Steven Hassan and Brian Karcher discuss various topics from Steven’s book “Combating Cult Mind Control” and Brian’s book “Identity Snatchers”.

freedomofmind.com//Media/CCMC25.php

Steven A. Hassan, M.Ed., LMHC, NCC is a former cult member who has been educating the public about mind control and destructive cults since 1976. As a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC) and Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), Hassan is the author three books that have received extensive praise from former cult members, families of former members, clergy, cult experts, and psychologists. Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults(1988, 1990, 2015), Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves(2000), and Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults & Beliefs, (2012, 2013). He also co-developed “Ending the Game”, a non-coercive curriculum designed to educate and empower commercial sex trafficking victims.

He has appeared on 60 Minutes, CNN, NPR, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Larry King Live, Oprah, Dr. Drew, Dr. Phil, and many other programs, and has been featured in People Magazine, USA Today, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, and dozens of other major publications and websites. Learn more about him and the Freedom of Mind Resource Center, Inc. at FreedomOfMind.com

Hassan – Karcher 2015 – Interview University Bible Fellowship (UBF) from Brian John Karcher on Vimeo.

Books

	Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults
	Identity Snatchers: Exposing a Korean Campus Bible Cult

]]> http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/10/14/steven-hassan-interview/feed/ 20 http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/13/the-conundrum-of-approval/ http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/13/the-conundrum-of-approval/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2015 03:18:32 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9562 “If you just set out to be liked, you will be prepared to compromise on anything at anytime, and would achieve nothing.”- Margaret Thatcher.

Chapel with David Choi

In Chapel at Moody, we had a quest speaker, David Choi, from the church of the Beloved. One point in his sermon stuck out to me. He said, “We’re all trying to find security… We’re trying desperately to find validation in our identities.” He shared all the masks that he had worn throughout his life. Growing up as a Korean, he struggled academically to please his father. He always got A’s, but it was never good enough. Then he moved to a boarding school in the Midwest where everyone was smarter than him, so he tried to be the athletic and funny class clown. Then he went to Wheaton where everyone was a spiritual leader and president of their respective Bible Clubs, so he led a youth group. Then he went to seminary in Boston where he again wanted to fit in and show off. It was a never ending game of charades.

My masks

As he was sharing, I couldn’t stop my head form nodding. I know what it’s like to wear a mask, to become a social chameleon so that others would accept me. So often my desire for validation and approval dictates how I spend my time, money and energy, what I blog about or post on facebook. It determines my job and educational degrees. To this day I am still trying to prove my worth to the middle school bullies who made fun of me and ignored me, a decade and a half ago. I put on the smart/tough/able/invincible MJ mask, but it is exhausting and ultimately the only one receiving approval is the mask. This is the conundrum of approval; the more one seeks it, the less likely one will gain it. It is a never ending vicious cycle that is apparent in some of the most beautiful and successful people of the world. There are fashion models who never accept that they are beautiful and keep trying harder and harder to gain that ever elusive sense of worth. Approval is a drug that never satisfies and continually keeps one begging for more and more.

There’s a quote that Dr. Ben shared from Anne Lamott and I thought it was an accurate depiction of humanity. “Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together. They are much more like you than you would believe. So try not to compare your insides to their outsides.” No one is exempt; some are better at hiding it than others.

But how does one gain approval? By not needing it.

One characteristic I highly admire is fearlessness. When I hear the word “fearless,” one person I think of is Frida Kahlo. As an artist her style was daring and unique. No one else painted like her and no one else dressed like her, but that did not matter to her. She expressed what she felt and in the end that is what gained the approval of others.

Another example comes from business. Often business owners try to cater to every type of customer. For example, a photographer will say that he does weddings, babies, nature, animals, etc. But once he tries to cater to everyone, he actually is catering to no one. It is a better for a business owner to narrow down his customers and focus on a few. I read somewhere that the difference between an artist and a politician is that an artist focuses on the few that appreciate their work, while a politician focuses on the majority that dislikes him. Artists/Writers/Musicians express what they feel needs to be said, not necessarily that which will gain them popularity.

Ultimate Approval has already been given

Of course ultimately as Christians, we know our source of approval.

“Before the foundations of the world, He loved you. Before the fall of Eden, He loved you. Before He sent His Son splitting through the cosmos to this world, He loved you. Before He died upon the cross, He loved you. When He rose again, He loved you. And He’s coming back again because He loves you. When you took your first breath, He loved you. When you messed up bad, He loved you. When you made good grades, He loved you. When you won and when you lost, He loved you.” -Jennifer Dukes Lee

David Choi finished his sermon by sharing our true identity; it is the identity that never changes, no matter how much we mess up. We are sons and daughters of the Most High King. God did not/does not begrudginly save us. He was not there watching us saying, “Oh, I hope he doesn’t get saved.  Darn, looks like I’ll have to let that one into heaven.” Quite the contrary, God wants to be with us more than we could ever want that for ourselves. He wants his children close to him.

I love Galatians because in chapter 3:2,3 St. Paul gets sarcastic. He says,

“I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?”

He calls them foolish. How could they be saved by faith and then all of sudden think it was their actions that could save or unsave them? That’s nonsense, but it’s something we Christians always think subconsciously. We think, “Uh oh, God’s not going to like me anymore.” However, later in chapter 5 Paul says, “It is for freedom that you have been set free.” We were not freed from sin to enter another bondage of sin management or the vicious cycle of seeking approval. God has already given us the stamp of his approval.

You are a child of the Most High King

One of the saddest thing for me to see is passion-less Christians.  I know often I personally forget my identity and let doubt and bitterness seep in.  Shame and guilt are so familiar that I go back to negative thinking and the hamster cage of trying to earn others’ approval. I also try to gain God’s approval even though it is only by Christ that I am approved, not by any works. I constantly need reminders of who I am in Christ. I constantly need to speak truth to myself and others. I constantly need to be reminded of the gospel.

I am a Princess of the Most High King and so are you (or Prince).

Do you wear masks? How do you try to gain approval from those around you? Has there ever been a time when fear dictated your actions? How do you see your identity in Christ? How do you remember your true identity?

Top 10 Things to Say to your Shepherd

In my experience and observation, these are the statements that will tell you right away if you are dealing with Christian pastors. I have said most of these things (so be careful about where this will take you). There really are some traits ubf leaders do not like.

As I continue refining the final draft of my latest book, I claim that ubf is a Korean Bible cult and has much confusion about their organizational identity. Of course not all ubf chapters are cultic. But my list of redeemed chapters is very short. In fact only Westloop Church is on the list because there is no Penn State ubf that I know of and I have not personally confirmed Waterloo ubf as being redeemed.

