I blog about psychology, counseling, and culture. Nothing I post should be considered as a psychological consultation or personal advice. My website is www.suttong.com
There's little doubt that children love sweets and show an interest in adults who provide them. But many parents work hard to keep their children on healthy diets. And some children require special diets.
I was thinking of the care shown to donkeys at Carisbrooke Castle. The staff reminded guests not to feed them.
Most of us have seen signs advising us not to feed animals because of their special diets. As I read various reports on research it is clear that many children and adults consume much that is unhealthy.
I have joked about diet options such as the variety of chocolates one can choose (my photo of chockies at the outlet in Portsmouth above).
But, health is no joking manner. Perhaps parents need to post signs saying: "Do Not Feed the Children," and explain that they are on a special diet.
Cheers to parents who provide their children with healthy foods in sufficient quantities. And set limits on high calorie treats. Extra cheers to parents who demonstrate healthy eating plus a healthy lifestyle by adding exercise to healthy eating.
And more. May those parents who resist fads and unscientific claims about nutrition and supplements be blessed for they shall save money and demonstrate wisdom when it comes to unsubstantiated health claims.
On Palm Sunday 2017 I was in the chapel at Carisbrooke Castle built in recognition of Charles I and veterans.
I was reminded of other features of the early Palm Sunday by palms in the nearby garden and a donkey easily coaxed into walking a treadmill that provided water from a well years ago.
The gospels illustrate parallels between the everyday life and one full of spiritual significance. We can find many lessons about humanity that make the Palm Sunday story so relevant.
For me, the palms and the donkey were mostly cues to remember the day. Of course, my Christian heritage provided a connection that others might not make.
But the stories of Jesus and Charles I remind me of the religious component in the speeches and violent acts of people whose loyalties are often tested in extreme ways. People have the capacity to draw on faith to celebrate both peace and war.
Disagreements among the religious still lead to death and destruction. Fair trials are often hard to come by.
Now King Charles I was no Jesus but the people surrounding them were divided over religious beliefs and views of political power like people today. The mixing of faith and politics rarely works out so well.
It is hard to find the moral high ground among the world's leaders or their opponents.
But there is something appealing about that donkey at the well who more or less obediently walks to bring the water of life that sustains others regardless of faith or politics.
On a cold winter’s day Sarah sat across from me in the
restaurant and declared, “I’m an atheist.” We were at a conference and her
friends had left to go somewhere—I forget where. Sarah is a brilliant young
woman with a bright future. I don’t know her well but she made some good points
during a conference presentation. She knows I write about the psychology of
religion so I’ve asked her about her opinions. Sarah was raised as an
Evangelical Christian—a bit on the fundamentalist spectrum, I guess. She doesn’t
like the Old Testament—too much murder, too many rules. I ask about the “Sermon
on the Mount.” She thinks that’s ok. She likes Jesus’ moral teaching. She’s
left of center politically and socially. She’s about to graduate from a
Christian university. Somewhere along the line she lost her faith. She’s not
come out as an atheist—except to a few people. She’s aware of the risks. She
can’t doubt outloud. Her litany of complaints focus on beliefs that don’t make
sense and certain views of morality she no longer holds as true.*
Peter Enns and The Sin of Certainty
My point in telling the “Sarah story” is that I was thinking
of people like her when I read the first chapter of Peter Enns',The
Sin of Certainty. I’ve been asked to lead off a study of Peter’s book.
And Enns' first chapter describes his faith crisis. His chapter is instructive
because it fits well with a recent uptrend in deconversion and conversion
research in my field of interest, the Psychology of Religion. I previously summarized
some research on deconversion
and conversion. In this post, I provide a look at Enns', story from the perspective
of deconversion and conversion. He claims not to have written an autobiography yet the lead story suggests his crisis provides the context for the book.
CRISIS, CHAOS,
RENEWAL
Peter Enns recalls a threatening
moment listening to faith-challenging questions in a Disney movie, Bridge to Terabithia. Leslie and May
Belle discuss God and the Bible. After a brief exchange about belief in the Bible
and the consequences of disbelief, Leslie says, “I seriously do not think God goes around damming people
to hell.” Here's the short video clip:
Enns' tells us of his spiritual and emotional discomfort and offers a
larger life-context of leaving his teaching job at a Christian school (See Bailey,
2008) and losing some of his friends. He observes, “Watching certainty
slide into uncertainty is frightening.” Faith provides a sense of meaning and
organization. His faith has been seriously tested. After decades of education and
teaching in Christian communities, he experienced some life-changing questions like:
“Is there a God? What will you do now that God is far off, out of sight? (p.
13).”
In their summary of recent conversion and deconversion
research, Raymond Paloutzian and his colleagues (2013) opine that both
conversion and deconversion can be seen as part of a larger perspective on
spiritual transformation. Here’s a quote about the concept of deconversion:
“Overall, deconversion is conceptualized as an intense biographical
change that includes individual and social aspects: experiential, emotional,
intellectual-ideological, social-environmental, moral, as well as changes or
termination of group membership." (p. 409).
