What Is a Pastor to Do? (Get Out of Counseling!)

            My wife, Irene, is a couples and sex therapist. Her practice is full. There is no shortage of people who seek her out in order to get some direction or help for their relationship.

            One thing that constantly amazes me about my wife’s work is just how difficult it is. I can see the difficulty from several perspectives. For starters, in order to earn her professional qualifications, Irene had to get a Master’s degree in social work. Supervisors—master therapists—monitored her progress, and even now continue to work with her through difficult cases, give her tips on the procedures she uses in different counseling situations, and suggest areas for further education and study.

            But formal education and supervision are only the beginning. Irene has worked hard to earn specialized certification in two specialized areas, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing for trauma victims, and Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples. Both certifications involved more supervision, study, and conferences. And, I can’t help but notice that Irene uses a lot of her leisure time poring over training videos, reading books and articles, and taking courses. In the meantime, Irene has herself become a supervisor for other couples therapists.

            All this, and sometimes, at dinner, Irene will look me in the eye and still say something like, “couples counseling is so hard!”

            I think of my wife a lot when I hear pastors talk about their counseling load. I think of her because I know that these pastors, unlike my wife, have had barely any professional training. I wonder what in the world they are doing when they say they’re counseling. These pastors may have empathy, they may have emotional intelligence, and they may have taken one or two courses in pastoral counseling at seminary—but when it comes to counseling, they are actually total amateurs.

            Counseling is a skilled vocation for which it takes years of focused training and supervision to become adept. Ninety-five percent of pastors don’t have that training. So while pastors might be wise friends who can steer a congregant in the right direction on a whole host of matters, if such steering takes more than one or two visits, the pastor should be referring that congregant on to a professional counselor.

            I can think of several reasons why pastors might want to, or be pressured to, counsel, in spite of their own misgivings. A professional couples counselor can be very expensive. Pastors—whether they’re trained for it or not—tend to cost a lot less. So people start with pastors. There is also a sort of prestige that goes with saying you’re a counselor that just doesn’t go with being a pastor. Consciously or not, pastors might gravitate to that prestige.

            So what to do? I have three thoughts. First, pastors should never shut their doors on people who call and say, “I need help.” Invite those people to come on over, and listen to their stories. Just make sure that you, as a pastor, understand your limits. In this sort of situation you are a referral source. Help your parishioners find the counseling they need. 

            Second, remember that there is one kind of counsel that pastors must always be willing to give—spiritual counsel. That is, many people who need professional counseling also need to hear that in spite of their struggles—be it with anger or depression or anxiety—God still loves them, unconditionally. People need a place where they can confess their need and hear good news. In some traditions, this is called "cure of souls."

            Finally, pastors shouldn’t neglect pastoral visitation—especially to play at counseling. To use a somewhat hackneyed Biblical image, the pastor is a shepherd, and shepherds know their sheep. Otherwise, how would the pastor ever be able to speak to what is living in the hearts and minds of the people who worship? Without regular pastoral visitation, how will the pastor know who to pray for, or how to lead, or who needs encouragement to see a counselor? Regular, disciplined pastoral visitation is what pastors do. Pastoral visitation is the pastor’s vocation. Counseling is someone else’s.

Against Nature?

            A few weeks ago, the Toronto Star ran a story about a gay woman, Anne Tesluk, of Bowmanville, Ontario. She sent her daughter to the local Catholic School because she was herself a Catholic. Tesluk was also thrilled that her school, St. Joseph’s Elementary, distributed the blueprint for a plan to help teachers tackle discrimination of all kinds, from racial to religious to discrimination based on disability or sexual orientation.

            That is, she was thrilled until she read in the fine print of the school document that homosexual people are “objectively disordered.” Tesluk was so shocked and offended that she decided to go to the local Catholic school board to ask that the offending phrase from the blueprint be removed. In a way, the story is surprising—what Catholic person, after all, doesn’t know that the Catholic Church takes this stand? Perhaps especially, what gay Catholic mother? Be that as it may, I wish Ann the best of luck, because her concerns for how such statements demean and marginalize gay people are right on.

