OUTRAGE! Divorce, Remarriage and Getting Kicked Out of the Catholic Hospital.

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I had a conversation with a reporter yesterday from a prominent newspaper about the ongoing Synod on the Family.  We had a great discussion and I appreciated her time.  In particular, we talked a lot about people who felt alienated from the Church (and those who are divorced and remarried in particular).  The conversation left me in a thoughtful mood. In particular, I was left reflecting on the question, “Why, exactly, do so many people feel excluded by the Church–especially those who are divorced and remarried–and what can we do about it?”

Missing the Mission.

People’s anger at the Church is real and deserves to be met with respect and compassion.  At the same time, it appears to me that a lot of the anger and pain is caused by confusion about what Church is and what it’s meant to do.  In order to appropriately address people’s hurt, I think we, as Church, need to do a better job of communicating our mission.  What does that mean?

The Church as Hospital

Pope Francis noted that the Church is a hospital.  That sounds very affirming and it is. But what people forget is that you only need to go to the hospital if you’re sick.  At the point when you think you’re healthy, you either don’t need the hospital or you have to leave it.

The problem–in our metaphor of Church as hospital–is that, these days, a lot of people come to the hospital because they think it is a nice building with a lot of interesting equipment in it and they want to explore the various rooms. Eventually, they bump into a doctor. Mistaking them for a patient, he asks what’s wrong with them.  They become offended and exclaim,  “How dare you say there is something wrong with me?!?”  The doctor stares at the erstwhile patient and, in all innocence, says, “Well then, if you aren’t sick, then what are you doing here? You’re not just trespassing are you?”  And the person screams, “How dare you try to exclude me!”

What’s Your Diagnosis?

The Church is far from perfect, but too often people who assert that they are alienated from the Church feel that way primarily because the Church necessarily insists that to be a member you have to be willing to admit that you (1) are spiritually sick, (2) that you need a diagnosis (i.e., “sinner”),  and (3) that you must be willing to participate in the treatment.  If you aren’t willing to do those things, you really have no business taking beds and food away from the patients who are lining up in the hall waiting to be admitted.  If you’re really so healthy, what are you doing playing with the IV’s?  Go, live your life! Be happy!

It isn’t that people’s anger at the Church isn’t real and doesn’t deserve to be respected, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Church is really only for people who are willing to see it as the place where they get diagnosed and treated for the spiritual diseases that are preventing them from receiving the gift of eternal life.

Marriage:  Here’s Your Sign…

As I mentioned above, much of my conversation with the reporter focused, specifically, on the fact that Catholics who have remarried after divorce feel excluded from the Church.  This is a profoundly sad and painful reality.  But to understand why these couples are not admitted to communion, you need to understand that the Church thinks of marriage differently than the world does.  While the Church certainly values the earthly benefits of marriage, the Church primarily values marriage because of what it points toward.  Marriage is meant to be an icon to the world;  a physical sign of the kind of unconditional, committed love God wants to share with each of us (Eph 5:31-32).  The fact that God wants this kind of relationship with us is a mind-blowing concept.  It’s hard to get our heads around it.  We need some kind of experience–some physical sign– that shows us this sort of love is even possible.  This is where marriage comes in.  The Church intends sacramental marriage to be a sign to the world that the kind of love God wants to share with us really is possible.

A Broken Sign

When the Church says that there is something wrong with remarriage after divorce (without the benefit of an annulment) it isn’t saying that the couple can’t somehow manage to be happy together or that there is anything (necessarily) wrong with that couple’s relationship from a worldly POV.  It is,  however,  saying that that the couples’ “sign” is broken.  That is, they cannot adequately represent to the world the faithful love that Bridegroom Christ has for the his Bride, the Church.    That really isn’t a judgment against the couple.  It is a spiritual diagnosis.  Having broken communion in their marriage, the divorced and remarried Catholic (who has not sought the benefit of an annulment) now becomes a de facto sign of the broken communion that exists when we are unfaithful to the Christ, the Bridegroom.  People who have remarried after divorce without the benefit of an annulment are still very much welcome in church, but their lives now becomes a visible sign of the alienation we experience when we are unfaithful to the Bridegroom–as we often are.  This is a very painful reality but it is not a judgment on divorced and remarried couples.  Rather, it is an acknowledgment that the sign they are attempting to live through their remarriage is, in fact, seriously broken and that they are in need of healing.  The Church is eager to do whatever is possible to facilitate that healing and so she welcomes the divorce and remarried person just like she welcomes any other patient to the hospital, not with judgment, but with a diagnosis and a treatment plan.

