Our comfort may kill us

Years ago I had the privilege of having lunch with a group of pastors of underground house churches in China who were visiting Wheaton College, where I worked. I asked what is the main difference they see between the Chinese church and the American church. Without hesitation one of them responded “we have suffered and we have grown through that suffering.” The others nodded emphatically. This was a stark reminder, both of the ubiquity of suffering in this fallen world and of the tragic waste of not growing through our inescapable pain. I couldn’t help but feel a little “soft” at that moment.

This is why Jesus repeatedly said that it is nearly impossible for a wealthy person to fully acknowledge their desperate need for God. Wealth creates a sense of entitlement to comfort.

This is also why you find the most distrust of vaccines, and of science in general, in wealthy countries  people that are familiar with the death and devastation of poverty and untreated disease are not lulled into false complacency

It is not money, itself, which causes this of course but rather the comfort and escape from many forms of suffering that wealth enables. It is human nature to begin life believing in magic and in a just world. Children can easily believe thoughts and words can make things happen or prevent them from happening. Likewise, playgrounds and backyards are where you will most often hear shouts of “that’s not fair!” Life is not gentle with such beliefs and part of growing up is accepting that many of the things we imagine or wish for are not realistic. 

Some people’s lives do not fully teach those lessons leaving them feeling superior and entitled to an extra share of good things that is unfair to others. Both life experience and mental illness can also cause vulnerability to fantastical theories and to an addiction to certainty, a psychological\neurological state in which one is incapable of entertaining the possibility of being wrong. The most certain people I have ever met were experiencing psychosis. That is why involuntary hospital commitment is sometimes necessary when a person with mental illness is a danger to self or others.

What do we do when people are endangering themselves and others but they don’t fit the definition of mental illness and they claim a right to freely express themselves?

Arrogant dogmatic certainty is becoming a threat to the health of more than just those who believe in magical conspiracies. What do the rest of us do about those who insist they have the right to their belief that no danger exists and that they have no responsibility to protect anyone?

We are being forced to address these questions now when armed protesters stand on capitol steps to protest being told that they must obey laws put in place to address the pandemic.

In a culture that has stooped to new lows of shaming and hatred on social media videos of such protests are being posted and discussions ensue. Are these “very fine people” exercising their rights or are they irresponsible scofflaws putting lives in danger. Some have cited the example of our own president, who refuses to wear a face mask as their inspiration for dissent. 

Thoughts after voting during a pandemic

Thoughts after voting during a pandemic

After meeting with a condemned man about to be hanged, Samuel Johnson wrote “the prospect of death wonderfully concentrates the mind.” Contemplatives and mystics have known that for centuries. I have practiced contemplative prayer for years and meditated on death for countless hours. These practices helped me through my own brush with death after a massive stroke and through the deaths of several loved ones. It might sound morbid to the uninitiated but there is nothing like a shared threat, like a pandemic, to concentrate our collective mind. If we let it it could help us focus on what is true and important and strip away everything that is not. 

One surprising and delightful effect of this pandemic, for me, has been to increase my sense of solidarity with the human race, not just those alive today but in centuries past. This is not the first time we vulnerable beings have faced such a dangerous and mysterious threat. if I think of words like “Black Death”and bubonic plague and diphtheria and tuberculosis and small pox and typhoid and Spanish flu and polio, I can almost see men and women just like me huddling in their homes wondering if they will be next or if it is safe to go outside. My 96 year old father recently died and I wish I had asked him what it was like to face these threats to humanity. I suspect he’d have told me to hold tight to those I love and take care of the lonely and vulnerable and appreciate everything that you usually take for granted.

I certainly know that threats to the human race need to be faced by all of us, together, of one collective mind. I voted in the primary today and my mind was, as Johnson said, wonderfully concentrated on selecting those who will bring us together to fight the common enemies that threaten us and our planet. We must have no more tolerance for hate or division or “leaders” who tweet about “the Chinese virus” and shithole countries. We become complicit in that which we tolerate.

Life’s a beach and then you die

The most important lesson life teaches is that mourning is never “done.”

We come into the world wired for the duality of bad or good; black or white. We don’t begin to grow up until we mourn the loss of that pristine simplicity and accept that the two have become impossibly tangled. The microscopic dots of black ink can be so perfectly interspersed on the bright white paper that, although there are still only two colors, the human eye sees gray.

On the happiest day I still know that sad days are coming. No matter how much I love and trust someone if our relationship lasts long enough they will eventually let me down. No matter how good I feel about myself I will, again taste shame and regret. 

Only one duality remains. I can learn to lean into the waves and let them wash over me or I can try to resist and get slammed on my ass. 

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In this long mourning most of us choose beliefs and practices that help us cope. For example, many choose to believe in a heaven where they will see loved ones again. Some are troubled by my use of the word “choose” there, however, unless it is chosen it is a delusion and not a belief. Anything or anyone that cannot be questioned and doubted cannot be trusted.

The alternative to choice is compulsion. For example, one can be compelled by a dysfunctional brain that will not allow disbelief: in fact, the most certain people I have ever met were experiencing psychosis. One can also be compelled by another person with enough power to make life unbearable if you don’t give assent. The fact that beliefs and practices are chosen in no way diminishes their veracity or helpfulness but delusions are always in danger of being exposed.

My life has taught me the following lessons that inform the beliefs I choose.

1) The wave isn’t personal, it’s bigger than me or you. I’m also seldom the only one facing it. 

2) I much prefer body surfing over ass-slamming. 

3)It is better to play in the surf together than to face the waves alone.

As John MacArthur reveals, It’s all about the power

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If you’re in any of the same social media circles as me you’ve certainly heard or heard about the viral video of prominent apologist for white male Evangelical patriarchy, John MacArthur, yet again, disrespecting Beth Moore and any other women who might be getting any ideas about their place in the church. Asked to say the first thing that comes to mind at the prompt “Beth Moore” MacArthur responds “go home” to his audience’s uproarious laughter and applause. He goes on to pontificate that these women don’t want equality, they really want power. In my profession of psychotherapy we call that projection. If I don’t know another person’s motivation for something the easiest, and laziest, assumption is that they want the same thing as me. Since he cannot fathom Moore hearing God call her to the ministry he assumes she is in it for the same reason he is, she wants power. Of course, since evangelicals do idolize prominent white males MacArthur does wield a great deal of power; the power to mock and humiliate others  without even disguising the smirk on his face and the contempt dripping from his voice, knowing that his sycophantic audience will adore his clever choice of words. He has the power to, later in the same clip, mock the suggestion that people of color and women should be on the translation committee of the Southern Baptist Convention because only an understanding of Greek and Hebrew are necessary. We can presume that he considers it implicit that a white penis is also necessary since here and elsewhere he has mocked any suggestion that anyone but white evangelical men can interpret Scripture or even truly know Jesus.

“We all understand that people in the Hispanic world know about Jesus Christ. They know about the Bible. They know about God. They know about salvation– at least, in some ways. They have biblical terminology because of the impact, historically, of the Roman Catholic church. But they don’t know Christ.”

