Abou was prepared for death. In the last months of his life the “slim disease” had ravaged his body, trimming 90 pounds from his 175-pound frame. But the 30-year-old African school administrator had received loving care and counsel in the year since the disease that was turning him into a living skeleton had been diagnosed as AIDS. Family and friends constantly jammed his mission hospital room, talking, laughing, and praying.

Last year Abou died, one of a growing number of AIDS victims whose deaths are causing consternation in Africa, and fear for the future of the continent.

Tracking The Virus

At least one million Africans, mostly from central Africa, will die of AIDS in the next decade, according to the authoritative dossier, “AIDS and the Third World,” published by the Panos Institute, an international information and policy studies agency. As troubling as it is, that figure is probably low, the institute admits. In some African cities, a fifth or more of the population is already infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Most of the victims are young men and women in their twenties and thirties, the people who fuel Africa’s delicately balanced economies. A disproportionate number are educated professionals like Abou, who are essential to the continued development of Africa. In parts of the continent, says the Panos Institute, the survival of whole industries and economies may be at stake.

The United States still has the highest number of reported AIDS cases—some 70 percent of the world’s total. But this may be due partly to the inaccuracy of statistics available from much of the developing world. World Health Organization (WHO) expert Jonathan Mann estimates that although only 66,000 AIDS cases have been reported to WHO since the beginning of the epidemic, some 100,000 to 150,000 cases have probably occurred. In fact, WHO believes about 10,000 AIDS cases are now occurring every year in Africa.

Several factors contribute to the difficulty in tracking the spread of AIDS in Africa. Some countries have not had the tools to make firm diagnoses; others don’t have a disease-reporting infrastructure. Still others, fearing negative publicity, have been unwilling to acknowledge they have a problem at all.

Early international publicity showing Africa as the source of AIDS angered government health officials, making many nations reluctant to release statistics revealing the extent of the disease. Some governments warned doctors not to speak publicly about the disease. At least one country refused doctors permission even to tell patients they had the disease. In 1982, only one African country was willing to report its AIDS cases to who. By 1985, 7 countries reported cases, and last year, 36 African countries reported their AIDS cases.

Underreporting, though, still hampers efforts to track the virus, who statistics published last fall listed 250 AIDS cases for Congo, while a New York Times reporter in Congo confidently reported the number at 1,200. In fact, no one really knows the extent of the disease.

Yet in the last six months, African countries have shown a new willingness to acknowledge the problem of AIDS, and to institute aggressive educational programs to curb its spread. Congo’s updated public-health campaign has included posters, television round tables, and radio call-in shows. In Zaire, printed literature explaining the cause and prevention of AIDS has been broadly disseminated.

In some African countries, posters and educational materials now proliferate in greater numbers than in the U.S., says Dr. Bill Heyward, chief of the Centers for Disease Control’s International Activities, AIDS Program. He says most African countries now receive some financial support and consulting help from outside groups.

A Heterosexual Disease?

AIDS in Africa, as in much of the developing world, occurs primarily within the mainstream of the heterosexual community. It has grown most rapidly in Africa’s burgeoning urban areas, where traditional values break down under the pressure of accelerated social change.

Prostitutes are thought to be major transmitters of AIDS. Some 80 percent of prostitutes in a Nairobi slum and 90 percent of Rwanda’s prostitutes are suspected of carrying the AIDS virus. In Congo’s coastal Pointe-Noire, whose brothels are frequented by sailors from around the world, 64 percent of prostitutes tested last year were found to have the AIDS virus.

The disease has also hit hard in certain rural areas where traditional social mores permit sexual encounters outside of marriage. In some Ugandan villages an entire generation has already died of AIDS, says one medical missionary. Only very young children and grandparents remain in those villages.

In addition to the sexual transmission of the disease, the generally lower public-health standards in much of Africa contribute to the spread of AIDS. For example, most African countries still do not have adequate blood-testing facilities. Thus, the AIDS virus may spread through transfusions of contaminated blood. The AIDS virus is also thought to be transmitted through unsterilized needles when injections are improperly given to multiple patients. The disposable, single-injection needles commonly used in the U.S. are prohibitively expensive for most African medical centers. Some missionary doctors fear the disease may be spread in mass immunization programs where needles are not properly sterilized.

Tragically, the disease is escalating among infants of mothers who carry the AIDS virus. Some 50 percent of babies born to HIV-infected mothers die within a year. Early last year, the Panos Institute predicted 6,000 Zambian babies would be born to mothers with the AIDS virus in 1987. This compares with some 400 babies and children in the U.S. who have developed AIDS since the epidemic started.

Although some African countries show little evidence of infection, other nations, like those in the so-called AIDS belt (see map, p. 38), are facing crises that amount to national disasters. Most affected are eight countries that stretch east to west across central Africa.

Uganda’s health ministers estimate 10 percent of the country’s population are HIV-infected. The Panos Institute says blood surveys in central and parts of eastern Africa reveal a prevalence of HIV infection greater than in even the worst-hit American cities.

Dealing With Fear

Because AIDS in Africa is not associated with homosexuality and drug usage, the disease does not bear the social stigma it carries in the West. Nevertheless, ordinary Africans are becoming increasingly reluctant to relate normally to its victims.

Some hospital administrators admit they have delayed discussing the disease with their staff. They are afraid medical workers will refuse to work with AIDS patients or will quit rather than face the risks associated with handling potentially infected human blood and body secretions.

Although Christian medical workers also have fears and concerns, mission and church officials believe their faithful ministry can be a testimony to others. “Christians who understand how the disease is transmitted and who have learned to trust God through other hazards can minister effectively in those situations,” affirms Dr. David Sorley, a missionary physician and epidemiologist with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board. Sorley, who has served in Africa for nearly 12 years, admits a lot of Christians are “scared out of their wits” about AIDS.

Tom Houston, World Vision’s international president, believes the AIDS epidemic has placed Christians on trial. Comparing it to the leprosy of Jesus’ day, he says the organization and its people are “being challenged as to how sincere we really are about our purpose.”

“We are confronted with a very great need,” says Dr. Daniel E. Fountain, an American Baptist missionary. “We should set an example for our colleagues, showing that compassion overrides other concerns. Such care can be given in circumstances that are sound and adequate for health.”

The Church’s Response

Seeing the AIDS epidemic as a moral problem at base, Tokunboh Adeyemo, general secretary of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar, says churches now must deal more carefully and consistently with moral issues. At the Nairobi seminary where he is head of the theological studies department, Adeyemo has trained student teams to go into area schools to warn teenagers about the dangers of promiscuity.

In the central African country where American Baptist missionary Fountain works, church and Christian school leaders giving Bible-based AIDS education to young people and their parents find a receptive audience.

“People realize this has practical consequences,” says Fountain. “Young people are listening and asking questions.”

These young people must be the focus of renewed church attention, insists the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board’s Sorley. He notes AIDS is expected to attack selectively the sexually active 15-to 24-year-old age group. Because of their mobility, however, these are the very people who have been neglected by the church in its haste to grow as rapidly as possible. “Neglecting this group could consign many of these young people to death by AIDS and hell,” he warns.

While the church is making headway in helping to prevent AIDS, it has done little to minister directly to victims of AIDS. There are no rehabilitation or halfway houses for AIDS victims in Kenya, says Adeyemo. For a time, AIDS victims in Kenya were even denied access to hospitals. Now they are admitted, but are isolated in intensive-care wards, where access to them is restricted.

“In spite of the education we have received, many people still believe you shouldn’t even touch, not to mention go out of the way to minister to, AIDS victims,” Adeyemo says. “The church must address this issue.”

In Africa’s “AIDS belt” (see map, page 38), where the future of whole nations hangs in the balance, Adeyemo believes there is hope. “If the government, church, and society had continued to pretend this problem did not exist, I would have predicted a catastrophe,” he says. With education, attitudes—and, he thinks, behaviors—are changing.

The next decade will be critical for Africa. No one knows for sure how many of the perhaps millions who now carry the AIDS virus will actually come down with the disease. All that is known is that before it is over, many more people like Abou will waste away and die. “This reminds us of the urgent imperative of missions.” Sorley says, “We must go out into our AIDS-plagued world to persuade men and women to come back to God.” In almost a whisper he adds, “May God grant us wisdom.”

Answering Aids

What does the Bible have to say about AIDS? Thousands of men and women in Uganda are finding out as they learn the medical—and biblical—facts about one of the world’s most deadly diseases. The Answer Project is the brain child of Richard W. Goodgame, a Southern Baptist missionary physician who teaches medicine at Makerere University Hospital in Kampala, Uganda’s capital city.

Faced with an incurable disease about which medical science has more questions than answers, Goodgame went to the Bible for hope. There he found the kind of answers he believes could save lives, both physically and spiritually. The result was a two-page tract that at first was pasted inside the front and back covers of Bibles given away in seminar settings.

