Review: A Theology of Christian Counseling

When I was in Bible college I had to read a variety of systematic theologies throughout my various classes.  I read Basic Theology by Charles C. Ryrie, Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem, and Understanding Christian Theology by Swindoll and Zuch.

Each of these has it’s own strengths and weaknesses.  Ryrie provides a good easy to read overview of all of theology in a brief 300 pages.  The downside is the shortness leaves some depth lacking on each topic.  Grudem goes in deep on each topic and has been the go to theology book for many for some time now.  He attempts to help put theology in the practical realm by asking personal application questions at the end of the each chapter and placing a relevant hymn there as well.  Swindoll and Zuch provide an easy to read practical application style to a very in depth guide to theology.  Understanding Christian Theology is easily the most helpful systematic theology I’ve read (and it was the last one of the three provided to me in college).

There are three main problems all systematic theologies face: 1) in their zeal for getting theology right they can often forget or neglect to make it practical for the every day Christian,  2) they tend to be very lengthy, and 3) they excel in using large words and theological jargon.  All of these issues combine to make most systematic theologies unapproachable to the average person.  The end result is that most Christians never end up reading a systematic theology as they do not help with the everyday hardships of life and are too long and complex to grasp.  Both Grudem and Swindoll and Zuch make strong efforts to be helpful to the every day Christian, but they still end up being over 1000 pages each.  Whereas Ryrie in is brevity missing many useful points of theology.

When I picked up Jay E. Adams book on the theology of Christian counseling, I was blown away.  I exclaimed to my wife frequently that this was a more powerful book than all the theology books I read in college.  I exclaimed that this is the best systematic theology I’ve ever read.*  Why is that?  Adams targets practicality with his book; he targets usefulness to the average Christian.  The goal of counseling is to find practical ways to solve everyday issues and Adams brings those to light throughout Scripture.

As I said in a post a couple weeks ago, I went to a college that taught integrationist counseling methods. When we went through our psychology classes we were taught both ends of the spectrum, the views espoused by naturalist physchologists like Freud, Skinner, Erickson, Pavlov, and Rogers.  And we were also briefly introduced to the ideas of Adams.  I remember being told that Adams was completely against all secular psychology as he believed that all answers to life’s problems can be found in the Bible.  We discussed how many different things we’ve come to know about the world are not expressly taught in the Bible, but are merely assumed (math being a prime example).  I along with the whole class embraced the stupidity of the argument that the Bible is sufficient to solve all our problems.  The biggest issue here is that in their attempt to prove integrationism correct, our teachers did not go in depth on how Adams would have addressed things like depression or anxiety.  They did go quite in depth with secular psychologists, but breezed through this theologian.

When you read his book, you can easily see that the answers to many of life’s questions are found blatantly in the pages of Scripture.  You can see that simplistic teaching I was shown in school of this view is reductionist and causes the whole of the Adam’s philosophy of counseling to be missed.  I remember the teachers inability to answer some of our questions about Biblical Counseling, which makes me think (in retrospect) that my professor never studied the system he was tearing down.

Adams spends large portions of the book pointing at all the different counseling options available in his day and showing how they are based more on philosophical insights into how we as humans operate than they are on science.  And here’s the thing, he’s not wrong.  Both secular and theological scholars agree that Freud’s psychology was based on his own sexual fantasies more than anything else.  If our counseling is going to be based on philosophies, as Christians, we ought to found them on Scripture.  To this end, Adams scores Scripture and develops a systematic approach to counseling based on the words of God.