MacArthur goes on in the video to bemoan the fact that evangelical male leaders have allowed the situation to get so out of control by “rolling over” to feminists and other liberals.

As far as the  perspectives of powerful Southern Baptist men go, I have much greater respect for former president Jimmy Carter who chose to forsake power, turning in his Southern Baptist membership card over the long history of male leaders conflict of interest shown by choosing to interpret Scripture in a way that selfishly protects their power.

In President Carter’s words: 

“Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.

I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries”

The power of white male Evangelical patriarchy is, indeed, on display in Macarthur’s little stunt as is the reason that people are leaving evangelicalism in droves.

I hope that John MacArthur and men like him enjoy their power while it lasts. Since he has the superior training in Greek and Hebrew I will refrain from reminding him of what Jesus said about power and of those who seek it and merely ask him to refresh his memory, 

if this all sounds flippant or sarcastic I merely claim the white male privilege as MacArthur has laid it out.

The worst thing about Donald Trump.

I was recently reminded of a quotation from Sir Winston Churchill. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” The third word put me in mind of Donald Trump  who ceaselessly touts both his own greatness and America’s lack of greatness.  In a flash, Churchill provided me with the word I’ve been seeking that encapsulates my fears and disappointments for America under a  Trump presidency. IRRESPONSIBLE!

Like much of America I watched in horror as a fringe of the  population that I had mistakenly assumed to be small and insignificant muscled their man into the White House. This man’s entire life has been a study in shirking responsibility. After dodging the draft he repeatedly exploited the legal provision of bankruptcy as a gimmick to build his inherited wealth while dodging the responsibility of paying his debts. 

He flaunted his marital infidelities and bragged about his skills at sexual assault, But still they voted for him.

Not surprisingly Trump brought his irresponsible ways to the presidency where he has fraternized and flirted with sworn enemies of the United States, even taunting and goading a maniacal dictator who threatened nuclear retaliation. He has ridiculed war heroes and undermined the people’s trust in their own government even claiming that he is above accountability while obstructing the investigation of his conduct. He lives like a freeloader, seemingly spending more time on taxpayer funded golf outings than he does in the Oval Office.

Like most Americans I have my nostalgic moments. I remember, as a boy, the Pride I felt in America’s noble reputation as a good,  strong and responsible neighbor to the global community. We would be the ones who came to the aid of the vulnerable and offered sanctuary from oppression and violence. That America had an indomitabl spirit of abundance and hospitality, not the spirit of scarcity and fear that has taken hold under Trump.

You can wear your MAGA hats and shout Trump’s catchphrase all you want but, speaking for myself, every time I read or hear make America great again  I will be thinking  Make America Responsible Again. That is the kind of greatness that is worth recovering. 

on narcissism, individual and collective

Throughout my 27 years of teaching graduate courses in personality, psychopathology and psychotherapy, certain topics and ideas emerged as among the most salient and foundational for understanding the complex and intimate exploration of the human psyche.

In the daily life of a mental health professional, it is difficult to think of an issue that permeates ones work more ubiquitously than the developmental problem of narcissism. In addition, there is no other subject that comes up more frequently in informal conversations with friends, acquaintances and family than that of understanding, surviving and coping with narcissistic parents, spouses, bosses, children, coworkers, etc. In this piece I will bring together theory, research, and clinical experience from my own work with narcissistic patients over the years.

The extent to which the word narcissism and its variants have become part of casual and public conversation in recent years has been completely unprecedented. When Donald Trump entered the race for the 2016  presidential election, mental health professionals across the country banded together to educate the public about the dangers of electing a severely personality disordered individual to the White House. The ensuing animosity, division and political power struggles have torn the nation apart raising questions about what led such a significant percentage of the public to make such  a choice.

During the debates about Trump’s narcissism it was common to hear people say “aren’t all politicians narcissists?” And “isn’t everyone narcissistic to some extent?” There is truth to both statements. Narcissists are indeed drawn to positions of prominence and power and their arrogant self-assurance can be appealing to people who feel vulnerable and weak, making politics an attractive fit for narcissists.

Everyone begins life in narcissism, making it somewhat universal. The world  of the infant almost literally revolves around her, with those in her orbit focused largely on meeting her needs. It isn’t until the second year that a child has separated and individuated enough to recognize other people as having their own needs apart from and competing with  her own. Until that time others are seen primarily for their usefulness at satisfying felt needs for food, comfort companionship and security. Once the process of separation and individuation begins the focus of a child’s life becomes largely about mourning the loss of those feelings of being the center of the universe with others focused on meeting her needs.


One of the various uses of the word narcissism, therefore, refers to this earliest stage of human development in which the infant is incapable of such things as sharing or caring for others or, for that matter, of love which sometimes requires voluntarily sacrificing her needs or desires for the sake of another. No one has ever definitively identified the combination of nature and nurture that  leaves those with severe personality disorders essentially hobbled in this early stage of development so that, although chronologically adult, they remain relationally infantile, with a primarily utilitarian view of  others.

Although this use of the term refers to a developmental stage of narcissism we carry around inside us every “self” we have ever been. Everyone, therefore, is capable of regressing or at least using psychological tools or defenses from earlier stages of development. Since no ones needs are met perfectly at any stage we can remain “hungry” for certain kinds of relationships throughout our lives.

Consequently when I use the term narcissism or refer to a narcissist I might be referencing a person who has regressed to an extremely immature style of relating to others and not just to someone who has a personality disorder. Some people are “situationally” narcissistic in that they have been socialized to see others for their usefulness in certain contexts or the context itself facilitates regression to narcissistic needs. For example in life-or-death situations regression to narcissism would be somewhat normal.  This particularly makes sense because in the infantile stage of narcissism survival is literally dependent on others meeting one’s needs.  One could be forgiven for being narcissistic when their survival is at stake but consistently using other people to satisfy one’s desires in normal life circumstances must be labeled as an inappropriately immature and dysfunctional way of living. Toddlers in adult bodies leave pain in their wake.

This broad use I am making of the concept of narcissism is by no means universally agreed upon and can be frustrating for those who desire a more exacting, scientific definition.  Attempts at quantifying a definition of narcissism have been somewhat successful in the form of the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) but even then there is room for variation and disagreement. Some people and groups exhibit a narcissistic style of relating without meeting criteria for NPD so identifying the characteristics of narcissism is still useful.

In my opinion the single most salient quality of narcissism is a complete inability to seriously value any perspective but one’s own. This can also be a characteristic of limited intelligence but I think most people can tell the difference between a narcissist who is interpersonally very shallow versus someone with a developmental or neuropsychological disability. Assuming at least average intelligence someone with a narcissistic personality disorder should be capable of coming to self awareness at least enough to acknowledge the need to understand others’ perspectives. NPD is typically not amenable to treatment. This is not surprising—how do you fill in the gap left by stunted years of emotional development? Research and personal experience have shown that one of the best prognostic signs for NPD is the co-morbid presence of depression. This makes sense because psychological theorists have traditionally connected depression with inhibited mourning. Psychological pain is a very good sign for a narcissist because they compulsively avoid all emotional discomfort. Emotional pain is also necessary to develop empathy which, by definition, narcissists lack. Within the mental health professions there is a longstanding debate as to whether narcissists are incapable of empathy or merely unwilling to empathize. Either way the lack of feeling another’s pain is an indicator of narcissism.

