Off the Shelf January 2008

OFF THE SHELF THE LOSS OF SADNESS

By Allan V. Horowitz and Jerome C. Wakefield Oxford University Press Reviewed by Terry Cooper Christians in the grip of wrenching life changes often experience insomnia, fatigue, sadness, concentration difficulties, and loss of appetite for food, sex, and leisure. From the perspective of many contemporary teachings/preaching on suffering, one might ask whether such people are sinfully weak or simply lacking faith. How local churches answer this question impacts how they respond to believers experiencing disabling, longterm sadness.

Many psychiatrists would find such a question irrelevant, trained as they are to diagnose such persons as depressed clients needing therapy and medication.

But whether the perspective is from the preacher’s pulpit or the therapist’s couch, the typical assumption is that the manifestations of intense sadness are remediable conditions to be alleviated as soon as possible.

In The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder, Allen Horowitz and Jerome Wakefield focus on psychiatry’s response to sadness arising from normative life experiences. They argue that clinically treating all sadness as a remediable condition has led to an unintended consequence—we don’t learn from normal life sadness because we focus on relief from symptoms rather than reflecting on how to learn from an experience.

Horowitz and Wakefield contend that standard diagnoses of depression do not clearly distinguish between clinical depression and “expectable reactions to situational contexts.” In layman’s language, when life sucks, we’re usually just sad, not sick. While we may need some temporary professional help in dealing

with the events, we should try to learn from our feelings, not anesthetize them.

The authors make a well-documented, persuasive case for re-examining the differences between depression and normative sadness. They call for a more nuanced discussion between psychiatrists and their peers and patients.

Since this book is essentially an “insider” argument written for mental health professionals, what use is it to PRISM readers? Simply this: The fact that so many Christians view all sadness as evil means that a lot of us rarely experience the joy of emerging from the valley’s darkness into the light that emanates from the throne. This limits our ability to walk empathically and assuredly alongside others who are in the darkness; thus too many are stumbling alone in the dark, with no hand to help them. Medication can ease the pain of the darkness, but it is no substitute for an experienced, compassionate companion who knows where the light is to be found.

Consider the heart of God as he views his saddest children—created for communion with him and endowed with gifts of mind, body, and spirit—as they

struggle through life’s significant challenges. Whether their struggles are relational, financial, or physical, consider how difficult it is for people to share their fear, sorrow, and anxiety within a congregation filled with smiling people who readily proclaim the victorious Christian life. Consider the children sitting restlessly in the pew beside their overwhelmed parents, filled with anxiety about uncertain futures. Finally, consider how many such broken hearts sit in your sanctuary every Sunday morning.

Is your church mindfully working to come alongside such broken hearts?

Or has it become what John McKnight calls a “careless community” (The Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits, Basic Books, 1995), a church whose rituals and relationships have become so circumscribed and superficial that the hurting in your midst have been all but abandoned to the care of “professionals”?

Let’s assume Horowitz and Wakefield are correct in their claim that the broken hearts of many are being diagnosed and treated as mental illness rather than being embraced, loved, and walked alongside by the church. Assume the authors succeed in transforming the mental health system so that only genuine illness is treated.Where will people needing the support of transformative relationships then go? Will burdened hearts know to seek them in the sanctuary and hallways of your church? Is it safe to be sad in your congregation?

Next Sunday, observe those in the pew around you. What is their body language saying? Are they at ease? Or are they restless, tense, and closed off? If so, will you seek to come alongside them and provide a ready ear and a welcoming spirit? Or will you just slip them the name of a good psychiatrist? ■ Terry Cooper is director of Cal Farley’s Institute for Child & Family Asset Development and a member ofWestminster Presbyterian Church, both in Amarillo, Tex.

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JUSTICE IN THE BURBS

By Will & Lisa Samson Baker Books Reviewed by Phil Olson I feel eminently qualified to review Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live. Like its authors, Will and Lisa Samson, I grew up in suburban churches and continue to participate in suburban life and culture. The congregation I pastor is America’s oldest (since 1966) of any denomination residing in that supreme symbol of suburbia: the mall.

Justice in the Burbs features short chapters in three parts: a narrative that follows a fictitious family’s plunge into justice ministry; a theological and historical discourse by the Samsons on justice issues; and a series of meditations by authors such as Brian McLaren, Len Sweet, Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, Christine Sine, and Luci Shaw.

As the Samsons correctly observe, “The majority of the American church in the 21st century preaches a perspective on God that fails to incorporate issues of justice.” In spite of their insistence that this is not a “how-to book,” the authors do provide some modest, practical suggestions on how to take initial steps towards engaging issues of (in)justice.

They strongly advocate practicing principles of Christian stewardship and advise justice-seekers not to look for quick fixes when a long-haul approach is warranted.

I have several concerns about Burbs.