A Painful Course of Treatment

Because it cuts right through the heart of the primary image God uses to reveal his love for the Church, remarriage after divorce (without the benefit of an annulment) is a particularly serious spiritual disorder.  Currently, there are only two treatment options; either the couple can embrace the penance of living as brother and sister unless or until they can receive a declaration of nullity for the original and still valid marriage, or the couple can embrace the penance of being that broken sign and refrain from communion.  These are painful treatments, but as any cancer patient can tell you, treatments for serious illnesses are often quite painful.  Again, the treatment is not a judgment on the couple.  It is a recognition of the seriousness of the spiritual disorder.

Asking Important Questions

I understand that a lot of people don’t get this.  They feel judged, and that’s a very serious problem.  Frankly, the Church has done a horrible job communicating these truths and this is one thing the Synod is attempting to address.   One importnat question the Synod Fathers are asking is, “Is there a way that we can continue to do our job of diagnosing and providing treatment for spiritual disorders–such as remarriage after divorce–without making people feel judged by our diagnoses?” Another question is, “Are there treatments for this disorder (of remarriage after divorce) that could work as well but be less painful?”   These are important but challenging questions, and there aren’t an easy answers to either of them–hence all the sturm und drang around the synod.   But one thing the Church cannot do is say that a spiritual sickness is actually a sign of health, and a broken sign is, actually, not broken.

To learn more about how you can experience a more joyful, loving, passionate, grace-filled marriage, please check out the brand new, revised and expanded 2nd edition or For Better…FOREVER! A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage.

Kim Davis is a Mess. So What?

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A lot of people are putting out a lot of spin trying to explain away, contextualize, minimize and otherwise  dismiss Pope Francis’ meeting with Kim Davis.  And guess what?  It is all irrelevant. In fact, it’s downright shameful.

It really doesn’t matter how the meeting came about or what was said between them. It also doesn’t matter that her life is a hot mess, or that she has done plenty of damage in her own life against the sanctity of marriage. The real point is that, when asked on the flight home, Pope Francis publicly affirmed civil disobedience as a “basic human right.”

A person doesn’t have to be perfect, or even decent, to have the right to exercise his or her basic human rights.  One doesn’t have to agree with Kim Davis to affirm her right to object to what she believes is an unjust law.  As I argued previously, regardless of what you think of her, Kim Davis has a basic human right to refuse to resign and, instead, engage in civil disobedience if she is being asked to do things she finds to be morally objectionable.

Furthermore, all Christians, and indeed, all persons of good will,  have a moral obligation to support her and anyone else who acts in accordance with their conscience, especially when that puts them in conflict with the law. That doesn’t mean that conscientious objectors can act consequence-free, but it does mean that they should be able to act without encountering the derision of others–especially people-of-faith.

Shame on anyone who would attempt to dismiss or minimize another person’s basic human rights because those rights were not to their political liking.  Without an inconvenient right to conscientious objection, true religious liberty does not exist in any meaningful way.  Religious people, of all people, ought to know better.

Our Lady of Sorrows–A Celebration of Resilience

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Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the day we reflect on the “seven daggers” that pierced Our Lady’s heart.  Namely,

  1. The Prophecy of Simeon. (Luke 2:34–35) or the Circumcision of Christ
  2. The Flight into Egypt. (Matthew 2:13)
  3. The loss of the child Jesus in the Temple. (Luke 2:43–45)
  4. Mary meets Jesus on the way to Calvary.
  5. Jesus dies on the cross. (John 19:25)
  6. The piercing of the side of Jesus, and Mary’s receiving the body of Jesus in her arms. (Matthew 27:57–59)
  7. The body of Jesus is placed in the tomb. (John 19:40–42)

This day is really an opportunity to reflect on the Blessed Mother’s ability to persevere in the power of faith; to remain steadfast in the face of the challenges she encountered in her life.

Her faithfulness is an example to all of us when we face adversity.  Resilience is what psychologists refer to as the ability to bounce back from hard times and to persevere despite the challenges we face.  In addition to turning to God in prayer when we are struggling, here are 10 things you can do to cultivate resilience in your life.

1. Make connections. 
Good relationships with close family members, friends, or others are important. Accepting help and support from those who care about you and will listen to you strengthens resilience. Some people find that being active in civic groups, faith-based organizations, or other local groups provides social support and can help with reclaiming hope. Assisting others in their time of need also can benefit the helper.

2. Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems.
You can’t change the fact that highly stressful events happen, but you can change how you interpret and respond to these events. Try looking beyond the present to how future circumstances may be a little better. Note any subtle ways in which you might already feel somewhat better as you deal with difficult situations.

3. Accept that change is a part of living. Certain goals may no longer be attainable as a result of adverse situations. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can alter.

4. Move toward your goals. Develop some realistic goals. Do something regularly — even if it seems like a small accomplishment — that enables you to move toward your goals. Instead of focusing on tasks that seem unachievable, ask yourself, “What’s one thing I know I can accomplish today that helps me move in the direction I want to go?”

5. Take decisive actions. Act on adverse situations as much as you can. Take decisive actions, rather than detaching completely from problems and stresses and wishing they would just go away.

6. Look for opportunities for self-discovery. People often learn something about themselves and may find that they have grown in some respect as a result of their struggle with loss. Many people who have experienced tragedies and hardship have reported better relationships, greater sense of strength even while feeling vulnerable, increased sense of self-worth, a more developed spirituality, and heightened appreciation for life.

7. Nurture a positive view of yourself. Developing confidence in your ability to solve problems and trusting your instincts helps build resilience.

8. Keep things in perspective. Even when facing very painful events, try to consider the stressful situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective. Avoid blowing the event out of proportion.

9. Maintain a hopeful outlook. An optimistic outlook enables you to expect that good things will happen in your life. Try visualizing what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear.

10. Take care of yourself. Pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing. Exercise regularly. Taking care of yourself helps to keep your mind and body primed to deal with situations that require resilience.

Additional ways of strengthening resilience may be helpful. For example, some people write about their deepest thoughts and feelings related to trauma or other stressful events in their life. Meditation and spiritual practices help some people build connections and restore hope.

The key is to identify ways that are likely to work well for you as part of your own personal strategy for fostering resilience.

To learn more about developing your capacity to bounce back in hard times, please check out God Help Me, This STRESS is Driving Me Crazy!  Finding Balance Through God’s Grace.

“Christians Need Not Apply.” What Carly Fiorina Gets Wrong About Religious Liberty.

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Republican Presidential hopeful, Carly Fiorina, was asked what she thought of the Kentucky Clerk of Courts who refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of the law and a court order.  Here is what she said.

“First, I think that we must protect religious liberties with great passion and be willing to expend a lot of political capital to do so now because it’s clear religious liberty is under assault in many, many ways,” she said. “Having said that, when you are a government employee, I think you take on a different role. When you are a government employee as opposed to say, an employee of another kind of organization, then in essence, you are agreeing to act as an arm of the government.”

I appreciate the challenge of answering such a gotcha question on the fly, but to my mind, this answer is deeply, deeply flawed.  It essentially says, “Faithful, traditional, Christians need not apply for government office if they are unwilling to sacrifice their beliefs at the altar of what they believe are unjust laws.”  Fiorina’s first statement about “protecting religious liberty” is completely neutered by her second statement requiring anyone who disagreed with a law to resign.  Her answer is the literal definition of double-speak and it says a lot about her personal position on this issue.    If Ms. Fiorina–or any of the presidential hopefuls–wants to be a serious candidate, she is going to have to demonstrate considerably more awareness of the importance and role of the free exercise of religion in the marketplace.  Here is what I think she, or any other candidate who wants the religious vote, is going to need to say.

“What we see here is a person exercising her right to engage in civil disobedience. Civil disobedience, by its nature, makes civil society uncomfortable. It demands to be heard.  It insists that “I will NOT be ignored or discounted or disenfranchised.”  There are consequences to civil disobedience, sometimes even grave consequences, and this woman must be prepared to accept the consequences of her actions–like Thomas More– if her civil disobedience is to be anything but an affectation. But I respect her willingness to sacrifice herself in service of her beliefs–indeed, I respect EVERY citizens right to do the same– and I look forward to seeing how her conscience-driven actions advance the public dialog about how our country can practically apply the social changes that have been imposed upon us by judges who have claimed for themselves the right to legislate from the bench.”

Show me a candidate who has the guts and the wisdom to say this and I’ll show you a serious candidate who just might actually deserve to sit in the Oval Office.  Sadly, I haven’t seen one yet.

 

 

“Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome”–An Autopsy on the Death of Religious Faith

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Image Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Image Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Reba Riley’s memoir, Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: A Memoir of Humor and Healing describes her loss of religious faith in her early 20’s and her subsequent attempt to assemble a meaningful spiritual life for herself.