One of the main points Adams brings out is that habits are a strong part of our life.  We form habits to do many menial tasks like brushing our teeth, getting dressed, or making a sandwich.  Without those habits, we would have to rethink how to do the simplest tasks each day.  Getting dressed would become much more of a chore:  Would it be quicker to put the left leg in or the right?  Or perhaps I should do both at once?  If habits are such an important part of our life it would be very weird for the Bible to not address them in any fashion.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

~Matthew 5:27-30

One thing that was amazing to me is how influential Adams has been even among people who have never read or heard of him.  If you’ve ever heard Matthew  5:27-39 or 18:7-9 preached as a prescription for “radical amputation” you’ve been influenced by Adams.  He coined the term in this book when he was talking about the process of sanctification (becoming more like Christ).  He taught from Matthew 5 that sanctification had four parts: 1) Recognition that we will be tempted to repeat our sin.  2) Preparation to meet and defeat our sin.  3) Radical amputation – if part of the sinful process can be avoided, cut it out of your life.  4) Nothing must be spared in the amputation process, it must be a radical change.  Only in making a radical change does the sinner distance himself from the sin.  The goal is to make it extremely difficult for us to sin in the same way again.

This book provides chapter after chapter of gut punching truths to the sins we commit daily.  Adams talks up the power of Scripture and compares it to the secular psychologists of his day, showing the weaknesses in what they bring to the table.  If I have one criticism for this book, it’s that I think he sometimes goes to far in his criticism.  While he lacks grace and compassion in some of his statements, it must also be said that he was the first one through the wall… breaking into a new area of study, helping to lay the groundwork for modern Christian Counseling.  The first one through the wall always get dirty.

I give this book 5 stars for how powerful the practical help with daily problems is.  I can’t recommend this book highly enough both to the Christian seeking to grow their own soul and to the Christian seeking to help those in need around them.

Up Next:  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

*I should point out that this is not a systematic theology in the fullest sense.  While it does tackle counseling from both a holistic and systematic method, it does not address all theological matters in that way, making a it a systematic theology of counseling book, not a full systematic theology like the others discussed above.

Is Brain Chemistry A Misnomer?

Harold Kroto, the man who discovered Buckyballs, was giving a lecture once where he asked the class to raise their hands if they think the sun revolves around the earth. The class snickered and no one dared raise their hand. He then asked them to raise their hands if they think the earth revolves around the sun. The entire room raised their hands, hoping they weren’t about to be tricked into something. Then he asked them to keep their hands raised if they knew the evidence for the earth revolving around the sun. Not a single person kept their hand up. He then explained that they took it on faith that the earth revolves around the sun. (Source: Things I Mean to Know)

How many things do you take on faith? How many things have you researched until you fully understood both sides of the debate? Until you could argue the opposition’s point better than they could? Today I want to tackle one topic I think many people on both sides take on faith. It’s an issue that gets raised constantly, even cyclically, on social media. The debate over chemical imbalances in the brain versus those that think it’s all a hoax.

Is Brain Chemistry Real?

Some people are posting about how mental illnesses and chemical imbalances are real. You’ve probably seen this cartoon from Robot Hugs that makes a point about the absurdity of not getting help when you experience mental health issues:

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On the other hand, I’ve seen people posting about how leading psychologists don’t believe that mental illnesses are just chemical imbalances. Take this article as an example: On the Myth of Chemical Imbalances*. The author has been practicing psychotherapy for nearly a decade and he cites another psychologist who claims he’s never heard a psychologist who used the term “chemical imbalances” in any way other than in mockery.

*Authors note: this article has since been taken down, but there are countless others that say the same thing from well-respected psychologists. Here are a couple I found in a quick google search:  What Causes Depression? by Todd B. Kashdan Ph.D. and Myth of the Chemical Imbalance by Dr. Joann Moncrieff

Which of these is more accurate? Are mental health issues the same thing as physical issues? I’ve done some digging into this complex issue and want to show you some relevant quotes and discussions from prominent psychologists and medical doctors.

Depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and schizophrenia are not, have never been, and will never be “just like” cancer or diabetes or heart disease, despite the obfuscations of psychiatrists, mental health professionals, and mental health “advocacy” groups.

~ Mark L. Ruffalo, LCSW in The Great Paradox of Psychiatry

If anything has been gleaned from the origins of these maladies [mental disorders] in two decades of work, it is that the genetics of psychiatric disorders are terribly complex. No individual gene for a psychiatric disorder has been found and none likely ever will be.

