in both there is a deep appreciation for personal uniqueness. BUT all of this is in the service of getting somewhere. The American experiment is in search of a more just and perfect union; the Church is a journey to the Kingdom of God (even if we are given that Kingdom proleptically in the sacraments, but that is for another day). America and the Church each take their meaning not simply from the past, therefore, but from the future. As Americans and as Christians, we remember the future—albeit futures with different, though not unrelated, contents.
Granted I have grossly simplified not only the "left" and the "right," but also America and the Church. Let me then offer my words then as a typology rather than a normative description of either America or the Christian life.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Skribit Activity & Voting for this Week
Here's your weekly report on the Skribit activity for Koinonia: Suggestions Posted this Week ======================================== 1. What does it mean to receive "who I am" from God? by Anonymous (7 votes) 2. Patristic anthropology and modern psychology (e.g. St. Maximos and Horney) by Anonymous (12 votes) 3. Orthodoxy and human rights by Steve Hayes (5 votes) 4. Addiction in Modernity (e.g Internet Pornography, video games, drugs) by Anonymous (9 votes) Top Voted Suggestions ======================================== 1. Patristic anthropology and modern psychology (e.g. St. Maximos and Horney) (12 votes) 2. Addiction in Modernity (e.g Internet Pornography, video games, drugs) (9 votes) 3. What does it mean to receive "who I am" from God? (7 votes) 4. Orthodoxy and human rights (5 votes) The readers have spoken! Expect a post this week on patristic anthropology and modern psychology. Thanks! And please, keep making suggestions and casting your votes! In Christ, +Fr Gregory
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Counseling Resource Recommendations
Counseling resource recommendations are hard for me to make without a sense of what skill level the person has. As a general rule of thumb, however, the very first thing to bear in mind is that we ought not to enter into a counseling relationship that is beyond our comfort level. So for example, even if I'm comfortable and competent (different things by the way, the former not being in anyway a predictor of the latter) in a therapeutic setting deal with this or that issue, I often find that I need to refer the person to a therapist who has more time and access to greater social service resources then I do in a parish. First, I divide my counseling ministry into three basic areas: Second, I need to realize that I can't deal with every person who comes to me looking for help. While some times what they bring me are outside my area of technical competence, generally and for most part the issue is one of time management. I have limits on my time and energy. If I spend several hours in a series of high stress counseling sessions (which sometimes happens), I'm useless for much of anything else for DAYS. Third, counseling in a parish setting is often crisis oriented--clergy are good first responders, but we are not in a situation to do long term, or even short term, counseling. The further we get from a pastoral relationship the more danger we are in of malpractice, malfeasance, misconduct or personal burn out. Fourth, when in doubt about my abilities or if I don't have the time/energy to help someone I refer them to a professional therapist. Yes, this comes with a commitment to support them in therapy—but as their priest who will help them bear the cross of mental illness. Fifth things which are clearly PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL (e.g., depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) I refer to a clinical psychologist. Pastoral support here means checking in with the person from time to time and seeing how they're doing. Oh, yes, I also will ask them about medication usage--basically, "Are you taking your medication(s)?" Sixth, PHYSICAL VIOLENCE (either ACTUAL or THREATENED) is NEVER something that I work with as the primary caregiver. Instance of physical violence, like all crimes, are POLICE MATTERS. Yes there is a pastoral dimension to say domestic violence, but it is fundamentally a legal matter and I need to respect that even if my parishioner is not willing to report the crime. Finally, I think one of the best things I have ever done for my own counseling ministry was to be in therapy. I have seen a therapist several times in my life. The old psychoanalytic model (now increasingly ignored) was clear: You must undergo analysis to become do psychoanalysis. Being in counseling has been most helpful for me learning what my limits are.
What I'm getting at is this: The best resource we have in counseling is a sense of our own personal and technical limitations.
What studies that have been done on the effectiveness of counseling relationships suggest that the quality of the relationship between counselor and client is what is most important. Second on the list are the personal internal and social resources of the client. The specific therapeutic orientation and skill set of the counselor is relatively low down on the list of predictors for a successful counseling relationship. This doesn't mean professional competence is unimportant, only that it is not the primary predictor of success.