Now, because of the shortage of Bibles in Uganda’s four main languages, eight-page tracts in all four languages incorporate portions of Scripture along with explanatory material. Seminar participants read the medical facts about AIDS and how it is spread. Then they examine the Bible’s teaching on sexuality and marriage, responsibility toward people who are suffering, and how those who are dying of AIDS can know they have eternal life.

The program is now operated by a consortium of religious groups, including Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, and Christian medical and student organizations. Some 80,000 tracts have been distributed, in addition to more than 1,000 Bibles.

Providing adequate safeguards and appropriate facilities for treating AIDS victims is the problem. “We have far fewer services available to deal with AIDS than in the U.S.,” says Fountain. A limited budget denies many mission hospitals the kind of equipment they need. Also, it is often difficult to get even enough rubber gloves to protect health-care workers. Disposable needles are out of the question.

Further complicating the problem is the large number of clinics scattered throughout Africa. For example, one major mission hospital oversees 55 rural health centers in the surrounding countryside. Ensuring an adequate supply of gloves and materials for sterilizing syringes is a logistical nightmare.

The extremely high cost of treating AIDS presents yet another dilemma for mission policy makers. “Mission hospitals operate under very, very tight budgets,” says Dr. Richard Crespo, who is director of health training for MAP International, an evangelical service agency that provides health training and medical supplies to mission agencies with medical programs.

“Along comes an incurable disease that is costly to treat,” Crespo says. “This puts mission agencies in a difficult position. Do they put their money into saving people with malaria and hepatitis, which are curable diseases? Or do they allocate their limited resources to AIDS, where more and more people are requiring attention? On top of the normal load of curable diseases, they have this costly and fatal disease. It overburdens an already overburdened health system.”

World Vision expects the epidemic to have serious implications for child survival and primary health care in countries where it is involved. It warns in a policy statement that due to AIDS, the number of orphans and the cost of health care may increase dramatically.

By Sharon E. Mumper.

Perilous folly

The Marxist promise that utopia will follow the abolition of private property is merely one of the more naïve versions of the Enlightenment’s secular humanism.

Christians know this is dangerous nonsense.

—Ronald J. Sider in Completely Pro-Life

Breakdown

One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have been doing.

—Richard Baxter in Gildas Salvanus: The Reformed Pastor

What price danger?

No one can quantify the risk of transmission [of AIDS] in the population at large. But whether it is one in ten or one in 10,000 for a single encounter, I am tired of people saying that all life is risk.… If someone showed you 10,000 guns and said that only one was loaded, would you pick one up and fire it at your temple if the prize were a toaster?

—Katie Leishman in The Atlantic (Oct. 1987)

So near, yet so far

God … can be received only through appreciation and conscious appropriation. He comes only through doors that are purposely opened for him. A person may live as near to God as the bubble is to the ocean and yet not find him. He may be “closer than breathing, nearer than hands or feet,” and still be missed.

—Rufus M. Jones in The Double Search

God’s gift: Our effort

The paradox of prayer is that it asks for a serious effort while it can only be received as a gift. We cannot plan, organize or manipulate God; but without a careful discipline, we cannot receive him either.

—Henri J. M. Nouwen in Reaching Out

Play it again …

You see or hear something once. You take no particular notice. A second time and you are intrigued for a moment, a third time and you take notice.

The Bible works that way. It does not shriek something, it merely repeats it, showing us something again and again until it begins to register.

—Herbert O’Driscoll in And Every Wonder True

Heaven is a wonderful place

A little girl was taking an evening walk with her father. Wonderingly, she looked up at the stars and exclaimed; Oh, Daddy, if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what must the right side be!”

—Charles L. Allen in Home Fires

Our level best

We have nothing to do with how much ability we’ve got, or how little, but with what we do with what we have. The man with great talent is apt to be puffed up, and the man with little [talent] to belittle the little. Poor fools! God gives it, much or little. Our part is to be faithful, doing the level best with every bit and scrap. And we will be if Jesus’ spirit controls.

—S. D. Gordon in The Bent-knee Time

Princeton Piety

Charles Hodge: The Way of Life, edited by Mark A. Noll (Paulist Press, 291 pp; $14.95, cloth).

Part of Sources of American Spirituality, a series spanning a wide variety of traditions, this volume also contains a 44-page introduction by Wheaton College historian Mark Noll, outlining Hodge’s life and thought.

Born in Philadelphia among connections of wealth and influence, Hodge lived in Princeton with few interruptions for over 60 years (1812–78). He was a student in the classical academy, the college, the seminary; and then he was a theological professor whose writings shaped more than one generation of Presbyterian thought.

The bulk of Noll’s introduction covers Hodge’s contribution to Princeton theology and his concept of piety. The selections making up the rest of the book are The Way of Life (1841), a classic of Presbyterian piety, and excerpts from his commentary on Romans, his Sunday afternoon talks to seminary students, and his systematic theology.

Capturing Personality

Through a Glass Lightly, by John J. Timmerman (Eerdmans, 184 pp.; $12.95, paper).

Through a Glass Lightly gives us another academic life. A retired English professor at Calvin College, now in his seventies, Timmerman is a storyteller. The book, in the form of literary essays laced with narrative, focuses on facets of his experience and of the church of which he is a lifelong member—offering a fascinating look into the East Friesian (German-speaking) part of the (predominantly Dutch) Christian Reformed Church.

Timmerman remembers places he lived and people he knew. The last section of the book displays his ability to capture a personality. Brief sketches of colorful acquaintances include novelist Peter De Vries, one of Timmerman’s Calvin College classmates.

Newsworthy Believers

Heir to a Dream, by Pete Maravich and Darrel Campbell (Nelson, 234 pp.; $15.95, cloth) and Terry Waite: Man With a Mission, by Trevor Barnes (Eerdmans, 142 pp.; $4.95, paper).

Someone dies suddenly (as Marvich did in January) and only then do you discover he was a Christian. Or a major player in relaxing Middle East tensions (as the kidnaped Waite was) turns out to be a believer. One turns to biographies such as these to satisfy curiosity about how they came to prominence and how they came to belief.

These straightforward life stories of basketball star Maravich and Anglican envoy Waite are somewhat adulatory, but after you strain out the wonder-struck tone, they do help you understand a person who makes a difference

Maravich became a Christian after success and prominence; Waite, before. They came from very different worlds, which makes reading these books a stretching experience.

Up At 2 A.M

Thomas Merton, Brother Monk: The Quest for True Freedom, by M. Basil Pennington (Harper & Row, 205 pp.; $15.95, cloth).

Sometimes the author of a biography is almost as much the subject of the book as the one written about. So it is here. Pennington is a fellow “strict order” Cistercian, and is able to interpret his brother monk’s ideas and struggles. For instance, chapter 1 recounts the monks’ day: a mixture of work and prayers that begins at 2 A.M. with matins and terminates about 7 P.M. when nighttime prayers lead into silence and sleep.

Chapter 2 summarizes Merton’s thought on true freedom. The reader may be getting Pennington’s ideas as much as Merton’s, but that may not bea defect. Communal life tends toward unity of thought, something most Americans, with their independent ways, cringe at.

Pennington’s theme, the quest for true freedom, is modern. Chapter 3 follows Merton through his early life: 27 years of “freedom,” financially independent and sampling life. He attended English public school, Cambridge and Columbia universities, and crossed the Atlantic 14 times before World War II. The story then moves into 27 years of monastic life where he increasingly found inner, true freedom.

Persistence

God’s Politician: William Wilberforce’s Stuggle, by Garth Lean (Helmers and Howard, 197 pp.; $8.95, paper).

William Wilberforce, the member of Parliament who persisted through 20 years of political infighting to end slavery in Britain, was a key figure in Western public ethics. Like Merton, he was a privileged, bright, talented youth: feasting, talking, and drinking his way through public life. He entered Parliament through a corrupt electoral process. When he became a Christian as a result of Wesleyan influence, he was urged not to withdraw from public life. People like pastor and hymn writer John Newton sensed that he had come to the kingdom for just such a time.

His friendships with other leaders, including the prime minister, led to weekends of talk, strategy, and background work for weekday conflict in Parliament. God used even old school ties to forge a group of public leaders who would work together to end a social evil.

Power Plays

Power, Pathology, Paradox: The Dynamics of Good and Evil, by Marguerite Shuster (Zondervan, 288 pp.; $22.95, cloth). Reviewed by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, professor of interdisciplinary studies, Calvin College.