            In my denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, things are about the same, unfortunately. We’d say that homosexuality is “against nature,” or “against creational norms.” People who argue that homosexuality is against nature believe that God reveals his intention for sexuality, at least in part, by divine norms or laws that can be deduced from the natural order. In my tradition there is actually a very deep philosophical well of reflection on whether or not such norms actually exist, and if they do, to what extent can we know them? The last question is really important. It is hard enough to interpret Biblical texts. But how does one interpret nature with a view to arriving at appropriate ethical conclusions? It can’t be easy.

            For example, I’m reminded of a person who once said to me, “Homosexuality is wrong. Anyone can see that God didn’t create two men or two women to fit together. The body parts just don’t align.” This person is saying, in effect, that what seems to be our “natural design,” should be the rule for how body parts get used. The argument, right or wrong, is an important one.

            However, it is worth noting here that not only is nature hard to interpret if you are reading it for  ethical norms, but it would also be very hard to develop a consistent application of such an ethic. Human activity, after all, is replete with actions that seem “against nature,” that few of us therefore regard as being against God’s will. In the area of sexual practice, for example, masturbation, oral sex and even kissing are actions that involve the use of the body in novel and not necessarily “normative” ways, at least given the primary uses of the plumbing and appendages involved. But beyond sexuality, the list of things humans do that they were not “designed” to do is endless. If God had meant for us to fly, he would have given us wings. If we are supposed to bear children in pain we dare not use epidurals. The list goes on: in vitro fertilization and/or surrogate pregnancies, birth control, transplanted hearts, heart valves made of pig flesh, genetic engineering, artificial (not natural!) hips or knees or even facelifts . . . all of these technologies involve leaps of the imagination and use of the body in ways that are novel and imaginative. 

            Meanwhile, one supposes that if a behavior really is against nature, you would not find it in nature. Suffice it to say, however, that homosexual behavior has been widely documented in nature, including among chimpanzees. Homosexuality, like having red hair or an IQ of 170, isn’t so much against nature as it is just not that common in nature.

            Naturally, the ethics of homosexual behavior—like the ethics of heterosexual behavior—are complicated and deserve more reflection than I can give it in a short blog post. But arguing that homosexuality is against nature just isn’t going to work for me--or Anne Tesluk.

Is Supporting Palestine Anti-Semitic?

            I recently heard a Christian radio DJ say that every Christian had a responsibility to support Israel. I can buy that.

            But as I continued listening, it became clear to me that the announcer wasn’t just asking for Christians to pray that Israel would be a just, prosperous, happy nation, like others. No, he thought that Christian support for Israel required lobbying President Obama to go easy on Israel’s West Bank settlements. He thought that Christians had to support Israel by lobbying American’s Congress to support a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And he seemed to suggest that anyone who supported the Palestinian right to self-determination was probably anti-Semitic.

            Earlier this year, six hundred clerics, activists and academicians gathered in Bethlehem to critique current Israeli policies. They published a “Christ at the Checkpoint Manifesto,” that called on Evangelical Christians to help bring peace and justice and reconciliation to Palestine and Israel. They said real injustices are taking place in the Palestinian territories, and the suffering of the Palestinian people can no longer be ignored. They said that all forms of violence must be refuted unequivocally.

            But rather than discuss the merits of their critique, this group of mostly Christian activists was simply roundly dismissed as promoting racist doctrine and policies. The B’nai B’rith said the event was anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. A Wiesenthal Centre spokesman writing in the Jewish Post said the participants were working with toxic theology. Jurgen Buhler of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem said that the conference could easily lend itself to “anti-Semitism and anti-Israel propaganda.”

            Really? Since when is it wrong to argue public policy or human rights in democratic nations? Since when is it wrong to call for peace and reconciliation between warring peoples? Especially if you are a Christian?

            In our democratic society we’re encouraged to have intense public policy debates about hot-button issues like homosexuality, the war in Afghanistan, and how we treat Native-Canadians—who, after all, have as much and as long a historical claim to this country as the Israelites do to Palestine. But the minute we debate similar issues with respect to Israel’s security, or the West Bank Barrier, or the aspirations of Palestinians born into occupation, some supporters of Israel insist we must be racist.