Oblivious vs. hyper-vigilant narcissists

I have found it extremely helpful over the years to divide narcissists into the two subtypes proposed by Gabbard. The oblivious narcissist is the arrogant, obnoxious loud mouth always demanding the spotlight. He is oblivious to the feelings or reactions of others. His ego is so inflated he assumes that everyone else either similarly admires him or enviously wants to destroy him. There is no middle ground. Contrast the oblivious type with the hyper-vigilant narcissist. This type is very much aware of the reactions of others and has learned to be exquisitely skilled at reading others so that he may meticulously work to maintain their admiration. Unlike the oblivious type who depends on intimidating or manipulating others for his own ends the hyper-vigilant type tends to be more introverted and can be quite winsome and charming. Both types of narcissist feel a sense of emptiness and loss of identity when they lose a previously dependable source of admiration.  At an unconscious level both types also experience the pain and dread of the never-ending search for admiration which numbs the absence of unconditional love which they have self-pityingly concluded is tragically unavailable to them.

 Qualities of Narcissism

Splitting

As infants we begin sorting our experiences of ourselves and our world using a simple binary method, things that make us feel good and things that make us feel bad. With maturity we gradually learn that nothing is one or the other but good and bad are intricately tangled. We mourn the loss of that simplicity and move on. The narcissist, however, retains the use of splitting in regard to his fragile ego. Those people or experiences that cause him to feel inadequate, sad or imperfect cause him to feel shame and are entirely bad. Those that make him feel adored, admired and successful a and are good he feels  elated.
Admiration is not an Adequate replacement for love because it must constantly be renewed through the facade of perfection. The threat of that facade failing is a constant unconscious stressor to the narcissist, the potential for the crushing shame of being exposed as an imposter.

Splitting is most evident in close relationships in that the narcissist functionally communicates “You either love me or hate me, there is no in between.” He surrounds himself with a select few from whom he demands absolute “loyalty” which means unquestioning admiration and support of his perspective and defense of anything he says or does.

Grandiosity

A narcissist is completely unable to find fault or imperfection in himself. He believes, in fact, that he was created unique, gifted, superior to normal humans. This quality, especially, is attractive to weaker personalities who hope to feel more significant by attaching themselves to him. It will also make him attractive to other narcissists and antisocial personalities who admire his ability to get away with his attitude and hope to profit from and share his power or influence. His grandiosity can also be mistaken for actual capacity to accomplish the things he believes he can achieve thus ensnaring some optimists, idealists and dreamers, especially those naive about human nature. If confronted, a narcissist’s greatest weapon in relationship is to be unaffected by the other or even to be a bit “amused” that they are upset.

It should be noted that although a narcissist is usually capable of saying virtually anything to get what he wants, even fabricating facts,  this is not necessarily the same as what most people understand as lying. He knows the difference between right and wrong, at least intellectually, and since it is inconceivable to him that he could do wrong, his mind simply does a transformation and makes anything he did synonymous with good. If cornered with proof of wrong-doing he will draw on his inflated sense of uniqueness and superiority which, he believes, gives him a “bigger picture” than others so that he can see how something they call “bad” can actually be good. I have even seen narcissists twist reality to the extent that they believe that they are doing others a favor by lying to them since it would take lesser people too long to get to the truth they understand, assuming they are even capable, so a lie is a merciful shortcut to what they feel certain is the truth. Their feeling of certainty can be quite convincing to healthier people who cannot conceive of such audacity.

Anosognosia

Anosognosia, roughly translated lack of self-awareness, is a qualitative symptom usually found in brain injury cases, especially those involving the right cerebral hemisphere. While narcissistic anosognosia has not been connected to neurologic deficit it is functionally similar. Most narcissists are, literally, incapable of forming the conscious thought of themselves being wrong, flawed, or unethical. While this does not reduce culpability it can be of some comfort to others who have tried to remain in relationship with them. It also explains why they can gravitate toward fringe groups that do not confront arrogant insistence on one’s superiority but rather reward the “courage” to stand up to “nonbelievers.”

The narcissist’s blindspot in the area of self awareness usually includes an inability to recognize the fallibility of his own emotions. This is particularly true of the emotion of certainty. He cannot take a step back to see that certainty is not something he “has” but, rather, something he feels. Any attempt to prove him wrong will be perceived as an attack. He will become enraged not because the other said he is wrong but because they are “calling me a liar.” Since the narcissist believes he cannot be wrong,  proof otherwise would make him a liar.

COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM

Cultures and subcultures that value humility and self honesty usually have little patience with narcissists. At the opposite extreme, some groups foster narcissism in individuals or even collectively take on the qualities usually seen in narcissistic individuals. This often takes the form of tribalism: literally the good “us” vs. the bad “them.” Nationalism, for example is the mass equivalent of narcissistic personality disorder.

American Exceptionalism

It is difficult to imagine a slogan that better demonstrates narcissistic splitting than “America: Love it or Leave it.” Nationalism, unlike patriotism, demands the maintenance of a facade of perfection over a collective identity. A collective cloud of anosognosia wipes away the memory of the evils done in the name of the country’s pursuit of its entitled destiny and those who want to discuss the ongoing effects or presence of such evils are shunned as disloyal. When people invest their individual identities into a collective image of perfection they experience any criticism of that image as a personal attack.

White Fragility, White Supremacy and misogyny

No group mindset could be a clearer evidence of collective narcissism than the belief that one’s own race or sex is superior to others. The inability or unwillingness to value and empathize with an entire race or gender requires an extraordinary level of grandiosity.

Collective Narcissism and its anosognosia cause white fragility

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The reader will note that when discussing narcissism I have used masculine pronouns rather than the generally expected gender neutral language. I have done this intentionally to highlight the fact that my culture hates and vilifies narcissism in women while rewarding and glorifying it in men.

LIVE READY TO LEAP

My spiritual life has been punctuated by mystical experiences
of the presence of God which leave me with a deep sense of
God communicating as “deep unto deep.” One of these experiences
is a vision that has recurred since I was very young.