When I became a Christian in 1971, most of my non-Christian friends reacted either with embarrassment or outright hostility. But not all. The most unexpected response came from a friend who was a second-generation Marxist with secular Jewish roots—someone from whom I would have expected flat rejection of any world view that acknowledged a supernatural realm. Instead, she told me in sober, hesitant tones about an event that had occurred in Mexico a few years before.

She and several other skeptical friends decided one afternoon to climb to the top of a steep bluff the locals pointedly avoided on the grounds that it was inhabited by evil spirits. Their ascent took only a couple of hours; but their descent took until well after midnight. As she explained, it was as if some terrifying, antigravitational force fought them at every step. Then came her bombshell conclusion; “Ever since that day, I’ve had to admit to myself that though I’m still a Marxist, I can never again be a thoroughgoing materialist.”

Contrast this with a scenario in an evangelical seminary just a few years later: an elite club of bright students meeting to discuss one anothers’ papers. Somehow, this particular evening, the conversation turned to the topic of demons. Of some eighteen students present, only two or three (among them, significantly, one raised on the mission field) believed that demon possession is possible. The rest psychologized it away in tones of amused disbelief. Like so many other Christians in the Western world, they seemed functionally materialist in their world view.

In The Peck Genre

Since that time, the “practical materialism” of many educated Christians has been challenged by books such as Scott Peck’s People of the Lie. A distinguished psychiatrist who became a Christian in midcareer, Peck argued persuasively for the inclusion of “evil” as a diagnostic category, and recounted how he gradually came to conclude that for some types of problems, religious exorcism should be sought instead of, or in addition to, psychiatric treatment.

Marguerite Shuster’s Power, Pathology, Paradox is more or less in the Peck genre, although more nuanced and conservative in its underlying theology, and less rich in its use of case studies. In fact, Peck was familiar enough with it in its original (Fuller Seminary) thesis form to have footnoted it in People of the Lie, and he has given enthusiastic endorsement to the book.

Shuster’s title reflects its three main sections. In the section on power, Shuster defines the term as “a union of structure and will.” For her purposes power does not exist without a direction-setting, decision-making consciousness. Human choices are never neutral, though people can try to evade responsibility and meaning by positing a mechanistic universe; or they can try to limit responsibility and meaning by seeing human choices as ends in themselves.

But willy-nilly, the chooser—the person exercising power—is always participating in a greater, spiritual dimension, whether of God or of the Evil One. Our material and social worlds are only superficially that; in reality, they partake of principalities and powers. The reader will recognize Shuster’s affinities with writers like C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams, but the biblical and systematic theology with which she makes her case is much more sophisticated and abstract.

In the section on pathology (in my view the most valuable part of the book), Shuster sets forth the intriguing hypothesis that all pathology arises out of powerlessness, and leads to compensatory power seeking. (Hence the rigidity and lack of spontaneity that characterize so much neurotic behavior.) But in so striving for power, the person risks playing right into the hands of the Evil One, who is characterized by “raw power” devoid of any positive ends.

“Thus pathology—an area of impotence—may be viewed as demonic in its origins and as tending to provoke re-constitutive efforts that are [themselves] essentially demonic. The psychotherapist may easily be trapped into promoting ‘cures’ that are ultimately as bad as the disease. The dilemma is how to remedy powerlessness without succumbing to power-seeking.”

The final section, on paradox, pleads for a radical, “paradoxical” view of health in which, rather than fighting Satan with his own tools, his power is countered by the Word (creational and incarnational) and the Spirit of God operating not through human strength, but through weakness: “Evil is defeated at its roots when we are enabled not to do it, when we are strengthened to bear the suffering of others.… [This] challenges every view of health that would exalt it to the level of a minor deity or would make its major prerequisites autonomy, independence, self-fulfillment, self-esteem, and the like, as over against a focus on right relationships with God and one’s brothers and sisters.”

Excellence And Overkill

In many ways, this book is a scholarly and theological tour de force. Shuster’scommand of the psychological and theological literature is impressive. So is her knowledge of current trends in the philosophy of science. The book’s contents, however, are more than a little marred by its style. To begin with, Shuster gives the reader a full 90 pages of preamble before she even embarks on the themes mentioned in the title.

This first section, entitled “The Elusiveness of Reality,” seems primarily to be an apologetic for the irreducible existence of mind and will, and their connection to an even higher spiritual realm. Her argument ranges across postpositivist philosophy of science, through the empirical literature on the paranormal, to a clinical and theological treatment of demon possession. It makes for fascinating reading, but it is an exercise in overkill.

Second, I am not sure the author ever decided just who her target audience was to be. The first section of the book certainly has the flavor of a doctoral dissertation, and it really requires some knowledge of social science to digest with any ease. The following sections on power, pathology, and paradox more and more take on the ring of sermons, as scholarly argument gives way to confessional proclamation.

Throughout all four sections, Shuster inserts witty but highly intellectual dialogues, reminiscent of The Screwtape Letters, between an “Inquirer” (her own alter ego?) and a “Stranger,” who plays devil’s advocate to all her arguments and is unmasked, finally, as the Devil himself. Shuster seems to want to say something to everyone—and the result may merely be confusion.

Finally, the book lacks the gripping quality we have come to associate with Peck’s work. Aside from occasional dialogues between the “Stranger” and the “Inquirer,” the book is heavy on abstraction, light on case studies, and prone to confusing digression.

Nonetheless, for Christians seeking a sophisticated treatment of the relationships among mind, body, will, spirit, and psychopathology, Shuster’s book is worth the effort it will take to digest it. It is a welcome addition to a growing corpus of scholarly and semischolarly books written by social scientists who, like my Marxist friend, have learned to take the supernatural seriously.

Annie Dillard’s Eyes On Loan

An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard (Harper & Row, 255 pp.; $17.95, hardcover). Reviewed by Philip Yancey.

Annie Dillard writes as if she has not heard all the doomsday talk about people turning from books to TV and VCRs. She writes as if, astonishingly, she believes people still appreciate a clean paragraph, a witty turn of phrase, a precise word set like a precious stone in a gleaming sentence.

She writes an entire book about childhood and adolescence without once using such essential terms as “role model,” “significant other,” “inferiority complex,” and “puberty.” In short, she writes as if a human being is not a predictable product of environment but rather a wondrously free explorer. And, to top it off, she chooses as her frontier of exploration the somber, ordinary streets of middle-class Pittsburgh.

An American Childhood charts new territory for Annie Dillard, and those readers who know her through the Pulitzer prize-winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or its denser companion Holy the Firm are in for some surprises. Gone are the abstruse philosophical speculations. Instead, Childhood cloaks its depth in simplicity, and thus may be the most “accessible” of Dillard’s works to date. The writing is lyrical, smooth, hard-edged and yet humorous. It represents an experiment in kenosis, in self-emptying, for she is attempting to reproduce the emerging consciousness of childhood.

Inside The Skin Of A Five-Year-Old

There are two ways to write autobiography. A person like Malcolm Muggeridge surveys his life from the grand, sage overlook of enlightened old age. He interprets the younger years from the perspective of the older (the title itself gives him away: Chronicles of Wasted Time). Dillard takes a different, and far more risky, approach. When she writes about a five-year-old’s nighttime fears, or the tactile impressions of her mother’s hands, she attempts to climb inside the skin of her five-year-old body again and tell us what it was like. Similarly, when she writes about teenage years, she sulks and pouts and lashes out at the ignorant, oppressive world around her.

I found myself enjoying An American Childhood on three levels. First, on a factual level, it gave me insight into the author, one of the most refreshing writers and thinkers of our time. We learn that her father, in a fit of adventure, quit his job and pointed his motor-boat down the Mississippi River toward New Orleans; that Annie got kicked out of school for smoking and landed in a hospital as a result of drag racing; that her love for the world of nature had to compete with her love for baseball and the French and Indian wars. “Works only on what interests her,” scolded one of Annie’s high school teachers. Fortunately for us, nearly everything seemed to interest her.

On a second level, I savored the fine craft of her writing. A few samples:

• On the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Platonism as it had come bumping and skidding down the centuries and across the ocean to Concord, Massachusetts.”
• On middle-class families: “[They] accumulate dignity by being seen at church every Sunday” and “by gracefully and persistently, with tidy hair and fitted clothes, occupying their slots.”
• On adolescent boys: “froggy little beasts” who somehow “elongated and transformed into princes and gods.”
• On the Giacometti sculpture Man Walking: “so skinny his inner life was his outer life; it had nowhere else to go.”
• On the sound of ocean waves breaking: “like poured raw rice.”

Even In Pittsburgh

But in the final analysis, a book like this must succeed o on a more personal level. The best measure is to read it yourself and note how much of your own Childs’ hood swims to the surface. Arthur Miller once said his plays worked only if they caused the audience to see within themselves and exclaim, “That’s me!” I had that strong sensation throughout this book. It is a celebration of life: the ordinary, humdrum life that may go unnoticed by an observer less skilled.