~ Charles Barber, MFA, Yale Psychiatry Professor in The Brain: A Mindless Obsession

The more we learn about the workings of the mind, the more we realize that we can never reduce human thought, feeling, or behavior to a biochemical reaction.

~ Armand M. Nikoli, Jr., MD, Harvard Psychiatrist The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry 3rd Edition

Did you catch that? These psychiatry professionals think there is no biologically identifiable reason for mental health issues. Not only that, but they purport that we will never find such a link. The complex mental health issues we experience are far different than physical health issues.

Part of the issue in our common misconception about psychology is that we think of psychologists as doctors who can look at our symptoms and determine our condition and therefore what is truly wrong with us. And no wonder, it makes a lot of sense! If you go to the doctor with the stomach flu, you have telltale signs that will alert the doctor to your condition and he can prescribe curative medicines. If he’s in doubt he can draw your blood and find the real problem. But this is not true for psychology.

‘Mental illness’ is terribly misleading because the ‘mental disorders’ we diagnose are no more than descriptions of what clinicians observe people do or say, not at all well established diseases.

~ Allen J Frances M.D. (Literally wrote the book on mental health disorders) in What’s in a Name?

There are currently no standard ways of treating or assessing mental illness based on brain images.

~ Charles Barber, MFA, Yale Psychiatry Professor in The Brain: A Mindless Obsession

The fact that we think of extreme emotional issues as being a direct byproduct of brain chemistry is thwarted by the fact that there is no way to assess or test for these alleged brain chemistry issues. There are no tests the doctor can give or scans they can run to determine who has depression, anxiety, or ADHD. All of the experts keep speaking the same theme, that mental issues are not diseases nor are they chemical imbalances. The diagnosis we use are nothing but labels that describe the state someone is in, but there could be a 100 different causes for how they got there.

Take depression for an example. You can get depression from the loss of a loved one, abuse in your past, constant reflection on your own mistakes, or any number of other reasons. Would any of those show up in a brain scan? No. But what of the cure? Most doctors prescribe the same drugs regardless of the cause. They usually don’t even ask after the cause!

In researching depression and its cures, I found a study that tested Zoloft, St. John’s Wort, and placebos against each other. The study found 25% of those taking Zoloft received a full reduction in depression. Those that were taking St. John’s Wort had a 24% response. But those on the placebo schooled them both, with a full 32% responding with complete reduction in symptoms. (For more on how chemicals aren’t solving emotional issues, see Good Mood Bad Mood by Charles D. Hodges, M.D.) If a placebo is more effective than drugs, that indicates that most of the issues the drugs appear to be solving would be solved on their own (in time) or through the belief that something can fix them (placebo effect). If you’re interested in seeing the study results for yourself you can find them here.

Drugs Cured Me!

Most of the time when I have participated in conversations about depression or anxiety, I have heard someone say, “I know that chemical imbalances are true, because I took a drug and it cured me.” I don’t doubt that their cure coincided with their taking medication. However, there may be more going on than just popping pills and finding freedom. We cannot reason that solely because some people have found relief from their symptoms that the actual cause was addressed. There are several reasons we should not immediately accept the answer that drugs are the solution to our emotional issues:

1) Ex Juvantibus is the medical term for making a determination about the cause of a disease by what solved it. For instance, if a patient has strep throat and takes aspirin to fix it, they would be wrong to think that the aspirin cured them simply because the strep throat went away. Strep throat is a short-lasting illness on its own and will subside without medication.

I’ve seen at least two scholars take up the stance that ex juvantibus should be considered for psychological issues. Steven Rose, emeritus professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and Greshem College in London and Charles D. Hodges, M.D. both point out that psychotropic drugs do not seem to have an actual effect on reducing depression.