So then, drum roll please…here are some statements to share repeatedly to find out if you are in a Christian ministry or you are getting junk food from the pulpit on the altar (well at ubf the pulpit is called the lectern and the altar is called the stage).

10. The Holy Spirit is my shepherd, my teacher and my counselor.

9. What is the gospel?

8. The best example of Jesus’ mission statement is in Luke 4 and John 17.

7. Pope Francis is a Christian.

6. The Holy Spirit prompted me to stop fishing *

5. I’m going to spend this Sunday with my parents.

4. I learned so much from Ben Toh and Joe Schafer’s articles on ubfriends.

3. I found my soulmate and we plan to get married in two years.

2. I’m taking a good job in another city doing what I love to do.

…and the number 1 thing to say to your shepherd:

1. I just read all of BrianK’s books.

[the drawing in this article is by my mother: www.yenserart.com]

* Number 6 would probably cause a Christian pastor to be confused. The word fishing is loaded language that only ubf insiders understand.

In these verses, Paul makes the surprising claim that the law – God’s law, which was given to Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai – created hostility between Jews and Gentiles and erected a wall, an insurmountable barrier, which had kept them apart. This is true. Because of their law, Jews were compelled to separate themselves from non-Jews. They had to avoid all physical contact. Jews could never have fellowship or eat with Gentiles, because Gentiles’ food and utensils and homes and bodies were defiled. For Jews, the mere thought of eating with Gentiles would have made them feel physically ill.

Neuropsychology has shown that most of the judgments that people make in regard to morality – deciding what behaviors are right or wrong – are not based on careful, rational thought. Rather, these decisions come from the gustatory cortex, the part of the brain that helps us to detect bad smells and warns us not to eat certain foods because they are unwholesome or contaminated. I learned about these findings through a fascinating book titled The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.

When I first read about these things, I sensed that they might have enormous implications for how we understand the purity codes of the Old Testament law and the themes of “clean” and “unclean” running throughout the gospels, in Acts and the epistles of Paul. I thought, “Someone who knows the Bible and who understands psychology should really investigate this.”

As it turns out, someone did.

A few days ago, Sharon pointed me to the blogging site of Richard Beck, a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University. She found a series of articles on “spiritual pollution,” or more formally, the theology of disgust. The first article in the series appears here.

The other thirteen articles in the series can be found by repeatedly hitting the “Next ->” link in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

As a Christian who cares about the interplay between modern science and Scripture, this is some of the most fascinating and thought provoking material I have ever read. I’m not kidding. It literally blew me away. As I read these articles, my mind was flooded with observations, ideas and questions. Here are some things that came to mind.

1. When we encounter passages about purity – for example, Psalm 119:9, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” – we instinctively apply this to sexual thoughts and behaviors, but rarely to any of the other vast areas of life that Jesus wants to redeem. Should we change our ways of thinking about this? Is it even possible to change our thinking?

2. If you bring up THE hot-button issue facing the western church today – the Christians stance toward homosexuality – before long, someone will say, “We have to hate the sin but love the sinner.” Why do I find that answer to be so trite and unhelpful? Can’t we do any better than that? Yes, I’m sure that we can. But to do better, we’ll need to ask whether “hating the sin but loving the sinner” is even possible without trivializing or changing the meaning of love.

3. Suppose a father never changes dirty diapers. Can he truly love his children, or will he always remain cold and distant?

4. Why were these images of Pope Francis embracing a disfigured man so deeply moving? Could these images carry a richer and more effective presentation of the gospel than a hundred evangelistic sermons?

5. If missionaries routinely experience “culture shock” – deep feelings of aversion toward the people they are trying to evangelize – what should they do? Would this be a minor issue? Or should this cause them to seriously think about whether they have what it takes to engage in cross-cultural witness?

6. If an evangelist imagines himself standing apart from the people whom he is trying to evangelize, because he imagines their lifestyles and behaviors to be detestable, can he faithfully communicate the gospel to them? Can he faithfully represent Jesus to them? Or is he just deluding himself?

Memo to Ben Toh: Please read these articles and then consider delivering a sermon “P is for Purity.”

Why am I dead to UBF?

One of the first experiences a former member of ubf has is the feeling of being divorced from people in ubf. Friendships we thought we had and relationships we thought were so strong suddenly disappear. Overnight. People who we called our spiritual mothers and fathers and people who we called brothers and sisters suddenly go silent towards us. We become dead to them.

But why? Why does this happen almost universally to former ubf members?

The answer is obvious: former members allow their ubf-given identity to die. For example, “Shepherd Brian” is indeed dead. That identity does not exist and never will exist. The person named Brian however is alive and well. But ubf people find it impossible to address “Brian”. They only know how to interact with “Shepherd Brian”.

Why do I use the cult label?

As I have said repeatedly, my experiences in ubf were mostly good. I enjoyed the love-bombing and created a relatively safe place for my family by disobeying certain orders (like the demand to sleep in the center for months right after marriage). Some may point to an inter-personal conflict with my Korean shepherd. But that is not a true assessment. I showed my Korean shepherd double honor for over two decades. I brought nothing but joy to the leaders in ubf. It is true our relationship was broken near the end of my ubf commitment. Breaking this relationship felt like a divorce.

But why? Why do I claim University Bible Fellowship is a cult?

The answer is because ubf shepherds and missionaries are identity snatchers. They spiritually abused me and thousands others by stealing our identity and persuading us to adopt their identity. That identity was called “Shepherd Brian”. But that is not who I am. That was never who I was. That is not my authentic self. The main reason I am on a recovery from my commitment to University Bible Fellowship is because I am searching to re-connect with my authentic self, my pre-cult self, the self that my family knows.

The cognitive dissonance I used to sustain this false identity requires triggers to uphold that identity, and requires a lot of energy to maintain. That energy needed to be released. The sub-identities I adopted like a facade around my soul needed to crumble.  That is why I experienced a physical trauma trigger when I happened to meet some ubf people who wanted to take a group photo last year. My body literally began to shake and I had to run out of the building without saying good bye. I drove to a highway rest stop and just sat there for 15 minutes until the shakes left me and my heart stopped racing. Steve Hassan describes this phenomena in his book. It happened because I had been conditioned through ubf heritage indoctrination to adopt a false identity, and the group photo with ubfers triggered that memory of my cult-identity.

So yes, “Shepherd Brian” is dead. You won’t be able to talk to him. And that explains so very much of what happened to me and what continues to happen to me.

HE HIMSELF IS OUR PEACE

Based on Ephesians 2:11-22

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians makes me feel like an ant. Here I am, walking around on the earth, dealing with the countless pressures of my everyday life. Projects at work that are running late. Debts that need to be paid. Things around the house that need to be fixed. Paying attention to how my wife and children are doing. Worries about our aging parents. Worries about this church, managing the building and wanting this congregation to prosper. I’m like an ant in  rainstorm, getting pelted with huge raindrops. My little ant-world is flooding; I’m up to my neck in water, and I’m about to get swept away. When I try to pray, the only words that come to mind are:

God, what am I supposed to do?