So, looking at the first element, the relationship between counselor and client, you might want to read Adrian van Kaam's The Art of Existential Counseling: A New Perspective in Psychotherapy. I have found this and a number of van Kaam's books to be very helpful and very accessible. You also might want to look at Dynamics of Spiritual Direction
also by van Kaam. The Art of Spiritual Guidance by Carolyn Gratton might also be of use to you. (Having studied with both authors I can testify to both their professional competency and commitment to Christ.)
As for the second element, before getting involved in any type of ongoing counseling relationship, it is important to have a sense both of the person's internal, moral strength as we well as what kind of social support they have to encourage and sustain change. People without these internal and social resources are generally not good candidates for counseling, at least without enlisting significant support from social services. In a parish setting we simply can't work with people who lack these personal and social resources. Again, this isn't a reflection on our commitment to Christ or His People, but rather of the whole range of resources we can bring to bear.
BUT, even if I cannot enter into a formal counseling relationship with someone, I certainly can refer them to a professional therapist and commit to being a support for them as they go through counseling. This works most effectively if I have a pre-existing professional relationship with area therapists (and this is one of the things on my "to do" list when I come to a new parish) who can act as potential partners when I refer folks. Also a relationship with a therapist is good to help me get a sense of when people bring me things about which I'm not in a position to help them.
Two resources that address the technical aspects of counseling that you might find helpful are Basic Types of Pastoral Care and Counseling: Resources for the Ministry of Healing and Growth by Howard John Clinebell and A Minister's Handbook of Mental Disorders by Joseph W. Ciarrocchi. Together these will give you a sense of the therapeutic lay of the land and help you recognize when you are passing from a spiritual/pastoral matters to more psychological/mental health issues.
In my own ministry I have some general rules that I follow.
Let me know if the above is of any help to you. Of course you can always invite me to come and speak and do a clergy training workshop.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Skribit Voting
Hi All,
I've gotten some good suggestions using Skribit--now how about some voting?
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Athens and Jerusalem, part 2
I have received several emails regarding my interviews with the host of "Our Life in Christ," on Ancient Faith Radio ((you can download the interviews here In Christ, +Fr Gregory Dear T., In Christ, +Fr Gregory
and here). Below is an edited version of the second email I wrote to one listener, T.
Your comments about understanding the limits of science (in your case __________, in mine psychology) are right on target. Much of the resistance I think to psychology comes out of not simply a lack of awareness of what psychology does and doesn't offer, but a more fundamental lack of a sound philosophy of science. I hasten to add at this point, a deficient philosophy of science is not limited to non-scientists—very rarely do psychologists seem to understand the limits of our own discipline. Psychotherapy, to take but one example, does not deal in certainties, but probabilities that are always, and necessarily, subject to revision and even rejection. In this sense, my therapeutic work is rather limited in what it can accomplish.
But for all its limits, I think psychology offers us a useful anthropological vision. This is less so in particular and more in a general or foundational sense. When evaluating any psychological theory or practice I return again to the provisional nature of all science. To me at least this suggests that psychology offers us a dynamic view of the human person. So not only are our findings are always subject to revision, any psychological theory that neglects to take account of the dynamic character of human life is in need of correction.
Taken within its own limits as a science, psychology is a rather humble endeavor. We are not concerned with articulating a unified theory of life, the universe and everything. Or even for that matter of what it means to be human. Psychology is the science of human dynamism and as such a great partner to Christian anthropology's view of the inherent and transcendent openness of the human. It is interesting that when one reads personality theorists, they are generally rather dismissive of static thinking or rigid patterns of behavior. While this is often hinted at by the social and political liberalism of the psychologist, this is accidental to the science of psychology as such. In fact I would suggest that the liberalism of psychology—at least in an American context—reflects not simply the character of psychologists, but a certain tendency in some quarters of American society to a moralizing anthropological vision that is "allergic" to a dynamic and transcendent view of the person.
