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Thursday, March 27, 2008
Heretics and Bullies
I have a number of thoughts I plan to share on Oprah's latest foray into the nether regions of false religion, but that'll have to wait. All I'll say for now is that, in her enthusiasm for the next johnny-come-lately New Age guru, she's leading a lot of people astray. More on that later.
Today, while doing some research, I stumbled across Jodee Blanco's Web site. Ms. Blanco was on the receiving end of some extremely ruthless, savage bullying as a high school student. She recounts gut-wrenching stories of being beaten, pelted with rocks, having snow stuffed in her mouth until she gagged, and other such horrors -- all experienced on an unrelenting basis at the cruel hand of fellow students. Her experiences led her to write an anti-bullying curriculum for schools, entitled It's Not Just Joking Around. According to Ms. Blanco, her anti-bullying campaign prevented sixteen bullying-related suicides, a school bombing, and a stabbing in its first year alone.
I'm very glad to see Blanco's campaign, organization, and books succeed. Bullying is a blight on our nation's schools, and it shouldn't be tolerated by teachers, parents, or students -- ever.
"Gee, Rob," you say, "isn't bullying a bit off the beaten path for you? Why are you writing about this?"
Because I was a victim of bullying as well. Not just an isolated instance here and there, but consistent and merciless bullying that continued for the better part of my 7th grade year. Nothing as extreme as what Jodee Blanco experienced, but it made bus rides to and from school a miserable experience. And since I felt both likable and generally well liked throughout my elementary school years, the experience of being bullied was a huge shock to my psyche.
At the back of the bus were some guys who decided I made a good torture subject. In some ways I suppose I was; although I had gotten in some scraps as a kid, I wasn't particularly adept at fighting (despite the fact that I was nearly my present height of 6'2" by the time I was twelve). Moreover, I didn't really want to fight with anybody -- getting along was just simpler and more fun. I imagine that they instinctively knew I was unlikely to fight back.
In any case, an 8th grader I knew from elementary school had always been friendly before. But now, he threatened to beat me up on a daily basis, showering me with expletive-laced insults. I was flummoxed by the intense anger and hostility he exhibited and just didn't know how to deal with it -- to my knowledge, I had never wronged him or given him cause to dislike me. I suspect it served him somehow in terms of image enhancement to jump on the Rob pig pile like everyone else.
Then there were the guys on the back of the bus who loved to flick my ears, punch my arms, steal my belongings, and give me wedgies that were so bad I swore I could feel my underwear in my throat. I know, it sounds relatively innocuous in the grand scheme of things, but the humiliation of it all was significant at the time. I did everything I could to avoid the back of the bus, but the other kids were not very helpful. When the bus was full, most of them were unwilling to let me sit in a seat with them. I would go from seat to seat trying to negotiate a place well forward, only to be met with flat refusals to scoot over and make room. Before long, the bus driver would be hollering at me to hurry up and sit down (why he never stopped the bullies, I'll never know), and there were plenty of times that I would have no choice but to fall into the arms of my tormenters.
At school, there were threats and insults from the people I sat in band with. I was overweight, so they thought it was amusing to suggest I wore a bra. One of them decided it would be fun to beat me up, and on the way to lunch one day he shadowed my every step, punching away. Since this aggressive kid was something of a pip-squeak, his blows didn't really hurt physically, but when we passed someone in the hall and they cheered him on -- that definitely hurt inside. On top of it all, this same pip-squeak bragged to everyone he could that he had thrashed me, which only brought more disdain.
I shan't bore you with additional stories, but suffice it to say that my middle school experience was punctuated by innumerable instances like these. Looking back, my daily existence was rife with inner pain and desperation. I wasn't friendless by any means, but I lived in abject fear that the friends I had would desert me if they witnessed me getting bullied. And somehow, my sense of value and identity got entirely wrapped up in who I was friends with and how popular I was with them. It's a frightening prospect to have your fragile sense of value and utility determined by the fickle and fleeting predilections of a bunch of pre-teens. The pressure of procuring their favor while fending off bullies was too much to bear at times, and so I have the distinct memory of walking from class to class in a self-induced mental and emotional stupor -- checked out, numb, withdrawn.