My terror is mixed with nagging feelings of guilt, because many of these problems are of my own doing. I’ve been making a mess out of life. There are so many things that I should have done but didn’t do, and so many things I did that I shouldn’t have done. I wish I could go back in time 10, 20, or 30 years and fix up all the mistakes I made. But in this life, there are no do-overs. So I’m up to my neck in problems, and if God did nothing to help me, I suppose it would serve me right. And when I try to speak to God, again the only words that come out are:

God, what am I supposed to do? Help me out here. Please tell me what you want me to do to become the person that you want me to be.

If the Apostle Paul were a life coach, he might say: “Where do you want to be 5,10 or 15 years from now? Understand your passions, goals and ambitions. Figure out where you want to be and take some baby steps in that direction.  Go for it! Make it happen! And don’t forget to ask for God’s help because, as the Bible says, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’”

I’m joking, of course. The Bible doesn’t say, “God helps those who help themselves.” But it might as well say that, because that’s how many of us have been taught to think. We’ve learned to approach life with the attitude that “If anything good is going to happen here, I’ll have to make it happen. I’m only a little tiny ant, but doggone it, I’m going to be a hardworking and industrious ant!”

Of course,  God doesn’t want us to be lazy. He wants to bless the work of our hands. But all too often, we envision God sitting on the sidelines and assume it’s up to us to move the ball. This DIY mentality has seeped into the foundations of the church and our conceptions of church leadership. As a pastor, it often seemed to me that the members of my church weren’t doing enough, that the project was failing for lack of effort, and I needed to motivate people to get them more involved. One of my favorite authors, Eugene Peterson, put it this way (Practice Resurrection, p. 118):

Americans talk and write endlessly about what the church needs to become, what the church must do to be effective. The perceived failures of the church are analyzed and reforming strategies prescribed. The church is understood almost exclusively in terms of function – what we can see. If we can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Everything is viewed through the lens of pragmatism. Church is an instrument that we have been given to bring about whatever Christ commanded us to do. Church is a staging ground for getting people motivated to continue Christ’s work.

This way of thinking – church as human activity to be measured by human expectations – is pursued unthinkingly. The huge reality of God already at work in all the operations of the Trinity is benched on the sideline while we call timeout, huddle together with our heads bowed, and figure out a strategy by which we can compensate for God’s regrettable retreat into invisibility. This is dead wrong.

Why is this view wrong? Because the Father, Son and Spirit are not sitting on the sidelines. They are with us on the field calling plays, moving the ball and running interference. They are engaged in many kinds of vigorous activity that we are usually unaware of, because we are engrossed in the detailed minutia of our ant-lives and ant-colonies; we have no idea what God is really up to.

That’s what Ephesians is about. In this amazing letter, Paul doesn’t say much about any of the specific problems in the Ephesian church. We know the church had problems; some are mentioned in Revelation chapter 2. But in this letter, Paul pulls back the curtain to show them what’s been going on invisibly behind the scenes. He brings them to a new place and a new perspective which he calls “the heavenly realms.” That phrase, “the heavenly realms,” appears in this book five times. It’s a signpost that points to a huge paradigm shift in our understanding of the Christian life. While we are crying out, “God, what am I supposed to do?” God wants to make the scales fall from our eyes to see what he has already done.  He wants to wake us up and shake us up to an amazing new awareness of who we already are and what we already have.

Listen to Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:18-19:

18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

Now I’m not saying that God doesn’t care about the details of our lives. Yes, he does. But God wants us to know that he’s up to something big. How big? So big that it cannot possibly get any bigger. The plan starts with our redemption. But then it extends to the whole church, to all of humanity, to the whole created world, and to the entire cosmos.

Listen to Paul’s words in 1:7-10:

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

He’s talking about a great cosmic unification. Perhaps you think it sounds Hinduish and New Agey.  “We will we become one with God and plants and rocks and planets.” No, it’s not like that at all. We aren’t going to lose our personhood by getting dissolved into a nebulous pantheistic soup. I will still be me; you will still be you; and God will still be God. But we will be together in the kind of community that God intends, a human community where we have harmonious and loving relationships with one another, with the created world, and with God himself. God is a Trinity. That means he is three distinct persons – Father, Son and Spirit – with their own distinct individuality and personhood, tied together in bonds of love that are so tight that they are “indwelling” and actually living inside of one another. From everlasting to everlasting, the Father, Son and Spirit have been experiencing a deep, supernatural intimacy. As Christians, we are being drawn into that family, into those relationships, to participate in that indwelling to whatever extent we can as finite human creatures. And as human beings, we are being restored to our proper role, the purpose for which we were created, to be rulers over the earth. Not tyrants who exploit the world for selfish purposes. We are collectively being remade into the race that God always wanted us to be, to serve the world as his regents in his own image, managing with his character and his authority.

At the center of this cosmic unification, there stands one person whose name is Jesus Christ. He is fully God and fully man. He is both the Creator and a part of the creation. He is equally at home in heaven and on earth. By virtue of who he is and what he has done, he is the unique focal point of God’s big plan. In him, all people and all things in heaven and on earth are coming to head. And to a large extent, they already have (Col 1:15-20).

When we imagine the kingdom of God, we tend to think of what will happen in the future, in the end times, at the great apocalypse, at Jesus’ second coming. But the surprising thing about Ephesians is how rarely Paul uses the future tense. Most of what he writes is in the past and in the present. That word “apocalypse” doesn’t mean destruction. The literal meaning is revelation or unveiling. The apocalypse will not be a demolishing of the earth but a full unveiling of the reality that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus has already become King. By virtue of his life, death, resurrection and ascension, he is already sitting at the right hand of the Father which means he is equal to the Father. He is ruling the heavens and the earth right now. But at present, his kingship is visible only to his followers, those who have eyes of faith. After the great apocalypse, when “faith becomes sight,” the reality of his kingdom will be seen by everyone.

But Jesus has already become King. And the glory of his coming kingdom is so powerful, so dynamic, that it’s bursting out of the future and breaking into now. It’s like a wrinkle in time, a time warp. That’s how we can understand the language of Paul when he writes about the future kingdom in the past and in the present. Through the resurrection of Jesus, a cosmic wormhole has opened up connecting the end-times to the present; the glorious future world is pouring into our world.