This vision has come infrequently but always when I am in a
crowd facing a stage or other point of group focus. In the vision
I suddenly see, above and to the right, a rope, several
feet long, dangling in midair as if from nowhere. No one else
seems to see it but the rope, with its tip a foot or two over
people’s heads, begins to slowly float from side to side winding
its way back and forth across the crowd. As I watch I have
a powerful sense that when the rope comes over my head I
will have one chance to leap up and grab hold and be carried
off for some adventure. The most salient feeling, however, is
not the excitement at being whisked away but, rather, the
sense that even though no one else can or will see the rope I
must not hesitate, regardless.
Over the course of my life this vision has taught me that moments
to act on my beliefs may be rare and I must be vigilant.
The film, Same God, documents such a moment when I saw
the way that the administration  at Wheaton College treated
me much better than they treated my black female colleague,
Larycia Hawkins, despite the fact that we were both
tenured and both reprimanded for making what they called
equally inappropriate comments on social media. When a
journalist asked if I would speak out publicly about this I asked
for a few minutes to pray and think about the decision. She
acknowledged that I would likely be fired for such an action so
I should take my time. When I discussed it with my wife she
had similar fears and asked “why does it have to be you?”
When I stilled my heart to listen to God I immediately remembered
the vision of the rope. As I told my wife and the journalist
the administration can’t see what they are doing but I can
and this opportunity will only knock once.
What I have learned about embodied solidarity is that it usually
sneaks up on us in the form of moments. It is difficult to
teach our eyes to see what others refuse to see, especially
when they will hate us for it. But if we keep our eyes open we
can live ready to leap so that when moments of injustice
present themselves we can seize them before they disappear
forever.
Despite many painful repercussions and lost relationships I
have never regretted seizing that moment and I am thankful
that I had the privilege of acting in Embodied Solidarity with
Larycia and with the muslim women she supported.

Matthew 19 paraphrase

Matthew 19 paraphrase

While enjoying Lectio Divina meditation on Matthew chapter 19 I imagined the following paraphrase for our time.

Some religious leaders came to Jesus and asked “is it lawful for the church to reject a member who loves someone of the same sex?“

Haven’t you read, he replied, that “love comes from  God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God?”?And also “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God."

Why then, they asked, does the Bible say that it is an abomination for a man to lie with another man as he would with a woman?

Jesus replied, the Old Testament purity laws were given to you in your moral infancy so that you might grow in wisdom to understand beyond simplistic binaries of clean and unclean and how something makes you feel, but it was not so from the beginning. Also why do you not note that the Bible says that "it is an abomination to sow dissension among the brethren. " you pick and choose what you believe.

I tell you that you must not send away anyone that I have invited to my table.

Whose enemy are you?

Three years ago, my colleague and friend, Dr. Larycia Hawkins, displayed embodied solidarity with persecuted Muslim women. In a now infamous Facebook post that was heard ‘round the world,’ Larycia wore a hijab and acknowledged her respect for fellow human beings of devout faith. I was supportive of her gesture and told her that, but, knowing the rampant Islamophobia in the evangelical subculture and at Wheaton College, I was concerned about her wellbeing. I commented on her post, “If you get any grief at work, give me a heads up because I’ll be teaching Islamic prayer in my spring class.” While this was technically true, I also knew that it could attract the same animosity as Larycia’s post. I know well the speed and intensity with which that animosity can appear.
I was born and raised in a small church in a tiny farming community in northeastern Montana. I say “church" instead of “family” because that congregation easily had as much influence on my development and formation as did any relatives, and in many ways, much more.
This was the era in which evangelicalism was evolving out of fundamentalism. Evangelicals, in their response to the dangers of modernism, sought to draw a line between themselves and their legalistic, anti-intellectual fundamentalist cousins. Anyone who lived through that transition, however, can tell you that the line was only ever blurry, at best. It is no surprise, therefore, that in the current crises of our culture, evangelicalism is regressing toward its fundamentalist origins in tone and temperament. This is especially evident through the resurgence of tribalism.
Fundamentalism depends heavily on tribalism. I like Brian Zahnd's definition of tribalism, "An us vs. them scapegoating groupthink.” A fundamentalist worldview requires an enemy to maintain cohesion of tribal members’ beliefs. In my early years, growing up in a "fundagelical" church, there was never any doubt about who the enemies were. I heard innumerable sermons and rants spitting out words of contempt that named those outside our tribe who meant to do us ill. Words like liberals, progressives, mainline, ecumenical, communist, secular humanist, pro-choice and homosexual. These words were often spoken in hatred.
Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:42-44 NIV) No one in the church would have admitted that we were being encouraged to hate our enemies. In fact, the list of enemies often came with the uniquely evangelical form of gaslighting, “Love the sinner but hate the sin.”
However, actions speak louder than words and, even as a child, I understood that hate resides in the heart and simply denying it doesn’t make it go away. I am reminded of the
Supreme Court Justice commenting on a case involving a charge of obscenity. He refused to try to concretize an objective definition of hard core pornography, choosing, instead, to quip, ‘I know it when I see it.’
In the same way, I know hate when I see it and when I feel it.
Despite insistence to the contrary, I knew growing up that I was being taught to hate my enemies. When an expert in the law tried to make himself look good by challenging Jesus to explain who is his neighbor, Jesus responded with the parable of the good Samaritan. As a youth, when I heard this story, I wished someone had asked Jesus “Who is my enemy?” But I have come to realize that Jesus answered that unasked question as well in the parable. I can imagine his listeners’ surprise when Jesus introduced the Samaritan into the story. They must have thought “Why are you bringing our enemy into the tale? We asked who is our neighbor.” Jesus shows us that enemies exist only in the heart. To eliminate your enemies, do as the Samaritan did and change your heart perspective. The Samaritan didn’t see his enemy lying on the ground, a Jerusalem Jew who would likely persecute him, he saw a man, like himself, dying and in need of help.
Jesus was quite literally addressing tribalism here since the Samaritans (like the “Jerusalem” Jews hearing the parable) descended from the sons of Jacob. In that situation, Jesus was making everyone uncomfortable because in addition to expounding on the commandment to love your neighbor, he was showing that tribalism asks the wrong question. The question is not "Who is my enemy?” but rather, "Whose enemy am I?”
Loving my neighbor doesn’t only include showing mercy to someone I thought unworthy of mercy, it also means acknowledging that others have reason to consider me unworthy.
When I was young, Jesus’ command to love our enemies was rather confusing to me. I didn’t really think I had enemies. Oh, there were the bullies at school that I’d avoid running into in the hall, but I knew that it wasn’t really me that they hated, I was just an easy target. Besides, they had no reason to hate me that I could think of. I heard the message loud and clear in church that there were enemies “out there” that I should hate. Homosexuals were, for some reason, a frequent example, but it all seemed rather abstract since I wasn’t aware that I knew any. It was especially confusing to try to understand why someone should consider me an enemy since I didn’t give anyone a reason to hate me. Everything in my world taught me that as a white, American, evangelical, male, there was nothing about me to dislike.
So, while I grew up in the church learning there was an abstract enemy “out there” that was not in my tribe, I never saw the opportunity to show them love. Besides, if anyone in the church did suggest that we should love them, it was in the form of harshly warning them they were bound for hell.
Growing up evangelical meant having a constant sense of safety in the assurance that I was a member of the superior tribe. I even remember a sermon explaining that American evangelicals were God’s new chosen people with the guarantee of His blessings.
Being part of the “us” and looking down on “them” did not prepare me for what could happen if my tribe turned on me.
I was able to attend the world premiere of Same God a few months ago at the Los Angeles Film Festival. That experience was so healing for me that I have tried to attend every screening since that night. The healing has come from finding a new tribe. The film tells the story of what happened to Larycia and me in the aftermath of the controversy over her statement that Muslims and Christians worship the same god. The Evangelical subculture went ballistic over that statement as people reacted reflexively without taking the time to even read what she was intending in the statement.
Likewise, when I supported her and criticized our employer for not treating her fairly and, in fact, for treating me very well while treating her terribly, the reaction was extremely hostile. Both of us were shocked at the hatefulness and even violence of the messages we received from the “Christian” community, especially from Evangelical leaders. We were effectively cast out of the Evangelical tribe and, though both of us were tenured professors, we both lost our beloved classrooms.
After 50 years in Evangelicalism hearing about the enemy “other,” I found myself on the outside being treated as the enemy. The lessons are still unfolding but this is what I have learned so far:
When I first heard Larycia speak of embodied solidarity I imagined it, like most people I suspect, from the perspective of someone with abundance gifting to someone in poverty. One might call that condescending “generosity.” Far from embodied solidarity, that kind of “giving” is hateful and violent because it makes me one of the superior tribe of “haves” and an enemy of the poor, disadvantaged “have-nots” because it denies our shared equal humanity. God’s command is not to love anyone as “other” at all. It is to love them as I love myself. As part of me or perhaps as the rest of me. To see anyone as “other” is to hate them and be their enemy in God’s eyes. To see myself in them, to put my body right next to theirs, is to begin to live the kind of love that God showed in Emmanuel, God with us. Anything less is not worthy of the name Christian.
From Larycia and from the way God is redeeming my recent experiences, I am finding that I may have lost my evangelical tribe and become an enemy to some, but I have joined a much bigger tribe of sojourners, many of whom have also followed Jesus out of former tribes that were neglecting his profound example as the one we once treated as estranged enemy, yet who stopped on the road to tend our wounds.
Whose enemy are you?