I was struck by her interview with the Religion News Service because at the time I read it, I had just finished writing my paper for the journal to be published at the conclusion of the World Meeting of Families at which my wife and I are both speaking.  Riley’s interview read like a case study of the major problem I was describing in the paper; Spiritual Ambivalence.

Perpetual Wanderers NOT Seekers

People often call Millennials afflicted with spiritual ambivalence “seekers” but that’s not entirely true.  It would be more accurate to say that they are perpetual spiritual wanderers.  The difference is that seekers want to find a spiritual home, but for the spiritually ambivalent, the idea of landing in one spiritual place is offensive, restricting, and, besides,  completely unnecessary.   Here is how Riley–who claims to have sampled 30 religions by her 30th birthday–puts it.

“I never set out to find a new religion, but rather to face my spiritual injuries and find healing, all the experiences—from Amish to Sweat Lodge to Pentecostals were not only viable; they were essential to rediscovering my faith. The journey would have been impossible without exploring many religious expressions—including, and maybe especially, Scientology. It was so foreign of an experience that it forced me to ponder questions I’d never thought to ask.”

She recounts an experience with a pastor who challenged her assertion that she was Christian.

…a few months ago a pastor was essentially cross-examining my answer to this question [ed note: of whether she was Christian]. After forty-five minutes I gently said, “Sir, it seems like you’re trying to find out if I am Christian enough for you. If you’re asking if I love Jesus, the answer is ‘yes.’ If you’re asking if I follow Jesus, the answer is ‘yes.’ If you’re asking to give me a litmus theology test, I’ll probably fail, because my theology is really quite simple, kinda like Jesus’s: Love God; Love people. Love, period.” He decided I was Christian enough, but it would’ve been okay with me if he hadn’t. 

The spiritually ambivalent like to believe that they have evolved beyond the tribalistic categories of denomination and doctrine but the research strongly suggests that what what is really going on is a deep-seated fear of spiritual commitment–a fear often rooted in the culture of divorce.

Church Trauma or Divorce Trauma?

The research of eminent psychologist of religion,  Dr. Ken Pargament (2011) shows that the kind of spiritual ambivalence Riley describes is rooted in the family; specifically, in the child’s inability to idealize his parents or other adults in authority in his life (teachers, pastors, coaches, etc).  This is often the direct spiritual consequence of divorce.  Of course, all children come to realize, at some point, that adults are fallible, and discovering this is even necessary for a healthy transition to adulthood.  But Pargament’s research shows that if this realization comes too soon or in unwelcome ways–because the adults in children’s lives have, for some reason, been experienced as not credible, unavailable, disconnected, distracted, selfish, out-of-touch, neglectful or abusive–children don’t learn whom they can reliably follow or to whom they can consistently turn for guidance–except themselves.  Ultimately, such a child’s ambivalent attitude toward parental maturity and wisdom is projected onto all institutions charged with helping people find meaning and significance.

Elizabeth Marquardt (2006; 2013) observed a similar dynamic in her groundbreaking work on the spiritual lives of children of divorce.  Even in so-called “good divorces” (i.e., low conflict divorces when the children maintain a good relationship with both parents) children are constantly moving back and forth between two–often, very different–worlds (the mother’s and the father’s).  These “worlds” never come together in any meaningful way except inside the children’s own heads.  Because of this, Marquardt asserts that the majority of adult children of divorce generally struggle with trusting anyone besides themselves to help make sense of life.

Church-Haunted

My point here is to not question Riley’s sincerity.  I respect the journey she’s on.  Rather, as a professional counselor who practices spiritually-integrated psychotherapy, it’s my to draw from the research and fill in some blanks people in Riley’s position often leave empty.  Without addressing these blindspots perpetual wanderers like Riley will never find true peace as they continue to attribute their genuine spiritual injuries to the wrong sources. Like A Christmas Carol’s  Jacob Marley, they will remain doomed to walk the earth, constantly carrying the chains that bind them and unable to commit to a spiritual home.  “I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere….and weary journeys lie before me!”