Now where in this world can we see the glorious future reality pouring in? The surprising answer, according to Paul, is in the church. The gathering believers in Jesus Christ is the kingdom “ground zero.” This is where the evidence of Christ’s rule becomes evident. From our perspective, that is extremely hard to believe. The church — any church – is full of ordinary people with ordinary problems.  But Paul tells us that in the church, there’s far more going on than meets the eye. Paul wants to pull back the curtain to show us that what goes on here in the church – more specifically, what goes on in the church in terms of our relationships – our relationships with one another – this is not just a preview of the kingdom of God; this is the actual future kingdom of God breaking into the present. By God’s help, we can see that, if he gives us eyes to see.

With that background, let’s listen to today’s passage, Ephesians 2:11-22:

11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

In this passage, Paul is saying: “Look at this amazing thing that has happened. Jews and Gentiles have come together in the church!” More specifically, it was the Jewish followers of Jesus Christ who opened their community to receive Gentiles without requiring them to become Jews first. If you think that’s a small matter, think again. To embrace Gentiles, the Jewish believers had to overcome their deeply ingrained tribalistic tendencies and their feelings of religious rightness. They had to put aside the customs that they cherished, the laws that defined their personal identity, and say to the Gentiles: “We welcome you as full members of our family, not on the basis of anything that you have done, but purely on the basis of what Christ has done for you.”

This surprising marriage of Jews and Gentiles didn’t just start a new tribe. Paul says that it created a new kind of humanity. A whole new way of being human. And even though the awkward and messy details of this cross-cultural marriage were still being worked out, Paul says that it had already taken place. The union took place in the flesh, in the physical body, of Jesus Christ, as he was nailed to the cross. Because it was on the cross that he put to death the requirements of the law.

In these verses, Paul makes the surprising claim that the law – God’s law, which was given to Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai – created hostility between Jews and Gentiles and erected a wall, an insurmountable barrier, which had kept them apart. This is true. Because of their law, Jews were compelled to separate themselves from non-Jews. They had to avoid all physical contact. Jews could never have fellowship or eat with Gentiles, because Gentiles’ food and utensils and homes and bodies were defiled. For Jews, the mere thought of eating with Gentiles would have made them feel physically ill.

Modern research in the fields of moral psychology and neuroscience has shown that there are actual physiological reasons for this. There’s a fascinating book on this subject by a psychologist from the University of Virginia (The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt). The book describes in scientific terms how human beings construct their belief systems, how we make moral and religious decisions, how we decide right from wrong. Most of us suffer from “the rationalist delusion.” We think that our moral judgments are well reasoned and thought out. We believe that, before arriving at a position, we carefully consider the arguments for and against and then come down on the side that has the better evidence. But that is not what people do. The vast majority of the time, we make moral decisions very quickly, in a split second, shooting from the hip. We make our choices based on emotion and gut instinct formed through our experiences, relational commitments and tribal affiliations. After we make our choice, the rational parts of our brains start working to construct arguments to reassure ourselves and to persuade others that our instinctive judgments are correct. It has been demonstrated over and over, through laboratory experiments and brain scans, that moral judgment and rational justification are two separate processes.

There’s a part of the brain called the gustatory cortex which is responsible for smell and taste. If an animal happens upon something that looks like food, the animal pokes around and smells it to decide whether it’s fresh or rotten, good or gross, yummy or yucky. The gustatory cortex is where that information is processed. And in human beings, that’s where most of our moral decisions are made. Judgments about whether a behavior is right or wrong are closely related to our sense of whether something is delicious or disgusting. And it’s related to our sense of personal cleanliness and hygiene. If we see a behavior that we think is wrong, it causes a physical sensation that tells us it feels wrong. When we see others do it, it makes us think that they are disgusting. And if we do something wrong, it makes us feel dirty. Under certain conditions, it’s possible to override the gustatory cortex and make judgments using the more rational portions of the brain, but that’s not easy. That kind of judgment is inherently risky; it takes enormous amounts of mental energy, so most of the time we just operate on instinct.

In fact, studies have shown that you can mess with people’s moral judgments by exposing them to bad smells. A researcher from Stanford performed experiments where he stood next to a garbage can and asked people to fill out questionnaires about morality. The garbage can was completely empty. But part of the time, he sprayed the can with fart spray to make it smell bad. People exposed to fart spray were harsher in their moral judgments than those who were not exposed.

You know those dispensers of hand sanitizer that you see in doctor’s offices and hospitals and supermarkets? In another set of experiments, subjects became temporarily more conservative just by standing next to hand sanitizer.

So how does this relate to the Bible? If you look at the Old Testament law – for example, all those regulations in the book of Leviticus – some of the laws are about what we would call ethical or moral behavior. Alongside of them are rules about what foods the Israelites should and should not eat. And rules about cleanliness, health, hygiene, sexual behavior, and so on. All these rules are mixed together; to the Jewish mind, they were all part of the same law. And when God spoke these commands, he didn’t give them high-level arguments to help them understand why. Much of the time, he said things like, “Don’t eat that; it’s detestable. Don’t do that; it’s foul and corrupt. Don’t pollute yourselves with that kind of behavior.”

In giving Israel the law, God knew what he was doing. God didn’t give them rationally consistent reasons why they should keep the law, because that’s not how human beings normally operate. He was planting instincts, deep gut-level reactions to help them keep the law automatically. And he was planting instincts to keep his chosen people together by keeping them apart from the other nations, so they would not fall into idol worship. When Jews saw how people from other nations lived, the foods they ate, and so on, the Jews instinctively felt the Gentiles were unclean and turned away from them in disgust. After being steeped in the law for many generations, that law became deeply embedded in the Jew’s national psyche. It continually reinforced their tribalism, their sense of collective rightness and purity and became an insurmountable barrier to forming relationships with Gentiles. That barrier, the one law that most clearly drew the dividing line, was the practice of circumcision. To the Jews, circumcision was not simply a custom. It was their identity card, their badge of citizenship that set a clear boundary who was in and who was out.

God’s law put up a wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles. But when Jesus arrived, that wall of hostility started to crumble. During his three-year earthly ministry, Jesus repeatedly violated the moral instincts that had marginalized lots of people (tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, etc.) and pushed them to the edges of society. These people were considered repulsive, but Jesus embraced them. He ate with them and welcomed them to his family, his circle of followers. By their fleshly experience and contact with Jesus, these people experienced the grace of God that washed them clean and returned them to the fold of God’s people. And according to Paul, when Jesus suffered on the cross, in his body he fulfilled and set aside  the requirements of the law. Paul says that, in a mysterious way that we don’t fully understand, Jesus on the cross subsumed into himself all Jews and non-Jews – in other words, all of humanity – and in his humanity made them one with him, and in his divinity brought them into fellowship with God. His death on the cross became a birth, the birth of a new race, a new kind of humanity, where the tribalistic tendencies and rules of the old humanity died and no longer apply.