You observed, correctly I think, that many clergy adopt uncritically pop psychology. In recent weeks, for example, I have pointed out to clergy that the Myers-Briggs Personality Test is NOT a valid (in the sense of validated) psychological test. From the point of view of science, the Myers-Briggs tells us nothing about personality. Indeed personality theory is an area of great debate in psychology precisely because it does not lend itself to empirical verification. This does not mean we have to dismiss the Myers-Briggs or personality theory, but it does mean that we need to be clear that in using it we are in the realm not of quantitative but qualitative science.
Clergy, however, will often pick up pop psychology without every applying the same standards that they would apply to any other philosophical or theological vision. Or, and here my cynicism is clear for all to see, I suspect that they do evaluate pop psychology with the same rigor they apply to their philosophical and theological reflections—which is to say they aren't very rigorous at all. Observing over the years the use of psychology by clergy I have come to think that—for all the seriousness with which they may speak—there is often a rather painful lack of intellectual rigor in how most clergy approach their own theological and philosophical patrimony. Yes, certainly, they are very good about quoting Scripture or the Fathers. But for all their quotations and systems building, the intellectual rigor is simply not there. If it were, then I suspect they would not be so easily swayed by pop psychology.
In other words, psychology is in my view something of a test case. How rigorous and thoughtful are we about the content of the Christian tradition and its implications for the pastoral life of the Church? Too easily, and here I will conclude and invite your comments, we confuse anger with conviction, bullying with real authority and rigid and narrow thinking with fidelity to the living witness of the Holy Spirit not only in the past but in the present.
Again, thank you for your comments.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Athens and Jerusalem, part 1
Image via Wikipedia I have received several emails regarding my interviews with the host of "Our Life in Christ," on Ancient Faith Radio (you can download the interviews here and In Christ, +Fr Gregory Christ is Risen! Unlike the historical claims of Christian theology, modern psychology (and really it is more accurate to think in terms of a variety of schools of contemporary psychologies) does not claim to be universally applicable. Under the best of circumstances (as S. suggests) it is a tool. While it can be a helpful tool, its value depends on the skill of the craftsman using it and the needs of the person to whom s/he is responding. In Christ, +Fr Gregory
here). Below is an edited version of an email I wrote in response to one such email.
Dear T. and S.,
Thank you both for your very thoughtful comments and questions.
In response to T's question: "Is psychology necessary?" I would answer "No." But then, strictly speaking, anything that is other than God is also not necessary. This is not me language playing games. Rather it reflects what I think is the Christian faith that all that is not God is contingent upon Him and created by Him out of love and without compulsion. Creation does not add to God, but it does reflect His love.
Because everything created is, by definition, contingent, it is also unnecessary. But unnecessary does not mean unimportant or without value, though the value created being is always relative. This relative value is two-fold:
Right up front, let me say that I am not convinced of the relative superiority in psychological matters of an earlier generation of Christians. How is one to evaluate the proposition that spiritual Fathers, directors or doctors of an earlier era were more effective than contemporary psychologists? First, we need to decide on the standard of comparison and then the measurement instrument. Simply put, even assuming we are comparing apples to apples, we have no way of actually making the determination that one group was more competent then the other.
Like it or not, we live in a world in which psychology has a large role to play. It seems to me that if earlier eras struggled with issues of Christology ours age seems to struggle with anthropological questions (and this includes the nature of the Church). While there are great anthropological insights to be found in the Fathers (and this is a central theme in my own writing and praxis as both a psychologist and a priest), these are not well developed or maybe as well developed systematically. Contemporary psychology, unlike the Fathers, is concerned with the systematic study of human behavior.
If this or that Father was a better natural psychologist then say a given contemporary psychologist, well thank God, but (absent written records) so what? While I can easily imagine, for example, St Basil or St John Chrysostom or St Augustine, as extraordinarily gifted confessors and spiritual directors, they did not leave us the kinds of records that help us understand how they heard confessions. It is a bit like asking if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound. Yes, and while we know this theoretically, even if we do not know it experientially. And in the spiritual life, experience counts as much, if not more than, theory.
