Developing Intimacy with God

Aronis, Alexander Basile. 2003. Developing intimacy with God : an eight-week prayer guide based on Ignatius’ “Spiritual exercises”. 1st ed. Makati City, Philippines: Union Church of Manila. (book review)

The book has developed out of the author’s dissertation about Ignatius’ “Spiritual Exercises” as a model for spiritual direction 20 years before writing the book. During this time the author refined his understanding and teaching about ‘Devotional Prayer’ by serving as a spiritual director for many people.

The book includes prayer exercises for every day of the eight-week period, teaching and using different types of prayer and skills necessary to reach the goal:

“increase your love for Christ, broaden your self-understanding, connect you with vital spiritual principles, intensify your desire to become more like Jesus, and strengthen your commitment to serve him by serving others.” (1)

It can be used by individuals or by groups. Ideally an individual working through the book could have a mentor or spiritual director for feedback, but the book is written in a way that it can be used as the only spiritual guide.

The author defines ‘Devotional Prayer’ as the objective to develop “intimate knowledge of Christ that I might be with him, become like him, and live for him.” This theme of “with – like – for” him helps to keep the perspective. The threefold perspective is reflected in nearly every exercise.

The book is divided into five parts:

Part I – seeing yourself as God sees you (week 1)
Part II – the life and ministry of Christ (week 2-6)
Part III – the suffering of Christ (week 7)
Part IV – the resurrection of Christ (week 8 )

Every week starts with some introductory teaching about different prayer styles and related topics, which are then practiced during the exercises of the week. Each daily exercise focuses on a biblical passage using different ways of reflecting on it.

For example, in one week the author explains the different types of prayer, such as preparatory prayer, meditative reading, imaginative contemplation, heart prayer, prayer of petition, prayer of adoration, prayer of rest and infused prayer. In another week he introduces the reader to four types of insight – principle insight, attachment insight, interior insight and detachment insight. Another time the author expands on themes such as the “Four Degrees of Humility,” why we experience desolation, or how to rest in the Lord. Every week finishes with experiences from “Friends on the Journey” which can help answer certain questions or responds to problems many people have.

Listing these concepts may sound very theoretical and overwhelming, and it can be difficult to remember the different terms. However, since they are introduced gradually and practiced for one week before other new concepts are presented, one is able to grow into them and absorb them into one’s personal practice. Not every style is for everybody but practicing all the styles for a time helps to discover new approaches to prayer and find out which ones are most beneficial for oneself. The goal is not theoretical knowledge but real intimacy with God so as to reach the objective:

“be with him, become like him, and live for him.”

The book has been a real blessing to me and I recommend it highly. I believe that every individual working through it will grow in their relationship with Christ, even though the effects will be different for each person.

In closing, I want to mention and underline one aspect that I found especially interesting:

When reading the Bible or listening to a sermon most insights fall into four categories – principle insights (general principle, fundamental truth), attachment insights (something that inspires me to love God more), interior insights (increases self-understanding), and detachment insights (things that we need to let go of, that hinder our devotion to God). We need all of these types of insights, but it is the Attachment Insights that we need most because they motivate us to become more like Christ. Many of us, especially pastors and teachers tend to focus on Principle Insights but spiritual principles will not lead to increased delight in or intimacy with the Lord during prayer, and therefore not have the same transformational effect as an Attachment Insight. The reality of Christ’s love and presence shines best through people who know how to cherish Attachment Insights.

Does this surprise me? No, not really but until now I had not made this connection. It is nothing new that rules and principles rarely lead to transformation but relational modeling and healthy attachment can do that. Therefore we are more likely to grow in our relationship with God and be transformed into his image when we let our hearts be attracted to the person and work of Jesus than when we just focus on general principles.  In practical terms, this means if a text triggers different types of insights in us, and we sense no special guidance by the Spirit to focus on one of them, it is best to focus on an Attachment Insight if you want to become more like Christ.

Why Western Christianity Failed 3

In September/October Deeper Walk International brought an interesting series of webinars on the topic of “Why Western Christianity Failed.” The speaker was Dr. Jim Wilder from Shepherd’s House in California.

- The first part was about a 300 year old philosophy that heavily influenced Western Theology (which I summarized here)
- The second part looked at how medieval psychology influences us until today (which I summarized here)
- And the third part explained how we ended up with a false dichotomy because of these two influences.