This new humanity becomes visible starting in the book of Acts. The turning point comes in Acts chapter 10, when the Apostle Peter has a vision while he is praying on a roof. A sheet comes down from heaven, and on this sheet were all kinds of non-kosher animals which Peter instinctively regarded as offensive. A voice says to him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” Peter reacts with disgust: “No way! I have never eaten anything unclean.” Perhaps he thought that God was testing him to see if he would keep the law. Then God said to Peter: “Do not call anything unclean that I have made clean.” That message came to Peter loud and clear. Shortly thereafter, Peter was summoned to the home of a God-fearing Gentile named Cornelius. Peter preached the gospel to Cornelius, and all the members of his household were baptized, and Peter ate with them. By the leading of the Holy Spirit, Peter defied his deeply rooted instincts and made the startling decision to recognize Gentiles as God’s people without circumcision, by their faith in Jesus alone.

By the power of Jesus’ cross, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Jews and Gentiles dropped their tribalistic hostility and came together in a single body. In verse 19, Paul calls them fellow members of God’s household. What is God’s household? God’s household is the Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit. The second person of the Trinity, in his humanity, has now subsumed the Jews and Gentiles and brought them into the inner sanctum of the Trinity, to participate in that incredibly intimate everlasting fellowship.

And in verses 20-22, Paul switches to the imagery of architecture. We, the diverse people of God, are coming together like stones and bricks, forming a new building, with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone. That building is a holy temple, the new dwelling of God, the place that God calls home and makes presence known on earth as he is in heaven.

Each of the three metaphors Paul uses for the church — the body of Christ, the household of God, and the temple of God – implies a very high level of unity, integration and interdependence. He is not talking about a congregation of Jewish Christians over here, and a separate congregation of Gentile Christians over there. He is talking about loving, intimate personal relationships forming between adversaries, people who otherwise would never in a million years be together. Wherever and whenever we allow Jesus to override our tribalistic instincts, to put aside our differences and come together to worship and fellowship in the person of Christ – wherever these intimate relationships are forming in the church – that  is where the glorious future is pouring into the present, and the kingdom of God is most clearly in our midst.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…”

]]> http://www.ubfriends.org/2014/01/28/critique-my-ephesians-sermon/feed/ 72 http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/12/24/the-b-i-t-e-model/ http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/12/24/the-b-i-t-e-model/#comments Tue, 24 Dec 2013 15:49:20 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=7339 These days I love psychology— the science of mind and behavior, the mental or behavioral characteristics of an individual or group, and the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity. The single most helpful resource for me the past several years has been something called the BITE model. This model of control was developed by Steven Hassan, the author of Freedom of Mind.

Overview of BITE

The model contains four elements: Behavior control, Information control, Thought control and Emotional control. Based on his own and other’s experience with the Korean religous group called the Moon organiaztion, Hassan developed a structure to help identify excessive control over people’s lives. BITE provides a framework for distinguishing between helpful mentoring and harmful “lording over” control.

Many people think of mind control as an ambiguous, mystical process that cannot be defined in concrete terms. In reality, mind control refers to a specific set of methods and techniques, such as hypnosis or thought- stopping, that influence how a person thinks, feels, and acts. Like many bodies of knowledge, it is not inherently good or evil. If mind control techniques are used to empower an individual to have more choice, and authority for his life remains within himself, the effects can be beneficial. For example, benevolent mind control can be used to help people quit smoking without affecting any other behavior.

Reference: Steve Hassan’s BITE model

The Bible and BITE

Someone may claim that BITE control is what Jesus did to his followers, and that such control is both normal and necessary in order to obey Jesus’ command to make disciples. Rev. Robert Pardon disagrees. Below are some excerpts from his article explaining why Jesus’ methods of discipleship are very different from BITE control.

Those who seek to defend their allegiance to an aberrational Christian group will often claim that Jesus utilized “thought reform/mind control” techniques (as traditionally understood) upon His followers. What is troubling in these  assertions is that they do not arise from those who reject Christianity and the claims of Christ, but rather from those whose devotion to Christianity is often misguided, extreme or dangerous.

Jesus sought to empower His followers to be all that God intended them to be, not enslave them to a group or system. A person’s ability to make decisions is always encouraged. The issue is following Him, not some group. He also constantly admonished His disciples to “count the cost” of their discipleship to Him that they might persevere in adverse circumstances (Luke 14:28). However, He never said to his disciples, “Follow me, and together we will conquer the world.” Rather He said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matt. 4:19).

According to Scripture, Jesus never sought to promote Himself for his own glorification, but rather for His Father’s. And He always encouraged His disciples to think for themselves (Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27).

Source:  Biblical Discipleship Versus A Totalistic Environment

Some questions to consider

If you are part of a disciple-making ministry, how do you avoid BITE control? What are helpful ways of mentoring? What steps can you take to keep your personal freedom?

In his own words

I conclude with a video where Steve Hassan shares an overview of BITE in his own words.

Reference: Steve Hassan’s BITE model

Here is Dr. Singer’s list of six things other people do to gain control of your life. Regardless of any good intention, is any of this activity acceptable? Can we say that Christianity supports such things? Can any of these six conditions below be justified with “self-denial” or “taking up your cross” teachings?

During this holiday season, I find much solace in Dr. Singer’s work. My prayer is that everyone reading this may find the freedom, forgiveness, and fulfillment promised in the gospel Jesus preached. My life was not free for my entire adult formative years. May your life be free, and be free indeed by recognizing these six tactics.

Six ways to make a controlling environment

Excerpted from Cults in Our Midst, Margaret Thaler Singer, p. 64-69.

1. Keep the person unaware of what is going on and how she or he is being changed a step at a time. Potential new members are led, step by step, through a behavioral – change program without being aware of the final agenda or full content of the group. The goal may be to make them deployable agents for the leadership, to get them to buy more courses, or get them to make a deeper commitment, depending on the leader’s aim and desires.

2. Control the person’s social and/or physical environment; especially control the person’s time. Through various methods, newer members are kept busy and led to think about the group and its content during as much of their waking time as possible.

3. Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in the person. This is accomplished by getting members away from the normal social support group for a period of time and into an environment where the majority of people are already group members. The members serve as models of the attitudes and behaviors of the group and speak an in-group language.

4. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behavior that reflects the person’s former social identity. Manipulation of experiences can be accomplished through various methods of trance induction, including leaders using such techniques as paced speaking patterns, guided imagery, chanting, long prayer sessions or lectures, and lengthy meditation sessions.

5. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in order to promote learning the group’s ideology or belief system and group-approved behaviors. Good behavior, demonstrating an understanding and acceptance of the group’s beliefs, and compliance are rewarded while questioning, expressing doubts or criticizing are met with disapproval, redress and possible rejection. If one expresses a question, he or she is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to be questioning.