If you’ll allow me a taboo – quoting from Wikipedia:

Steven Rose applies the term [ex juvantibus] to the use of psychoactive drugs to “cure” depression, implying that the underlying cause of depression is not simply low levels of certain chemicals in the brain (such as serotonin) that these drugs treat. ~Wikipedia

I fear in making this point, some people who have struggled with depression, anxiety, or other emotional issues in the past will be upset and say that I’m discounting their experience. I hope I am wrong in believing that, as the truth is far from it. I firmly believe that there are many people that have come through hard times and that they took drugs at some point and the symptoms subsided or went away. Hodges and Rose would say the same. The point is not what happened as a person gets through emotional turmoil; the issue is what really caused the emotion turmoilal in the first place. When we focus on the end of an issue instead of the beginning we focus on the wrong part for diagnosis and are sorely tempted to come to the wrong conclusions.

2) The Placebo Effect appears to account for a large portion of those cured of emotional troubles. Earlier I cited a study where the placebo effect was greater than the percentage of people cured of depression by St. John’s Wort and Zoloft. You may be thinking this is a fluke, but Richard A. Griggs Ph.D. wrote in his book Psychology a Concise Introduction that the placebo effect might account for more than 50% of a drug’s effectiveness. In this case, he was talking about chronic pain reduction, but the principle holds true. The placebo effect is a large portion of why people are cured from their issues. He goes on to say that the placebo effect of drugs today is greatly increased over that in 1996. He theorizes that this is true because our culture uplifts drugs as a cure-all. Other cultures don’t have such a strong placebo reaction and also don’t have such a strong drug culture.

Again this does not mean that people aren’t cured by the drugs. The pain may very well go away, but it isn’t the drug that caused the relief you experienced. And just as ex juvantibus doesn’t diminish the reality of the curative experience you might have gone through, neither should this.

If mental health issues are not biological then what are they? What further role do psychologists play? Dr. Armand M. Nicholi said:

The more we develop and use psychopharmacology drugs, the more we realize that these drugs usually must be combined with psychotherapy to be more effective.

~ Armand M. Nikoli, Jr., MD, Harvard Psychiatrist The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry 3rd Edition

I saw this same sentiment echoed in other psychologists. The issue we must worry about at this point is that the science suggests that the drugs aren’t the cure. The main thing that seems to be working here is therapy/counseling.

Counselors everywhere will tell you that there are no easy fixes to complex mental states and emotional issues. And they are correct. The brokenness that is felt and experienced by so many people that are suffering and have been labeled as Anxious, Depressed, ADHD, OCD, Bipolar, et cetera are very real, intricate problems that create complex issues on both personal and interpersonal levels. If the issues we face as individuals are not biological or chemical, then the solution to our problems must be sought out in counseling.

This truth is born out in the psychological realm. Not only do the psychologists who advocate drugs also advocate for counseling, but the scientific studies have proven the effectiveness of counsel. Speaking about patients that went to receive therapy/counseling Griggs had this to say:

The average psychotherapy client was better off than 80% of the people not receiving therapy.  (Source: Psychology: A Concise Introduction)

What’s amazing about this, is the type of counseling didn’t matter. Whether good or bad counsel – counsel is better than none at all.

The point here is that therapy is effective, and drugs have not been proven to solve complex emotional issues. This is the role psychologists should fulfill. Their aim should be to help you take view of your life (where you’ve made good and bad decisions and where you’ve been hurt by the actions of others) and help you find a way to move forward in good conscience. These complex issues are best resolved through intentional counseling.

This can best be summed up in a quote allegedly* from Steven Hyman:

We psychiatrists have been given an impossible task. Our medications are sometimes able to alleviate symptoms, though they often come with side effects. But we cannot give people what they really need. People need meaning and relationship.

~ Steven E. Hyman, MD, Former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). This quote is supposedly taken from a National Public Radio (NPR) show entitled “The State of Psychiatry in America Today.”