Annie Dillard has finely honed the skills of observation, and in An American Childhood she lends us her eyes. The book opens with a quotation from Psalm 26: “I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of thy house and the place where dwelleth thy glory.” Behold, it dwelleth even in Pittsburgh.

God Dwells In Operating Rooms

Taking the World in for Repairs, by Richard Seller, (Penguin, 239 pp.; $6.95, paper). Reviewed by Rodney Clapp.

Doctors confront death nearly every day, and thus, obliquely, the meaning of life. Religion and medicine can never be finally separated—precisely because of medicine’s potency and its power to quicken human dreams for well-being and even immortality.

Richard Selzer, a professor of surgery and writing at Yale University, lives with an acute awareness of this potency. His sensitivity shows in such earlier works as Mortal Lessons. But it has never been as abundantly clear as in his latest book, Taking the World in for Repairs, published in hardcover by Morrow and newly available in a Penguin paperback.

Through a collection of 12 essays and short stories, Selzer both tells and shows how medicine cannot escape religion (and superstition). “A hospital is only a building,” he admits, “until you hear the slate hooves of dreams galloping upon its roof. You listen then and know that here is no mere pile of stone and precisely cut timber but an inner space full of pain and relief.”

Nor, in an essay titled “My Brother Shaman,” does he shy from the similarities between premodern medicine men and modern doctors. In using its rigorous training as an initiation, in refusing to admit none but the initiated into the operating room (the holy of holies), in the ritual cleansing and donning of special raiment, surgery remains a priestly “pantomime marked by exorcism, propitiation and invocation. God dwells in operating rooms as He does everywhere. More than once I have surmised a presence … something between hearing and feeling.…”

In such a charged atmosphere, the modern physician enjoys tremendous privilege and suffers tremendous burden. Selzer’s title essay recounts the work of a team of doctors who visited Peru for a few intensive weeks of repairing cleft lips and palates, fused fingers, and other maladies. The doctors rejoice when they examine a girl with a webbed hand and determine they can reconstruct fingers. “We smile as though we have just received the best news. And we have. All this while, the girl has been eating our faces with her eyes.”

But the doctors also face acute disappointment. They have only so much time and can give the gift of new hands and mouths to only so many people. When the makeshift clinic turns away one web-handed girl, unable to fit her into the schedule, “Something pale and vague flits from the face of the girl. I think it must be hope. Her head drops down and away. She is trying not to show what is churning inside. But courage has its limits, in Peru as everywhere else, and there are tears. With her single finger she reaches up to wipe them away.”

An Infidel’S Pilgrimage

With his compassion and eloquence, Selzer makes us aware just how strong every physician’s impulse toward prayer must be. How may one be part of working such joy as that of a girl’s new fingers, and not cry out in gratitude? And how may one tell another girl she will not have new fingers, and not beg for help and justice from a source greater than one’s own pathetic powers? In the book’s opening piece, Selzer exposes his own tendency toward prayer and his yearning for faith.

“Diary of an Infidel” records a pilgrimage to the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Selzer, it appears, is a kind of Augustinian agnostic, thinking people are either predestined to believe or not to believe at all. For him, faith is something either given or not given, “like perfect pitch.”

Selzer’s narrative abilities turn “Diary of an Infidel” into a suspense story. Will he, or will he not, receive the gift of faith? The monks are subtle evangelists indeed, and the more threatening for it: “Each time [a monk] leaves my room I turn the crucifix on my desk thirty degrees so that, sitting there, I am out of the line of fire. Each time he comes his first act is to turn it back until once again I am a bull’s eye.”

Selzer looks longingly on the happiness of the novices, which can “come from no human source.” And belief nearly overwhelms him as he watches a monk passionately at prayer: “Does he hear the shouts of Roman soldiers, the footsteps of women on the via dolorosa, the hammering of spikes. What must it be like to feel trailing at one’s feet the whole of the gorgeous Christian epic—immaculate, murderous, risen? It is a triumph of the imagination.”

Devout Doubts

But Selzer finds reasons to doubt. The monks balk at medicine. They glory in earlier days when bodily mortification was especially violent. They exemplify a brutal faith, one demanding renunciation of body for the sake of soul, of family and friends, of nature’s wonders. And, dangerously unpredictable, the faith housed by the monastery looms like “an orange cat who might claw the one who reaches out or settle to its belly and purr. You never know. Winning faith is like trying to tame a wild animal.” In the end, Selzer does not learn to pray and cannot believe. So he will simply return to his life—“I shall go on doctoring lest I be tempted to lie down and cherish my sorrows.” He will watch birds, treasure laughter and memory. “And I shall try to find human beings to hold in my arms.”

In his classic The Patient As Person, Paul Ramsey remarks that physicians are the true Hebrews of our age. They recognize the indissolubility of the soul and the body. They affirm the goodness of creation, in nature and in humanity. In Selzer’s case, and again like the Hebrews, we may add a sense of the perilousness of belief: Yahweh is no tamer than a wild animal.

Dr. Richard Selzer does not believe. Yet, if there is such a thing, he is a biblical skeptic. He doubts devoutly, and will enrich any believer’s faith.

God gives us his treasure in “earthen vessels”—Methodist circuit riders and Anglican envoys, monks and basketball stars, members of Parliament and Presbyterian theologians. And we unearth the treasure in diaries, book introductions, personal memoirs, and even biographies. Here Larry Sibley, who teaches practical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, reports on recent books that put God’s treasure on display.

Border-State Diary

The Heavens Are Weeping: The Diaries of George R. Browder, 1852–1886, edited by Richard Troutman (Zondervan, 575 pp.; $19.95, cloth).

One of the best ways to read history is in diaries—personal journals that have survived from generation to generation. George Browder, a Kentucky farmer and Methodist circuit rider, wrote the diaries on which The Heavens Are Weeping is based before, during, and after the American Civil War. Reading the daily entries, one enters a different world, and emerges with an expanded sense of the people of God.

We see a farmer and pastor balancing two careers: Concerned for his family and the people at the preaching-points under his care, Browder had a difficult but comfortable subsistence from tobacco and other cash crops.

Living in a border state only heightened Browder’s difficulties. Although in many ways more sympathetic to southern reasoning, Browder was on principle doggedly submissive to the northern authorities. His diaries record the dilemma of a man who wanted to submit to civil authorities, even to the extent of registering for conscription, but who hoped he would not have to serve in the Union army.

Spring is a season for silliness and there may be no sillier sight than that of grown men in nineteenth-century uniforms chasing a ball in front of 50,000 shouting fans. But I am a baseball fan—my wife would say fanatic—and this sight (or rather sound, for I normally listen to the Oakland A’s on the radio) gives me renewed life each spring.

To the nonfan, baseball is boring because nothing is happening 95 percent of the time, which is true if you consider anticipation and remembrance to be nothing. However, to the fan, anticipation and memory are 95 percent of the game. More than any other team sport, baseball can be mentally broken down into a jillion distinct confrontations between man and man, man and ball, man and space. These events can be tracked statistically through the decades (even left-handed relief pitchers’ success during the month of May against left-handed first basemen with two strikes against them). In turn, these events can be analyzed and massaged for meaning.

This mental disassembly also lends itself to storytelling, which by necessity takes events one at a time. Just as in a novel one chance encounter may lead to an unraveling of violence, so in baseball one bad break can turn a game around. A fan thinks back, seeing in his mind’s eye that weak bouncer crippling its way into the hole. Moral: small weaknesses sometimes overcome the efforts of titans. In a fan’s imagination, a whole season can turn on one trifling play.

Strangely Moved

The Atonement is one of the most difficult doctrines of Christianity—which is why I turn to baseball for illumination. The primary problem is how one man’s death could reach across 2,000 years to touch another person’s sin. Exactly how can one person carry another’s sins? How can one person’s righteousness lead to another’s forgiveness?

This question was the main intellectual obstacle to C. S. Lewis’s conversion. A long conversation with J. R. R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson helped him out of the dilemma. He described the conversation’s effect to his friend Arthur Greeves:

What has been holding me back … has not been so much a difficulty in believing as a difficulty in knowing what the doctrine meant.… My puzzle was the whole doctrine of Redemption: in what sense the life and death of Christ “saved” or “opened salvation to” the world.… What I couldn’t see was how the life and death of Someone Else (whoever he was) 2000 years ago could help us here and now—except in so far as his example helped us. And the example business, tho’ true and important, is not Christianity.…

Now what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn’t mind it at all: again, that if I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself … I liked it very much and was my steriously moved by it: again, that the idea of the dying and reviving god (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels. The reason was that in Pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp even tho’ I could not say in cold prose “what it meant.”

