I have often talked about the Materialist assumption at work in our culture. It is just assumed that everything that exists has some kind of scientific or physiological explanation. I heard a BBC reporter talking about the Scopes Trial and the 'teaching' of evolution. He corrected himself with the 'science of evolution' - implying that science is factual and based on actual things that can be verified while teaching is just theoretical or philosophical and thus subjective in a way 'science' is not. The poor lost man doesn't understand that science - especially as it's being understood in a Materialist framework is just as philosophically rooted and dependent as any other religious system.
But it's everywhere. Every medical story, every psychology-based story just operates under these assumptions. And Christians (particularly Evangelicals and members of the Mainline) have embraced them as well - failing to understand this represents a rival and hostile form of epistemology with its own tools of verification that stand in stark contrast to not just revelation but even the admittedly limited and flawed theology hinted at in the transcendence of nature.
Evangelicals will often try and hide this under a spiritual gloss or in desperate attempts to frame the faith in terms compatible with science, they fall into patterns of syncretistic thinking.
I was listening to a Focus on the Family interview and they were talking about spousal communication and conversation. It was one of those typical episodes - an interview with a psychologically oriented feminized couple that operates in conformity with the world and the decadence of late capitalist Western culture....
I only caught the last 10-12 minutes or so of the episode and yet two things jumped out at me right away and I was compelled to come home and re-read the transcript.
Jim Daly the host praises the guests (Ashley and Heather Holleman) in their use of 'positive regard' - which he admits is a term connected to psychology.
He then states that: I believe what most psychology is showing us is God’s design for humanity.
He equates this positive regard with loving people unconditionally. The guest affirms this saying we're 'believing the best about them' - 'to move toward the person, to find out 'what's really good' about them.
She then says that you've 'never met a nobody'... and you're looking for 'what's really, really great about them.'
This is not the gospel. This is not the law leading someone to repentance. This is positive thinking, something akin to Norman Vincent Peale. We can love people and feel compassion for them but we're not looking for what's great about them or to tell them how special they are. Grace operates in the context of brokenness not affirmation and celebration. The profundity of the cross is not that Christ died because you're so special - a theme I keep hearing in Evangelical music and on these types of shows, but rather you are not special. You're a child of wrath worthy of death but despite this God showed forth His love - even though in your flesh you hated Him. The Evangelical framing produces pride and self-esteem (something the so-called 'conservative' or even 'fundamentalist' Focus on the Family has long promoted). If there is brokenness in the contemporary Evangelical framing of the gospel, it's you're broken because the world has told lies about you. In reality you're special.
This is to put it bluntly, anti-Christian.
Further it's a functional denial of Scriptural authority. The Scriptures don't tell us how to wrestle with the Christian life or so it would seem. According to these Evangelicals, we need all these other tools and paradigms constructed by the unbelievers (such as psychology) to help us flesh out and really apply Christianity to our modern context.
According to the APA, 'positive regard' is - an attitude of caring, acceptance, and prizing that others express toward an individual irrespective of their behavior and without regard to the others' personal standards.
The positive regard of the counselor is a pretended neutrality - ignoring the fact that not challenging flawed reasoning, assumptions, and sinful behaviours is far from being neutral. This is not a Christian approach to interacting with people. If Christian 'Counselors' practice this, they are abdicating their Christianity the minute they sit behind the desk. We can be empathetic but we can't always be accepting or prizing.
Now maybe Daly would want to qualify his endorsement of 'positive regard' and modify it. But it doesn't change the fact that he's relying on this concept which originates from other than Scriptural foundations - humanistic foundations to be exact. He's tweaking Materialist Paganism in order to make it work with Christianity. The end result is the dilution of Christianity, the gospel message, and the authority of Scripture.
Heather Holleman (the guest) when speaking about goals of conversation posits we should want to encourage the other person, help them with their goals, or lead to a state of marveling.
This isn't subjective is it? I would hope she would acknowledge that sometimes encouraging requires challenging, exposing, and calling to account?
Elaborating on the idea of marveling she then says:
This is a life-changing principle to imagine that every conversation with your spouse could lead you both to a state of awe. The research is astonishing. When you’re in a state of awe, you’re actually lowering your cortisol levels. You’re, you’re, you’re doing so many good (laughs) things for your mental health.
Take note, the Scriptures are verified by means of materialist-based scientific research. I am well aware there are many who view nature and scientific endeavour as supplemental to Scripture. Evidentialism is quite common (even dominant) within Evangelicalism and yet I contend it leads to the same materialism that dominates and defines the culture at large.
She speaks of a 'state of awe' and connects this to lowering cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone related to stress and so a lower level implies - relaxation and less stress.
I'm left scratching my head a bit as to why she connects less stress with the concept of 'awe' but this is highly problematic nevertheless.