6. Put forth a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order. The group has a top-down, pyramid structure. The leaders must have verbal ways of never losing.

http://www.refocus.org/uploads/3/9/3/8/3938709/singers_conditions.pdf

How can smart people avoid being controlled?

Here is my list of how to avoid giving up your life decisions.

1. Make sure you find out the entire agenda. Ask for full documentation of any group’s beliefs so that you get the whole picture and are not fooled by the “frog boiling in water” trick.

2. Keep in close contact with your family and friends. Your family (regardless of how messed up you may think they are) is your bedrock of goodness. Trust your close friends and stay in touch through social media and by any means possible.

3. Remind yourself that YOU have the power over YOUR life. Listen to Bon Jovi (It’s my life) and other good songs to inspire you to keep control over your decisions.

4. Remember that your life in the past is NOT all bad. Human beings are always a mixture of good and bad. Do NOT be fooled into dismissing a former spiritual experience. Remember the good things in your life!

5. Document your value system. Don’t let anyone tell you what to value. Find out what YOU value. Document it! Make blogs, or posters or anything to remind yourself of your values. Get a tattoo if you have to in order to remind yourself.

6. Be connected with many sources of teaching and many sources of authority. Don’t let anyone tell you the law doesn’t matter. Legal codes in society are to be respected, not dismissed as if you are above the law.

So far professional counseling has been cost prohibitive for the most part. However, during the past two years I found various sources of informal counseling at our church. I have gained a new appreciation for studying human behavior and for analyzing what factors might have caused someone or me to act or speak the way they do. I also found that counseling is a normal requirement for Christian pastors. And our own pastor has been a tremendous source of healing, asking my wife and I questions without intruding into our boundaries. Here are my thoughts on what I’ve learned from various sources of counseling, in hopes that we may find another source of healing for our minds.

These topics below are not in any particular order. Nor are they categorized in any comprehensive way. These are just topics the Spirit has put on my heart and lessons I’ve been learning the past couple years on my own crazy, beautiful life journey following Christ.

So here are four healthy exercises for our minds that I’ve learned so far: define what spiritual abuse is, identify your primary value system, examine the identity someone gives you, and identify and respect personal boundaries. These are helpful both for ourselves and for our interaction with others.

What is spiritual abuse?

“abuse” means multiple things, but the definition from Merriam-Webster that fits for me is this: improper or excessive use or treatment, as in drug abuse. “spiritual” means relating to the spirit and more specifically the bible in this case. So “spiritual abuse” in my mind is:

An improper and/or excessive use of the bible as treatment for the problems of a person.

What are my primary values?

What do we value? Our value system will determine a lot about how much control someone can have in our life. And the value system of the church you are in will determine how much leeway there is for spiritual abuse to happen. In the ubf context, the “spiritual abuse” is expressed through authoritative control, usually involving bible verses: behavior, information, thoughts and emotions.

The prime values of ubf are typically expressed as loyalty, obedience, submission and mission (which is ambition often). More specifically, I’ve identified the following values of many ubf directors:

• Etiquette – Learn the proper ubf rituals and learn to speak the ubf language.
• Filial piety – Respect and obey your shepherd and be thankful to your new spiritual family for your entire life.
• Benevolence – Be gracious always to all people with no negative words.
• Loyalty – Be loyal to your leadership.
• Nobility – Be the best and elite soldiers of Christianity.

These values are then bound to bible verses and used to conform ubf members to an ideal standard called “shepherd”. Non-conformance to this identity or to those values is dealt with through special training to bring people back inline.

Who am I?

Our new pastor explained that while the “shepherd” concept in ubf is perhaps one expression of Christian identity, it is not your specific Christian identity. The spiritual abuse in ubf is most easily seen by realizing that the ubf ideology is meant to instill one specific Christian identity on all people, ignoring what God may have uniquely designed for that person.

One of the themes of our nine month study group with our pastor was personal identity. Who am I? is a fundamental question that changes throughout the seasons of life. Any leader who does not continually evaluate this question is prone to fall into stagnation and faulty leadership. To be healthy in our mind, we need to discover and hold onto our personal narrative, the narrative we tell about our life with no input from others.

What are my boundaries?

From Dr. Henry Cloud, I also learned that one way to identify this invisible abuse is to realize personal boundaries. Our emotions tell us when those personal boundaries have been intruded upon. Anger, for one, tells me that something contradictory to my idea of justice has been violated. Whether I am right or wrong about that would need to be investigated, but at least I can start to identify the contradiction.

Follow-up questions:

What is your definition of “spiritual abuse”? What have you learned from a counselor lately?

Our friend Vitaly alerted us to a YouTube video called The Witnesses at Your Door which illustrates cognitive dissonance. Vitaly wrote:

I liked this video after I left ubf. There seems to be very many similarities especially in the leaving process.

Vitaly’s comment, and the interesting discussion that he started with Chris, can be found here.

The video is 37 minutes long, and I think it is well worth watching. So I made a unilateral decision (sorry, Vitaly, hope you don’t mind!) to pull the video out of his comment and place it here in an article of its own, so that it gets more attention.

Please note that by posting this video, we are not claiming that UBF is a cult. Readers of this website have expressed many varying opinions on that issue. Although that topic is worth considering and discussing, I would prefer that we keep the discussion here focused on cognitive dissonance — how we have personally experienced it, and how we have personally handled it. Your comments about UBF, cults and the like can continue at Ben’s recent article.

And please note that cognitive dissonance is not limited to members of cults. The phenomenon, in differing ways and degrees, is experienced by all human beings at various times in their lives. I’m quite sure that everyone who holds religious beliefs and commitments has experienced cognitive dissonance. In fact, I would argue that wrestling with cognitive dissonance lies at the heart of true, growing faith. If you’d like to see some examples of cognitive dissonance, check out Hebrews chapter 11.

With that in mind, please watch the video and tell us what you think.

Here are some questions to ponder.

• Which characters and situations in this video do you identify with?
• At what time(s) in your life did you experience intense cognitive dissonance? What coping mechanism(s) did you use?
• Are you experiencing any measure of cognitive dissonance now? How are you coping with it?

However, recent theories in embodied cognition are challenging that idea by showing how our body can color our cognitive processing.

A quick and dirty example can be seen when you ask someone how happy they currently are. Traditional theories might suggest that a person would make this kind of judgment by calculating the degree to which they have attained of particular goals that are deemed necessary for happiness or searching one’s memory and getting a general impression of how joy filled our experience has recently been. However, an embodied perspective has shown that something like holding a pencil in between your teeth (which artificially makes you smile) will be interpreted by your mind as a sign of current happiness and lead you think you are actually much happier currently than you might report if you were not holding a pencil in between your lips.