In this post I will give a summary of part three:

The theme of part three is the false dichotomy in Western Christianity that resulted from the Voluntarist philosophy (part 1) and the medieval psychology (part 2). Christianity became a matter of giving people the right information so they can make the right choice, but this did not help to change people’s character.
As a result Western Christianity paid a lot of attention to belief errors, for example, in cults (e.g. Jim Jones) or in other theologies (liberation theology) but did very little about character failures, for example, when church leaders run off with somebody else’s wife, addictions, divorce among Christians, pedophile priests, pornography and many other character failures among Christians.

It is not a matter of picking one or the other. Christianity needs to change both sides.
One result of this false dichotomy is legalism. It easily develops when you think that ideas and choices are the key to being a ‘good’ Christian.

What is needed to change this?
We need to understand how our brain works. The control center of our life is situated in the right hemispheres of the brain – not the left thinking side of the brain! It is this right side that takes over when we are under stress or in trouble. Therefore it is the right side that needs to become Christian to influence our whole life, including our character.

How is the control center trained?
The right brain can learn to stay true to ourselves and our God-given identity under pressure:

- through relationships with others who can model for us how to handle pressure
- visual examples
- emotional story and song, similar to the minstrels in the past or hymns that use a lot of imagery
- but NOT through propositional truth or didactic teaching!

Our character can be changed

- when other people are glad to be with us (a joy that is communicated non verbally between our right brains by just smiling at each other)
- when they are glad to be with us even in difficult situations
- when we experience Jesus’ presence in these situations
- when we learn to synchronize with God while we are under pressure
- and experience his joy of being with us even when we fail.

All of this has to happen in the situation itself, when we are under pressure, when we experience suffering or temptation, not when we are sitting in church and are not tempted.

The left hemisphere can help in this process,

- find the resources needed for training the right brain
- make strategies for change and growth
- learn truth and use it as a standard of reference, but …

“Memorizing Bible verses alone does not help to do the right things, but when we live in relationship with the person that is behind them.”

We are often trying to use the left hemisphere to compensate for the lack of emotional skills but that does not help.

For example:
- addictions are a classic example of doing this, try to rationalize things
- borderline personality disorders, try to live by rules because they lack the relational skills
- anxiety, try to gather more information but information cannot compensate for relationships
- religions obsession or legalism, try to explain everything, and achieve ultimate spirituality
- work and control compulsions, try to set up rules to control people and things around them.

Unfortunately but not surprisingly, a lot of these can be found in Western Christianity. Many people who think their way through relationships are very legalistic, rely heavily on predicting the behaviors of others, box people in, expect them to behave according to roles (“you are … you should do …”), enforce compliance to their expectations, and look for explanations when things don’t go according to expectations.

This leads to “left-sided sins problems” that are typical among those who try to live their faith from the left-brain hemisphere:

- condemnation
- judgmentalism (by comparisons)
- sense of entitlement
- guided by own understanding and explanations (instead of Jesus’)
- depend on roles (instead of God-given identities)
- need to punish and justify punishment
- sarx (‘flesh’) based living, living according to my own understanding of how God wants me to live, instead of in dependence on Him!

This is in contrast to what Prov 3:5-6 tells us to do:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight. (NIV)

Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart;
don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for GOD’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he’s the one who will keep you on track. (The Message)

***
If you are interested in listening to the whole webinar, go to Deeper Walk International Resources Center – Webinars and scroll down to

Webinars by Jim Wilder

How Western Christianity Failed

Each webinar is available for $3.00. Once you have paid, you will receive a link to download or listen online to it.

Why Western Christianity Failed 2

In September/October Deeper Walk International brought an interesting series of webinars on the topic of “Why Western Christianity Failed.” The speaker was Dr. Jim Wilder from Shepherd’s House in California.

- The first part was about a 300 year old philosophy that heavily influenced Western Theology (which I summarized here)
- The second part looked at how medieval psychology influences us until today (see summary below)
- And the third part explained how we ended up with a false dichotomy because of these two influences.

In this post I will give a summary of part two:
Many people don’t realize that our Western theology has been influenced by all kinds of things besides the Bible.

Among other things are:
- rationalism – is about thinking the right things
- voluntarism – is about making the right choices
- Pietism – had the tendency to neglect the body
- Northern European culture – influences people to live in survival mode, value stoic resolve, ignore pain and emotions

> all these affect our theology
> all these even affect how we do Bible translation
> they influence what we think is important

One major influence is the medieval psychology that divides human beings into two main parts:

Physical conditions, the body, emotions and anything related were considered of doubtful use for spiritual things. In contrast, the intellect and the will were seen as separate from the body. Today we know that intellect and will are tied up in the same body, and interact strongly with each other. They cannot be separated from each other as medieval psychology did.