*This quote is originally cited by the Christian Counseling & Education Foundation (CCEF) in a DVD series called “Psychiatric Disorders.”. I reached out to the Broad Institute, where Steven Hyman now works. A spokesperson says he never said it. I reached out to CCEF for clarity, and a spokesperson there said they also couldn’t find the source material but that it was a summary not a quote from a talk on NPR in the late 90’s. This caused me to go on a multi week-long search to find the original airings of NPR broadcasts in the 90’s. I eventually was able to get my hands on all three of Hyman’s segments from the 90’s (plus one from 2000) and none of them come close to this summary. I leave it here for two reasons: First because I think it’s a good summary of the argument I’m presenting. And second, because I want to show that I did not take any of these quotes at face value. I pursued them until I could hand over hard evidence.

Disclaimer: For any unbelievers reading this, I have only referenced medical and mental health professionals up to this point. It is my hope that in referencing experts and laying out some of their quotes that are in conflict with that we see in the average debate/conversation about mental health issues, that you’ve been given something to think about. I hope that some of your assumptions have been challenged and that you are able to begin to reform your beliefs and foundations for your view of mental health. At this point, you may want to stop reading because I am about to move from the hard facts of how many leading psychologists think about these issues to the way Christians think about these issues. If you’re curious to know about the Christian view of psychology and counseling, please read on, but where you wish to interact with the facts as presented by scientific experts, please consider this the end.

Counseling As Cure

Disclaimer 2: For those who are choosing to read on, know that I am about to present three views on Christian counseling and point to the one I think is most Biblical. There are actually more like five views on Christian Counseling. I will review them all when I review the book Psychology & Christianity Five Views by Eric L Johnson in a couple months. For this section, I will be a bit more simplistic.

Counseling is an essential part of life. We all seek advice from friends and family when life gets hard or our emotions are overwhelming us. And that’s all that counseling is, seeking advice from someone who has training or experience to give us answers. Sometimes we think the only training that is necessary is being alive. That’s why we ask our friends how we should go about getting someone to fancy us. Other times, the counselor must have extensive training and experience in order to be useful. This is often why we seek out professionals to help us through depression or anxiety.

Unfortunately, not all training is created equal. And how can it be? If the goal is good advice that frees us from our trauma, the counselor has to base that advice on some worldview. If it’s based on humanism, the advice will come out self-serving, if it’s based on views that are more pantheistic, the advice will be more about accepting the current suffering to prepare you and grow you for the next life. Each worldview directly feeds into the type of advice we give each other; psychologists are not exempt from this statement.

Even in theistic (specifically Christian) circles, the kind of advice you get can vary widely. There are at least three views in Christian Counseling.

1) That the Bible doesn’t address mental health and thus we should embrace secular psychology. This view must be rejected outright for we see counseling happen all throughout the Bible (Job 2:11-13, 4-42; Jon. 4; Mat. 5-7; et cetera) and the Bible specifically commands counseling (1 Thes. 4:18, 5:11 & 14; Heb. 3:13; Col. 1:28; and Rom. 15:14)

2) There are those that attempt to merge (integrate) secular and theistic views on counseling, reasoning that while the Bible is fully true, not all truths are in the Bible (the Bible doesn’t teach math, it just assumes it).

3) Lastly, there are others that argue that the vast majority of mental issues are sin issues – whether caused by them or as a reaction to things done to a person by others. Most issues that come up in the counseling office deal more with things done to someone and not the sin they themselves have committed. (Some well-known diseases would be exempt here: hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Cushing’s disease, Huntington’s disease, brain tumors, and pancreatic cancer are a few examples)

I went to a college that taught integrationist counseling (the second option in the list above). They sought a merging of secular ideas and biblical truth to get to a more perfect counsel. They took the works of prominent secular psychologists and distilled their lessons down and took the ones they thought didn’t contradict the Bible and began using them along with the Bible to try and solve the issues of our day.

On the surface, this may not sound that bad, but the integrationist has a problem. They have to decide for every issue that arises: does the Bible talk about this and provide a solution? And oftentimes, they will decide that the Bible doesn’t talk about it and take whatever secular approach seems most beneficial. The issue here is the subjective nature of the method. One counselor might find that drugs are the solution to the problem, while another might elect for therapy. One counselor might see that someone is struggling with Impulse Control Disorder, while another might call him out as a thief.