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths.…

Not many of us claim to have been mysteriously moved by pagan myths. Balder, Adonis, and Bacchus are not—I speak for myself—soul stirring. So, unfortunately, Lewis’s line of thought leads me nowhere. I have no doubt that Scripture speaks of Christ’s blood shed on my behalf, and that Anselm’s doctrine of the substitutionary atonement reflects Paul’s teaching that “one died for all, therefore all died” (2 Cor. 5:14). Yet it isn’t hard to ask questions about this that stump the teacher. That the Bible teaches vicarious atonement nobody questions. How the Atonement works no one quite understands.

Yet in a sense we do understand it. The Atonement has not receded into the dusty obscurity of some doctrine. It has kept its powerful intuitive appeal. Hymnbooks are full of it: “And can it be, that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood?” “O Sacred Head now wounded,” “Alas! and did my Savior bleed?” “There is power, power, wonder working power in the blood.”

At some level (either above or beyond reason), people respond to the idea that Jesus died for their sins. They are strangely moved by Calvary, not merely as an example of righteous suffering, but as an event where they themselves are implicated, washed clean, and given a new start. They may not understand it, but they respond to it.

At first glance this response seems unlike any other part of our lives. It seems like a peculiarly religious experience, surfacing only at revivals and, for a few like Lewis, in response to ancient myths. But that first glance is misleading. Few emotions are more common than the heartfelt hope that someone else’s virtues directly affect you. I experience it vividly every spring, as do millions of Americans who live and die vicariously through baseball.

Living Through Strangers

Vicarious living through baseball is as hard to explain as the Atonement, and raises a similar question: How can something that the Oakland Athletics do affect me? It struck me last summer, when I was on my way to play on my church’s softball team and found myself fretting that I would miss listening to a crucial A’s game on the radio. There I was, about to play in a real (and competitive) game with my friends—and I cared more about another game to be played by people I had never met. If I muffed a grounder and lost our game I would feel bad, but I would undoubtedly feel worse if the A’s Alfredo Griffin (my counterpart at shortstop) booted his grounder and lost his game.

Of course, I realize that I am exceptionally involved in baseball, but it would be a mistake to underestimate the number of people who feel as I do. The A’s, who have not had a great season in years, routinely draw at least 15,000 fans to each of their 81 home games, as do the Giants across the bay. For six months of the year, there is a ball game nearly every day in the Bay Area (a weak baseball market); and if attendance dips to 10,000, owners rumble about moving the team to Denver.

Sports fans live through their team. They study the sports section each morning. They buy clothes with their team’s emblem. Most of all, they experience incredible elation when their team wins five straight, and stupefying depression when their team loses five straight. Woe to the manager, who must win to please this ominously fickle mob. Fans adore him one day, revile him the next. It’s only natural. They feel their lives are in his hands.

This capacity to give hearts, lives, and emotions to a team or a particular player depends on several factors. Just any old team won’t do. It must have certain qualities, and we must encounter it under certain circumstances.

First, those we give our lives to must be good—remarkably good at what they do. It would not be possible to transfer my affections to a local softball team. Those players through whom I live must be able to do what I cannot do. They must demonstrate grace, power, skill, and sagacity every time they put on cleats. Ideally, they should also be good in a moral sense. True, ballplayers of late have been associated with drugs, alcohol, and greed; but the most-loved players are those you think you would like to introduce to your kids.

A second ingredient is proximity. As a rule, people give their hearts to the team they live closest to. People in my town like either the Giants or the A’s, and if they like the Dodgers you can bet they once lived in Southern California.

Some of proximity’s importance derives from the amount of daily information you can gain. (Just try to find out how the A’s did when you’re in Chicago.) Cut me off from my sports page and my radio, and I stop caring whether the A’s live or die. When I lived in Kenya I was without any but the most rudimentary sports information, and baseball didn’t matter. Even if someone brought a newspaper from home, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I had to live and breathe my team daily in order to live and breathe it at all.

More of proximity’s significance rests, though, in the fragile sense of commonality that comes from living and working in the same town. (“You’re from Fresno? No kidding, that’s where I grew up.”) The smallest patch of common ground is big enough to build a vicarious relationship on: I favor players who went to my college, who grew up in my county, who even once played for the team I have chosen as my own. The more common ground, the easier the vicarious relationship.

Third, vicarious living requires that something important be at stake. I don’t worry how my team does in spring training (except that it indicates how they might do during the regular season). When the games begin to matter,

I begin to care; and my caring is directly proportional to the possibility of success. Should the A’s reach the playoffs and, God willing, the World Series, I will care so hugely that I certainly will not be tolerable company.

Vicarious living is firmly grounded in hope of victory. And by some miracle, hope springs eternal. Every spring even the lowliest team says with conviction, “Don’t count us out.” If they did not, it would not be possible for their fans to live through them. I care because I hope. I care because this year, believe me, the A’s might win it all.

To Our Credit

These same qualities make it possible for Christians to live through Jesus—to believe, much as baseball fans believe that they gain from their team’s success, that Jesus’ death and resurrection are in fact to our credit.

First, Jesus is, of course, very, very good. He did what we wish we could do, but cannot. He constantly demonstrated grace, power, skill, and sagacity. He was also good in the moral sense. Unlike baseball, where doing good and being good at what you do are unrelated, these two qualities were indistinguishable in Jesus. He did what we cannot because he was good as we are not.

Proximity is more difficult to relate. Jesus lacks proximity in the normal sense—he lived on the other side of the globe 2,000 years ago—and who can doubt this makes it difficult for us to believe that his life can be our life? But Jesus does have proximity in another, more essential, sense: he took “the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” He was tempted as we are tempted. Compared to Balder, Adonis, and Bacchus, at least, he is a god we can relate to. And he is a real human being. We share common ground.

The other aspect of proximity, information, is a given of Christian practice. Christians need to pray and read the Bible just as often as baseball fans read the sports page. Fortunately, we need never lose touch with Christ as I did with baseball while in Kenya.

Anywhere and always, we can pray. Those who do lose touch out of laziness, however, will stop caring. They will not live and breathe his life and his death because they do not live and breathe him every day.

The last factor, the importance of the event, makes vicarious living through Christ far stronger than vicarious living through baseball. A baseball fan with a sense of perspective is perennially reminded that he cares more about baseball than he reasonably should; a follower of Jesus with a sense of perspective is perennially reminded that he cares less about Jesus than he should. If there is truth in what Jesus taught, following him is certainly worth the sacrifice of career, family, and security.

A Fan’s Torment

My exegesis of baseball leaves one question unanswered. Baseball’s followers are moved by the hope of victory. Why do Christ’s followers live vicariously through his death? Why is there power in the blood?

Granted that Christ’s death leads to the resurrection, that still does not explain why we (and the gospel narratives) linger over the Passion. Christians have certainly painted far more pictures of Calvary than of the Ascension or of Pentecost. Our hero is no spiritual Rambo. He is the Suffering Servant.

But this is not so unlike baseball. Those who are not fans think, no doubt, that baseball’s appeal is strictly as fun. Not so. Just as much, and more, baseball appeals as suffering. A true baseball fan lives in a daily torment. Losses are agony; and wins give only temporary relief, for you know that defeat is only a trivial mistake away. I almost dread the baseball season, because while over the winter I bask in the joys of anticipation and memory, during the summertime conflict I know I must be miserable much of the time.

My favorite baseball writer, Roger Angell, described the conflict between our wishes and the reality of the game: “What I wish for, almost every day of the summer, is for things to go well—to go perfectly—for the teams and the players I most care about.… We wish for this seriously, every day of the season, but at the same time I think we don’t want it at all. We want our teams to be losers as well as winners; we must have bad luck as well as good, terrible defeats and disappointments as well as victories and thrilling surprises. We must have them, for if it were otherwise, if we could control more of the game or all of the game and make it do our bidding, we would have been granted a wish—no more losing!—that we would badly want to give back within a week. We would have lost baseball, in fact, and then we would have to look around, without much hope, for something else to care about in such a particular and difficult fashion.”

The fan lives by hope, but it is the struggle that captures his heart. The purest fan is the Chicago Cubs fan, who has known much adversity and little else. We love the game most when there is but a paper-thin margin between losing and winning—when each meeting of ball and bat, ball and glove, batter and pitcher, is loaded with significance.

Baseball fans struggle and suffer as their team struggles and suffers, and this, ultimately, is the mythic attraction of baseball. It touches something deeply etched into us. We are not very interested in bliss from beginning to end. The important victories are pulled from the jaws of defeat. Humans care about redemption and salvation, which presuppose degradation and despair. Then, oh, the exhilaration of victory, for which we always hope but so rarely see.

