Intentionality Of The Heart
First, a confession: I gulped when the editorial team assigned me this article. They spoke bluntly: “Every church lobby should have a sign that says, ‘Go downstairs for change; stay upstairs to stay the same.’” When I winced, they explained that while real change happens in twelve-step programs, there seems to be a lack of change happening in the sanctuary. Finally one editor said, “We want to focus on the fact that there’s real honesty and acceptance in the basement (where Alcoholics Anonymous, otherwise known as A.A., meets) as well as an understanding that transformation has to be worked out.”
I’ve believed these things for decades, but I never expected a Christian magazine to address this topic. So hold on to your hat while we examine the grace-drenched content, approaches, and methods of the twelve-step movement that facilitate a radical change of life for narcotics users and neurotics, online gamers and embezzlers, and those who manage pain by eating too much, drinking too much, or chasing women. In a twelve-step program’s safe atmosphere, these people and many others come face to face with their inner selves and throw those selves on the mercy of God day after day.
Grace-Drenched Content
A.A.’s philosophy that alcoholism is a disease and that alcoholics need to be restored to sanity has been hotly debated for decades, but it has nonetheless worked for transformation. This approach conveyed a practical sense of grace that was otherwise absent in a 1930s culture in which being an alcoholic was a public disgrace,[1] much like being a sex offender is in today’s culture. A.A. acknowledged that alcoholics, in their heart of hearts, did not want to abuse alcohol. It lifted the blame and shame enough to provide hope that healing could occur. It empowered alcoholics to believe it possible to be freed from alcoholism as their destructive pattern of pain management and their source of comfort, companionship, and celebration. This dynamic of grace (encompassing both pardon and empowerment) also played itself out in twelve step’s approach to God and to community. In that era of denominations competing and condemning each other, A.A. offered God “as we understand him”[2] to all faiths and even those with no faith. It gave people a place to start without insisting on any doctrine.
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[1] Michelle Huneven, “Sober—and silent,” LA Times also: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-huneven6-2009sep06,0,3650686.story
[2] The actual Twelve Steps use the wording, “God as we understood him.” See http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/smf-121_en.pdf
David Kinnaman (along with Gabe Lyons) is the author of unChristian, a book that reports and analyzes the Barna Group’s research on what 16- to 29-year olds who are on the outside of Christianity really think of Christians. After interviewing thousands of young people and listening to their stories, Kinnaman found that the church has more than a superficial image problem; often outsiders’ perceptions of Christianity reveal “a church infatuated with itself.” For example, one young person made this blunt observation: “Christianity has become bloated with blind followers who would rather repeat slogans than actually feel true compassion and care. Christianity has become marketed and streamlined into a juggernaut of fearmongering that has lost its own heart.” From the research, Kinnaman came up with nine recommendations for new directions Christians need to take. (To learn what they are, read on.) One of his conclusions was this: “It comes down to this: we must become Christ-like again…. In many ways a focus on spiritual formation fits what a new generation is really seeking.” This conclusion made Conversations eager to hear more.
Jan Johnson: In unChristian, you say that in many ways a focus on spiritual formation fits what a new generation is seeking.[1] Why do you say that?
David Kinnaman: A new generation is looking for a Christianity of depth and significance rather than “spirituality lite.” Our research points out that four out of five American teenagers spend at least six months in a Christian church, experiencing and testing what we have to offer. They leave because they find it boring, unintellectual, and out of touch with reality. We give young people just enough of Jesus to be bored, but not enough to be transformed. When so many try it and drop out, we have to ask if this is the best we can do.
To preview articles on how the spiritual formation community can respond, please click here for Jamin Goggin’s article and here for Alan Fadling’s article.
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[1] David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, UnChristian. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007, 206.
Mirrors reflect reality. In our spiritual journey God uses many things to mirror to us the reality of our heart. The book unChristian is a mirror (a full-length mirror, at that) to the Christian church. It reflects not only external realities but also the truth of our heart. As the church, we are called to notice all the details that we find displayed on the full-length mirror in front of us.
Adrian Van Kaam offers three distinctions regarding how we might respond to exposure of our heart: willlessness, willfulness, and willingness.[1] When the mirror reflects hypocrisy, lack of care, hostility toward others, ignorance, polarization, and judgment, those who are will-less see these blemishes and despair of such reality. They feel hopelessly incapable of enacting any change. They may even avert their eyes from the mirror and convince themselves that what they saw was an illusion.
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[1] Adrian Van Kaam, The Art of Existential Counseling. Van Kaam’s discussion of will-lessness, willfulness, and willingness can be found in chapter 4. Van Kaam uses these categories to make specific distinctions, and the analysis I have offered moves beyond the bounds of Van Kaam’s definitions and explanations. It must also be noted that Dr. John Coe’s teaching has informed the use of these categories when talking about the Christian life.
In twenty years of training Christian leaders in leadership development rooted in spiritual formation, we at The Leadership Institute have learned that the negative perception of Christians is an unfortunate result of professed but unpracticed faith. Even Christians affirming spiritual formation ideas may be little changed unless they engage in spiritual formation practices.
For example, the regular practice of solitude and silence coupled with prayer has become a place of deep transformation, producing hypocrisy’s opposite—integrity. Hypocrisy is a dissonance between profession and practice. In regular solitude, God uncovers our pretending, our appearance managing, and our malformed images of Him. More genuine communion with God develops a growing likeness to Him in us.
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God’s command, “Be holy as I am holy,” is inspiring. Imagine God looking at you and saying, “You can actually be holy as I am holy.” But it’s also unsettling. Do we really want to have the effect on other people that the vision of God had on Isaiah and even the seraphs?
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings. With two wings, they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the one who calls us. To follow Jesus means picking up rhythms and ways of doing things that are often unsaid but always derivative from Jesus formed by the influence of Jesus. To follow Jesus means that we cannot separate what Jesus is saying from what Jesus is doing and the Way he is doing it.
I have a recommendation for an enterprising Christian businessperson. Think of how the letters WWJD have been used. Why don’t you also sell bracelets, T-shirts, and bumper stickers with these letters: HWJDI? They stand for “How Would Jesus Do It?” It would be very helpful in reframing what it means to live the Jesus Way.