In school, I found this subjectivity incredibly disturbing. For instance, how can Christians say that there is never anything wrong with anxiety when Jesus clearly calls believers to “not be anxious” (Matt. 6:25-34). If Jesus tells us not to be anxious, then he’s telling us it’s possible to not be anxious. Which means anxiousness is usually a sin. Taking drugs to relax your anxiety may make you feel better, but it doesn’t relieve the underlying issue. If the Bible calls something out as a sin, you can be assured it gives a method for dealing with it (for this example see Matt. 6 and Phil. 4). If you are properly responding to the emotions you have, drugs may be able to help you get through these hard moments… but the most important thing is that you are actively taking the right steps in response to God. (However, as pointed to above the drugs don’t seem to actually work. Charles Hodges recommends that the best approach when experiencing emotional issues is to get a physical with your primary care physician to make sure there are no health issues and see a good counselor at the same time.)

I do not wish to make lite of anxiety or any other issue, unfortunately, a full treatment on the Biblical answer to this issue is outside the scope of this article. All of our emotions serve a purpose at different times in our lives (Eccles. 3:1-8), but some of our emotions are more known for leading us down a sinful path. If you are struggling with anxiety, both of these books have been highly recommended to me: Elyse Fitzpatrick’s book Overcoming Fear, Worry, and Anxiety and Ed Welch’s book Running Scared. Please know too that reading a book will not be an instant solution. You can’t microwave change. Change is a slow process; you’re making a bouillabaisse here. (Traditionally, bouillabaisse takes 72 hours to make, making it one of the most time-intensive meals to prepare.)

By calling sadness “depression” or restlessness “attention deficit disorder” it secretly imputes biological causes for which there is no evidence.

~ Eric R Maisel Ph.D. in The Great DSM Hoax

The unpleasant emotions we feel (anxiety, guilt, dejectedness, anger, et cetera) are warning signs for us to change our behavior. Just like the feeling of physical pain tells us to remove our hand from the stove before severe damage is done, negative emotions tell us to change our actions before our spirit is harmed. We need to listen to our emotions and react appropriately.

There’s a story I heard recently about a woman who had a particularly hard pregnancy and she went into postpartum depression. She went to the doctor not knowing what was wrong, and the doctor prescribed her antidepressants. Which led her into a cycle of trying to find the best drug, but none of them were working. After a long series of attempts and failures to fix the problem, she went to see a Christian Counselor (who also happened to be a gynecologist). She explained to him how her trip through antidepressants began and that they weren’t working, and he exclaimed “they’re not working because there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s perfectly natural for you to be feeling those feelings given what you’ve been through.”

When tough emotions hit, one of the most important things we can do is work through them.

Conclusion

The idea that mental health issues are all chemical imbalances of the brain is not a view held by many psychiatric experts, and it ought to be abandoned by the world at large. Science does not support a biological cause to most mental health issues. Given that, when we are feeling negative emotions, we should keep in mind that this is part of life. We all have highs and lows, so the best thing to do is seek out godly counsel to help us through the toughest lows in our lives.

Of the three Christian views on counseling outlined above, I side most closely with the third (Scripture has an answer for our negative emotions). I think it lines up most accurately with what the Bible has to say and with real-life experiences. However, I do think there are some physical ailments that can lead to mental health issues. For instance, if your thyroid has been damaged, you are more prone to feelings of depression and lethargy. It will take a medical doctor to help fix that damage, and not a counselor. During that medical treatment, both kinds of professionals can work together to help you through your toughest spots. That said, physically caused mental health issues are pretty rare, most people experiencing these emotionally driven mental health issues will find that they are caused by some kind of loss or hurt done to them.