As a psychologist, I found myself drawn to Enn’s description
of his feelings—the emotional experience he felt or reported that others with
similar experiences shared. Here’s some examples of his language in chapter 1: "threatened, frightening, worried, Feeling judged and banished…” The experience
is clearly emotional and specifically, about fear and anxiety.
As a psychology of religion researcher, I noted the social
context and its impact on Enns. He reported a change at the school where he
taught. The organizational climate became “tense and adversarial” (p. 12). His
teaching and writing were examined. Eventually, he says he resigned. His
description of the change sounds like a spiritual transformation.
“I recall those first few months of sweet freedom. I hadn’t felt that
light and joyful in probably a decade. Pick your cliché: I felt alive, born
again, as if I had been liberated from a prison camp, released from a dungeon,
and had seen the sunshine and felt the cool breeze for the first time in ages.”
(pp. 11-12)
The positive feelings did not last long. He soon found that
“faith went dark” and he lacked the structure of faith provided by the
community where “Thinking for myself wasn’t necessary…” (p. 12).
Enns concludes the first chapter by suggesting a “sacred
journey” is possible for those who give up the quest for right belief and
begin trusting God. The sin of certainty is a preoccupation with right belief
to the point of making an idol out of belief and forcing God into our
interpretation of the image we created.
I’ve read the book. Enns ends by telling us of his current
congregation on page 192. We see his transformation, played out in Christian
media, as an example of that type of deconversion from a fundamentalist-like
evangelical Christianity. After what sounds like a wilderness experience, he
finds a different sort of Christian community. As I read his words I see
evidence of a changed spirituality, a de-emphasis on beliefs, but still a
desire for meaning and relationship, “I need to be a part of something bigger
than myself…”
REFLECTIONS
Peter Enns' tale is a story for our time. I suspect doubters
have been around since the first religious ideas were spoken. But in western
cultures, it has become safer to express those doubts and concerns. There’s
still a risk as Peter indicates—people can’t really be honest about their
doubts in some faith communities and expect to keep their job or their old
friendships.
Like Sarah, more and more young people are questioning the
statements of belief promulgated by conservative religious groups. They doubt
the truthfulness of certain claims. And when they get answers to difficult
questions, they don’t find the answers very convincing.
There are different types of deconversions. Some occur gradually
but may come to a critical point. These sound a lot like the reverse of conversion
experiences. Some exit faith altogether. Some keep quiet and carry on—agnostic.
Others exit a faith community (disaffiliation) and find a better fit.
Anxiety makes sense. The transition from childhood to adulthood can be smoother for those who remain in a spiritual family even when leaving their parent's home. We form attachments to parents as infants. The nature of attachment changes as we age. When children are removed from their attachment figures for various reasons like going to school or a parent going away, the event is marked by anxiety. In severe cases, children experience separation anxiety. Anxiety can occur at different points in life. A spiritual family mitigates against such anxiety unless the child is cast out.
I'm not seeing anger in Enns' chapter one account. I will resist the attempt to analyze his presentation. But I will hypothesize that many will feel a great deal of anger. Anxiety and anger can produce the emotional turmoil that motivates action. Action may lead one to redouble efforts to re-attach to secure relationships like the old ones left behind or find a new family altogether different. Emotions can function like catalysts to activate belief-behavior connections.
In the research literature, some emerge from their emotional
turmoil with a new sense of autonomy and a feeling of personal growth. As
Paloutzian and others write of some deconverts who leave a religious community,
“...there are also gains in a sense of connectedness for the lucky ones who
immediately find a new community and a new identity with a self-identification
as ‘spiritual person,’ also a key characteristic of deconversion.” (p. 414)
Peter Enns offers a path forward for those troubled by restrictive interpretations of Christian belief statements—encourage trust in God (in
my language, don’t sweat the details of belief).
Here's what I’d like
to know as I take these ideas to class:
What elements of Enns' story make sense in terms of other
stories you have heard or read?
What Christian beliefs, if any, must be held as true and certain
to continue a sacred journey as a Christian?
How does your church or Christian organization create a safe
place for people with doubts like those questions Enns reported?
How can Christians be helpful to people like Sarah who wish
to talk—explore their thoughts about faith?
How do people handle family relationships where some Christians consider others as unsaved, lost, heretics, agnostics, or atheists?
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Read more about Christian cultures in A House Divided available on AMAZON
from the publisher, Pickwick and in
the Apple bookstore on Apple devices.
*(Sarah is not a
particular person but a composite of bright young people who reject the conservative faith
of their youth).
Enns, P. (2016). The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our
Trust More Than Our “Correct” Beliefs. San Francisco: Harper One.
Paloutzian, R.F., Murken, S.,
Streib, H. & Rößler-Namini, S. (2013. Conversion, deconversion, and
spiritual transformation: A multidisciplinary view. In. R. F. Paloutzian and C.
L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, (2nd Ed., pp. 399-421). New York:
Guilford.
Sutton, G. W.
(2016). [Review of the book The sin of
certainty: Why God desires “our” trust more than “our” correct beliefs by
Peter Enns]. Encounter, 13. You
can find my academic review of his book online at Academia
and ResearchGate.