The definition it offers of justice— “acting right in our relationships, as determining how we stand in relation to others in our world”—could be anybody’s definition; there is nothing uniquely biblical about it. It is also an extremely individual/personal justice and excludes any understanding of the corporate/ systemic variety. The book contains sev-

eral inaccuracies and outdated data and occasionally passes off cliché as theology (for example, saying they consider that tired ’70s slogan “bloom where you are planted” to be a “deeply theological statement”).

On the whole, Burbs is an adequate first step for novices, who will appreciate the discussion questions at the end of the book. As the authors observe, “It is hard for suburbanites to connect with issues of justice.” Hard, but not impossible. While reading the book, this suburban pastor was prepping for a Bridge of Hope National informational meeting to address the needs of single homeless moms, drafting an outline for a workshop at the forthcoming CCDA conference, teaching a “Growing Holistic Congregations” class at Palmer Seminary, preaching on missional themes in the book of Acts, and taking several road trips to investigate models of homeless shelters. Justice work can be done, even in the ’burbs. ■ Phil Olson (revphil@churchonthemall.com) is the pastor of Church on the Mall in suburban Philadelphia.

MOTHER TERESA: COME BE MY LIGHT

By Mother Teresa (Brian Kolodiejchuk, ed.)

Doubleday Reviewed by Laura Bramon Good Come Be My Light:The Private Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta” chronicles Mother Teresa’s love for Christ, from brazen ardor to the “dark night of the soul” that settled over her for almost 50 years. Her public vow as a Loreto sister and her private vow of absolute obedience to God prefaced an ecstatic mystical encounter with Christ himself.

On September 10, 1946, which she would come to call her Inspiration Day, Mother Teresa heard Christ speak to her while she traveled by train to Darjeeling, India. In the sweaty press and heat of a third-class rail car, he called her to satiate his thirst on the cross by serving him in his “distressing disguise” as the poorest of the poor. She described the experience in one of her letters:“‘I thirst,’ Jesus said on the cross when Jesus was deprived of every consolation, dying in absolute Poverty, left alone, despised and broken in body and soul. He spoke of His thirst—not for water—but for love, for sacrifice.”

What began as one woman’s call to bring the succor and conversion of Christ “to the holes” of Calcutta’s poorest slums grew into the Missionaries of Charity, a Catholic order known today for its meditative and radically incarnational life of service among the impoverished, the infirm, the HIV/AIDS-infected, and others who constitute today’s “untouchables.”

While Mother Teresa’s public life was characterized by tenderly comic moments when the tiny nun shared podiums with Bono, Bill Clinton, and other luminaries, her private spiritual life, which she revealed to only a few confessors and

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friends, was distinguished by a visceral loneliness for God. As Come Be My Light draws the reader more deeply into Mother Teresa’s dark night, one begins to wonder what kind of Bridegroom would subject his “little spouse,” as she called herself, to such anguish and doubt regarding his own love for her. So great is her pain that Mother Teresa’s unfailing fidelity to him feels at times almost painfully absurd.

What might make her dark night so difficult for readers to comprehend is that Kolodiejchuk, as editor and spiritual biographer, never equates her experiences with depression, angst, or any other emotional experience with which the average reader might find currency. Private letters to and from Catholic priests with whom she shared her sins, fears, and the most intimate details of her interior life show that Mother Teresa’s spirituality had very little to do with the comfort, fellowship, or cultural coddling that can attend modern religious life. Her longing was for spiritual union with Christ, and her agony at separation was made bearable by the primal rhythms of poverty, Mass, and self-abnegation, includ-

ing several hours each day devoted to prayer and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Her letters show that ritual was less of an obligation for Mother Teresa and more of a lifeline. She truly believed that her life was immolation, a mystical oneness with and service to the Christ of the passion and resurrection, and she believed that in giving herself up to a kind of Gethsemane communion, she could save souls to Christ. She instructed her sisters: “Tell Jesus, ‘I will be the one.’ I will comfort, encourage, and love Him ... Be with Jesus. He prayed and prayed, and then he went to look for consolation, but there was none ... Try to be the one to share with Him, to comfort Him, to console Him.” The book’s extensive endnotes come in handy when trying to piece together the spiritual logic by which Mother Teresa lived. Particularly helpful are references from The Three Ages of the Interior Life, which describe Mother Teresa’s experience of “reparatory night” as a stage in which “[spiritual] life-savers struggle ... sometimes for years in order to snatch souls from eternal death; in a way, these reparative souls must resist the temptations of the souls they seek to save that they may come efficaciously to their assistance.”

Mother Teresa’s odyssey of ecstatic sacrifice remains mysterious: at once inspiring and repulsive, comforting and confounding. “I thirst,” reads an inscription beside the crucifix in every Missionaries of Charity chapel, and from the pages of Mother Teresa’s private writings, Christ’s words still echo back. ■

SHAKING THE SYSTEM

By Tim Stafford InterVarsity Press Reviewed by John Fea As a professor at a college with a tradition of promoting social justice, I encounter a lot of students who want to change the world. Unfortunately, few of them enroll in my classes. I am, after all, a history professor—and the study of the past, my students believe, is not very useful for budding world-changers.