            But that is ridiculous.

            I believe in Israel’s right to exist as a nation. I believe that the holocaust was so evil that modern Israel deserves a nation-state with secure borders to call its own. I have no problems with the West guaranteeing Israel its security. I reject terrorism of all kinds.

            But by the same token, that doesn’t justify the second-class citizenship of Palestinians in Israel, or the continued military occupation of their territory, or the building of illegal settlements on the West Bank, or the stranglehold on Gaza, or some sort of Israeli carte blanche right to occupy all of Jerusalem all of the time. Defining support for Israel as unquestioning support for policies that have, for fifty years, done nothing to bring peace to the Middle East doesn’t make sense. I’m not saying I know the best way forward on any of these issues. But that is what public policy debate is for.

            Some Christians muddy the waters further by thinking of Israel not so much as a modern secular state, but as kind of special Biblical protectorate. They say Western support for Israel is required because Biblical prophecies about the State of Israel’s role in apocalyptic end-time scenarios demand a powerful Israeli state. I very much doubt the wisdom of making a highly controversial, nineteenth century doctrinal innovation called premillennial dispensationalism the basis for Canadian or American foreign policy, as the Christian radio announcer I was listening to did. But even supposing there are apocalyptic prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled in the modern State of Israel (something I don’t believe for a minute), why would anyone really think God needs a pro-Israel lobby in Washington or Ottawa to get those prophecies done? If God has a plan for Israel, he’ll figure it out how to get it done without our trying to set it up, first.

            If there is anything in the Old Testament that does seem relevant to the modern State of Israel, it is that God and his prophets often did call Israel’s public policies into question. There was far too much oppression of the poor, rejection of the stranger within the gate, and militarization of Israelite life to suit God back then. He warned Israel, over and over, not to depend on horses or chariots for their security. I’m not sure God would think much differently, today, about the modern State of Israel or any other country.

            So what is the Christian’s responsibility to Israel, today? I’d say it is using whatever peaceful means we have at our disposal to bring about an equitable, lasting peace in the Middle East, for the Israelis and Palestinians both. We are, after all, ambassadors of reconciliation for the whole world (2 Co 5:18-21) rather than champions for one country over another.

How Liberals and Conservatives Talk

            You’ve heard Liberals and Conservatives—and their extreme cousins, Radicals and Reactionaries—talk. Conservatives say, "Slow down! We need to hold the line on change for a while. Let’s wait till a consensus to emerge before we move ahead with new policies." Liberals, on the other hand, say, "Let's go! We are way behind the times. Let’s move ahead with ordaining practicing gays (or allowing kids at the Lord’s Table, or demanding that the government act more vigorously to alleviate poverty). Reactionaries—extreme Conservatives—say things like, "Now you've done it. I'm out of here. I want to start over with a new church that eliminates all recent changes. I want no part of them." And Radicals—extreme Liberals—say things like, “You haven’t done enough. I’m out of here. I want to start over with a new church (or no church) that changes everything.

            In this somewhat academic blog post, I want to explore how we, as Liberals and Conservatives (mostly) and even Radicals and Reactionaries (well, at least a few of us) talk about the church. Or, better yet, I guess I’d like to write about how our talk about change helps us understand our Liberal or Conservative selves.

            So first I need to define a few terms. First, structure. The structure of a church is its legal, organizational and cultural aspects--everything from confessions to church orders, from congregations to ethnic habits. Second, drift. Drift is how the pendulum swings within culture. Over the past fifty or even one hundred years, most commentators would agree that within most denominations, regardless of their starting point, that drift has been leftward. So, in Canada’s United Church, for example, the Primitive Methodist current has mostly been swamped by Unitarian and other theologically Liberal currents. In the United States, the original isolationist currents of Fundamentalism have been overtaken by political activism and media savvy. And, where Fundamentalists used to dress differently, watch no TV at all, and discourage higher education, they now (even at the beach) dress the same as everyone else, watch the same TV, and have many of their own institutions of higher education.

