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» Ship of Fools   »   » Oblivion   » Emotional detachment in Christianity

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Source: (consider it) Thread: Emotional detachment in Christianity
EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091

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Often the role of emotion is discussed as a component of Christian experience and worship, and certain types of Christians are accused of being too emotional, or simply driven by their feelings.

But while I am certainly not advocating a form of spirituality which is driven purely by feelings, and then passing those feelings off as the work of the Holy Spirit, I do think that there is another fault in much of Christendom: an inappropriate emotional detachment, especially in the face of suffering.

This came up in the thread entitled "How can I enjoy heaven when my loved ones are in hell?" and Gamaliel wrote the following:

quote:
...there used to be a very old-fashioned story doing the rounds in certain evangelical churches of my acquaintance which cited the example of Charlie Peace the notorious Victorian burglar and murderer.

The story was recounted in Leonard Ravenhill's book 'Why Revival Tarries' and in this version Peace, being led to the scaffold in Armley Gaol, is surprised at the professional and unconcerned tone with which the accompanying chaplain read the passages about death and eternal judgement from 'The Consolations of Religion.'

According to the story, the criminal was shocked that the chaplain could read these passages in such an objective way. Surely if he really believed them he would live and act accordingly?

'Sir'' the convicted criminal is supposed to have said, 'If I believed what you and the church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worth while living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!'

It reminded me of this video, in which William Lane Craig attempts to answer the question as to why God allows suffering and evil. I don't know whether his totally detached and mechanical demeanour was some kind of attempt to be objective, but such a goal was rather undermined by the only hint of feeling he showed when he grinned at this cute little comment he made towards the end of the video:

quote:
And the goal of human life is not happiness in this life. We are not God's pets. His goal is not to create [...hee hee hee...] a nice terrarium here for his human pets [man, how cute was that little metaphor, ha ha ha]...
I thought, WTF!

(So, as Christians, we should go and pay a visit to Bhopal and explain to the children there who have been born seriously deformed, that God's goal for them in this life is not happiness, because they are not his human pets in his 'terrarium'!!)

This kind of talk is just so callous and completely detached from normal human emotions. Craig was perfectly capable of showing emotion when he wanted to highlight his cute little metaphor, but showed no appropriate emotion when talking about suffering and evil. I am not suggesting that he should break down, but some hint of concern and basic humanity wouldn't go amiss sometimes. His manner undermined the credibility of his message.

I just get tired of reading posts in defence of God's judgment - particularly hell - which seem completely devoid of normal human feeling (perhaps I'm as guilty as anyone. Fair enough). It's as if those posters are in denial about the reality they are describing, and are hiding within "mere logic". It's as if everything in life - and particularly within the spiritual life - is reduced to formulas and prescriptions. This mechanistic (and rather macho) emotional detachment from a reality which is so incomprehensibly terrifying, bothers me greatly. It makes the Christian faith look intensely callous, and no amount of logical argument can repair that damage. It's becoming very rare to hear words of real compassion from those who consider themselves orthodox (small 'o') Christians. They seem so obsessed with countering what they call liberalism, that love has almost become a dirty word - or at least something of an embarrassment.

P'raps this post should be in hell rather than in purg, as it's a bit of a rant, but I thought I would start it off here.

Shouldn't we as Christians be as concerned about HOW we defend our views as to WHAT we are saying?

Isn't that a vital part of our message?

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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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Raptor Eye
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Yes, thank you for this. The same thing has come to my mind recently while reading the threads.

I wonder whether it's easier to detach ourselves once we're in the world of the imagination, as in speculation on life after death, as if we're in a film, rather than IRL. Of course we want the baddies to be shot dead, and of course we're on the side of the goodies.

It's one of my observations that early on along the journey of faith God leads us to those who are suffering, so that as we do whatever we can we know compassion, and humility in their shadow as they face the challenges of each day. We learn that everything (perhaps nothing) is black and white when it comes to human beings, our attitudes and behaviours and the situations that we find ourselves in.

Faith comes in when we trust that God knows, that God is just in his way not ours, and that God is love.

I long ago threw out the 'professional distance' spiel as garbage. Without becoming emotionally involved and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable we can't love others as ourselves. Someone at barge-pole distance might be catered for, they can't be cared for imv.

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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10

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Jammy Dodger

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# 17872

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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Shouldn't we as Christians be as concerned about HOW we defend our views as to WHAT we are saying?

Isn't that a vital part of our message?

Yes.

1 Cor 13 springs to mind...

quote:
If I ... can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, ... but do not have love, I am nothing.


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Look at my eye twitching - Donkey from Shrek

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Gamaliel
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Once again I find myself in broad agreement with EE.

There is, however, a venerable tradition of 'detachment' within Christianity - particularly on the monastic side of things. The Orthodox also go out of their way to make the figures in their icons look pretty detached and unemotional.

That doesn't mean, though, that they take a detached approach to their faith ... although it can look that way to those of us who come from more 'affective' traditions.

I think the kind of detachment that EE is talking about, though, can verge on the dangerous.

I've cited before now the example of the bloke my brother knew who was convinced that his own daughter was Reprobate and eternally predestined to be damned. He bore this with perfect equanimity.