Please learn more at . thttp://samegodfilm.com/

Same God, Three Years Later

Three years ago, today, my colleague and friend, Dr. Larycia Hawkins, displayed embodied solidarity with persecuted Muslim women. In a now infamous Facebook post that was heard ‘round the world Larycia wore a hijab and acknowledged her respect for fellow human beings of devout faith. I was supportive of her gesture and told her that, but, knowing the rampant Islamophobia in the evangelical subculture and at Wheaton College, I was concerned about her wellbeing. I commented on her post “if you get any grief at work give me a heads up because I’ll be teaching Islamic prayer in my spring class.” While this was technically true I also knew that it could attract the same paranoia as Larycia’s post. 

Within hours I received a phone call, a text message and an email from the college provost, panicking about the way these two “equally innocuous” social media posts were being misinterpreted by media outlets and donors. Having studied authoritarian systems and worked in an authoritarian institution for nearly thirty years I immediately “groveled,” figuratively rolling over to expose my belly and throat. I know that in such systems one is expected to be  submissive when confronted by authorities. Within hours I had edited and approved the explanation the provost requested to have available for dissemination to media outlets or angry donors. I felt trusted, valued and supported. But over the next few days I watched in horror as the college administration shamed and ostracized Larycia, eventually scapegoating her and throwing her under the bus. 

At a faculty meeting to discuss this fiasco a female colleague asked, “Does anyone know of a time when a white male faculty member with tenure did something similar but was treated differently then our black female colleague with tenure?“ I said “yes, that would be me.” And I told everyone about the events I have just described. When a journalist asked if I would confirm the account I had shared with the faculty I agreed. The administration had already released information about the events to the media with their version of the narrative. While I was reluctant to fuel the media frenzy, I felt the injustice of their actions and the betrayal of the governance process moved beyond the level of “in house” solutions. I could not be silent when it seemed so obvious that Larycia’s image as a black woman in a hijab led the administration to respond so differently to her than they did to me. It is common in American Evangelical institutions, which are overwhelmingly white, for people of color to have to prove that they are not “too different “ for the institution.  I have witnessed this many times for Dr. Hawkins and for other colleagues of color. 

The administration confirmed my interpretation of the rules of patriarchal authoritarianism when they issued a press statement noting that “Unlike Dr. Mangis' immediate apology, retraction, and collaboration” Dr. Hawkins did not immediately put to rest all their concerns. 

As I said to the press then and still believe, an educational institution that stops learning and refuses to change is essentially dead. The purpose of diversity is to deepen and change the institution. When you ask someone with a fresh perspective to breathe new life into the community with the promise that they will be valued and supported, it is unacceptable to then punish them for not sounding like the stale old voices that have never changed. Dr. Larycia Hawkins brought a depth of thought and passion to her teaching that inspired her students to learn and to live out the call of Jesus Christ in the public square. I stood by her and stand by her still. Sadly we must both stand anywhere but at Wheaton College. 

The details of these events have been Documented in the Film Same God

Strongman Jesus

Has anyone else noticed a trend of Christians inventing a new Jesus more to their liking?

This strongman Jesus is very “manly” and doesn’t let anybody push him around, especially not women or foreigners. This new Jesus is white and proud of it. He backs winners” and shames “losers”

Strongman Jesus has no qualms about taking power and using it to influence politics and economics. He is wealthy and getting wealthier. He doesn’t talk about loving your enemies or turning the other cheek. Strongman Jesus carries a gun in his back pocket like Junior Falwell to shoot those who refuse to bow to him. 

I can understand the desire to be more in sync with the world in these ways but this fabricated Jesus does not come from the Bible and certainly bears no similarity to the real Jesus who flatly rejected all those things and said you’d recognize his followers because they will reject them, too. 

I am expecting the usual responses from my Evangelical friends who will say “where are you seeing this? My church is wonderful and no one says anything like this. So, if I am imagining this I would love to be wrong. I love the real Jesus too much to let “peer pressure “ lead me to invent a more culturally palatable version. Do you see this happening too? Share examples

The most dangerous spiritual addiction

superficiality is the curse of our age

Forty years ago Richard Foster opened his instantly classic spiritual guide Celebration of Discipline with these prophetic words “ superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.“
Superficiality Is, indeed, the curse of our age. these words are, if anything, even more true today than they were four decades ago.
While it seems counterintuitive to welcome pain, it is essential to our well-being and survival--alerting us to the need to attend to injury, illness, or loss. Like all mammals, humans are designed with a neural system that closely links physical pain with social/emotional pain, a “broken heart” utilizes the same neural pathways as a broken arm or leg. our natural instinct is to seek pleasure and avoid pain.. however, as the only mammal designed in the image of God, human beings are capable of experiencing and processing pain at spiritual levels. Beneath the surface.
Depth and superficiality exist as poles on a continuum. Movement on that continuum is defined by one’s capacity to feel and make good use of the spiritual pain that comes from facing our own sin and the brokenness of the world.

“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.”