            My thesis is this. Conservatives and Liberals both accept current church structures. But while Conservatives and Reactionaries are suspicious and concerned about the current drift to the left, Liberals and Radicals are not. Ironically, however, Reactionaries and Radicals, unlike their more moderate partners, both reject current church structures. They want to break them down or start over. Reactionaries tend towards independentism or building new church denominations while Radicals tend to drift out of church all together. The following illustration might help keep these distinctions straight.

*******

A.

<<-----------------------Religious Structures----------------------->>

Radicals              Liberals        Conservatives             Reactionaries

(reject                   (both accept structure)                 (reject

structure)                                                                        structure)

B.

<<-----------------------------Religious Drift-----------------------------<<

                                                                                                 

(Radicals, Liberals                                   (Conservatives, Reactionaries

Accept the drift)                                       Reject the drift)

******

            Now, those on the left and the right have favored ways of trying to get their point of view across. While certainly not limited to these strategies, more often than not, these are the fallback positions.

            Liberals and Radicals, depending on how far left they are, tend to argue from circumstance or situation. They say things like, “We need to fix the inner city’s poverty,” or “Look at the suffering in the Sudan! What can we do to alleviate it?” Liberals are motivated by difficult realities like crime, illness, racism and illiteracy. They get to work to fix such things. Conservatives and Reactionaries tend to argue from purpose or principle. The say things like, “the Bible is inerrant!” or “Everyone has to subscribe to our denominational confessions,” or “we need to find the truth.” Conservatives and Reactionaries are motivated by the great ideals that have been handed down to them, by the laws of the universe, and by the rules that embody them. The get to work in order to bring people back to or rally people around their ideals.

            People on the left and the right also have peculiar ways of working together (or not). In the middle, the Liberals and Conservatives who want to stay with current church structures treat issues one at a time because they and the world we live in are complex. They understand the dangers of oversimplifying. Thus people who hold to middle positions tend to see many causes at work in the church rather than just a few. Causes that both Liberals and Conservatives are concerned about include secularism, less literacy, wealth, new interpretations of old passages, youth culture, TV, leisure, social pressures, and so on.

            The extremists, on the other hand, Reactionaries and Radicals, tend to treat all issues as related since the world, in their mind, is really pretty simple. Extremists love simplistic slippery slope arguments that suggest everything is headed in one direction. Thus they tend to reduce the causes to a very few, usually negative, ones: refusing to take the word of God seriously, or refusal to take alienation or poverty seriously.

            But Liberals and Conservatives are also different in how they tend to communicate. Conservatives and Reactionaries on the right argue deductively from principal (ie, if scripture or the confessions say so, we must accept that). Liberals and Radicals on the left tend to argue inductively from experience. So, if there is suffering, then we better do something about that. The right argues from written documents and cultural memory: laws, confessions, and traditions. The left argues from relationships and people, striving to improve the lot of people via equality, progress, or openness.

            The bottom line is that I think the past generation or two has seen a marked shift away from the center and towards the fringes. As people read and study less they are also less able to describe complexity or put up with bureaucracy. So they reject the structures while holding every more extreme opinions that make conversation ever more difficult.

            So what do you think? And where do you fit in?

(This blog post was informed by the scholarly work of the late Bernard Brock, a mentor and teacher for me. As a communication theorist at Wayne State University, he was especially interested in the political arena. But his ideas can easily be adapted to the church setting, and that is what I’ll do here.)

Self-Help Faith

In one of my favorite Jay Leno Jaywalking sketches he asks random people if they can recite one of the Ten Commandments. A particularly popular answer seems to be, "God helps those who help themselves." In fact, according to pollster George Barna, 75% of Amercans (Canadians seem graciously exempted) believe the Bible teaches something like this.

Of course, that's nonsense. The Bible teaches that God helps those who can't help themselves. This is called "grace," and it is the scandal of Christianity. "God helps those who help themselves," on the other hand, is actually a bit of Greek self-help advice popularized by that agnostic saint, Benjamin Franklin.

Ironically, majoring in good advice about all sorts of problems and challenges on the path to success seems to be one of the most popular goals of Evangelicalism of late.