Tim Stafford would agree that such an attitude is unfortunate. One of the best ways to be effective at changing society, he asserts in Shaking the System: What I Learned from the Great American Reform Movements, is to study history. When we dig into the past we realize that our activism is part of a vibrant tradition of American reform. We are part of something larger than ourselves. Such a realization should humble us, but humility is a virtue that Stafford claims is “in short supply in activist movements.”

Stafford tells stories about four major reform movements in American histo-

As part of a Word Made Flesh servant team, Laura Bramon Good spent four months volunteering at Missionaries of Charity’s El Alto, Bolivia, home for the ill and elderly. Today she works on human trafficking issues for the federal government.

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ry—abolitionism, prohibition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights—and shares the lessons he has learned from studying them.

For example, abolitionists and civil rights workers teach us that activism must be rooted in truth (that slavery and racism are sins). Yet the fact that we live in a fallen world means that many will not be willing to embrace the truth. History reminds us to be prepared for this type of resistance.

Many reform movements have also been seduced by violence. Carry Nation’s practice of vandalizing local saloons and John Brown’s arming of slaves at Harper’s Ferry are just two examples of social activism taken to violent extremes. Stafford is correct when he reminds us that few of these reform movements had any staying power. In the case of Brown, his extremism was partly responsible for a bloody Civil War. History also offers some models for engaging politics.William Lloyd Garrison, perhaps the abolitionist movement’s greatest prophet, refused to participate in the political system because he believed it to be corrupted by sin and compromise.

(He burned the U.S. Constitution because it allowed for slavery). Others tried to form political parties devoted to single issues, but few succeeded. Still others, such as Martin Luther King Jr., appealed to those in power but realized that politicians are in the habit of supporting social change only when it helps them win re-election.

It is refreshing to find a popular Christian history book that engages both the successes and the failures of those who sought to live their faith in the world, but Shaking the System leaves us wanting more. Stafford entices us with discussions of the role of spiritual community and the place of the “Kingdom of God” in the history of American activism, but he never develops these ideas. A bit more on how the lessons of the reformers apply to some of today’s pressing social concerns—such as abor-

tion or poverty—might also be helpful.

In the end, we need more books like this—studies that challenge Christians to look backward for help in moving society forward. ■

explaining anecdotally that without an intimate bond with the Holy Spirit, efforts to further the kingdom would be fruitless. His pragmatic approach and use of storytelling will appeal to those seeking to balance their relationship with God John Fea teaches American history at Messiah with making a difference in the world.

College in Grantham, Pa. Then Darling takes the baton, moving from storytelling into methodology.

She shares her desire as a young evanTHE GOD OF INTIMACY gelical Christian to be more connected AND ACTION with God and her discovery of the usefulness of spiritual training in contemBy Tony Campolo plative exercises. I found myself particand Mary Albert Darling ularly caught up in the section discussing Jossey-Bass “examen prayer,” in which a person examines her own soul, confessing shortReviewed by Jeff Goins comings and reflecting on Christlike accomplishments. The intention is neiCampolo and Darling ther self-deprecation nor elevation of one’s team up in The God of ego; rather, it is a prayerful inventory of Intimacy and Action: each day.

Reconnecting Ancient As an evangelical, I find that I occaSpiritual Practices, sionally get burnt out on prayer. Darling Evangelism, and Justice gave me a list of options long enough that to bring readers the I should not be bored for a while. She “holistic gospel,” a does a great job of pointing the reader to union of mystical grace, emphasizing that one does not do encounters with Christ and essential these exercises to win favor with God. action. Pointing to both Catholics and The disciplines she shares are detailed and Protestants whose proactive impact on for some may be tedious to read, but her society was fueled by their intimate description is ultimately helpful. relationship with their Creator, they highThe book ends with a warning from light mystics such as St. Francis of Assisi both authors not to get caught up in and political reformers such as Martin “narcissistic spirituality” or to attempt to Luther King Jr. serve humanity without a spirit of love.

The two authors complement one They share a final admonition to get another: Campolo, a prominent Christian involved in community, and they give a advocate for the poor, explains the why list of some modern monastic movements of evangelical mysticism; Darling, a that are practicing these disciplines Protestant trained in the Jesuit tradi- together. tion, explains the how.

This book is refreshing and challengCampolo begins the book with an ing; it connects the reader with practices outline of mystical Christianity. He then long forgotten by American Christianity describes certain encounters that evan- and points someone seeking a deeper walk gelicals have experienced but do not to fruitful methods of receiving God’s recognize as mystical, such as “new grace without delving into legalism. ■ insights” from a familiar passage of scripture. In the following chapters, he shares Jeff Goins is an editor at WreckedForThe his heart for evangelism and social justice, Ordinary.com.

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