It is certainly true that religious groups can be petty, nasty, discriminatory and even traumatizing.  I don’t mean to deny anything she may or may not have been through in her experiences with institutional churches.  But the one thing that professional psychologists-of-religion note is that people often misattribute the source of their spiritual wounds.  They point to X situation with pastor Y or co-religionist Z–and those things may have indeed happened and may have indeed been serious.  But what makes these church-based experiences traumatic for some but not others is that many individuals who are traumatized by these experiences have already developed spiritual feet of clay because of pre-existing family traumas that have impacted their spiritual development.  These family traumas often go as unrecognized drivers of spiritual disorders because people fail to make the connection between their relational and spiritual lives–although they are, in fact, deeply connected to and even predictive of each other.

The Plot Thickens

When I began this article I hadn’t seen Riley’s book.  But in light of the above you might imagine that after I read her interview, I said to myself, “There is no way she is not an adult child of divorce.”  I had no idea if that was true, but I did a little digging and found that, in fact, my hypothesis was correct. On page 46 of her book she shares a conversation  in which her mom asks if Riley would have remained in the church of her childhood had her mom and dad hadn’t gotten divorced. Riley states.

“That was not a question I had expected.  Their divorce when I was nineteen changed my life, certainly.  It had broken my ideas about God and family and the world but it’s impact was not a loss of faith:  My grief caused me to dig deeper into faith.  It was only later–when I realized I didn’t, I couldn’t, believe in the primary tenets of Christianity–that I walked away.  And it was the walking away from everything I knew that caused the Breaking (sic).”

Reading this statement through the lens of the available research, it’s clear that the divorce changed everything.  Even Riley admits as much although she fails to appreciate the full spiritual significance of her post-divorce spiritual trauma.  No, the divorce didn’t cause her to immediately run away from her church.  But it left her feeling like she was the only one she could trust to determine “the Truth.”  The spiritual wound caused by her parents divorce t sent her down a path that caused her to reject any spiritual truths  she couldn’t reconcile exclusively via her own personal perspective and limited life experience (and I don’t mean that perjoratively. We ALL have limited experience compared to 2000 years of revelation and human experience).  After her parents’ divorce there was no longer any authority besides herself she could trust; no single system to whom she could make herself vulnerable, besides herself.  She felt trapped by the spiritual home(earlier she states that she felt that the truth did not set her free but “trapped” her)  that lied and said it could keep her safe, and so she left because it is safer to be spiritually homeless than to set yourself for that kind of hurt ever again.

Tiny House

Of course, her parents’ divorce did not result in a loss of faith.  Riley obviously had and has a very strong faith (defined by psychologists as the innate human drive to seek meaning, significance and transcendence) but unless she is willing to address the real trauma, the trauma of her parents’ divorce resulting in an existential fear of spiritual commitment, she will be forced to perpetually deny herself any spiritual home that does not fit within the confines of her own experience–and, in the grand scheme of human experience–that is a tiny home indeed.

Family Life: Cause and Cure

The takeaway, as I have noted before,  is that family life is the largely unappreciated crucible of spirituality.  We note in our book, Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids, all the literature says that if parents want their children to own their faith as adults, they have to experience their faith as the source of their warmth in their home.  If a faithful family lacks that warmth, then children will see faith as an empty shell that can’t deliver what it promised. And if a faithful family breaks apart, children experience faith–and the security it promises–to be a terrible, hurtful lie that must be avoided at all costs.

The flip side is that parents can do a lot–more than they often think–to positively impact their children’s faith development. Of course our children need to have a personal encounter with Christ for their faith to be authentic, but parents can do a lot to make sure that our children do not live in fear of that encounter.  We can prepare our children to open their hearts to receive Christ fully and make themselves comfortable in a warm and stable spiritual home. And we can do that by helping them experience our faith as the source of authentic comfort, warmth, and stability in our family home.  For more information on how YOU can raise children who know how to find the truth they are seeking, check out a copy of Discovering God Together:  The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids.

 

Learning Love from My Cross: Men, Emotions, and Healing.

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A Catholic Exchange article by my colleague, Pastoral Solutions Institute clinical pastoral counseling associate, Dave McClow, M.Div, LMFT.

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Every man is wounded or experiences suffering.  Because we are created for a communion of persons, suffering and mental illness seem like they are always a failure of being loved, or giving love, or both.  Most suffering is from disruptions in this communion of persons either with God or on the human plane.  The separation might be physical like death, spiritual as in mortal sin, or psychological due to abuse or neglect.

Translating the Devil’s or Diablo’s name and Satan’s name will be very psychologically insightful in understanding the disruptions in the communion of persons!  Diablo can be translated as “the separator,” and Satan can be translated as “the accuser.”  The Devil has been a separator from the beginning, driving a wedge between the man and the woman, and between them and God.  Separation is suffering and death!  It goes against how we are designed.