― Eugene O'Neill

We are born into a world that is broken, at odds with its creator. by God’s grace We mature, spiritually, by both mourning that brokenness and participating in God’s plan for mending it, restoring Shalom. Those who are unable or unwilling to enter the spiritual deep end of life’s pool must remain in or regress to the fragility and superficiality of spiritual infancy They demand immediate comfort and satisfaction. They cannot acknowledge their own inadequacy. They cannot tolerate tension, paradox or complexity, they flee from anything that brings discomfort and they construct elaborate illusions to make themselves feel safe and comfortable. By cutting themselves off from deeper realities they remain spiritually weak and underdeveloped, requiring others to accommodate their superficiality. If possible, they surround themselves with other spiritually shallow people who will not challenge them to mature and will both affirm that theirs Is the right and reasonable way to be and join them in judging those that disagree. This enables them to believe that rather than the weaker brother or sister that easily stumbles they are actually superior.
Spiritual superficiality is an addiction because, like substance abuse, it fosters habituation and dependency. By never facing painful realities the shallow person does not develop the strengths to face those realities, perpetuating a vicious cycle.
In Celebration of Discipline Foster demonstrates that promoting spiritual depth requires more than theological or Biblical education, it requires spiritual formation. Without attention to such formation we remain spiritually shallow, focused on image management over substance. Like the religious leaders that Jesus exposed, the surface may look clean and proper while inside we are filthy.
American evangelicalism is in desperate need of a focus on spiritual depth over superficiality. Almost every day there is a new story of a prominent individual or organization that has been plotting and bullying to prop up their glittering surface image and keep hidden their shameful secrets.

No longer ruled by fear

 Parker J Palmer asks the question
 “It’s September, the start of the school year. For many kids, it’s an exciting growing edge moment and scary at the same time. When you’ve felt afraid on the growing edge of your adult life, what has helped you walk into your fear toward what excites you? What helps you keep fear from blocking your next steps toward your “deep gladness””

which prompted these thoughts for me. 

Much of my life has been dominated by fear.

Born into a fundamentalist church, my early years were filled with the fear that if I did not think and believe the “right” things and make the right decisions, as dictated by those in authority, i would be ineligible for heaven. Even more tangibly I knew that I could be shunned and shamed by the same Evangelical community that for all intents and purposes, had become my world
When I publically exposed the wrongdoing of the leaders of the evangelical community where I had invested nearly three decades of my personal and professional life I knew that my life, there, would be over. What “helped me walk into my fear toward what excites me” was the firm belief that I was following jesus off the road of a life defined by not displeasing those in power and into an exciting life of embodied solidarity with the powerless

response to MacArthur's statement against Social Justice and the Gospel

The first rule of evangelicalism Is: Do not criticize evangelicalism. 

You know a belief system has become fragile when its adherents feel the need to preemptively cut off challenges to their beliefs. 

continuing in the cruel and fissiparous spirit of The Nashville Statement, John MacArthur and his ilk have posted the next installment of their straight white patriarchal manifesto for the preservation of American evangelicalism in the form of the Statement on Social justice and the gospel, which clearly is a misnomer, since their point seems to be that social justice and the gospel have nothing to do with each other.. Having failed to silence voices from outside their tribalist bubble these men have decided their next best strategy is to frighten those within into covering their eyes and ears so that they cannot succumb to viral ideas against which they have not been sufficiently inoculated, particularly the dangerous and "unbiblical" idea of so-called "Social Justice.” In their rush to judge and silence ideas they find objectionable they are either ignorant or dismissive of entire Christian traditions devoted to the Biblical understanding of social justice. This is not particularly surprising from MacArthur, who has made other sweeping pronouncements about how those outside the white American Evangelical culture are not true Christians. For example, he arrogated ”We all understand that people in the Hispanic world know about christ. . . But they don’t know Christ. And they don’t know the Gospel” He is being consistent, then, when he and his cohort assert ‘WE AFFIRM that some cultures operate on assumptions that are inherently better than those of other cultures.’

There is no acknowledgement that Evangelicalism is, itself, a culture with its own inadequacies.

It’s all about racism

While his critique is ostensibly with the evangelical concern for social justice in general, MacArthur reserves almost all of his ire for the topic of racism which he dismisses as a primarily made-up issue invented by minority peoples who have been taught to feel like victims, thus distracting the church from the tasks of preaching and teaching. MacArthur repeatedly states how unfair it is that he should be accused of wielding power and privilege when he feels neither. in this way he trots out the tired cliche that the oppressors are the real victims and the victims the real oppressors. Oddly enough, in the middle of his sequence of affirmations and denials one topic pops up as particularly out of place. In the topic of HERESY there is superficial affirmation that teaching false doctrines should be eschewed But then follows a seemingly unnecessary insistence that being imperfect does not warrant an accusation of heresy. Since this topic is not at all linked to the document’s theme of social justice one is left with the impression that MacArthur has thrown this in in anticipation of criticism he may receive, especially in light of several public accusations of heresy his teaching has, previously, engendered.

Who is worthy?

my greatest frustration with this and similar documents is the arrogant tone with which the authors presume to be the only ones possessing the competence and Authority with which to interpret scripture on these matters. His view of scripture, like that of so many evangelicals seems very shallow and facile, as If it is only an instruction book. In the Nashville Statement. They went so far as to say there could be no room for disagreement—challenging their interpretation of Scripture in that document essentially delegitimizes the christian faith of the critic. In this document MacArthur clarifies “We further deny that competency to teach on any biblical issue comes from any qualification for spiritual people other than clear understanding and simple communication of what is revealed in Scripture.” (Emphasis mine) They do not clarify their criteria for being “a spiritual person” capable of understanding and preaching the gospel, however, as noted above, MacArthur has already declared that Hispanic people are not qualified to understand and teach, because of their inferior culture. Later in the affirmation of complementarianism he notes that women are not qualified to understand and teach what the scriptures reveal.

MacArthur’s confidence in his own objectivity is troubling. I hope that if he found himself on a church committee charged with disciplining a congregant and it turned out the congregant was a family member that he would have the honesty and integrity to recuse himself for lack of objectivity. but, who knows how far his belief in his freedom from bias goes? He does not address the issue of conflict of interest, the fact that he is naming himself the authority on who has authority. I wonder, does he not see how it diminishes his credibility when he, a white, American evangelical man works so frantically to silence those who seek to awaken white people to the benefits they have enjoyed at others’ expense? And when he seeks to silence those who would remind us of the genocidal atrocities that expose the lie of “American exceptionalism?”and when he declares that there is no room for christian disagreement with his hermeneutic? And when he ignores and silences decades of biblical scholarship on gender equality?

As Shakespeare might say, the man doth protest too much, methinks.