Christian Counseling isn’t so concerned with the emotions you’re feeling as it is with how you respond to them. If the Bible lays out a method for solving an issue you are facing and you believe in God, you have a clear path for what you must do. Follow the path God has laid out before you! If you don’t believe in God, you still have hope; hope found in relationship with Jesus Christ and the redeeming work of his life, death, and resurrection. If you’d like to know more about what having a relationship with Jesus means, please contact me, I’d love to talk to you about it.

Additional Resources (besides those linked above):

12 Shocking Facts About the Dangers of Psychiatric Drugs by Dr. Edward Group DC, NP, DACBN, DCBCN, DABFM

Are Psychiatrists Stuck in the Past or Do We Still Not Know Much About Mental Health by Lana Gilbert

A Theology of Christian Counseling by Jay E. Adams

Christian Counseling from PBS (Not a fan of this source, I don’t think the counseling here is presented in a way consistent with Scripture)

Christians, Psychotropic Drugs, and Biblical Counseling by the podcast Care & Discipleship

Dangers Related to Psychotropic Drugs from Dr. Josh Axe DNM, DC, CNS

Good Mood Bad Mood by Charles D. Hodges, M.D.

New Clue to How Lithium Works in the Brain from MIT News

Psychedelic Mushrooms Help Your Brain by Stephanie Larsen

Psychiatric Disorders: A biblical approach to understanding complex problems from CCEF

Psychology & Christianity Five Views edited by Eric L. Johnson

Review: The 21st Century Brain 2005 by John McCrone

Stereothreat by the podcast Radiolab

The Fix by the podcast Radiolab (I’ve listened to the last 2-3 years of their podcasts over the last few months, but this one is relevant to this conversation.)

The 21st Century Brain by Chris Nunn

The Work Required to have an Opinion by Charles Munger, Psychologist

On Self-Criticism

Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one-one that would do nobody any harm.

In February 1931, Francis Crowley and two of his friends went to a party in New York, sans invitation.  After a while, some men proceeded to remove them from the party, and in reaction, Crowley pulled out a gun and shot two men before departing.  A warrant went out for his arrest under the charge of attempted murder, and Crowley went into hiding.  Several months later, police found and confronted him, but he shot one of the detectives and got away.  Later, he broke into a house and shot the owner five times using two guns, giving him the nickname “Two Gun” Crowley.  Just three months after this story began, Crowley was sitting in a parked car with his girl, when a pair of police officers came up and asked him for ID, Crowley drew on the officer and killed one and wounded the other.  The following day, the police surrounded his hideout and fired tear gas and bullets into it, trying to drive him out.  While resisting their efforts to capture him, he wrote: “To whom it may concern, under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one-one that would do nobody any harm.”  It seems crazy, doesn’t it?  How could he believe so earnestly that he could “do nobody any harm” when he had shot several people and killed another?

As crazy as it sounds, you’ve seen this kind of behavior before.  Haven’t you?  Someone you know has done something remarkably foolish, but they can only regard it based on their intent.  The fallout of their actions was not their intent; they had no intention of events unraveling as they did.  So they blind their senses and tell everyone they did the best they could have.  Sometimes they go as far as saying they did no wrong.  Crowley shot six people and yet he regarded himself as someone who wouldn’t harm nobody.

Al Capone, one of the greatest mobsters of all time, is quoted as saying:

I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping people have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.

Think about that for a moment.  Here’s someone who organized crime, killed police and citizens, and couldn’t fathom why anyone would be hunting him down.

In politics, we see this same principle with Rosevelt.  Theodore Rosevelt broke up the Republican party in the early 1900s when he got into a tiff with Taft.  He started the Bull Moose Party and ran against him.  The consequence was that the votes were split and the democrats won.  In the end, Rosevelt could only say: “I don’t see how I could have done any differently from what I have.”  His actions ensured that the democratic party would take office as he split the votes of the republicans, but instead of acknowledging that he could only say he did no wrong.  Now I’m not saying that Rosevelt was in the wrong for running against his party, he may very well have been right.  But his intent ensured that someone he felt worse about being in office took office.  The point I’m making here is that doing what you feel is right, may result in something very wrong happening.  (This is also not a commentary on Woodrow Wilson, who did enact some great changes to this country.)