My grades tanked as a result, to the bewilderment of my parents. They were oblivious to what I was going through, and I was too ashamed to tell them about it. Report card days were full of dread and self-hatred. I'd be angry at myself for getting D's, and once my parents got over their own shock and anger at my poor academic performance, they would sit me down and attempt to ferret out what had gone haywire in their boy's brain. Of course, I didn't understand what was going on myself, so these conversations usually went like this:
And that brings me to the point of all this. It's cathartic to just to share this information, but I need to note something important. Looking back, I have been amazed that I didn't thoroughly self-destruct during my early teenage years. It would have been such an easy thing to seek solace and acceptance by falling in with "the wrong crowd." How did I avoid getting enticed by the drug and alcohol abuse that were commonplace among my peers?
I recall a day when the weight of all I endured each day was too much. When I got home from school, I ran upstairs to my room, closed the door, and proceeded to weep. For a time I just sobbed, and then, through my tears, I began to talk to God. Every last bit of grief, pain, anger, and confusion came gushing out. Why, God? Why do these boys on the bus take such pleasure in my pain and embarrassment? Why am I going through this? How did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve all this?
I didn't get any answers, but after that day I came away with two convictions that could only have been experientially rooted. My nascent spirituality lacked the depth or sophistication to contrive or give voice to these convictions, but they were engraved on my heart nevertheless: God was listening intently as I told Him of my pain, and He had drawn near to me in genuine care and concern for my plight. Psalm 34:18 puts it this way:
If you've been bullied or are being bullied now and you're reading this, your pain doesn't go unnoticed by Heaven. And you need to know that there is no ally or friend like Jesus Christ. I'd welcome the opportunity to pray for you or help in any way I can. Just shoot me an e-mail.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
I have a number of thoughts I plan to share on Oprah's latest foray into the nether regions of false religion, but that'll have to wait. All I'll say for now is that, in her enthusiasm for the next johnny-come-lately New Age guru, she's leading a lot of people astray. More on that later.
Today, while doing some research, I stumbled across Jodee Blanco's Web site. Ms. Blanco was on the receiving end of some extremely ruthless, savage bullying as a high school student. She recounts gut-wrenching stories of being beaten, pelted with rocks, having snow stuffed in her mouth until she gagged, and other such horrors -- all experienced on an unrelenting basis at the cruel hand of fellow students. Her experiences led her to write an anti-bullying curriculum for schools, entitled It's Not Just Joking Around. According to Ms. Blanco, her anti-bullying campaign prevented sixteen bullying-related suicides, a school bombing, and a stabbing in its first year alone.
I'm very glad to see Blanco's campaign, organization, and books succeed. Bullying is a blight on our nation's schools, and it shouldn't be tolerated by teachers, parents, or students -- ever.
"Gee, Rob," you say, "isn't bullying a bit off the beaten path for you? Why are you writing about this?"
Because I was a victim of bullying as well. Not just an isolated instance here and there, but consistent and merciless bullying that continued for the better part of my 7th grade year. Nothing as extreme as what Jodee Blanco experienced, but it made bus rides to and from school a miserable experience. And since I felt both likable and generally well liked throughout my elementary school years, the experience of being bullied was a huge shock to my psyche.
At the back of the bus were some guys who decided I made a good torture subject. In some ways I suppose I was; although I had gotten in some scraps as a kid, I wasn't particularly adept at fighting (despite the fact that I was nearly my present height of 6'2" by the time I was twelve). Moreover, I didn't really want to fight with anybody -- getting along was just simpler and more fun. I imagine that they instinctively knew I was unlikely to fight back.
In any case, an 8th grader I knew from elementary school had always been friendly before. But now, he threatened to beat me up on a daily basis, showering me with expletive-laced insults. I was flummoxed by the intense anger and hostility he exhibited and just didn't know how to deal with it -- to my knowledge, I had never wronged him or given him cause to dislike me. I suspect it served him somehow in terms of image enhancement to jump on the Rob pig pile like everyone else.