Satan accuses God of not being a good Father.  He convinces Eve that God is withholding something—the knowledge of good and evil.  Of course they eat and are ashamed and try to cover themselves.  When God shows up, they take their hiding to the bushes.  Interestingly, God does not ask the typical parental question, “What did you do?”  He first asks a relational (communion of persons) question, “Where are you?”  But Adam and Eve never really get around to answering that question (so I guess the politicians come by it honestly!).  Instead, they “accuse” each other and God of being the problem.

Back to shame: shame is always created in relationship.  A silly example is that we feel more stupid if we trip on the sidewalk and someone sees us, than when no one sees us.  With shame the accusations are not simply external; they can spread like wildfire internally as well:  “I’m worthless,”  “I can’t be forgiven,”  “I’m a mistake,”  “I don’t deserve love,” etc.  They are Satan’s and Diablo’s shame.  Following his lead, we accuse ourselves or others and separate ourselves from God and others.

Many of us are trained out of knowing our emotions due to our experiences.  This training is also in Diablo’s playbook for dysfunctional families.  “Don’t talk about real problems,” “Don’t trust anyone,” and “Don’t have feelings” are rules resulting from the wounds we received from what our parents did or didn’t do, or from our siblings, bullies, or abusers.  Not dealing with our broken hearts or our emotions can wreak havoc… CONTINUE READING

How to Raise Moral Kids in an Immoral World

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Image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Check out the YouTube Video of the webinar Lisa and I did for Ascension Press titled, How to Raise Moral Kids in an Immoral World.  The good news?  You don’t have to be afraid of the culture, of your kids’ peers, or any other influence.  We’ll show you how to make sure your children open their hearts to the lessons you want to teach them about living a joyful, godly, moral life.  We hope you’ll be blessed by the steps we share in this dynamic, practical presentation!

Yes, You CAN Raise Faithful Kids

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Image: Shutterstock

What are your chances your children will own their faith?  Answer these 5 questions in my inaugural post in the National Catholic Register!

For the Catholic parent, there is no more important task than communicating our faith to our children. That doesn’t just mean teaching our kids Catholic prayers and rituals. It means teaching them how to have a meaningful and personal relationship with God. How to think and act morally. How to love rightly and intimately. How to celebrate and live life as the gift that it is meant to be. And, ultimately, how to be saints — living witnesses to a life of grace.

As critical as this mission is, it’s understandable that many parents feel overwhelmed about the undertaking. In our newest book, Discovering God Together:  The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids, we take some of the mystery out of the process and reveal recent studies that expose the science behind passing on the faith.  The book goes into many more ideas but let’s cover a few of the bigger findings here.  Answer the following questions to see how effectively you are sharing the faith in your home.

1. Do your children experience your faith as the source of your warm, family relationships?

The Christian life is a call to deeper relationship with God and others. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that children are much more likely to “own” their faith when they experience it as the source of the warmth of their family relationships. When children of faithful parents experience no difference in the quality of the relationships in their homes relative to the quality of the relationships in their non-Catholic or non-believing friends’ homes, they come to see faith as either a hobby they can take or leave or, worse, as a fraud. This is especially true when faith is experienced as a collection of restrictions and rules instead of the source of the family’s sense of joy and togetherness. To this end, (CONTINUE READING)

Good Without God: Part 3 in My Head-To-Head Debate with John Mark Reynolds

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This post is part of a feature from Patheos called Head to Head where our best minds debate the big questions of the day.

This week, I’m debating the Evangelical Channel’s John Mark N. Reynolds. The question: is a deity necessary for morality?

This week’s question was inspired by Patheos Atheist writer Peter Mosley’s story on Theism’s Morality Glitch.

This is part three in my Patheos Head-to-Head debate with Philosopher John Mark Reynolds of Eidos Blog.  I am responding to his post, Dear Doctor:  Is is not Ought.

In his latest response, John Mark Reynolds begins by saying that he isn’t a psychologist.  In turn, I must confess that I am not a philosopher.  That said, I have at least a passing familiarity with David Hume’s “Is-Ought Problem” that Reynolds refers to.  In short, where natural law reasoning says that most people ought to be able to determine what is moral by observing the way the world is–i.e., the way things work–Hume responds to this by observing, that, in fact, this is wishful thinking.  Left to their own devices, most people tend to find ways to justify as moral what they want to do rather than trying to conform themselves to the natural order of the world.  Current events clearly shows this to be the case.  (And this summary of the is-out fallacy probably demonstrates how little philosophy cred I actually have.)

