Psycho-Clergy?

A bit of fiction...

The sweat dripped from the General's helmet. Black, sooty tendrils curled around his horse's legs and clung to their leather strappings. Just before dawn, the wind had changed, and his scouts had caught a whiff of the fires. Now the sun was high overhead and, driven by a dry wind, the snaking lines of grass-fire had quickly encircled the hill where his army stood in battle columns. They had drank the last of the water early yesterday, and now the heat and smoke was pushing them to the brink of dehydration. 

His chestnut warhorse shuffled nervously. Gereral Ma Su squinted, his eyes stinging from the acrid air. The humiliation now seemed inevitable. He had been sent to defend Jieting, the key supply center for the Northern campaign. Against the advice of his trusted friend, he had chosen to take the high ground instead of fortifying the walled city in the nearby valley. He had been so sure of himself, so hungry for glory that he had not even entertained the idea that the victory would take more than a day. The enemy had shown more cunning, choosing to surround them at the plateau just below the only approach to the hill. Then, if he had chosen to attack, the plateau would have nullified the high ground advantage and caused his men to be fighting on three sides as they spilled out from the ridge lines. The few skirmishes he had ordered to try to break the enemy lines had confirmed this, and now they were penned in like sheep. If only he had listened to his advisor! The valley had plentiful fountains and, with the open plains around the walled city, it was not difficult to defend. But he had severely misunderstood the terrain. 

Sighing, he tightened the straps on his helmet, and twisted in the saddle to the line of grim-faced veterans behind him. He narrowed his eyes, scanning up and down the lines of fire. There! There was a gap in the blackened earth! He nudged his mount forward and nodded to the signallers. One last charge...

The Aftermath:

In the decisive defeat that ensued in AD 228, General Ma Su was captured and returned to the capitol in shame. Eventually, it emerged that due to his insistence on taking the textbook "high ground advantage", he failed to defend the supply center, which in turn caused the collapse of the whole Northern campaign. The Emperor had no choice but to order his execution.

Fighting the Battle and Knowing the Battlefield:

Understanding the battlefield and fighting the fight are two separate things, but they cannot be separated. It seems to me that, with psychology alone, I might understand facets of the battlefield of your mind (although without the Bible, I am unable to define absolute normality or even identify the sides). Indeed, I might perhaps begin to grasp the the terrain and the natural obstacles, the high ground and the water supply points for my army. But knowing the lay of the land is not on the same dimension as winning battles - information is not application.

I think you still need the bible to carry out the actual warfare - the day-to-day trial of displacing the defeated but yet entrenched army of sin, relying on the Holy Spirit to burn the dross from your desires, and re-calibrating your thoughts to reflect the mind of Christ, etc.. But perhaps psychological understanding and tools help us understand the battlefield of the mind?

Conversely, can one do with the Bible alone? Yes, it seems. "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate,equipped for every good work." - 2 Tim 3:16-17 NASB. Therefore, the application of biblical principles under the expert blade of the Holy Surgeon must be enough for righteous living. So is there any scope for extra-biblical helps?

David Entwhistle does shed some light here. He brings up the fact that people were "doing" psychology before Psychology (the formal academic field) was invented (in the 19th Century). And more so, he continues to press, that it was the pastors using their bibles to improve the emotional and mental health of their parishioners! I can agree with his observation because in my reading of a couple of older texts, like Augustine's Confessions and Richard Foster's "Spiritual Life as Journey" (he's not dead but he reviews a selection of the contemplative/mystic saints), I do notice that great Christian thinkers from all ages seem to have been, in one sense, psychologists - in that to some extent they were seeking to unravel the workings of the human mind. An immediate example to memory is that of Evagrius (8th Century). He was a prominent clergy but fell into an affair with a married woman. Afraid of discovery and torn by guilt, he eventually found solace as a monk in a monastery. In what seemed like his attempt to understand his own sin and how subtly he fell into it, he penned the 8 Deadly Thoughts that eventually became the 7 Deadly Sins. You could say that it was his attempt to model and categorise the mental, emotional and spiritual processes that governed behavior, identifying the root causes and the visible presentations. Perhaps his view was to identify the root cause early so as to nip it in the bud before it can manifest in destructive behavior. He sounds like he could write a psych textbook! 

So Entwhistle has a very interesting observation - that clergy were psychologists long before Psychology emerged as we know it. He seems to conclude that when it comes to the pastor caring for church members, psychology does indeed overlap heavily with the Scriptures. Perhaps then, a very careful study of Scripture (with insight of course) might do much more for the Christian seeking to help others than a primer on psychotherapy!

But, why does it seem that psychological tools been rejected by many Christians? I do actually have friends who look at you suspiciously when you bring up counselling books (although they tend to be the older folk).

Next post - the apparent gulf between Psychology and the Faith...