umcblog.com

Psychology and Religion
Tom Faggart

The subconscious mind looms large in our lives. It sets the tone for our emotions and gives comfort or discomfort to our beliefs and decisions. Only when there is agreement between the mind and the subconscious do we make decisions which make us comfortable. It is only when we make a conscious decision to be a Christian with our mind, and with our subconscious that true faith is realized.

I learned in 55 years of counseling that all of our life experiences are filed away in our subconscious. Childhood experiences lie dormant in our subconscious only to come to the fore during stress and make our lives miserable. Anxiety and depression are often caused by unpleasant experiences of childhood. These experiences may be information we are taught, real life encounters … anything that we see, hear, touch or taste exists is filed away in our subconscious and influence us the rest of our lives.

Jane was a school teacher with a Masters Degree. She was a member of our church but was having trouble some faith issues. She came to talk about her issues. Out of no where she said her biggest problem was thinking of God as a father figure. My response was a question: What kind of relationship did you have with your father? Tears came to her eyes and she tried to evade the question. Why would you ask a question like that?, she asked. My father was an abusive person. He abused me almost every way one could imagine. Our relationship with our father often sets the tone for our God relationship, I responded.
I responded that God was not human. God is a spirit. A spirit whose essence is love. Love meaning he wants for everyone of us the very best. Can you think of a Spirit, I asked. Never tried she replied. Think of God for what God is I challenged.

As she left worship the next Sunday she did something that was completely out of school for her. … She gave me a big hug and said….thank you!

Sunday School Teachers are asked to use caution when teaching children at Easter. Hanging a human being on a cross is not a pretty thing to contemplate. It is important to get the story right at the beginning. Jesus was killed by the government of his day as a criminal who taught beliefs they thought would lead to a political uprising and rebellion. His refusal to give up his beliefs death lead to his being killed for the truth he taught.

Teachers who teach Jesus died so His Father would forgive us of our sins are planting a seed that will plague a child without them knowing it for as long as they live if they don’t unearth it and think it through theologically.

What kind of father would require the death of his only son before he would forgive another person. How could we trust such a person? How could we ever love a God like that? Most people don’t realize this belief blames God for the death of Jesus.

Jesus did not die on the cross for our sins! We are saved by the Grace of God. It is a free gift for those who just want it. It comes from God’s love. God is not a being who has to be paid for his gifts to us, or bought off to refrain from sending bad things upon us.

I was 36 years old. Successful in my career. Entering my midlife. I went to what I thought was going to be a regular continuing education event dealing with my midlife passage.  In a group of 2 laywomen, 2 psychologists, and 10 male clergy my life was completely changed. For one whole week I worked on my psychological hang ups. I went there unknowingly afraid of women, and afraid of men. My subconscious sexual hang ups had me in a self imposed prison. As I worked on my “stuff” I discovered my hang ups and dealt with them. Something strange happened! Suddenly I loved everyone there! Never was I a hugger. Now I wanted to hug everyone. I felt lite on the inside. My fears and anxieties fled. I saw my Faith journey in a totally different light. The focus of my ministry sharpened, and others truly became my concern. My life was never the same after that week.

My ministry grew beyond my ability to comprehend, and so did my appointments. Being able to LOVE is the essence of the Faith. For me it came in dealing with myself. Theologically I now know the experience was spiritual. I was sanctified! For a few sacred months I lived in a wonder land of love. I grew rapidly for a couple of years. The door of my heart is still open and I continue to hunger for and seek the guidance of the Spirit. This has been my way of life for 36 years and I hope for many more.
Dr. Fredrick Herzog, theology professor at Duke Divinity School, used to teach …”the mind of Jesus was transparent to the mind of God.” This is the true translation of the first verse to the Gospel of John.
Consequently Jesus could proclaim that His teachings were “the way, the truth, and the life”. To Him there was only one rule of life …”Love of God, neighbor, and self”. Pure love casts out fear. Pure love wishes the best for everybody. It is not a sexual expression, even though, dealing with sex is often the door to this love. It is a recognition factor … a recognition of the existence of another human being. Sex outside of marriage destroys love. Too many church people get to this door and evil diverts them to shame, and self loathing. They are no longer able to love self, and consequently flunk the prime directive of Jesus, and distort the way all together. Aah, but to wish the best for a person is totally different. In this experience one delights in seeing them grow in the faith, and grow in their ability to handle the difficulties of life. Deep levels of trust develop and the gospel of the way is proven to be true.
Serious Christians seek this way. It consists of our commitment to Christ, allowing his love to penetrate our hearts, and allowing the Holy Spirit to direct our lives.
Out of my experience I discovered that there is within every Christian a hunger to know and to serve Christ. Every Christian wants to live in love. All of us want to recognize the Spirits presence. When we encourage each other to seek the Spirit and act on its directions we become the true church. Everyone shares ownership in it. Outsiders are all seeking the church. Be the church and your congregation will grow! This experience can not be programmed. It has to be practiced. It is as simple and as complicated as: “Receive a blessing, be a blessing”