At the extreme, I'd say there was something almost psychotic in this tendency. I'm no expect on mental illnesses and EE would be better placed to advise given his line of work, but I've heard it said that what makes a psychopath a psychopath is the ability to detach themselves from the consequences or implications of their actions.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't expect that those Shipmates who post in a detached and crisply cold manner about hellfire and damnation and double-predestination and so on are any more callous than the rest of us .... I don't expect to find out that they're beating their wives (or husbands/partners), starving their kids and pulling the legs of spiders ...

But I do think that there are rather harsh and doctrinaire positions that cold, calculating internal logic taken to its ultimate conclusion can lead us.

It's as if the force of that logic has to override any other considerations - basic human feelings, what we know of God's character from the fullness of revelation rather than a set of favourite and selective proof-texts etc.

Everything else has to bend before its inexorable force.

As I've said before, I think we can find that tendency in some aspects of uber-traditional, ultramontane Roman Catholicism and most certainly in forms of extreme hyper-Calvinism.

There will be other traditions where the weight of expectations over-rides basic common sense. I'm thinking of extreme Pentecostals who don't allow medicine, for instance.

Fundamentalism is at fault. Fundamentalism is to blame.

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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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Og, King of Bashan

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I am reminded of these classic scenes from a Seinfeld episode. David Puddy, the dolt mechanic who Elaine can't seem to break up with, is a Christian, but completely unconcerned with Elaine's possible eternal fate.

For some of us, talking in cold logic is just more comfortable than talking in terms of feelings. That doesn't excuse David Puddy's callousness, but just as some people are just more comfortable hiding in a corner than greeting people at the door, there are a lot of us who prefer talking in terms of logic than emotion. I'm not going to say that one kind of person is better than the other- I think we both have our places.

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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy

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Gramps49
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Many, many years ago I read a book called Water Buffalo Theology by Kosuke Koyama. As I recall Koyama said the Christian God is a hot God who is prone to emotions. The Christian God is involved with God's creation, not detached. While Buddhist holy life is lived to escape completely from existence, Christian holy life is lived in order to be completely engaged in existence.

In my book detachment has its place only as a way of recharging ones batteries in order to be more engaged in the world. I think Bonhoeffer alludes to this in his book, Life Together, where Christians begin the day in common prayer, then go out into the world to do vocations, then come back together in the evening for prayer, rest and rejuvenation.

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irish_lord99
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I would add Gramps, that detachment has it's place in determining what we believe: that is to say, it's often best to arrive at our conclusions in a mindset void of emotional interference.

However, it is seldom (if not never) good for Christians to communicate those conclusions in a detached state of mind.

IMO, the ultimate Christian directive is to love: first God, then others. Communicating our beliefs sans love is therefore not proper Christianity.

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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain

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Barnabas62
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Lovei is fascinating in this context, since the classical understanding of agape is that it is a matter of will, not feelings. And yet without some integration of the categories we describe as thinking and feeling, we seem to miss the means of achieving whole ness, shalom.

Feelings and thoughts come from the same brain, don't they. I sometimes wonder if our confusion in this area is because our language still separates heart (we talk about from the heart) and brain, whereas it seems as though both are simply aspects of cognition, of knowing.

Our emotional responses are very real, and by means of proper reflection can be hugely informative about ourselves in relation to others. That fruit of the Spirit which is self-control cannot involve a denial of emotions. Thought separated from feeling can lead us up just as many garden paths as feeling separated from thought .

I think we fear that our emotions will mislead us, draw us into impulsive behaviour which we may regret. And big boys and girls don't cry - a cultural negative responsible historically for a lot of ills.

At almost 71, I'm still figuring this stuff out! For a large part of my early life, I think I did fear the emotional dimension, felt somehow safer with reasoning. I now see that as a delusion. There is nothing to fear except fear itself .

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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

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MrsBeaky
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One of the first threads I started here on the Ship was about the role of personality in Christian theology and praxis and I think this also applies here.
Some of us are more thinking,some more feeling and many of us are a great big mixture of the two. We also all carry the baggage of our past experiences, not to mention the extrovert/ introvert arena....our spiritual practices should nurture us and so they will be as varied as our personalities but also need to help us grow beyond our preferences.

The thing I always return to is this: it is about loving the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind and strength. We all have our defaults within these parameters and we all need to address all of the areas in ways that help us grow in Love as has been said upthread. Be the best version of ourselves, our unique personalities that we can be.

Then when we communicate our thoughts and feelings about our faith/ beliefs, we need to remember the next bit of the exhortation to love our neighbour as ourself: some people might love to engage in robust debate, others will be totally overwhelmed by such an approach.

Love covers all.

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"It is better to be kind than right."

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Pomona
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quote:
Originally posted by MrsBeaky:
One of the first threads I started here on the Ship was about the role of personality in Christian theology and praxis and I think this also applies here.
Some of us are more thinking,some more feeling and many of us are a great big mixture of the two. We also all carry the baggage of our past experiences, not to mention the extrovert/ introvert arena....our spiritual practices should nurture us and so they will be as varied as our personalities but also need to help us grow beyond our preferences.

The thing I always return to is this: it is about loving the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind and strength. We all have our defaults within these parameters and we all need to address all of the areas in ways that help us grow in Love as has been said upthread. Be the best version of ourselves, our unique personalities that we can be.

Then when we communicate our thoughts and feelings about our faith/ beliefs, we need to remember the next bit of the exhortation to love our neighbour as ourself: some people might love to engage in robust debate, others will be totally overwhelmed by such an approach.

Love covers all.

Plus, I have heard that 'strength' is actually more like 'resources', which fits in nicely with the principles you talk about.

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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]

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