Awe or reverential respect coupled with wonder and often fear or dread is the result of being in the presence of either majesty, great power, or something transcendent. As such we can speak of awe connected to something like looking at your newborn child and contemplating the wonder of it.
Holleman connects this with chemical reactions in your body. Now, I will say that undoubtedly our bodies respond to our emotions - there is a physiological mirror or a kind of entanglement connected to what happens in our hearts (or minds) and in our spirit. But there is a danger here in conflating the concepts and perhaps the reversal of causation. I think the final statement about 'mental health' is most problematic of all as it implies that behaviours or activities produce chemicals which in turn make our minds healthy or unhealthy - as if one's mind is nothing more than our brain.
If awe is really nothing more than an adjustment in cortisol levels, then it follows that a pill could produce awe or take it away. In other words it's simply a chemical reaction. I would argue the physical results of spiritual or mental activity such as worship, love, depression, or whatever are not quantifiable. Our bodies are connected to be sure but that connection is broken and marred by the sin nature.
And so while there is evidence, it's not anything that anyone can (or should) do anything with - in terms of drawing conclusions.
Materialism starts from the other side of the question and believes worship, love, depression, etc. are just words we use to describe chemical reactions that have evolved out of some need for the species and can either be tamed and regulated, or if superfluous (as they would view 'religious' impulses or chemical reactions) as something that can be dispensed with or maybe even should be.
I'm curious to know how Holleman would respond to the idea that (based on her words) we could artificially produce awe by lowering someone's cortisol levels?
If so, then it seems plain to me that she doesn't actually understand what awe is.
Someone even half-way clever could explain away my concerns and simply say that whether we're talking about positive regard or feelings being connected to chemical levels these things need not be limited to materialist categories.
But I don't think they're off the hook. They have embraced the assumptions of Materialism when it comes to how they're dealing with psychology and the way the mind responds to and interacts with the world.
What if (hypothetically) awe produced a spike in cortisol? Would she say it's bad? What if the gospel proved physically unhealthy? What if it destroyed relationships? What then?
It's hard to be conclusive in my assessments of these people as they won't allow themselves to be judged according to the terms being used - as they would attempt to re-define them. However it's clear to me they are building on a flawed foundation - one that they think works comfortably with and alongside the world. And this is what always baffles me. To what end?
Some could argue this is an application of Kuyper's model of Common Grace - the unbeliever unwittingly discovers truth and helps to build the Kingdom. The believers take up this knowledge (as all truth is God's truth many will naively say) and render and utilize it rightly.
But in doing so they allow the
world to define their terms, create their categories, and shape their
thinking. The idea is that the Christians will now get a place at the
world's table and have abundant opportunities to serve and exercise
influence. But in this case for all their bending and accommodating -
the world doesn't respect them. The Psychological Establishment
doesn't hold them in any regard - rather in contempt. And they should
also be held in contempt by the Church, but that's not the case. So
for all that accommodation, what does it accomplish? All they do is
plant seeds of doubt and destruction in the Church and build on
other-than-Scriptural foundations. They can keep invoking Scripture
(as they are wont to do) but it has nothing to do with their
paradigms or values.
And time has and will continue to bear
this out.
The Materialist Establishment will simply argue these emotional (and deemed spiritual) responses or chemical reactions are part of Evolution and no longer serve a purpose, or if they do they can be simulated and thus people can find the chemical satisfaction in the Materialist idol of a pill instead of religious experience. We're already more than half-way there and for some Evangelicals if prayer isn't doing it for them - why not take a pill and kind of 'round out' the chemical/emotional response you're looking for? It seems logical to me.
Finally I will repeat a story I've often written about and told. One need not be a fan of Greg Bahnsen to appreciate the story. Bahnsen talked about how God has a Quality of Awe. He then spoke of being a young student and seminarian and sitting at the feet of great professors, thinkers, and theologians. He was in awe of them and yet as he grew in knowledge, learned, and became competent, his awe began to diminish. This is not to say these weren't still great, accomplished, or brilliant men, but rather the awe decreased because in the course of his own education, he could now hold his own and had become a peer. A peer is rarely in awe of his equals.
With God it's quite different. We are rightly in awe of Him and hopefully even a new Christian will have some sense of this. And yet as the years go by and we learn more and more the opposite occurs in reference to the professors. Not only does the awe fail to diminish it increases sometimes exponentially. The more we learn and the more we understand, the more we are in awe and humbled.
If awe is something that can be tweaked by adjusting chemicals in our body - then truly it is a meaningless concept. Maybe Holleman would deny this and insist it's the other way around. But she equated it with 'mental health' and that tells me that at best she's confused about the issue. I contend it is by these means that Materialist assumptions continue to gain ground within the Church.