In an age without epic poets, we make such myth with balls and bats. Such myth tells us about our own nature, stuff that biology could not explain. It tells us about the universe we live in, and hints at some of its laws: “Unless the seed dies, it cannot live.” “Blessed are you when men persecute you.” “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”

I am not pretending to have said anything very helpful about how the Atonement works—about the mechanism by which Christ’s righteousness can be transferred to us, and our sins to him. (I think there are some hints here, in that baseball fans are actually affected by their team’s performance only to the extent that they truly identify with the team. They experience the thrill of victory to the extent that they have “given themselves” to the team all season, suffering through everything. Is this identification like what Paul had in mind when he wrote: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” [Rom. 6:3–4, NIV]?)

Trust in vicarious benefits is a fundamental part of our make-up. It is an ineradicable belief of the heart that speaks of something more than we understand. We believe, though we cannot I explain, that our heroes’ victories are our own. Myth shapes itself around these things. So does baseball, as a kind of myth. The shape itself, the true myth made from eternal deeds, is the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Mark McMinn and James Foster suggest it is important to compare carefully a psychotherapy under consideration with Christian theology. In what follows, educational psychologist Bonnidell Clouse compares the original psychotherapy, Freudian psychoanalysis, with Christian conversion. Her article is an example of how similar investigations may be made of various other psychotherapies.

Sigmund Freud is one of those few pioneers whose ideas have significantly changed the way in which we view ourselves, our families, our friends, and our world. Although not many people would be able to articulate what he actually said, Freud’s conclusions have permeated our culture and given us a vocabulary for discussing and interpreting human behavior.

When we read a novel and agree with the author that a character’s strange behavior is really an expression of an inner, unconscious need, we acknowledge the insights of Freud. If we forget an appointment and wonder if perhaps we may have wanted to forget, we are reflecting post-Freudian thought. When we awaken and wonder what our dream really meant, we are recognizing Freud’s findings that what is dreamed is only a surface manifestation of hidden urges and desires. Regression, compensation, sublimation, and rationalization are all concepts common to our vocabulary, made so by Freud.

As historian Peter Gay puts it, “Freud’s ideas … have entered the collective consciousness and become part of what most of us regard as ‘common sense.’ ” Clearly, we all owe much to Freud and his ideas. But the Christian considering psychoanalysis, a form of psychotherapy based on Freud’s theories, needs to examine Freud’s ideas more closely. Christians undergoing psychoanalysis should know realistically what to expect of it, and how its benefits compare to those of the Christian faith.

Conversion And Psychoanalysis

Those of us who have experienced the redeeming love of God know what it means to be converted. We say we have been born again, or have passed from darkness into light, or have become a new creation in Christ Jesus. Our life is changed, and everything is different than it was before. Whether our conversion was sudden and dramatic like that of the apostle Paul, or slower and deliberate like that of Nicodemus, we know that a remarkable, even exhilarating, event has taken place.

Would it have been the same had we engaged the services of a psychoanalyst? Would we have completed therapy with the same emotions, the same thoughts, the same purpose we now have as children of God?

There are several differences between psychoanalysis and Christian conversion. Psychoanalysis brings unconscious processes into consciousness, where they can be dealt with by the ego. Christian conversion brings both the unconscious and the conscious into the light of God’s Word, where they can be dealt with by an omniscient God. Psychoanalysis uses the method of free association (in which the relaxed client spontaneously says whatever comes to mind); Christian conversion uses the method of confession.

One deals with guilt feelings, the other with guilt. One provides a release from emotional tension enabling the person to come to terms with himself and with the society; the other provides a release from the power of sin enabling the person to come to terms with a holy and righteous God. One brings a cathartic release; the other brings atonement. One puts the ego in charge; the other puts Christ in charge.

Freudian Grace?

Freudian psychology and Christian theology do agree on a basic premise. Both believe the condition of the human race is one of depravity. Each person comes into the world imperfect and in need of salvation.

The concept of sin in Christian theology resembles the psychoanalytic view of irrational passions and instincts insofar as sin is caring for self more than for others. But the Christian understanding of sin goes beyond the psychoanalytic understanding of depravity. Sin is missing God’s standard of perfection as well as failing to meet society’s expectations of good conduct. The Christian knows that the purpose of life is more than learning to cope with a real world, for one can gain the whole world and lose his own soul (Matt. 16:26). The purpose of life is to have a meaningful relationship with the Creator and Redeemer, and this is possible only by salvation in Christ Jesus.

Freudian psychoanalysis condemns more than it forgives; it restricts more than it liberates. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm put it succinctly when he wrote, “Freud’s therapeutic aim was control of instinctual drives through the strengthening of the ego … there is no place for grace” (italics added).

But without grace, where would we be? Without grace the apostle Paul could not have said of his moral and spiritual struggle, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:1–2, NIV).

Neuroses And Sin

In psychoanalysis the person comes to know the self better, and is aided in the search for better mental health. In Christian conversion the person, through Christ, comes to see the self as God would see it and is aided in the quest for spiritual well-being. Both mental health and spiritual health are preceded by anguish of the soul. Conflict occurs when people see what they are really like in comparison with what they should be and would like to be. It is conflict that brings one to the psychoanalytic couch, and it is conflict that brings one to Christ.

But in psychoanalysis the conflict is between the natural desires one is heir to and the cultural restrictions needed to assure the survival of the society. In Christian theology, the conflict is between the old nature that is sinful and the new nature that is righteous.

Both neuroses and sin produce inner turmoil, and both neuroses and sin render the person an unfinished product crying out for completion. But in psychoanalytic therapy the benefits extend only to this life, whereas in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus the benefits extend throughout eternity. An important ingredient of the Christian hope is knowing that our salvation will last forever (1 Cor. 15:19).

What Psychoanalysis Can Do

This does not mean that a person cannot benefit from psychoanalytic therapy. Psychoanalysis is especially effective with long-standing mental disorders. Unlike other treatment procedures—such as behavior modification, short-term counseling, or drug therapy—psychoanalysis is an in-depth probing of personal experiences that have rendered the person anxious, fearful, or depressed. By going to the root of the problem, as psychoanalysis does, fundamental changes in the personality can occur.

Someone who has been reared in an authoritarian home may use psychoanalysis to lighten the burden of an over-condemning conscience. And the benefits that accrue may be indirectly spiritual: One cannot be a useful servant of God or appreciate the freedoms we have in Christ while feeling apprehensive and guilty. (Younger adults, more apt to have been permissively reared, may suffer from narcissistic disorders. Psychoanalysts are adjusting their techniques to meet the needs of these more recent patients.)

Psychoanalysis is both time-consuming and expensive. Several sessions a week for three to five years is not uncommon. The cost alone may be prohibitive, so some people who would profit from analysis must resort to less costly forms of treatment. But compared to therapies that deal only with surface manifestations of long-term neuroses or promise a “quick fix,” psychoanalysis provides more lasting remediation.

Psychoanalysis, then, may help the Christian in the same ways it may help any other person. The Christian should simply recognize the limitations of psychoanalysis and not confuse its methods or results with Christian salvation.

Psychoanalysis saves people from the evil of neuroses; Christianity saves people from the evil of enmity against God. Well-being in psychoanalysis is a state of normalcy in which the unconscious, the conscious, and the conscience are all in the right relationship to each other. Well-being in Christianity is more than a regrouping of forces already present within the personality. It is being made a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17).

Bonnidell Clouse is professor of educational and school psychology at Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana. She discusses psychoanalysis and other psychotherapies at greater length in her Moral Development: Perspectives in Psychology and Christian Belief (Baker, 1985).

Mornings are bleak for Sharon. At the end of a restless night she will lie in bed staring at the ceiling until her eyes blur, her mind filled with the dread of another day. Routine household chores have become monumental tasks, and formerly appetizing foods have lost all appeal. The joy of her new son, now six months old, has been overshadowed by self-doubt and sorrow that seem almost unbearable. Her sense of aloneness is not lessened by the presence of others. She thinks endlessly about her failures as a mother and as a Christian.

Sharon is suffering the classic symptoms of depression. Counseling with her pastor has helped in recent months, but signs of progress have been overshadowed by the ominous emotions that remain. Her pastor, concerned that Sharon has not improved more rapidly, recently recommended that she get professional help for her depression.

But that created a new dilemma. Sharon once read several fascinating books about psychology. According to these books, mental health professionals have seduced millions of Christians away from scriptural teachings. Could it be, she wonders, that going to a professional psychologist would be spiritual suicide?

Sharon cannot be alone in her confusion. In recent years, hosts of writers have criticized psychology for being self-centered, humanistic, ineffective, and antibiblical. The result is a wariness that goes beyond healthy skepticism. In fact, overzealous Christian criticism of psychology may have prevented many people from seeking needed psychological help.

The Christian critics of psychology are often respected and well-meaning scholars whose arguments must be considered carefully. But their writings sometimes omit understandings that would foster a more balanced evaluation of psychotherapy.