Nothing below the surface

The document begins with a blanket dismissal of the fields of sociology, psychology, and political science as having nothing to contribute to the life of faith. This kind of anti-intellectualism and hubris is very reminiscent of the fundamentalism of the first half of the 20th century. If you say the word fundamentalist around a group of evangelicals, especially well educated evangelicals, you are likely to be the recipient of a lengthy lecture on the fundamentalist-modernist debates. In the face of modernism at the turn-of-the-century there was great excitement about what science and technology could bring to humanity. Fundamentalists, however, were threatened by these new ideas. Where modernism proposed the truth is an ever growing narrative discovered more deeply as you peel away the layers, fundamentalists dug in and insisted that there is no new truth. the narrative is already written and anything found that doesn’t fit with that narrative must be rejected. this was even taken to the extreme that when fundamentalist timetables for creation did not match with the fossil records many fundamentalists insisted that God had lied and intentionally deceived us with false fossils to test whether we would believe our eyes and scientific instruments or believe the Bible as they interpreted it.Essentially, anything that conflicts with the approved narrative is “Fake News." Evangelicalism grew out of fundamentalism when some Christians were not threatened by the scientific methods of modernism. they felt confident that “all truth is God‘s truth“ and that the things discovered through other avenues of study, if they were true, would not conflict with scripture, and if they seemed to, perhaps it was the understanding of scripture that needed correction. This attitude became the hallmark of evangelicalism and of evangelical schools like Wheaton College. to the common request for a definition of evangelicalism a common inside joke back in the day was “an evangelical is a fundamentalist that went to college.” In times of uncertainty and turmoil it is tempting to return to the seeming safety and comfort of a closed system where there are no unanswered questions. Fundamentalism is also characterized by its superficiality. Since the fundamentalist worldview doesn’t allow for complexity or The possibility of multiple perspectives it demands the dogmatic belief that there is only one authoritative, right perspective on anything and it is attainable by anyone who reads the Bible, which is a facile and simple summary of God’s rules. 

Particularly troubling to fundamentalists is any notion that there might be truth to which they do not have access or, especially, that there might be part of themselves to which they do not have easy access. With modernism came the thoroughly modern world view of Sigmund Freud and his study of the human unconscious. In the present postmodern world it is second nature to understand that human beings have hidden depths of which they are not always aware. 

You don't   know what you're doing.

MacArthur’s blanket denial that sin he can’t see might be at work subtly in the depths of his being is a mark of fundamentalist anxiety. It also flies in the face of the testimony of scripture. When Jesus looked down from the cross on those who had shouted “crucify him!“ He said “ father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.“ --they were still responsible and needed forgiveness but they did not know their own hearts. likewise, the apostle Paul speaks of the human depths of the heart when he says “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.Romans 7:15-24 New International Version (NIV)”ƒƒ 21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?Romans 7:15-24 New International Version (NIV) 

The reflexive denial of the realities of unconscious and systemic racism and the unwillingness to consider the limits of their own knowledge in these issues exposes the authors’ fearful intention of leading the church in a regression to fundamentalism.How many fellow believers have to shout “you don’t know what you are doing" before evangelicals like John MacArthur will finally listen? 

Evangelicals love to adore white male leaders and follow them unquestioningly. John MacAurthur and his cronies have enjoyed that adoration too long to be able to see how they now self-servingly work to preserve it. What they don't  know about themselves will control them, but they can take some control and be transformed when they face the uncomfortable truth.

Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world

I used o begin classes with brief “devotional” thoughts like this. This one is a reflection on a current facebook conversation.

• Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is. Romans 12:2

• 
  

Too late in my life I realized how much of my life energy had been wasted on the fear of displeasing my tribe, trying to avoid anything that might not feel, look, sound taste or smell “evangelical” enough. All the while I accepted the lie that “the world” was entirely out there, outside the safe, superior evangelical bubble that had become my world. I tried to ignore the fact that the bubble was smack in the middle of THE world and, often, indistringuishable from it.

So, I became conformed to the pattern of this bubble world, thst parttern of ignoring the depths and looking only at the surface
Now, I seek to conform to the pattern of the kingdom of heaven. I am learning to stop looking with the intent of insantly judging--the pattern to which I had conformed--and to look, instead, with the desire to see.
Where, once, I had become conformed I am, now, being transformed.

You don’t know what you’re doing, and neither do I.

I have always been fascinated by the hidden depths and intricate complexities of the human psyche. That fascination led me into the field of clinical psychology where, as a psychotherapist, I helped people explore and find healing in those depths.

My fascination also led me to become a graduate school professor where, for 27 years, I trained fledgling psychotherapists in the foundational principles of psychodynamic psychology.
Unlike other psychologies that approach the psyche primarily from the superficial conscious level of experience, psychodynamic psychology is based on the understanding that we have unconscious depths. There is no such thing as a pure, unadulterated, or objective human perception or experience. Every moment of our lives we are being influenced by forces, internal and external, conscious and unconscious, that push us in one direction or another   These forces might be as simple as the signal from my stomach that tells me I am hungry or as complex as the "Signal" from my wife that tells me I'd better make my own dinner.

Consequently, the question is never "have the things I think I know been influenced by forces outside my awareness" but, rather, "to what extent have the things I think I know been influenced by forces outside my awareness." This flies in the face of the universal human inclination to trust one's own mind above all else. We all know that our minds can be deceived, but the average person is incapable of discerning when that has happened.
We are convinced by our experiences of certainty despite the fact that certainty is an emotion and, like all emotions, easily manipulated. Certainty is something you feel, not something you "have" or attain. It is based at least as much in neurochemistry as in facts or evidence. In fact, a feeling of certainty carries absolutely no authority.

Here’s an illustration. After the tragedy at Charlottesville, I was having coffee with  a friend when he said: "it's too bad those liberal protesters had to start all that violence." I challenged him and he insisted he was absolutely certain that this was true because there was video surveillance footage. I let it go, but the next day I asked if he had sources that I could look at. He blustered about me not trusting his judgment but then relented and promised to send the weblinks via email. I was surprised but waited with eager anticipation for a new perspective.

When no email arrived after a week, we met for coffee again. When I asked he quickly admitted he had lied about the video but insisted that the lie was completely justified. “You have been brainwashed by the liberal media,” he explained, “so you are incapable of seeing the obvious truth.” He, on the other hand, has been listening to authoritative "people in the know" for years. These sources say that it happened as he said. He felt it was urgent to "save" me from my ignorance so he lied, hoping my feelings for him would be enough to convince me of the truth. In all sincerity, he lied to me to get me to believe what he felt certain to be true. Needless to say, I will never trust my friend's feelings of certainty again, but I was able to forgive him and salvage our friendship. I could do that because I, too, have been "that guy" in more ways than one.

I spent 50 years immersed in a very dogmatic Evangelical subculture in which being right was more important than virtually anything else. In fact, being right in one's theological beliefs separated the "real Christians" from everyone else and determined whether or not one was going to heaven. Absolute certainty was a requirement and anything less was considered lack of faith. I remember with deep regret innumerable times that I dismissed or disrespected others because I felt certain I was right and they were wrong. As an adult, I began examining my heart and realized that there were many things I said that I believed with absolute certainty when, in fact, I had never been allowed to come to those beliefs through the usual questions and doubts. I knew I would be shamed, shunned, and ridiculed if I did not say that I believed these things. I remember concluding that someone more qualified than I must have determined that they were true.