            You will see what I mean, I think, if you visit the Christian section of your local bookstore. A lot of it looks like the self-help section of the bookstore, baptized. If you go, you may find books like, Every Day a Friday: How to Be Happier 7 Days a Week, by Joel Osteen: or God Wants You to Be Rich—The Christian Guide to Financial Freedom & Unlimited Health (12 Steps to Bring More Money Into Your Life While Still Serving the Lord), by Alex Landon; or perenial favorite, Nine Promises of a Promise Keeper, which explains how to be a real Christian man. Then there is The Dieter's Prayer Book: Spiritual Power and Daily Encouragement by Helen Kopp, for those of us who need a bit of spiritual rigor to loose some pounds; and my favorite--if a bit outdated example--Robert Schuller's The Be Happy Attitudes, which he is probably rereading himself now that he’s gone bankrupt and lost his Chrystal Cathedral.

            Do you get the picture from this tiny but typical sampling? Judging by such titles, evangelicals seem more concerned with what to do and how to do it to succeed than in what has been done--what we call the gospel.

The truth is, Christianity, and the Evangelical branch in particular, is in danger of trading the good news for a kind of works-righteous bondage to good advice. These books remind me of the kind of sermon that turns every Old Testament hero into an object lesson for how to live the Christian life--rather than a lesson in how God accomplishes his will no matter how crooked his humans on the ground are. This self-help spirituality, rooted in American pragmatism and a kind of "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" faith focuses on numbered lists of "to do's," on strategies, steps, bulleted principles, and programs. It cares more for how to get things done than on what has been done for us; focuses more on success than on sacrifice; more on the cash value of religion than on humble service that asks for nothing but opportunity to love God and neighbor.

In the end it is a matter of balance. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died and rose for sinners. That’s all of us. The practical result of his sacrificial love should probably be that I try to pick up my own cross and follow him. I don’t doubt that along the way some of us might find worldly success carrying our crosses. But what Jesus really wants us to discover is the sort of divine gratitude that inspires us spend our lives loving God and neighbor.

Hate Religion but Love Jesus?

            If you are a Youtube or Facebook fan, you probably noticed Jefferson Bethke’s viral video, “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus.” In the video Bethke contrasts the true wine of Jesus with religion’s vinegar. So, for example, Bethke raps:

Now back to the point, one thing is vital to mention

How Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrum

See one’s the work of God, but one’s a man made invention

See one is the cure, but the other’s the infection

See because religion says do, Jesus says done

Religion says slave, Jesus says son

Religion puts you in bondage, while Jesus sets you free

Religion makes you blind, but Jesus makes you see

            Bethke isn’t the first person to say or sing this sort of song. Its most common—and more ecumenical—formulation goes something like this: “I’m spiritual, not religious.” The people who say this sort of thing have—as the Ecclesiastes 3:11 puts it—eternity set in their hearts—they’re spiritual. But they don’t have the church, or synods, or Christian or Jewish or Muslim institutions, or preachers or priests or tithing or Sunday School in their lives. You see, they’re not religious.

            Spiritual, but not religious. I think they mean something like they feel good about God but lousy about the church. They think God is in the business of loving them, and they’ll take that. But they think the church is full of hullaballoo and hucksterism, rules and regulations, sinners and hypocrites, and so they give it a wide berth.

            It will come as a surprise to no one that this sort of language irritates me. But that’s beside the point. However I feel, it is important for me to understand and empathize with this outlook because it is the void into which I preach. Spiritual but not religious is the Siren song that pulls at everyone in my congregation.

            So what to answer people when I hear this? Well, I’m not hip like Jefferson Bethke. But I think my analogy makes sense. Think infrastructure.

            Imagine the Town of Cobourg or Port Hope without infrastructure but lots of neighborliness. Imagine Northumberland County without roads or a power grid or sewers or schools, or bridges—but lots of civic mindedness. Imagine your home without a foundation or furnace or plumbing or natural gas, but lots of love. It wouldn’t work very well, would it? The truth is, we need infrastructure—good infrastructure built to last, dependable, and safe—if we’re going to have any neighbors at all, or a civic life, or a place where it is safe to bring up families in love. As much as we prioritize neighborliness, civic mindedness, and love—they need all kinds of infrastructure support if they’re going to flourish.

