Transforming Spirituality

Integrating Theology and Psychology

Shults, F. LeRon, Sandage, Steven J.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781441201775
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The twenty-first century has given rise to a growing interest in the intersection of science, religion, and spirituality. Few books address these issues from multiple perspectives and theories. To fill this void, F. LeRon Shults and Steven Sandage, coauthors of The Faces of Forgiveness (winner of the Narramore Award from the Christian Association for Psychological Studies) continue their interdisciplinary dialogue in their latest work, Transforming Spirituality. In this book Shults and Sandage address the subject of spiritual transformation through the lenses of psychology and theology. In addition to college and seminary students, Transforming Spirituality will appeal to readers interested in Christian spirituality. What is more, it provides helpful insights for counselors, psychologists, and others who work in the mental health field.

1 INTRODUCTION

Hquestow do people change? This is surely one of the most significant questions in life. Allow the question to become more personal: How can I change in ways that will bring me greater happiness and make my life more meaningful? How can the people I care about know peace and well-being? How can my community become a better place for those coming behind me? As we allow ourselves to dwell on these questions, we might begin to feel the importance of the need to search for pathways toward change. But it is also painfully obvious that change does not always happen in the ways most of us would like. In fact, those people we most desperately want to change often stubbornly refuse to cooperate. That can hold true for the person we see when we look in the mirror. Life, however, brings change whether we like it or not. The human life cycle instigates a variety of changes, both marvelous and tragic. As the Hebrew sage puts it in Ecclesiastes, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die” (Eccles. 3:1–2 NIV).

The quest for a deeper understanding of and participation in spiritual transformation strikes us as central to a meaningful journey in life. All of our hopes and fears are wrapped up in our longings for intimacy in our relationships with others and with the ultimate Other we hold to be sacred. When these relationships are profoundly altered such a change qualifies as a spiritual transformation. Although spirituality can be a powerful source of transformation, we all probably know people who have participated in spiritual or religious communities for decades with apparently no change at all. The processes of spiritual transformation can be painful, and yet without them life can be reduced to little more than “a time to be born and a time to die.”

Our own interest in the topic of transforming spirituality is influenced by our national and global contexts, where the hunger and pursuit of spirituality and the sacred are ubiquitous. The exponential growth of interest in and openness to the practices of spirituality—both old and new—has naturally led to a revival of scholarly dialogue and research on the topics of spirituality and spiritual transformation. Our goal in this book is to contribute to this ongoing conversation by outlining and exploring conceptual models of spirituality that have emerged out of our own seeking and dwelling in interdisciplinary dialogue. We are interested in transforming spirituality by shaping the way in which this concept itself is understood and utilized in theological and psychological discourse. We are also interested, however, in facilitating the practices of spirituality that are transformative of human life and relationships. By exploring the dynamics of spiritual transformation from within the relation between the disciplines of Christian theology and social science, we hope to contribute to the understanding and practice of transforming spirituality.

Spirituality

The concept of “spirituality” itself is ambiguous and multivalent, which partially explains why well over a hundred definitions of the term have been offered in recent scholarly literature.1 Each of these definitions is shaped by the context, tradition, and concerns of those who are doing the defining. We want to be explicit about our own social location. As a theologian and a psychologist, we are both concerned about the way in which spirituality is understood and practiced in our own Christian context. We believe that the convergence of interest in this theme in the scholarly disciplines of religion and science,2 as well as among practitioners of spiritual direction and pastoral counseling, offers a new opportunity for transforming the way we think about and experience spirituality.

The role of spirituality in the Christian tradition and the complex history of its development over the centuries have been well documented in the scholarly literature.3 In the chapters that follow, we will often take the opportunity to critically engage aspects of, and recover resources from, this rich and diverse tradition. One of the reasons for the surge of interest in spirituality is the growth of ecumenical dialogue. Although Protestant spiritual experience has been shaped by the distinctives of its own various traditions, from Pietism to Pentecostalism, Protestant Christians— both evangelical and mainline—have increasingly been drawn to practices of spirituality that characterize the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. This is evident, for example, in the growing popularity among Protestants of spiritual retreats and the writings of Catholic contemplative writers such as Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, and Henri Nouwen. As our late modern culture increasingly attends to the importance of image as well as word for human experience, the resources of the aesthetic and iconic spirituality of the East also become more and more attractive.

Interest in the renewal of the practices of spirituality has been particularly prevalent in North American evangelicalism. This tradition has often had a deep suspicion of “experience” and “mysticism” and a tendency to focus on the propositional content of doctrine as the key marker for Christian identity. The early work of Richard Foster was influential in bringing some of these resources back into the discussion about the nature of the Christian life.4 In the last few decades, evangelical theologians and philosophers have increasingly argued that spiritual formation is integral to the Christian life5 and that the study of spirituality is integral to Christian theology.6 Part 1 aims to contribute to these ongoing integrative efforts. Some evangelicals have been hesitant to emphasize spiritual transformation for fear that this would challenge our absolute dependence on the grace of God for salvation. In chapters 2–5, LeRon will argue for an understanding of Christian spirituality as a way of living that is absolutely originated, upheld, and oriented by divine grace. The theological presentation of the transforming dynamics of life in the Spirit (en pneumati) will be carried out in explicit dialogue with developments in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as well as insights from contemporary philosophy and science.