Many great disasters have come in the wake of some person or another not examining themselves.  Their inability or inaction to judge their own mind and heart and see where they were going wrong led them into peril.  When faced with the self-justification of villains, criminals, and politicians how can we continue down the same path?

It’s not easy to examine ourselves, is it?  In one way or another, we’ve all made the mistake of pursuing one goal and totally botching it in the method we pursued.  I know one guy, who wanting to stay in touch with a particularly flaky friend (let’s call him Ben), would call and leave voicemails expressing a desire to talk to him.  When Ben didn’t return the calls, likely due to the busyness of college, homework, making new friends and life, he added a joking line at the end of voicemail.  That line when something along the lines “Call me back or I’m going to come down there.”  He thought it was particularly funny because he wasn’t a violent sort, and his presence wouldn’t normally be seen as a threat.  And he chuckled to himself thinking about how he might not return the phone call because Ben wished to see him in person.  As time went on, he still received no return call.  His voice mails got sassier and the joke more physical and in the end, Ben communicated to a mutual friend, that he had no interest in talking to someone who threatened him.  And that, dear reader, is how I lost my first high school friend.  My joke wasn’t funny, and I didn’t realize it until it was too late.  I certainly analyzed many of my actions at that point in my life, but in regards to Ben, I wasn’t analyzing them well enough.

So what’s the solution?  I believe it’s threefold.  1) We must be analyzing our actions and making sure that they are working in the way they are intended and that there is little to no room for them to go wrong. Or as “Mad-Eye” Moody would say:

Vigilance, Constant Vigilance!

2) We must include friends and family in our criticism process.  We must give our trusted allies the freedom and permission to call us out when we err.  Getting self-defensive only serves to further hamper our growth and our ability to affect the changes we want to see in the world.  For the Christian, this principle is not only common sense, but a command from God.  Matthew 18:15 states:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

The implication is that there will be times when you need to point out the error of your friend’s ways.  And the further truth of that, is that there are times you will need to be corrected for wronging your friend.  Each one of us, from time to time, needs to be stopped, and pointed back in a proper and good direction.

3) We must acknowledge when we screw up and properly apologize for it.  I’m not talking about saying: “I’m sorry” as those words mean virtually nothing in today’s world.  I’m talking about a full-on apology.  Where we admit where we wronged the person, tell them why it was wrong, and earnestly promise to not repeat that behavior.  That threefold apology will mean much more to them than saying “I’m sorry” or worse “I’m sorry you feel that way.” A proper apology also restores a relationship to a better place than it was before.

There is, perhaps, a fourth aspect to this process.  It seems so obvious to me, I didn’t even become aware of its necessity until I pondered how various different people might respond to reading this blog post.  And that is that each person must have a standard to which they are trying to attain.  Without a standard, there is no way to measure success or failure in your day-to-day interactions and no guide for your friends to use in keeping you accountable.  For the Christian, this standard is Jesus and living a life as perfect as His.  For my non-Christian friends, I’d be curious what that standard of living is.  I know you wish to grow and become a better person, but what is the standard by which you measure goodness?  What is the standard by which your friends can hold you accountable and you can measure success or failure and become a better person?

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:38

I’ve been mulling this over for a few years now.  I see people going down the wrong path, and posting about it proudly on Facebook or talking about it in social settings.  And I, being only an acquaintance, do not feel I have any place pointing out that their actions are working against their best interests.  It was only when I picked up a book the other day, How to Win Friends and Influence People, that I felt I had to speak out.  The author shares all the stories I listed above and he makes the point that people don’t take criticism well.  If we want to help fix their errant behavior, it is better to get there by asking questions and being gentle than to confront them face to face.  There’s truth in that.  Don’t we find it easier to change if we feel we are the ones that started the thought process ourselves?  But I also think that these stories point to another truth, that if we want to be good and admirable people, we must also be willing to take criticism face to face, and that process begins within.