Questions About Psychology

Sharon’s struggle, and that of many Christians in her situation, centers on a series of important questions:

• Does psychology advocate self-glorification? For the past 50 years, psychologists have been interested in the self. “Self” psychologists, such as Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow, Gordon Allport, and Carl Rogers, have written about self-esteem, self-image, self-realization, and self-actualization. In his book Psychological Seduction, William Kirk Kilpatrick identifies this emphasis on self as being antithetical to Christian thought. Kilpatrick suggests that psychologists see self as all there is, resulting in a striving to be like God and an unhealthy pursuit of personal happiness.

The concerns of Kilpatrick and other critics must be taken seriously. Some popular psychological writings do emphasize self to the exclusion of concern for others. Book titles such as Looking Out for Number One and Pulling Your Own Strings make this clear. In these and other popular writings, self-esteem and self-glorification, or narcissism, have been confused.

Mainstream psychology’s position on self-esteem, however, can be clarified with the analogy of a marksman shooting at a target. A marksman is more concerned with accuracy than with whether the shot is low or high. Concepts of low or high are only used to improve accuracy. Never would a marksman conclude “the higher the better.” Similarly, psychologists have traditionally been interested in accuracy of self-concept. It may be important to observe whether self-esteem is low or high, but only for the sake of adjustment to accuracy.

Rather than concluding “the higher the better,” the classic self psychologists distinguished accurate self-esteem from the excessive self-love of narcissism. Gordon Allport wrote that narcissism could not be dominant in the psychologically mature individual. Erich Fromm, Albert Adler, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers all emphasized that an individual with healthy self-esteem is rarely selfish.

There is little doubt that the apostle Paul had a healthy self-esteem. He wrote frequently of his accomplishments and encouraged his readers to imitate him. But Paul was not narcissistic, focusing on himself to the exclusion of a concern for others. Moses also appeared to develop an accurate self-esteem, as evidenced by his style of leadership. While humility and narcissism are incompatible, humility and self-esteem are not. Indeed, accurate self-esteem always includes an awareness of personal limitations.

In fact, a Christian therapist can help Sharon to grow toward mature spirituality. While she is depressed, Sharon can focus her attention only on herself instead of God’s character. With the help of a Christian therapist she may end the self-centered condemnation of herself and focus again on God.

• Is psychology humanism? Being a Christian in our psychologically oriented era is often like walking a tightrope. If we lean too far to one side, we may become spiritually insensitive and begin to look to the human experience as the ultimate reality. Admittedly, many of the leaders in psychology have done this. Sigmund Freud, Albert Ellis, and others have professed that God is a human invention. In so doing, they denied the power of God. An atheistic humanism is the result, and it has had an influence on psychology.

But there is another way to lean on the tightrope. If we lean too far to that other side, we may miss details of God’s truth revealed in sources other than Scripture. If Sharon, for example, concludes psychology is antibiblical, she will not get help for her depression despite the availability of effective psychological treatments that have no implicit atheistic assumptions.

It really does not help Sharon and other hurting Christians to bluntly label psychology “humanistic” and dismiss it. We need to distinguish between kinds of humanism and their respective merit or lack of merit. (So orthodox a theologian as J. I. Packer has written appreciatively of “Christian humanism.”) The tightrope requires great balance and careful assessment—before we get on it and as we walk it.

• Are the methods used by psychologists spiritually dangerous? Looking for a psychologist can be likened to shopping for toothpaste. One is immediately overwhelmed by the plethora of brand labels: psychoanalysis, behaviorism, client-centered therapy, cognitive restructuring, transactional analysis, gestalt therapy, and so on.

That being the case, to ask if psychotherapy is spiritually dangerous is like asking if toothpaste is white: it depends on the brand. Add to this the complication that all psychotherapies are delivered by a person with his or her own distinct spiritual values, and the possible combinations of values and therapies are endless.

Unfortunately, critics of psychology have often evaluated the spirituality of the discipline by investigating only a few of the available psychotherapies. In The Psychological Wayl The Spiritual Way, Martin and Deidre Bobgan describe the danger of psychological methods of treatment. The Bobgans have raised some important objections to mainstream psychotherapies, but most of their critique centers on the fringes of psychology—with the fringes then representing all psychology.

If Sharon had recently read their book, she might anticipate a psychologist almost certainly using methods such as scream therapy, encounter groups, est, arica, and transcendental meditation. But, in fact, these techniques are rarely used by most psychologists (we each finished doctoral programs in psychology without studying any of them). Referring to such techniques when criticizing psychology is the equivalent of using the National Enquirer to criticize journalists.

Given all this, the best question for Sharon is not the broad “Are psychotherapies spiritually dangerous?” Instead, with the assistance of a pastor or informed friend, she might better ask, “Is this particular psychotherapy, being delivered by this therapist, spiritually dangerous to me?”

• Is psychotherapy effective? Kilpatrick and the Bobgans have questioned the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Both cite a fascinating study of the outcome of psychotherapy, conducted and reported by Hans Eysenck in 1952. Eysenck found subjects receiving psychotherapy had improved less after treatment than a group of subjects receiving none.

Kilpatrick and the Bobgans fail, however, to report as well that Eysenck’s data have subsequently been analyzed by psychologist Allen Bergin. Bergin reported that Eysenck’s analysis was contaminated by using different standards of improvement for the two groups of subjects. Also, Bergin objected to counting those who dropped out of treatment as treatment failures. From the same data that Eysenck used to conclude 39 percent improved with therapy, Bergin found 91 percent improved. It is a stunning discrepancy, showing how both research and its reporting can be guided by personal values and prior beliefs.

Numerous subsequent studies have indicated that Bergin’s interpretation may have been correct. A 1980 review of 475 research studies on psychotherapy outcome suggests that psychotherapy is at least modestly effective.

Again, rather than using broad strokes, we do better by considering a particular therapy for a particular person: “Is there a psychotherapy that will be effective for this client with this therapist?” In Sharon’s case we can be quite hopeful. A recent study showed that 15 of 19 depressed clients recovered completely within 12 weeks of beginning cognitive psychotherapy (a therapy that focuses on thoughts rather than emotions).

• Can psychology tell us anything the Bible cannot? Most critics of psychology take the position that theology has authority over psychology. Thus, psychology must be filtered through Scripture, and information inconsistent with Scripture must be rejected. We agree that Scripture is authoritative, but filtering psychology through Scripture has led to a faulty conclusion: that psychology can add nothing to Scripture in our understanding of human nature.

First, insisting that the Bible replace an academic discipline presumes that the Bible has something to say about all the questions asked in that particular discipline. But the authority claimed by Scripture is not authority over the countless details of human science and art. It is a more basic, fundamental authority over our perspective toward faith and life in general. Few Christians today would say we need know nothing more about chemistry or physics than the Bible teaches. The same holds true for psychology, itself a science.

The best question for the Christian to ask is not, “Are psychotherapiesspiritually dangerous?” but “Is this particular psychotherapy, practiced by this therapist, spiritually dangerous to me?”

Second, Christians should keep a two-way street open between the disciplines of psychology and theology. By giving theology uncritical authority over psychology or any other science, we prevent reciprocal feedback that may benefit theology itself. Consistency with established belief does not automatically make something true. (The message of Christ was rejected by many because it was not “orthodox.”) Theology is a human endeavor and, as with all human endeavors, humility befits it. That, if nothing else, is the hard lesson of the Copernican controversy, in which the church rejected the “unorthodox” theory that the Earth revolves around the sun.

Finally, many Christians fail to integrate theology and psychology simply because they do not accept psychology as a science. Instead, they treat psychology as theology or philosophy. But as a science, psychology uses assumptions and methods different from other disciplines. In science, theories come, compete with one another, are empirically tested, and go, as the field tries to edge toward truth. If a psychological concept offends you, then pluck it out—another will be waiting to take its place. Psychology is best viewed as a set of proposed theories rather than a set of established facts. When it touches on truth, it touches on God’s truth, because all truth is God’s truth.

Considering Psychotherapies

There are dangers intrinsic to psychological methods and practices. In her depression, Sharon may herself not have the energy and the mental acuteness to maintain a healthy skepticism while examining psychotherapies. So she needs the help of her pastor, a friend, a spouse, or a parent. It is important to explore a psychologist’s credentials, values, and treatment preferences prior to beginning any kind of therapy. Such an exploration is neither impolite nor unexpected.

We recommend four specific questions be asked before entering a therapeutic relationship with a psychologist:

• What are the psychologist’s religious values? For many years, psychologists believed that the personal values of a professionally trained psychologist would not affect psychotherapy. We now realize this is unrealistic and that the personal values of therapists may indeed affect outcome of some treatments. Treatment for phobias and stress-related physical disorders will be relatively unaffected by religious values. But religious values are more important in the treatment of other difficulties, such as anxiety disorders, depression, and marital problems.