At any rate,I actually agree, as I indicated in my last post.  The question we were asked to address was, “Is a deity necessary for morality?”  This sets the bar rather low and I still think the answer is “no.”  Even without God, people can create enough of a functional morality to get along with each other and create a basically functional society.  In fact, as research shows, most people–even believers–make moral decisions on simplistic grounds like, “will I get in trouble?” or “will my friends be mad?” if i do this.

That said a more interesting question, and the one John Mark Reynolds has focused on is, “Exactly HOW moral can we be without God?”  And I actually agree with him here.  I think most of the naturalistic attempts at morality are pretty pathetic.  They are functional, but they are certainly not transcendent in any way.  Staying out of trouble or trying not to annoy my social group doesn’t really challenge me to be a better person.  It just enables me to get along.

In the end, I think this is where the atheists and Christians struggle to understand each other, as I pointed out in my first post.  For the atheist, “being moral” is just about avoiding conflict with the people around them.  For the Christian “being moral” is about developing virtue and pursuing transcendence by conforming to something greater than oneself.

So, in the end, I would say that my position remains that people can be good without God.  They just can’t be very good.

 

Dr. Strangelove (OR) How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Natural Family Planning. (Part III in a Series)

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Strangelove

This is the third post in my series titled, The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Burden of Natural Family Planning which attempts to propose some practical and sensitive avenues for addressing the struggles many couples have with NFP.  Click the links for Part One and Part Two.

It isn’t unusual in NFP circles to run into faithful, devout, well-intentioned people who use NFP but live in a constant state of fear about it.  Sometimes they are concerned about the method for health reasons (e.g., hormonal issues, complicated cycles, PCOS), sometimes for mental health reasons (depression, anxiety or OCD), and sometimes it’s just because they don’t really trust the method or don’t trust their ability to read their fertility signs.

Fear and Loathing in NFP-Land

This anxiety can exact a huge cost both for the person’s sense of well-being and the marital relationship.  Because some couples are nervous about the method not working or “getting it wrong” (especially when they are dealing with serious health issues that make conception inadvisable) these couples often feel an incredible burden that causes them to not only use the most conservative rules for determining infertility, but add a few days on either side “just to be safe.”  This can lead to extra long periods of abstinence, increased marital tension, and a great deal of self-doubt and resentment toward the Church for burdening them with the cross of NFP.  In fact, it isn’t unusual to hear women who feel this way wishing for a medical issue that would require them to have a hysterectomy just so that they could stop having to worry about all of this all the time.

Fear:  Not Part of the Method.

NFP isn’t a cake-walk for anyone.  Sure, there are lots of blessings that can come from practicing it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  Likewise, for couples who are new to the method, it is natural to feel a little nervous while you’re learning to trust yourself to really know and understand your signs.  That said,  long term anxiety and resentment over the method is always sign that something is not right and the good news is that it is usually the kind of issue that can be corrected with the right kind of information and help.

Let’s Not Blame the Victim

Now, before I go on, let me make one thing abundantly clear.  I’m not blaming the victim.  I’m not saying that if, in your practice of NFP, you don’t experience the kind of joy that makes you want to break out in song at the site of a thermometer and a ream of graph paper then there is something wrong with you.  What I am saying is that if fear and resentment were an unavoidable part of NFP, especially for couples with health or mental health issues, relationship struggles or other concerns, then all couples who wrestled with these issues would be equally miserable.  The good news is that they are not.  There are, in fact, couples who struggle with health problems, mental health concerns, relationship challenges, and other problems who find NFP to be, at worst, a little inconvenient, and at best, a genuine help to them.  “So what?”  You might say.  “That’s not me.”    I get that.  But again, here’s the good news.

Research on the psychology of happiness shows us that the best way to find a way out of a problem is to look at people who are going through similar things as myself but who, somehow, are managing to be happy–or at least effective–despite their circumstances and ask, “What are they doing differently and how can I learn to do that too?”   One of Satan’s greatest lies is that our suffering is so unique that there is no one who can understand or help us through our own struggles.  Being humble enough to recognize that we can learn something useful from people who are going through similar things as us, but somehow bearing up better than we are can be a real source of hope, strength, growth.  The following represent some of the ways couples who struggle with NFP but do not become oppressed by it deal with their challenges.  Try to read the following with an open heart and ask yourself how you might begin to take advantage of some of the supports that follow.