The same goes for other emotion and experience like love and attraction. They have done studies where an attractive female experimenter approaches men while they are at the center of crossing a tall bridge or at the end of crossing a bridge. When asked how attractive the female experimenter was, individuals who were approached by the female experiment at the center of the bridge think she is more attractive than individuals who were approached by her at the end of the bridge. Why is that? Well presumably individuals are misattributing the source of their arousal (e.g., fear) for feelings of attraction. In other words, the perception of certain emotions are constructed based on what cues your body is giving you. Our emotion judgments are “embodied.” Crossing a bridge makes your heart beat faster so if asked how attractive a women is while crossing a bridge, you are likely to search for mind and body for cues and come to the conclusion that, “Well… my heart is beating fast, this women must be really beautiful.”

Some of the more fascinating studies that have come out in recent years shows that your perception of how warm and cold people are can be influence (or primed) by whether you’re holding a hot drink versus a cold one. You also judge job candidates as more serious and committed if you read their resume on a heavy clipboard but less serious and less committed if your reading their resume on a light clipboard.

Clearly, cognitive processing is colored by what our body is currently doing and experiencing. Memory, emotions, and perceptions are do not share a one to one correspondence with what is really going on. Even complicated judgments and impressions can be influenced by our bodily actions whether or not we are aware of it.

This work has also been extended to various religious and moral domains as well. For instance, it has been shown that people are more likely to cheat when they are in dark room (vs. a well lit room) or when they are in a well lit room but are wearing dark sun glasses suggesting that darkness primes particular sinful behaviors. In a different line of work, it has been shown that working in a room with a disgusting smell can increase the severity of moral judgments. For instance, both liberal and conservative participants who are exposed to a fart smell have much more negative attitudes towards homosexual men. And the opposite is also true, washing your hands prior to reading some moral dilemmas (e.g., eating human flesh to avoid starvation) can make these dilemmas seem less morally wrong. In one study, experiments asked participants to recall an immoral act they had previously done. Soon after, they found that participants who recalled an immoral behavior they committed rated cleaning products as more favorable than non-cleaning products relative to those who recalled a neutral past behavior. In a follow up study, researchers again had participants recall a past immoral event and then asked one of group or participants to wash their hands while another group was told to simply sit quietly. They found that if giving the opportunity to make a charitable donation, those who did NOT wash their hands were more willing to donate some of their recently earned money than those who did wash their hands.  The idea being that those who had washed their hands had symbolically cleansed themselves of their previously remembered wrongdoings and hence, where no longer in a state of moral imbalance that threatened their concept of a moral self. Whereas, those who had not washed their hands felt a need to rectify their previous misgivings by doing something nice like giving money to charity.

This research area has fascinated me for years so I thought of bringing up several points that relate to this work.

First, this body of research controversially suggests that our moral judgments can be pushed around a bit by our current feelings of moral cleanliness. It is important to understand what this work can and cannot say. Many secular researchers take this research to suggest that moral judgments are simply a scaffolding of previous physiological visceral reactions. So according to them, eating human flesh is not morally wrong, it just physically disgusted us in the past and we ended up constructing a moral story behind it. Of course, this line of reasoning is circular and does not address why eating human flesh but not eating animal flesh might have aroused a physiological feeling of disgust in the first place.

Also, just because something that feels immoral is associated or even grounded within a physiological response like disgust does not provide sufficient evidence for its origin. Take a television signal for example. Imagine a classroom of 5 year olds who are trying to figure out where the pictures come from. Some think that the pictures are generated from the television itself while others think that the pictures exist outside of the television. One day, a child discovers that the television pictures are associated with an antenna such that, breaking the antenna prevents the pictures from appearing. This does not of course mean that the antenna (as a part of the TV) was creating the pictures itself, all it suggests is that the antenna was receiving the pictures from somewhere else. I bring up this point because social neuroscientist are publishing research studies every month showing how the concept of God is associated with this part of the brain, or a sense of the sacred is associated with this particular physiological response. While these kinds of conclusions represent faulty scientific reasoning, they nevertheless make an impact on the general audience because they are said to be “scientific.” Hence, as Christians, we need to critically think about the psychological arguments that are being made. Especially because many psychological results are interpreted by psychologists who are inherently motivated to see the world from a different lens. In fact, in a recent conference, a social psychologist presented research findings showing that over 90% of social psychologists identify themselves as liberal. I will leave this point alone for now because I would like to return to this point in the fourth part of this series.

On a more applied level, I think the research on moral cleansing brings up  a rout by which the devil can try to dissuade us from living a more sacrificial life by filling our minds with thoughts like, “why help a brother in need, you already did your good deed for the day.”   The opposite might also be true, the devil might try to fools us into thinking we are somehow morally justified by doing other symbols that can serve as moral tokens towards convincing us that we are righteous like  literally “washing our hands” of situations that require our love and attention the way Pilate did with Jesus. This idea of being in a state of “moral balance” seems to be very close to what most people consider a good moral life. In my attempts at conversational evangelization, I have often found it important to begin by questioning this moral balance premise that people can sometimes hold. It is important to remember that Christ calls us to actually be Holy and not simply have enough good deeds to outweigh the bad as is taught in other religions like Islam.

Biblically speaking, this research does of course bring to mind many of the aspects of the old testament like when God gave the Israelites not only the moral law to guide them to moral cleanliness and to becoming more like God but also a ceremonial laws which were meant to guide the Israelites into doing specific ceremonial actions like sacrifices and dietary restrictions as a means of keeping them in a physical states of purity. All of which were meant to prepare and foreshadow (or prime) the coming of Christ, and his continued requirement for holiness through a cleanliness of heart.

Although Christ has fulfilled the point of the ceremonial laws, I still think of the various high Church practices which guide how we should conduct our inner life through certain physical actions. For instance, in the Roman liturgy, people will make the sign of the cross over their forehead, their mouth and their heart prior to listening to the gospel.  These signs are meant to outwardly reaffirm our internal prayer of “May the Lord be on my mind, on my lips and in my heart.”

We also see these kinds of behaviors the various gestures that Christian children are taught when singing worship songs. These physical movements do more than simply serve external signs of what is going on inside, or make worship music fun and engaging, they also help us to process what is in our hearts with better fluency and prime particular concepts like holiness in the absence of feeling the sense of holiness. That is, the physical actions themselves make it easier for our minds to process praise and a call to sanctification through faith in Christ.

Thirdly, this work brings up a possible suggestion for how to grow in loving your fellow man. Many great thinkers, writers and men of faith have suggested that if you want to Love your neighbor, you should not spend all your time waiting for a dramatic sign from the Holy Spirit but go out and do it! Especially when you feel the least inclined to do so. Let the Holy Spirit shape your heart by your willingness to Love despite the fact that you may not currently be feeling the emotional, financial, social or spiritual motivational to do so. As Christ so wonderfully put it, “If you love only those who love you, what reward will you have?”