Then there were the guys on the back of the bus who loved to flick my ears, punch my arms, steal my belongings, and give me wedgies that were so bad I swore I could feel my underwear in my throat. I know, it sounds relatively innocuous in the grand scheme of things, but the humiliation of it all was significant at the time. I did everything I could to avoid the back of the bus, but the other kids were not very helpful. When the bus was full, most of them were unwilling to let me sit in a seat with them. I would go from seat to seat trying to negotiate a place well forward, only to be met with flat refusals to scoot over and make room. Before long, the bus driver would be hollering at me to hurry up and sit down (why he never stopped the bullies, I'll never know), and there were plenty of times that I would have no choice but to fall into the arms of my tormenters.
At school, there were threats and insults from the people I sat in band with. I was overweight, so they thought it was amusing to suggest I wore a bra. One of them decided it would be fun to beat me up, and on the way to lunch one day he shadowed my every step, punching away. Since this aggressive kid was something of a pip-squeak, his blows didn't really hurt physically, but when we passed someone in the hall and they cheered him on -- that definitely hurt inside. On top of it all, this same pip-squeak bragged to everyone he could that he had thrashed me, which only brought more disdain.
I shan't bore you with additional stories, but suffice it to say that my middle school experience was punctuated by innumerable instances like these. Looking back, my daily existence was rife with inner pain and desperation. I wasn't friendless by any means, but I lived in abject fear that the friends I had would desert me if they witnessed me getting bullied. And somehow, my sense of value and identity got entirely wrapped up in who I was friends with and how popular I was with them. It's a frightening prospect to have your fragile sense of value and utility determined by the fickle and fleeting predilections of a bunch of pre-teens. The pressure of procuring their favor while fending off bullies was too much to bear at times, and so I have the distinct memory of walking from class to class in a self-induced mental and emotional stupor -- checked out, numb, withdrawn.
My grades tanked as a result, to the bewilderment of my parents. They were oblivious to what I was going through, and I was too ashamed to tell them about it. Report card days were full of dread and self-hatred. I'd be angry at myself for getting D's, and once my parents got over their own shock and anger at my poor academic performance, they would sit me down and attempt to ferret out what had gone haywire in their boy's brain. Of course, I didn't understand what was going on myself, so these conversations usually went like this:
"Robbie, you know it's important to get good grades and work hard at school, don't you?"I can only imagine how frustrating these conversations must have been for my parents. I genuinely felt bad about not being able to give them better answers, but I was being honest. I really didn't know what to tell them. It was only after being introduced to healing ministry paradigms in recent years that I was able to piece together what happened -- and to sort out how the darkness of my middle school years still affected me as an adult.
"Yes."
"And you know you're a very smart, very capable boy. Right?"
"Yes."
"You could get straight A's if you wanted to."
"I know."
"Then why are you getting D's?"
"I don't know."
And that brings me to the point of all this. It's cathartic to just to share this information, but I need to note something important. Looking back, I have been amazed that I didn't thoroughly self-destruct during my early teenage years. It would have been such an easy thing to seek solace and acceptance by falling in with "the wrong crowd." How did I avoid getting enticed by the drug and alcohol abuse that were commonplace among my peers?
I recall a day when the weight of all I endured each day was too much. When I got home from school, I ran upstairs to my room, closed the door, and proceeded to weep. For a time I just sobbed, and then, through my tears, I began to talk to God. Every last bit of grief, pain, anger, and confusion came gushing out. Why, God? Why do these boys on the bus take such pleasure in my pain and embarrassment? Why am I going through this? How did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve all this?
I didn't get any answers, but after that day I came away with two convictions that could only have been experientially rooted. My nascent spirituality lacked the depth or sophistication to contrive or give voice to these convictions, but they were engraved on my heart nevertheless: God was listening intently as I told Him of my pain, and He had drawn near to me in genuine care and concern for my plight. Psalm 34:18 puts it this way:
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit (RSV).But for this living truth finding expression in one of the deepest moments of pain I've ever had, I shudder to think of the darkness I could have fallen into as a kid. God simply preserved me by His gracious hand.