Many therapists believe they are well prepared for Christian clients but are not themselves professing Christians. We are skeptical of this, and recommend that Christian therapists be consulted for problems that might relate to issues of faith.

•How much experience does the psychologist have with this kind of problem? Professional degrees and a wealth of experience do not necessarily imply competence. Some paraprofessional counselors are as effective as the best professionals. But according to much of the published research, experienced therapists seem to do better therapy. Sharon’s symptoms will be most effectively treated by someone who has specific experience treating depression. Psychologists who feel unqualified are typically willing to refer to other therapists who have had more experience with the particular problem.

•What psychotherapeutic techniques will the psychologist use? This question is not typically asked of psychologists and may evoke a startled reaction. But if, as the critics of psychology suggest, some techniques are spiritually dangerous, the informed consent of the client becomes important.

Sharon might find a variety of responses to this question, and she may not recognize the technique described by the psychologist. But after getting the psychologist’s perspective on the technique to be used, additional information can be obtained by visiting the local library or perusing a general psychology textbook. In addition, many pastors are informed about current psychological techniques and the theological issues relevant to each.

Most psychologists have been trained in one or two specific approaches and will not be able to “switch hit,” using any approach desired by the client. If a client insists on a specific therapy, psychologists will usually refer to another therapist.

•What are the chances of success? As we said earlier, psychologists have admitted that counseling is not equally effective for all problems. After the first few sessions, most experienced therapists will have a good estimate of potential treatment success. Of course, these estimates are hunches and cannot be considered completely accurate. In Sharon’s case, the possibilities are varied. If this is her first serious depression and if there are not physiological causes, she would be expected to improve rapidly with some forms of cognitive therapy. If, however, she has been seriously depressed before or if there appear to be physiological imbalances, treatment might involve medication in conjunction with psychotherapy and could be lengthier.

A Valuable Controversy

One goal of Christian life is growth, and the debate about the place of psychology in Christianity can be healthy and productive for those struggling with the issues. Unfortunately, the potential Christian psychological client is often hearing only one side of the debate. Christians need to evaluate evidence on both sides carefully to make fully informed decisions. Only an openness on both sides and a frank exchange over all the issues will ultimately lead to refined integration we can call a true Christian psychology.

If Sharon decides to seek professional counseling, there is a potential for her to learn to view herself and her situation more accurately, and, as a result, alleviate her depression. There is also the potential that—even with a Christian psychologist—she might be challenged in her faith as she confronts the dangers identified by psychology’s critics. But such challenges are part of natural Christian growth. In either case, under the care of a competent Christian psychologist, Sharon can benefit from the process, grow emotionally, and move ahead in her spiritual pilgrimage.

The Most Common Psychotherapies

The concerned person seeking psychotherapy is likely to encounter one or more of the following:

• Psychoanalysis. Formulated by Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis is based on the assumption that psychological symptoms result from unresolved conflicts in the unconscious. Psychoanalytic treatment is usually lengthy and intensive, requiring great motivation and financial resources.

• Time-limited dynamic psychotherapy, TLDP is a recent derivative of psychoanalytic therapy. While the assumptions are similar, clients in TLDP are encouraged to set specific treatment goals, and length of treatment is usually limited to six to eight months.

• Behavior therapy. Emphasizing childhood experiences much less than psychoanalysis, the behavior therapies are a set of techniques designed to modify specific behaviors and thereby change disturbing emotions. They are especially helpful in overcoming phobias, such as fear of heights, flying, or animals.

• Assertiveness training. Assertiveness training teaches clients to express their feelings openly. Among other things, it is helpful for persons who have difficulty saying no to requests and accepting compliments about themselves. Properly understood, assertive behavior is honest, socially appropriate, and considers the welfare of others.

• Rational emotive therapy, RET is founded on the assumption that most emotional symptoms are the result of faulty thinking patterns. A client missing a promotion, for instance, would be counseled to stop thinking of that as a career-ending catastrophe.

• Cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapists attempt to identify and change distorted thinking patterns in clients, similar to practitioners of ret. By learning to change unhealthy automatic thoughts, clients are often able to overcome depression and anxiety disorders in three to four months. A woman, for instance, who tells herself, “No one likes me,” will be counseled instead to tell herself, “Not everyone likes me, but many people do.”

• Client-centered therapy. Founded by Carl Rogers, client-centered therapy focuses on clients’ conscious experiences rather than the unconscious. It requires empathy, “unconditional regard,” and personal adjustment on the part of the therapist.

• Transactional analysis, TA is an approach to psychotherapy considering the person in three components: adult, parent, and child. It advocates balance and awareness of these three parts of the personality.

By Mark McMinn and James Foster.

Mark McMinn is associate professor of psychology at George Fox College, Newberg, Oregon, and a licensed, practicing psychologist. James Foster is associate professor of psychology at George Fox College, specializing in developmental psychology. McMinn and Foster have authored numerous journal articles on the integration of Christianity and psychology.

A nation’s legal system only functions effectively when its people are convinced it dispenses what is generally believed to be justice. In fact, when we pledge our allegiance to this nation, we express our support of “justice for all.” If that is not a distinctly Christian concept, it is at least a moral one. Yet our nation’s legal system, in its present condition, is neither Christian nor moral.

There are at least three indicators of the current inadequacy in our system of dispensing justice. First: The legal system overemphasizes the rights of the victimizer over those of the victim. In a criminal trial the victim is not represented before the court. The prosecutor is representing the state as an entity whose requirements have been violated. And forthright prosecutors and defense attorneys both will admit that the victim continues to be victimized in the courtroom.

Consider the widely followed criminal defense practice of attacking the morals or psychological soundness of the victim. Stephen Gillers, New York University professor of evidence and ethics, apparently reflects the current attitude toward this practice when he writes that “it is not unethical to try to cast aspersions on the character of the victim.” This is particularly repugnant when the victim cannot respond to character attacks, as in the case of murder victims. Yet, this defense strategy is a commonly sanctioned technique in our courtrooms.

Second: Our courts deny fundamental equity to large classes of our citizens. Small-claims courts provide a reasonably effective forum for handling disputes involving $1,500 or less. But it generally costs too much in legal fees to take other matters to court unless they involve more than $25,000 or $30,000. Thus, as a practical matter, these kinds of civil actions are denied a reasonable means of resolution in our courts. And, increasingly, corporations are being advised by their lawyers to refuse to resolve such disputes voluntarily outside of the courtroom. Doing this means that the corporation will win its case with minimal inconvenience, while the ordinary citizen suffers.

Finally: The legal system protects some classes of criminals from being punished for their actions. “Physicians, lawyers, and other professional groups generally have succeeded in keeping the criminal offenses of their members out of the criminal justice system,” observes California Polytechnic State University professor James Coleman. As a practical matter, the victim of a criminal act by a member of a self-regulating profession has little recourse under law.

This also is true of teenagers who engage in violent or habitually criminal acts. “Society has done precisely what it should not do and [has] given near immunity to juveniles,” concludes Ernest van den Haag, Fordham University jurisprudence professor. “They know they can do things they could never get away with if they were adults.”

A ministry of justice?

Christianity is built on the Old Testament foundation of justice along with the New Testament message of reconciliation. Thus, we ought to be part of the solution to this problem of injustice in our legal system. But first, we must stop deluding ourselves about how our courts operate. Real-life justice, in this context, is not like an episode of the TV series “Perry Mason” or “Matlock.” Christians ought to become interested in the work of the local police force and visit court sessions. We cannot correct a situation we don’t understand.

We must also find ways to support and assist victims throughout their recovery from a criminal act. This is as much a valid ministry for the local church as, say, visiting those who are ill. Groups such as Prison Fellowship are to be commended for their work with those who commit crimes. But we should not let their work overshadow the needs of those who suffered physical and mental anguish at the hands of convicted criminals.

Christians could also provide a real service by mediating disputes when the legal system does not offer realistic remedies. Significant opportunities for both witness and ministry exist when a person is acting as a mediator. Training in dispute mediation techniques is sponsored by the American Arbitration Association, and it should be offered regularly by Christian colleges—both to their students and to local church leaders.

Finally, the church must be bold in insisting that all persons—regardless of age, race, sex, or financial status—be provided fair treatment when victimized by crime. Although this nation’s legal system cannot reflect Christian values as such, it surely can reflect moral values. And, as representatives of a just God, Christians should lead toward making this nation a fair place to live.

By Belden Menkus, who is an author, lecturer, and management consultant based in Middleville, New Jersey.

SPEAKING OUT offers responsible Christians a forum. It does not necessarily reflect the views of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.