            At its best, that is exactly what religion is to spirituality. Religion is spirituality’s infrastructure. And as much as we don’t like to see sewers or be reminded that there is a power grid, we often don’t want to bother with religion either. The truth, however, is that we don’t have much choice. Spirituality needs religion—spirituality needs teachers to point a new generation to its ideals, spirituality needs buildings where communities can learn about and practice costly love, spirituality needs accountability so that it doesn’t drift off into Hallmark sentimentalism, and spirituality needs holy texts so that we don’t make it up as we go while ignoring the wisdom of the ages.

            Of course—infrastructure can crumble. Roads need rebuilding. Even the best new sewers eventually become old and need to be cleaned out of roots and obstructions. Nuclear plants need refitting. It takes wise citizens and good leaders to ensure that infrastructure is up to snuff and supports our flourishing. Similarly, not all religion is up to snuff. Religions need renewal and fixing and reorganization from time to time. They are not perfect, not by a long shot.

            But deep spirituality needs the best of religion. And at its best religion helps organize the spiritually minded to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

Paying Taxes

I received my property tax bill today. I’ll be paying several thousand dollars. My assessment was higher—not by much, thankfully—than last year’s. Some of the taxes I pay will go to the Town of Cobourg, some to Northumberland County, and the rest to local schools. The bottom line, though, is that I’ll be paying several thousand dollars for things like policing, roads and engineering, transit, streetlights, and so on. I don’t mind one bit.

The truth is we need to pay our taxes if we expect the services that make Cobourg, and Northumberland County, a great place to live. I’ve lived overseas in Manila. People don’t pay much in the way of taxes there, and both the city and the national government are lousy at collecting taxes. That means that poverty is rife and that there is no safety net. A large portion of the population lives in shanties and slums unregulated by government. Road and public transit shortages mean traffic is jammed nearly 24/7. Tap water isn’t safe to drink. Power is intermittent during storms and even when you otherwise least expect it. If you really need to get something done, you pay a bribe to make it happen.

Now don’t get me wrong. The Filipino people are wonderful in every respect. But they are also victims of a political system that doesn’t serve them so much as it serves the rich family elites installed by Spanish and American colonial governments to keep people in line. Those entrenched elites continue to milk the system for all its worth, in spite of two or three popular street revolutions to throw the bums out. And a fair tax system just isn’t in the elite’s interest, since the country’s very dysfunction is what keeps them in power.

So I’ve lived in a country without much by way of taxes, and it is a disaster. And I’ve travelled all over the world and seen similar disasters in places like Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Kenya and Indonesia. And what occurs to me now is that I’ve been in a lot of countries lately where the problem is that there just isn’t enough government—and what there is is crooked. When I hear Republicans or Conservatives or Libertarians preach that less government is always better government, I’m not persuaded. In some situations, it may be that a bit less government is a good idea. I’d love less military spending, less bureacratic waste, fewer jails, fewer multi-million-dollar government-agency consulting contracts for former politicians like Newt Gingrich, and fewer gazebos in far flung corners of Tony Clement’s Muskoka area riding. (Yes, that last example does sound less serious than Newt's consulting, but it is so Canadian!) But less government is not an unqualified good thing. If you disagree, take a vacation in Haiti or Rwanda and see for yourself.

So, whenever I write a check to the Canadian or American governments, or my municipal government, I both wish it could be a little less, and I say a prayer of thanks for a system that works: for uncommon peace and safety by world standards, tons of fiscal transperancy, and the privilege to democratically engage in the process of government. There is just no sense in complaining about life in Canada. Our freedom to get involved and do something would be much wiser than complaining. In fact, in our democratic system, the submission to government that the Apostle Paul asks of Christians in Romans 8 has to be understood as a willingness to submit to our systems' need for responsible democratic involvement in government.

            Which brings me back to taxes. In the end, I believe that the Apostle Paul was exactly right about taxes too. “Pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.” It is the Christian thing to do.