If you've been bullied or are being bullied now and you're reading this, your pain doesn't go unnoticed by Heaven. And you need to know that there is no ally or friend like Jesus Christ. I'd welcome the opportunity to pray for you or help in any way I can. Just shoot me an e-mail.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: bullying, inner healing, Jodee Blanco
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
A pro-gay apologists errors
My wife and I have both embarked on a journey of healing with God in recent years. We are grateful to Him for the gentle mercy and kindness He has chosen to shower our lives with during this time. Nevertheless, we have found that the path to wholeness can occasionaly be arduous and harrowing. God's healing touch requires that we acknowledge and face the darkness in our souls, whatever its nature may be. This is no easy task, because wounded people are very adept at running from their own darkness, at covering it with every manner of "medication" in a feeble (and sinful) attempt to deaden the gnawing pain that festers deep within. Owning up to the the fact that we've coddled and hidden from our darkness has been a struggle at times, but neither of us would trade this season we are in for anything. We have come to know God as our loving Father in ways that we had never dreamed. A corresponding freedom comes with this knowledge. When we obediently face the freezing, stinking shroud that smothers the inner life and view it through God's eyes, we open ourselves to the innate subversiveness of His light and freedom. They invade and conquer inner darkness like the small amount of leaven that works all the way through a lump of dough.
As leaders in the church, our own experiences with inner-healing have sensitized us to the rampant brokenness that exists among Christians. We are often wont to probe the writings and methodologies of those who are learned and seasoned in healing ministry in order to augment our own ministry "tool belts." Aware of this, a friend of ours gave us a copy of Leanne Payne's The Broken Image, which details the power of healing prayer to undo woundedness and usher God's redeeming power into damaged souls--particularly in relation to the emotional and spiritual pathologies that contribute to homosexuality. In fact, Ms. Payne's counseling experience has led her to the conclusion that, as disorders of the mind and heart go, homosexuality is surprisingly simple to deal with.
Now, before I proceed, I wish to make a disclaimer. I can tell from Ms. Payne's book that she is among the kindliest of souls, and her passion for ministering wholeness and freedom to others certainly resonates with me. Her success in ministering to practitioners of homosexuality is impressive, heartwarming, and faith-building. I do not, however, agree with her healing methodology in toto. Ms. Payne does not hesitate to employ visualization with her patients, which I view as dangerously subjective in healing ministry situations. Ms. Payne knows full well that anyone working through woundedness encounters profound difficulty in objectively apprehending the truth about their own condition and how God views it. For this reason, I believe it is much safer and healthier to facilitate an environment where God is free to initiate the impartation of objective information--whether it conveys a sense of His love and acceptance or the reason why a victim suffered abuse--by His Spirit. Our relationship with God is necessarily an admixture of His objective activity in our lives and our subjective experience of it. There is far less room for error if we completely trust Him to be the proactive one in a healing ministry context.
Now, with that out of the way, on to the point of this post.
Out of curiosity, I recently went to Amazon.com to see what other readers had to say about Ms. Payne's book, and found the followingpropaganda review:
Having read Ms. Payne's book through at least twice, I can say with certainty that this reviewer grievously mischaracterizes her positions. For example, the reviewer accuses Ms. Payne of relying on the "'old shoe' theory of a maladaptive relationship with the father" to explain the occurrence of homosexuality. This is hopelessly reductionistic. An objective reader would tell you that her explication of causal factors eventuating in same-sex attraction, while including maladaptive relationships with parents, is far more nuanced and complex. My hunch is that the reviewer proceeded from his own prejudice against Christian notions of "reparative therapy" without giving Ms. Payne's book a fair reading.