Despite newer insights into how God created us (body and will interconnected), theology still uses these categories until today.

Our bodies are seen as something fallen and unable to please God, while the spirit and will were seen as more important because they can be affected by God, as something that God can transform. The will is fallen but can be empowered by God’s grace to make the right choices. The body and emotions are only causing trouble (implicit – they are beyond God’s power to transform). Therefore the body was left out of any teaching and considered unimportant. The soul was sometimes included with the body, and seen as causing trouble. The only hope was that God would transform the spirit enough to dominate body and soul. The solution to this problem is to have more “truth” (teaching, knowledge) to help the spirit dominate the body.

The result is a false dichotomy that influences our theology until today.

This made perfect sense in medieval psychology but not today!
It is in contradiction to what we know today about the brain:

Our brain is primarily relational. Any strategy that bypasses the dominant emotional and relational center of the brain, and emphasizes thinking and will, is not “Good News” at all. As a result we keep trying to think the right things, but we are still acting and reacting the wrong way.

Antonio R. Damasio in his book “Descartes’ error” pointed out that what makes the human mind run are our emotions not reason. For example, trauma recovery requires body awareness. The priority of our brain is to first ask what our body feels before asking what we think about something.

This has to do with our vagus nerve, which tells the brain what we feel like and influences our relationships and what we like. This vagus nerve does not sound very spiritual but influences everything we consider spiritual. It has two parts:
dorsal vagal – takes care of your own body
ventral vagal – regulates interpersonal relationships

Maybe it is more important to make our vagus nerve “Christian” more than our thinking!

The Old Testament refers to our “inward parts” (e.g. Jer 4:19, Lam 2:11) but they are often translated with ‘mind’ in Greek. In other places the Hebrew text speaks about the “bowels.” The translation of these verses often shows a lot of bias. Since the body is not important, bowels are sometimes translated as heart and sometimes as bowels and nobody cares if these are really referring to the same thing.

Conclusions from Voluntarist Philosophy

>> Western Christianity became about ideas and choice
>> Solution – all important life problems are corrected by truth and choice
>> This statement should feel true to you because your culture says it’s true
>> The Bible translations were made to fit that assumption due to language and culture.

Conclusions from Medieval Psychology

>> Choice is in the intellect
>> Will is in the reason
>> Intellect and reason are in the mind /spirit
>> Bible translation is made to fit those assumptions
>> The mind and spirit are changed by choices and knowledge
>> The body and emotions are not important for the spiritual life as will and choice.

Corrections to Medieval Psychology

>> What controls the brain, will, body and emotions is relationship not information.

“Who you love or who you fear, will determine what you’ll choose, how your body responds to it and how you feel about it. That relationship is actually experienced in your brain, not your emotions, not your body, not your will.”

>> We have more than one will and there can be conflict.
>> Emotions and related body responses are in executive control of the brain
>> Relationships based on love produce very different interpretations of the information in the intellect than the same information with fear.

For example, “your dad is coming” can produce two different reactions, depending whether your relationship is love or fear based. The same happens with biblical information – “God is watching you” can cause two different reactions.

Living with the Lord means having our “bowels” transformed.
We need a Christianity that transforms both sides of our character, also our body not just our mind. We need to overcome this false dichotomy (more about it in part 3).

***

If you are interested in listening to the whole webinar, go to Deeper Walk International Resources Center – Webinars and scroll down to

Webinars by Jim Wilder

How Western Christianity Failed

Each webinar is available for $3.00. Once you have paid, you will receive a link to download or listen online to it.

Why Western Christianity Failed

In September/October Deeper Walk International brought an interesting series of webinars on the topic of “Why Western Christianity Failed.” The speaker was Dr. Jim Wilder from Shepherd’s House in California.

- The first part was about a 300 year old philosophy that heavily influenced Western Theology.
- The second part looked at how medieval psychology influences us until today.
- And the third part explained how we ended up with a false dichotomy because of these two influences.

In this post I will give a short summary of part one:
The Voluntarist philosophy goes back to people like Réne Descartes. His famous “I think therefore I am” led to the idea that thinking is what makes us humans. Other rationalists and empiricists like John Locke, Gerorge Berkely, David Hume and Bertrand Russell followed. This emphasis on our left brain activity led others to the assumption that “it must be that the first beginning of faith lies in the will” (William Ames). As a result will and reason became the cornerstones of US theology. Conversion became a matter of the will and is based on right information and right choice.