This third point leads well into a possibly understanding what Saint Paul may have meant by “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). Just as psychologist are  growing in their  understanding of mental processes by situating them within body, so too might we learn to grow in living out our faith by situating it in works of love and understanding the various ways our bodily actions can influence our life of worship.

There are obvious advantages to choosing intelligence. You would have an enhanced ability to apply your knowledge towards solving novel problems, be able to integrate multiple pieces of information and see clarity and order where others saw chaos. If you worked hard enough, you would definitely be able to secure a nice job for yourself and make good money.

But what would self control get you besides a better ability to regulate your behavior? Well, apparently, self control can get you much, much more according to various psychological studies. Self control can be defined as the ability to delay a current goal for the attainment of some future reward. Multiple studies suggest that individuals with greater self control show enhanced life satisfaction, report experiencing greater happiness, closer relationships, and emotional intimacy and even excel in school studies. In fact, when you pit self control against intelligence, self control is actually a much better predictor of a number of positive psychological and educational outcomes.

Let me give you an example of a study examining self control. One aspect of self control is the ability to delay gratification (think: the ability to avoid temptation). In one famous study, children were brought into a room with a marshmallow on a table and told that they could eat the marshmallow whenever they wanted. However, if they could avoid eating the marshmallow for 5 minutes, then when the experimenter returned, they would get a second marshmallow. Simple study right? Their results showed that the amount of time that children waited was an incredibly strong predictor of life satisfaction, legal problems and social competence. In fact, children who were able to wait the full 5 minutes versus those who ate the marshmallow within 30 seconds scored almost 200 points higher on the SAT.

I think these results are startling as they help us understand why self control is indeed a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Also, it highlights the need to perhaps place an emphasis on raising children who can learn to deny themselves rather than raising baby Einsteins.

Interestingly, the ability to deny oneself is one of the qualities which characterize Christians and other religions in general. So one question researchers wanted to ask was whether religiosity was associated with greater self control. Well according to one meta-analysis that combines the results of several studies, it was found that those who reported higher religiosity (in terms of Bible reading and church attendance) showed higher self control. Interestingly, the authors of the meta-analysis went on to ask whether this relationship is limited to the religious or to those who characterize themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” But they actually found that the more individuals defined themselves as spiritual but not religious the less self control they exhibited.

When I first came across this result, I couldn’t help but secretly chuckle as it supported the notion that “spiritualist” will deny religion simply to justify their own desires. However, as I thought about it more, I realized that it brings up an interesting question of whether religion trains individuals to develop better self control, or are people with higher self control generally better able to keep the faith?

It is certainly true that we can strengthen our ability to control ourselves by practicing daily acts of self regulation. And this is exactly what we are called to do by the gospel. However, it is also true that some people have an easier time accepting the gospel because they are endowed with the gift of self control.

Anyway, I thought I would bring some of this research to your attention and would love to hear what you guys have think of this work.

Ambition… Virtue or Vice?

This article was written by ‘RJS’ who is a frequent contributor on the Jesus Creed website. RJS is a sincere Christian, a woman, an accomplished scientist, and a faculty member at a secular university. She writes primarily about the relationship between faith and science and occasionally about the role of women in the church.

In this article, she discusses what brain imaging technology (fMRI) has revealed about some of the Seven Deadly Sins. She reports that lust, especially in males, “sets nearly the whole brain buzzing,” producing a biochemical response that can be very addicting and destructive. Envy produces patterns of brain activity that reflect ‘a kind of social pain,’ and when the object of envy (the person who incites it) experiences a downfall, the response is a kind of pleasure which is well described by the German word schadenfreude.

Then she goes on to discuss the deadliest of the deadly sins, which is pride. Brain scans have shown that it takes less mental energy to puff ourselves up with pride than to think about ourselves critically in sober self-examination. And, even more interestingly, “the experiments demonstrate that righteous humility, deliberate self depreciation, is but arrogance and pride in disguise.”

The heart of RJS’s article is a discussion of how we view ambition. Ambition is usually regarded as a good thing. We treat it as a virtue in the workplace, in academia, and in the evangelical church. We admire people who set large goals and strive to achieve them. But ambition is closely related to greed and pride. Ambition can wreak havoc on personal relationships and community life, even more so than sexual immorality. She concludes that, although ambition may sometimes produce results that seem beneficial (e.g., church growth), it is like ‘playing with fire’ because it so easily turns into a poorly disguised effort to gain ‘influence and power hidden behind a veneer of righteous humility.’

What do you all think about this?

One line of research that has recently gotten a lot of attention deals with what are called “lay theories of intelligence.” This is not a theory on what intelligence is as much as a theory about what people think intelligence is and how it shapes their behavior.

Essentially the theory states that people typically hold either an incremental or entity view. People holding an incremental view say that intelligence is malleable and changes across life time. These people believe that intelligence is like a muscle that if you work hard, you can increase it. Hence, incremental theorists typically exert greater effort across task even if they initially struggle with them and place a greater emphasis in mastery. By contrast, there are people who hold an entity theory of intelligence which is a belief that intelligence is fixed and stable. Entity theorists would endorse the view that “You’re either smart or your not. If you happen to be one who isn’t smart, too bad, there’s nothing you can do about it.” As a consequence, people holding an entity view of intelligence may disengage from difficult tasks since they feel that their difficulty is a sign that they are just not intelligent enough. Several research studies have supported the predictions made by this theory showing, for example, that children as young as 7 begin to endorse one of the two theories, and it can greatly affect how they view academic struggles and influence their goal persistence.

Additionally, it has been found that one of the ways that children develop one of these theories is by the type of praise that they are given. Process praise, such as “Wow… I see you’re working hard, since your doing so well,” encourages children to take an incremental view and persist even after initial failures. Whereas ability praise, such as, “Wow… you’re really smart, no wonder your doing so well,” encourages children to take an entity view, which keeps them motivated if they succeed on a task. However, if they fail at the task, they typically stop trying in subsequent attempts.

Interestingly, it has also been found that people who hold an entity versus incremental theory of intelligence will usually also hold an entity theory of personality as well, meaning that they will view personality as a fixed variable which leads them to judge people on a limited amount of information. Say, for example, a guy in one of your classes responds rudely to you after requesting a pencil. An entity theorist might come to the conclusion that this guy is just a jerk, whereas an incremental theorist that might posit that the guy is just having a bad day.

Therefore, consider this question: How you think our view of intelligence might shape how we live out our faith in terms of how we view salvation, our efforts to persist in the face of trials against sin, and how we view other Christians who struggle with sin? What do you all think about this?