So yes, Chrysostom may very well have been an extraordinary psychologist (and certainly his sermons suggest this), but the Church today does not much profit from his skill. Contemporary psychology, to the degree that the psychologist (be he a researcher or a therapist) is honest can help the Church fill in the lack of anthropological data rooted in experience. In my work, I find a new depth of understanding of Chrysostom's sermons is possible precisely because--as a psychologist--I have some insight into human behavior that remains only implicit in his sermons.
As I think I alluded to in the interview, I did not come to psychology as an Orthodox Christian, much less a priest. Rather it was the other way around, I came as a psychologist to the Orthodox Church and eventually, and again as a psychologist, to the priesthood. This is to say I came looking for something to make up what I found lacking in my experience as a therapist and theoretician (and these days I am more interested in ideas about psychology and psychological theorists more than I am in actually doing therapy--though God knows I do a fair amount of that every week!). A therapist who is honest and committed to really working with and for clients will say that this work is invariably a confrontation with the fact of human contingency—that nothing in the client's life is necessary or of lasting value.
This is grim I realize—but this awareness is where faith begins.
I must first grasp that I do not possess my own life—that autonomy in the radical sense of the word, is not possible. This is so because I live in midst of a web of relationships that are given to me prior to any decision that I make. And, more painful still, it is precisely this web of relationships that exist prior to my free decision that in fact makes my subsequent freedom possible. I am free only to the degree that I first embrace the manifold limitations that make my life possible.
Tracing out the particular limits of a particular human life is what psychology excels at doing. In this sense then, psychology is the science, or maybe better art, that (like philosophy) is concerned with the pre-evangelism stage of human life. Psychology and especially psychotherapy (can) prepare us to receive the Gospel. How? By returning us to an appreciative consideration of our own limits, our own contingency in its ontological and empirical modes (what medieval philosophy refers to as primary and secondary causalities; I am absolutely dependent on God for my existence and relatively dependent upon my patents). Psychology, the other social and human sciences (sociology, anthropology especially) as well as the natural sciences (especially the biological sciences, but also the physical sciences and physics), are concerned with articulated the structures and dynamics of this secondary causality.
In this regard theology and the Church need modern psychology. Not need in an absolute sense to be sure, but certainly in a relative sense. For this reason I would assert that especially for pastors to ignore contemporary psychology is not only harmful but irresponsible. For all its shortcoming and limitations (and I am intimately familiar with these), modern psychology add insights about the human condition that the Fathers did not, at least not explicitly, have.
Implicit within the question of the use of modern psychology is a certain forgetfulness of the importance of our attending to the particular human person and the concrete community. Answering the questions "What use is contemporary psychology for Christians?" is not possible theoretically, but only personally. I think the examples that S. raises are good ones—I know as a priest that I have often encountered situations in the life of the Church in which my background as a psychologist has been extremely helpful. But, as I often tell my brother priests, being a psychologist doesn't make me more objective or a better priest, but simply a priest who has a different bias and a different set of skills. There are situations where an appeal to the Fathers will simply not move us forward. Granted those situations may very well be in the minority, but well, those are the situations within which God seems to call me to minister.
Finally, what I have found to be the best approach to the questions you raise T. is to seek not integration or hegemony, but reconciliation between the insights of the Fathers and contemporary psychology. As I said above, your questions do not admit to easy theoretical answers—but they can be answered personally.
In all humility I think that the work I do is consonant with the work the Fathers did in their time. These men and women of Christ, committed as they were to Him, the Gospel, and the life of the Church, entered into a conversation with Greek philosophy. At times they embraced pagan philosophy as a manifestation of divine wisdom. At other times they rejected it as demonic. It is as a result of that conversation however, that we have the great theological works of the first centuries.
In a similar fashion, and with the hope that I too will grow in holiness as a result, I have my conversation with contemporary psychology. Some of what I find is life giving and some is death dealing. But what is most important is not how this or that conversation or debate is resolved, but how struggle with the issues raised by the conversation between the two parts of my life transforms me. The questions you raised are important one, but their answer is given vocationally and not theoretically. In this, I would suggest, the questions you raise about contemporary psychology's relationship to the Church are no different the questions raised in an earlier age about the role that pagan philosophy and literature ought to play in the life of the Church.
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