Tom Faggart

Tom Faggart

Jesus approached this issue in his teachings.  You can only serve one master at a time.  Ie. Good and bad, moral and immoral, God and mammon are incapatible …you have to choose.

Salvation by Grace and sacrificial salvation are opposite poles of theological reality.  One can not embrace both at the same time.

Grace is a free gift of the love of God.  It proceeds from the heart of God without any conditions.  Man receives the gift and responds with love for God, Self, and others.  Love is a powerful motivator.  Because one is so blessed by God’s love they then strive to  live in love.  They help those in need  and empty themselves to deliver ministry  to all the places in society that need it.

Sacrificial salvation is God requiring a payment to Himself to forgive the sins of human beings.  God has to be appeased to forgive.  He choose to appease himself by killing his  Son Jesus Christ.  By Jesus dying we are saved.  This is totally opposite of a God who gave salvation by Grace without any restrictions.  People who subscribe to this doctrine seem to live at this beginning place all the time.  Most seem to be judgemental and do not want to associate with people who disagree with them.

These two  concepts cannot  be logically held together.  One has to  embrace the one and dislike the other in order to be normal psychologically.  Embrace them both and one winds up with a muddled mishmash of illogically held premises.  People become confused and really can not make progress in their faith.   The insanity of it all is they are not aware of the conflicts in their foundations of faith because the one’s who preach such say it is a sin to question.  Therefore in a submissive attitude these people form the church and follow the human need for power and control. 

The historical fact is Jesus was killed because he called to question the acts produced by sacrificial salvation.   The power group who controlled religion in his day killed him.   Our salvation is wrapped up in this drama  only in that  he died to validate what he had preached and done in his life.  For it to become the norm for any modern religion is incomprehensible.

Are your theological interpretations of the faith
growing?

For thirty  of the forty years I served the church in an appointment
by Annual Conference I served on a Board of the ministry.  The
responsibility of  the board was to ascertain when a candidate  was
ready for ordination.  Most candidates began their seven year pilgrimage
with a childhood interpretation of the faith.  Most of them grew
considerably over those years in their theological concepts.  The reason
they grew was the boards insistent on thinking theologically.  Thinking
people are growing, maturing individuals worthy of leadership.  Most of
the people who move upwards in the ministry are individuals who are these
maturing people. 

One of the best ways to  grow is to share your thoughts on the faith with
your peers.  Most of us have views of the faith that differ from each
other.  In discussing our thoughts we grow.    One of the
tragedies of the ministry is that we stay to busy with our work that we have
little time for reflection.  Without reflection our sermons become filler
material and bore our congregations to death.  More and more empty
spaces appear in our sanctuaries.  In fact our churches are dying because
of combination of boredom and rejection. 

In challenging the minds of our people we enable their faith to become a living
reality.  Several years ago I received a telephone call from an individual
from a church that I had served 30  years before.  His question that
he was afraid to ask his pastor was a statement  …  “Tom Jesus
was not  God  … was he?”    The man who was asking
this question was in his seventies.  He was the most successful
businessman in town.  I knew he was always trying to figure out how to
make a buck,  but I was completely surprised that he was engaged in
serious theological thinking.  Undoubtedly his pastor was not because he
did not feel free in asking him this question.  

If you are not struggling with your theology and preaching that struggle you
are cheating yourself and your congregation.  Few clergy wind up serving
their seminary professors as pastor.  I had that responsibility  
about 25  years into my career.  The man who taught me theology in
seminary  invited me out to lunch and in our conversation shared his
pleasure in finding a student of his who had taken the theological
enterprise  seriously.   We spent the rest of our time together
discussing our individual struggles.

When I started this blog site I had the hope that it would become a place where
clergy could and would share their own struggles with the faith.  It is in
sharing our differences that we grow.  Each one of us has thoughts that
could help another become a stronger preacher, person, and leader in the
church.