Transgressive Liturgy. An Analysis of the Article

In our Adult Sunday School class, we're studying an article by James Hitchcock. In this article, the "therapuetic mentality" and its affect on American culture and Roman Catholic worship is addressed.

The controversy over Christianity and Psychology isn't a new one. I had a painful round of this myself when I was a young man at Biola University.

I remember well the book by Bob and Diedra Bobgan called "Psychoheresy." I remember well the "Nothing Buttery" approach to Christian counseling which was "use only the Bible." I remember books by Paul Vietz like "Psychology as Religion, the Cult of Self-Worship."

I also remember the other camp: Rosemead School of Psychology. The Integration of Faith and Learning. "Spoiling the Egyptians," and so on.

One of the primary psychological schools of thought used at Rosemead was the Rogerian model. So the counselling used was referred to as "neo-Rogerian." They also used "free-association" therapy. They didn't use the "Behaviorist" approach like others at the time (Dr. D. James Dobson comes to mind here). Instructors at Rosemead referred to all the founders of modern psychology, including Sigmund Frued.

Rosemead and those sympathetic to the school were strongly opposed by other protestant factions like devotees of Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church and The Master's College. Additional student factions who opposed or who frowned on this mixture of "christianity" and psychotherapy were members of The Navigators on campus and students who were members of a local Pentecostal church called "Believer's Fellowship."

The controversy grew so intense that those who opposed any mixture of christianity and psychology refused to eat with members of the other faction, considering them to be on the road to "final apostasy."

In this atmosphere, anyone with real personal problems was going to get creamed by the one side and confused by the other side.

It may well be a good idea for Orthodox Christians to be strongly opposed to the field of pychology, the so-called "therapuetic culture." But filtering psychological analysis and ideas through the lense of Orthodoxy might also be useful if we can keep the influence of psychology from changing any aspect of our Orthodox faith in the process. Many say that psychology is good at labelling problems and issues but impotent when it comes to real and lasting solutions.

And then there is the matter of psychology v.s. psychiatry, or so called physical diseases and chemical imbalances that affect the brain. My personal opinion about PHYSICAL disorders such as "Bi-Polar" disorder, for instance is that they should be treated with the best medicines available under the care of the best physicians available. Bi-Polar disorder is a PSYCHIATRIC issue, not a "therapuetic" issue.

It's a common error to confuse Phychology with Psychiatry, and this error should be beyond Orthodox Christians.

Nevertheless any "Bi-Polar" person who is an Orthodox Christian is still responsible to resist the evil passions of his or her mood swings and thereby lessen the extent and effect of this disorder. No person is a helpless pawn. God has given us the gift of Free Will, even if that will is weakened by illness. Orthodox Christians believe that no one has been created with an immutable nature. Everyone can change for the better. Total Depravity and Double Presdestination are protestant ideas we Orthodox don't suscribe to at all. Nothing is inevitable when you are an Orthodox Christian.

Resisting Bi-Polar mood swings through medicine and the disciplines of our Holy Faith is the responsible and fully human thing to do, and becoming truly human is what Orthodox Christianity is all about.

In future posts as time permits, I may delve into greater detail about this thought provoking Transgressive Liturgy article we're studying. There are many wonderful thoughts expressed within this article. But it is also very hard-hitting.

Again, in my humble opinion, you draw more bees with honey than with vinegar.

We need to do our duty, as the article suggests but as John Eldredge has said there are ways to do our duty without killing our hearts in the process.

Our adult Sunday School teacher recently stated that true happiness is a by-product of doing our Christian duty, as the Transgressive Liturgy article suggests. I found this to be a most agreeable addition on his part, softening the hard edges of the article a bit.

So I believe a sound approach is to resist the abuses of the therapuetic culture without losing our hearts in the process. This is the essence of being "watchful" as our teacher admonished us to do in the best tradition of "hesychast" Orthodox spirituality.

Forgive me,

Columba Silouan