1.  Get Ongoing NFP Training and Support.

Even if you think you know everything there is to know about NFP, having well-trained people you can turn to for ongoing support, additional training, or who could even just serve as a sounding board can be tremendously helpful even when you feel like there is nothing else that can be done.  The more you can say you feel oppressed by the practice of NFP, or nervous about it, or feel that your circumstances are uniquely difficult, the more you need to be getting regular consultation and support in practicing NFP effectively and gracefully in your life.  Likewise, don’t feel that you have to be wedded to one person or even one method for support.  One client I worked with became such good friends with her NFP coach that she didn’t want to “disappoint” her friend by seeking help elsewhere even though she didn’t feel that her present level of support was really helping.  The only thing that matters is getting the support, training, and counsel you need, wherever and however you need it.

The truth is, different methods evaluate slightly different signs and slightly different constellations of signs, and they evaluate them using different techniques and tools.  If one style of NFP doesn’t fit your lifestyle, investigate other options.  The more methods you know, the more ways of gathering information you have, the more competent you can be at interpreting your unique fertility signs.

2.  Seek Faithful Medical Support

If you have a health concern that is making the practice of NFP more difficult for you, it can be helpful to seek counsel from a Catholic physician whose practice is consistent with the teachings of the Church.  I am not suggesting that you need to make a radical change in your treatment or even change the primary physicians consulting on your case.  Rather, it might be good to get support from a Catholic physician who can offer you advice on medical approaches that are both consistent with your faith journey and how you might be able to manage your health problems in ways that make practicing NFP easier.  Two good sources for these referrals would be the Catholic Medical Association and the Pope Paul VI Institute.

3.  Seek Faithful Counseling Support

Perhaps you feel that your mental health and your marriage are just fine and you don’t have a particular problem that you need to address in counseling.  That may be true, but counseling isn’t just about solving problems.  It is also about developing strengths.  When a person, or couple, is going through a particularly trying time, it can be helpful to work with a professional therapist who can help you discover how to approach the challenges you are facing in a manner that brings out the best in you.  There is a wide body of research showing that even in the absence of mental health or relationship problems, when a person who is struggling with an unusual stressor seeks professional help, they function better through the difficulty and experience more rapid relief from the difficulty they are encountering.  Of course, if you are dealing with a mental health or relationship issue then all the more reason to seek competent, faithful help early and stick with it until you feel like you have gotten to a better place with both  your practice of NFP and the co-occurring issues.  You can find good resources for faithful counseling at www.CatholicTherapists.com  (a national referrals source) or through our Catholic Tele-Counseling Practice at the Pastoral Solutions Institute.

4.  Seek Prayer Support

Getting good spiritual direction, or at least ongoing prayer support, is essential for remaining faithful under pressure and beating back the dark thoughts that make our attempts to remain faithful more difficult than they ought to be.  Satan does not want God’s people to be faithful.  If we must be faithful, then Satan would prefer we become those “querulous sourpusses” that Pope Francis decried in the Joy of the Gospel.  Getting good spiritual support–whether from a spiritual director, a prayer group, or even your spouse, or a spiritually-mature friend or relation– is essential for preventing this bitter root from growing in you (Heb 12:15).

5.  Avoid All-or-Nothing Thinking

When you are in the grip of fear, resentment, or other strong, emotional reactions, it is easy to fall prey to all-or-nothing thinking that says, “Unless I can see how doing this (whatever ‘this’ may be) can resolve my problems, there is no point doing anything.”

When we are in the middle of a struggle it can be difficult to know what is going to work.  That’s why it’s important to take our cue, not from our feelings, but from what people who are handling things better than we happen to be are doing.  Again, we need to stop thinking our pain is so terrifically unique that the things that help others couldn’t possibly help us.  If you are going through difficulties with NFP and you are not seeking one or more of the forms of support I have outlined in this article, then you simply aren’t getting the help you need.

Again, the truth is, despite the many blessings it affords,  NFP can be a challenge under the best of circumstances. If you are feeling oppressed by the practice of NFP, then that is a sign you need more support, training and guidance, not because you are necessarily doing anything wrong, but so that you can learn to rise to the unique challenges in your life that are making NFP more difficult than it needs to be.  To get more support working through the ways Natural Family Planning might be negatively impacting YOUR marriage, check out my books, When Divorce is NOT An Option:  How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love  and Holy Sex!  The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving or contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute  to learn about our Catholic Tele-counseling practice.