In part 2 (chapters 6–9), Steve will explore the dynamics of spirituality with special attention to the transformation in the field of psychology that has occurred in the past two decades. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the dominant literature in North American psychology and psychoanalysis tended to reflect either antagonistic or disinterested orientations toward both religion and spirituality.7 The antagonistic attitude was reflected in the writings of seminal thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, who argued that religiosity was mostly pathological or immature and certainly inconsistent with mental health. Yet there has always been a remnant of psychologists who have remained more favorable toward the empirical study and health potential of spirituality and religion. William James helped pioneer the modern psychological study of religion and spirituality, and he was quite sympathetic to the possible transformative benefits of religious and spiritual experience on psychological functioning. Carl Jung differed from his mentor Freud in suggesting that religion and spirituality can provide archetypal symbols that facilitate the quest for wholeness. Humanistic psychologists (e.g., Abraham Maslow and Gordon Allport) and object relations theorists (e.g., Harry Guntrip, Donald Winnicott, and Ana-Maria Rizzuto) also explored forms of spirituality and religiosity that could be consonant with psychological health and development. It is easy for North American psychologists to underestimate the global range and diversity of social-scientific research on religion and spirituality.8

Interest in spirituality and religion in the field of psychology has intensified in the past two decades. The increased quantity, quality, and breadth of psychological research and clinical writing on religion and spirituality since the mid-1980s justify the word “transformation.”9 Debates continue about the best ways to define, differentiate, and measure spirituality and religion. Too often a simplistic contrast of spirituality as interior and religion as institutional has limited capacities for understanding the diverse range of ways people relate to the sacred. The positive psychology movement has also encouraged advances in the scientific study of spirituality and religion as well as many health-related strengths or virtues (e.g., forgiveness, gratitude, wisdom, awe, compassion, and hope). Freud turned out to be largely wrong in his global pathologizing of religion and spirituality. Empirical studies have found many positive relationships between indices of religion and spirituality and measures of mental and even physical health.10 Certain aspects of spirituality and religion often appear to be consistent with health, whereas other aspects can be unrelated or inconsistent with health. In chapters 6–9, Steve will develop a relational model of spirituality and explore the psychological dimensions of spirituality in relation to health, darkness, and maturity. Developmental and systems theories from the social sciences will be utilized for understanding the epistemological (knowing), ethical (acting), and ontological (being) dynamics within the processes of spiritual formation and transformation.

Transformation

Our interest is in spirituality that transforms. Not all change qualifies as transformation. Family systems theorists were among the first to clarify a difference between “first-order” and “second-order” change, with the latter qualifying as transformation.11 First-order change is primarily behavioral and limited to conserving one’s current coping repertoire.12 It typically involves a determined attempt to “do more of the same.” Second-order change involves a more complex systemic transformation that changes coping strategies and ways of relating to a system altogether. In the field of learning theory, Jack Mezirow distinguishes between “formative” learning in which new content is placed into conventional socialized schemes and perspectives, and learning in which the meaning-schemes and meaning-perspectives themselves are transformed.13 Along these lines, when we speak of spiritual “transformation,” we do not mean merely gaining more knowledge about spiritual issues, or even adding to our repertoire of practices, but developing qualitatively more complex ways of holding and being held in relation to others and the Other.14 We will spell out in more detail various models for understanding this transformation later, but it will be helpful to clarify some of these distinctions here at the beginning.

Transformations or second-order changes involve pursuing new goals (e.g., spiritual intimacy with God vs. begrudging obedience) or new pathways toward one’s goals (e.g., surrender vs. determination).15 Numerous psychological mechanisms or pathways of change have been identified, and these are reflected in differing models of psychotherapy. James Prochaska and John Norcross have outlined a transtheoretical model of the change process, suggesting not only that there are multiple mechanisms of personal change but that differing mechanisms prove to be optimal for differing stages of the change process.16 People often go through a process of contemplating a major change, such as giving up smoking, long before acting on it in a transformative way. Many spiritual writers have described an analogous process of “seeds being planted” for subsequent spiritual transformation.

Contemporary theoretical paradigms have broadened to include the study of both sudden and gradual spiritual changes, as well as increasing attention on contextual influences.17 To date, the body of social-scientific research suggests that religious conversions and spiritual transformations involve profound changes in self-identity and meaning in life, often following periods of significant stress and emotional turbulence. Self-reports of profound spiritual and religious changes are typically associated with positive mental health rather than psychopathology despite the intense stress that is also frequently reported as a precursor.18 The question of whether transformations and second-order changes are uniformly positive has also been raised. People do report dramatic experiences of negative transformation.19 Most spiritual traditions, however, also suggest that even positive transformations often involve some stressors, hardships, or negative consequences. Furthermore, specific relational contexts do not always support certain expressions of spiritual transformation, which can contribute to some of the stress or dislocation that can follow spiritual transformation as well as other experiences of change.

Transformative change can also be gradual or sudden. William Miller and Janet C’de Baca interviewed fifty-five “quantum changers,” or people who reported experiencing a sudden, dramatic life transformation, which they defined as “a deep shift in core values, feelings, attitudes or actions.”20 Quantum changers described two main types of transformation: insightful and mystical. Insightful transformations tended to have more continuity with a person’s prior developmental and cognitive process whereas mystical transformations involved a sense of being dramatically acted upon by an outside force. Both types of quantum changers often reported a period of stress or discontent that precipitated their transformation, and about one-third reported praying or being prayed for around the time of their experience. Ma...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• Part 1: Transforming Spirituality in Theology
• Part 2: Transforming Spirituality in Psychology
• Part 3: Modeling Spiritual Transformation