Experience shows that this does not work. A lot of people have all the right information but make the wrong choices. More information (i.e. more training, more Bible study) is not the solution for everything. Why? Because this is not how our brain works.  It is not the left brain hemisphere (which stores verbal knowledge) that takes care of our decisions. Actually, it is the first part of the brain, that won’t work properly when we are under pressure, or just sleepy. It is highly unreliable and can’t change our character. It is the right part of our brain (the relational, emotional center which stores experiential knowledge) that makes a pre-selection before we even start thinking about a decision.

Wilder points out that

“We (the Americans) are the most well informed and best educated people in the history of our planet. We should be the best model of healthy community, character, maturity, and relational integrity in church and world history.”

I am sure the same could be said about other countries with a high percentage of Christians.

Why do our choices and emotions not line up?

“Could it be that we have developed a system that is focused on building our intellectual capacity – while our emotional, relational and character development have atrophied?”

Thinking and willpower are not enough to transform our character. The real control center of our life, including our cravings, is located in the right hemisphere of the brain. Any strategy that tries to solve our problems by bypassing the right brain hemisphere won’t work.  As a result there are many people who have all the right information and are still a failure in character.

Wilder mentioned another very telling example:
Today the WWII veterans are getting older and many of them develop dementia. As a result of their failing will power, a lot of old fears, other negative emotions, bad temper and character defects come up. Their will power did not change them, but just held these negative things at bay.

This shows me that our will power can keep our negative emotions under control, at least sometimes, but it can’t change our character.
The same happens to us when we come under pressure in everyday life – our true self comes out and we are embarrassed about our behavior under stressful circumstances. This also happens to recovering addicts if they use cognitive approaches to overcome their cravings – this works fine as long as life runs smooth but as soon as the pressure is on (e.g. things don’t work out) this left brain oriented approach no longer works. Their (and our) good solutions go down the drain.

What we need is a character transformation that is right brain oriented. All the right information in the world, our intellect and the will are not capable of transforming us. If we want to see real transformation and the fruits of the spirit, for example, control our tongue or our cravings, we need to give the right brain what it needs to change – joy strength, relationships and belonging.

***

If you are interested in listening to the whole webinar, go to Deeper Walk International Resources Center – Webinars and scroll down to

Webinars by Jim Wilder

How Western Christianity Failed

Each webinar is available for $3.00. Once you have paid, you will receive a link to download or listen online to it.

Transforming Worldviews

I wrote the following book review for the The Cultural Mandate blog:

Paul G. Hiebert (1933-2007) was a pastor and missionary in India, and later professor of missiology and anthropology at Fuller and Trinity, authored many articles and books, of which Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2008 was the last one, which he just finished before his death. The book’s thesis is that if the gospel aims at a transformation that is both individual and corporate, it needs to touch all levels, including the deepest level of worldview in order to be radical and total.

In the conclusion of the first chapter, Hiebert explains the model on which the rest of the book is based and presents as preliminary definition of worldview in anthropological terms as “the foundational, cognitive, affective, and evaluative assumptions and frameworks a group of people makes about the nature of reality which they use to order their lives” (p 25-6). They can also be called “people’s images or maps of reality” (p 26). The building blocks of his model include among others Opler’s themes and counter themes but significantly modified, and Redfield’s seven themes not as imposed etic categories but as suggestive themes to be explored.

Hiebert’s book is an excellent summary and clarification of the model of worldview at a time when main stream anthropology seems to move away from it. He makes it clear that it includes the cognitive, affective and evaluative assumptions and frameworks or maps of reality to organize our lives (p 25). It needs to combine synchronic and diachronic approaches without reverting to reductionism or compartmentalization. The often used term “deep structure” is misleading and Hiebert makes it clear that the causality goes both ways (p 32). In chapter four (p 89ff) it also becomes clear that “worldview” is not a method in itself but that other methods are needed and that any result will only lead to an approximation of a culture (p 90).

Interestingly, Hiebert contradicts the often heard claim that there are several worldviews in the Bible. Despite the diversity of contexts in the Bible, Hiebert points out the underlying unity of the biblical story (p 265) and suggests a tentative list of underlying worldview themes that are cognitive, affective, evaluative, and diachronic. His argument is that Abraham’s understanding was only a starting point of biblical revelation and others built on it until it came to its climax in Christ and to understand biblical worldview, we need to start with him.

I found this book to be a great treatment of a missiological theme from an anthropological view point, including and integrating many topics Hiebert has written about over the years. It therefore gives an excellent overview over many anthropological concepts related to worldview. It does seem to respond to some major critics of the worldview concept. Hiebert proves again to have excellent insights into the dynamics of conversion and spiritual transformation and what we need to understand about other people’s maps of reality if we want to see their lives transformed through the gospel.