When I was a professor, my favorite class every year was the one in which I started by projecting the following statement at the front of the room: "what you call your "faith" is a collection of illusions that you have constructed to protect yourself from your existential fears." I would read the statement aloud and then sit down on the desk at the front of the room to scan the students' faces. In my first year of teaching, the first thing I noticed was that some of the students were grinning at me. These were the students who had come to graduate school for exactly this kind of discussion. They were ready to dive in. I also noticed faces that looked more worried, or even angry. In fact, the very first time, a middle-aged woman in the back row quickly snatched up her belongings and rushed out the door. I followed her into the hallway where she told me with real fear in her voice that she had been thinking such questions all her life but knew that if she said them out loud she would be rejected by her church and possibly divorced by her husband. I did my best to assure her that, while I could not guarantee what would happen at home, in my classroom she would be safe to ask any questions and express any thoughts without danger.

Back in the classroom, I would sit at the desk in silence. By this point in the semester, my students knew that I could comfortably sit in silence for the next two hours if they did not initiate and engage in a meaningful discussion. The first comments usually came from a student who, like me, Had grown up in an evangelical subculture. He, and it almost always was he, would often quote Scripture in an attempt to defeat the opening statement, the very definition of begging the question. Other students would point out the flaws in that argument and the discussion would be off and running. Over the years this discussion proved to be rather predictable because we had all been trained with the same  evangelical scripts.  As I guided the discussion the point would eventually come when a student would excitedly announce:  "I just realized, the statement doesn't say that my beliefs are false, only that I didn't arrive at them as simply as I thought I did!” This is the moment I was waiting for because from that point we could have a genuine exploration.  We could now explore the inner world of thoughts, feelings and beliefs and the unconscious forces that make it impossible for us to be certain of our objectivity. Since there is no such thing as objectivity the closest thing one can accomplish is a genuine curiosity about oneself and the sources of one's beliefs in an uncensored way. For psychologists-in-training, the capacity to observe oneself is the most essential skill. As my students and I transparently explored the forces that had pushed and pulled us toward our beliefs they were honing the skills that they would need as psychotherapists.

Like the woman who ran out of class many of the students uncovered fears associated with asking difficult questions, not only because their place in their religious community hung in the balance but, they'd been told,  so did their very salvation. The rules in my classroom were different:

 Doubt is not the opposite of faith, the opposite of faith is certainty.

Doubt is, in fact, a prerequisite of faith. Without room for doubt, belief becomes indistinguishable from delusion.

I certainly could not condemn my friend for trusting in his feeling of certainty since I have done the same myself many times. My strongest lesson in understanding certainty comes from my experience of disability from a major traumatic brain injury. In 2008 a small home accident caused a tiny tear in the interior wall of my right carotid artery. That tear caused a clot that precipitated a massive ischemic stroke in the right hemisphere of my brain. As I lay on the ground waiting to be found I felt an unnatural lack of concern or anxiety. I felt a great sense of certainty that I was merely tired and dehydrated and once someone helped me up I would be fine. Only later did I realize that I was experiencing a common symptom of right hemisphere brain damage: anosognosia, a lack of awareness of one's own disability. In its extreme form anosognosia can cause the disabled patient, even if partially paralyzed, to insist that he or she is perfectly fine. Perhaps the most prominent historical example is William O. Douglas, a Supreme Court justice who although confined to a wheelchair denied any limitations at all.

Although I am a psychologist and practiced in self-awareness, I could not escape the effects of damage to my brain. I lay on the ground feeling absolutely certain that I was fine until my wife found me and tried to help me up. When I saw the terror in her eyes as she looked at my drooping face, it hit me that I had had a stroke.

False feelings of certainty and deficits in self-awareness are obviously not confined to the topics of religious belief and brain damage. In fact, nothing could be more relevant to the topics in the headlines and In conversations on social media or around the dinner table. Like my friend and I discussing the tragedy at Charlottesville, most of us find ourselves occasionally shaking our heads in disbelief at the opinions of the people we thought we knew.

I remember vividly the day that I made a covenant committing myself to accept others' feedback about my limitations. It was soon after my stroke while I was in intensive care. I needed to have a bowel movement so two orderlies carried me from my bed and placed me on a commode. One handed me a roll of toilet paper and said: "you ok?" I nodded and they left. It hadn't occurred to me that I would be anything but ok, At age 46 I had been wiping my own butt for a long time and I felt fine. But after they left I lost my balance and fell to the floor. Thankfully only my pride was injured when the commode tipped over and spilled on top of me. The next day my surgeon called the two orderlies into my room where he berated them for leaving a stroke patient in such a dangerous situation. I remember the awful feeling in my gut as he shouted at them "you don't ask the patient if he is okay trying something unassisted, We decide if he is ready for that!"  At that moment I vowed to never hide from awareness of anything about myself. Realizing that my brain injury limited my awareness, I made a Ulysses contract with my wife.

In Homer's Iliad Ulysses wanted to hear the beautiful songs of the sirens although he knew they would drive him insane and destroy him and his crew. He made a pact with his sailors that they would tie him to the mast and not let him loose no matter how much he begged. They would fill their ears with beeswax so only he would hear the beautiful but deadly music. He instructed them to kill him If he broke loose. Ulysses contracts are sometimes made by those with severe mental illness in which they instruct their loved ones to force them to receive treatment in the future if they experience a severely debilitating episode.  I told my wife that the day would likely come when I would not accurately see my own limitations, so I made a covenant to seek and trust feedback from her or others close to me regarding the evaluation of my capacity.

The first test came when she refused to let me drive. It took three years before I improved enough to regain my license. However, the biggest test of my commitment to that contract came 8 years after my stroke when my faculty colleagues told me "we think it is time for you to move on and let someone else take your place." 

I have a Ulysses moment whenever my friends of color—or white women for that matter—tell me what it is like to survive in this culture designed to preserve white male privilege and promote white supremacy. They have to understand me better than I understand myself so they can live in a world designed for me. They must be winsome and non-threatening while also stroking white male egos, finding a tolerable balance between showing the deference expected by those in power and maintaining self-respect.  I used to tell my students "until you have been out of the brine you don't know that you are a pickle." For most of my life, I was unaware that the world operates differently for me than for women and people of color. It was just the world, not my world. It seems so naive now, but I used to think “everyone gets the same chances.”

Now that I have awakened to those realities, I am astounded by the grace and patience extended to me by those wounded by my ignorance. Because our perception of the world is shaped and molded by race, culture, and gender we are, to some extent, "disabled" for living in a pluralistic, multicultural world. This numbing habituation lulls us into something akin to the anosognosia of a brain injury. We feel we know with certainty what is real and true despite the extreme limitations to our awareness.

At this point in the conversation (and frankly this is especially true of white males) people will sometimes throw up their hands and say "well, then, everything is relative, you can say anything you want is true." That kind of slippery slope histrionic is the sound of the last gasp of privilege and entitlement refusing to surrender.

The only reason for refusing to open your mind to the perspective of others not like you is if you refuse to change because you want to force them to live in a world tailored to your advantage and comfort.

Those who have matured beyond this kind of infantile, selfish arrogance realize that the only way to move past the limitations and distortions of one's own perspective is to open your heart to those who have not always soaked in the same brine as you.

What kind of pickle are you? Can you make a Ulysses contract with someone unlike you to help you see what you've been missing?