The reviewer also made one general assertion about Christians that I want to address in some detail:
This means that homosexuality is merely one of many symptoms stemming from unredeemed, human sinfulness. That is not the end of the story, however, because God does not leave us to wallow in our wretched estate. The message of Christianity is that our unredeemed nature is not God's ideal for us. We were originally made in His image and likeness, and His intent is to recover through Jesus Christ what our own sin and the sin of others have so marred and twisted. To the homosexual, Ms. Payne says, "Your broken, sinful self has eventuated in homosexual acts. Your true, liberated, and fulfilled self is to be found in Christ Jesus. Living in Him necessitates that you eschew--by His grace and power--that which is contrary to His nature. In uniting yourself with Him, He in turn works His righteousness and truth in you, so that you can work it out through what you do, think, and say." Or, to put it another way, "You are currently doing what you are, but God wants to make you new so you can live differently."
The reviewer I have cited above would no doubt dispute much of what I have said here. Nevertheless, his original comment is based on an erroneous understanding of Christianity. I suspect that he would still take issue with the notion that homosexuality is rooted ultimately in the sinfulness of humanity. On that count he is arguing not with me, but with thousands of years of inspired holy writ.
Blessings,
Rob Monti
aka The MonT-SteR
My wife and I have both embarked on a journey of healing with God in recent years. We are grateful to Him for the gentle mercy and kindness He has chosen to shower our lives with during this time. Nevertheless, we have found that the path to wholeness can occasionaly be arduous and harrowing. God's healing touch requires that we acknowledge and face the darkness in our souls, whatever its nature may be. This is no easy task, because wounded people are very adept at running from their own darkness, at covering it with every manner of "medication" in a feeble (and sinful) attempt to deaden the gnawing pain that festers deep within. Owning up to the the fact that we've coddled and hidden from our darkness has been a struggle at times, but neither of us would trade this season we are in for anything. We have come to know God as our loving Father in ways that we had never dreamed. A corresponding freedom comes with this knowledge. When we obediently face the freezing, stinking shroud that smothers the inner life and view it through God's eyes, we open ourselves to the innate subversiveness of His light and freedom. They invade and conquer inner darkness like the small amount of leaven that works all the way through a lump of dough.
As leaders in the church, our own experiences with inner-healing have sensitized us to the rampant brokenness that exists among Christians. We are often wont to probe the writings and methodologies of those who are learned and seasoned in healing ministry in order to augment our own ministry "tool belts." Aware of this, a friend of ours gave us a copy of Leanne Payne's The Broken Image, which details the power of healing prayer to undo woundedness and usher God's redeeming power into damaged souls--particularly in relation to the emotional and spiritual pathologies that contribute to homosexuality. In fact, Ms. Payne's counseling experience has led her to the conclusion that, as disorders of the mind and heart go, homosexuality is surprisingly simple to deal with.
Now, before I proceed, I wish to make a disclaimer. I can tell from Ms. Payne's book that she is among the kindliest of souls, and her passion for ministering wholeness and freedom to others certainly resonates with me. Her success in ministering to practitioners of homosexuality is impressive, heartwarming, and faith-building. I do not, however, agree with her healing methodology in toto. Ms. Payne does not hesitate to employ visualization with her patients, which I view as dangerously subjective in healing ministry situations. Ms. Payne knows full well that anyone working through woundedness encounters profound difficulty in objectively apprehending the truth about their own condition and how God views it. For this reason, I believe it is much safer and healthier to facilitate an environment where God is free to initiate the impartation of objective information--whether it conveys a sense of His love and acceptance or the reason why a victim suffered abuse--by His Spirit. Our relationship with God is necessarily an admixture of His objective activity in our lives and our subjective experience of it. There is far less room for error if we completely trust Him to be the proactive one in a healing ministry context.
Now, with that out of the way, on to the point of this post.
Out of curiosity, I recently went to Amazon.com to see what other readers had to say about Ms. Payne's book, and found the following
As a licensed psychotherapist it is disturbing to see that "christian" writers must attempt to vilify homosexuality in the name of "love." Bigotry and lack of scientific evidence wrapped in the Bible is still bigotry. What all believers in "reparative therapy" (disavowed by the APA and the overwhelming majority of mental health professionals) cannot grasp is that behavior does not equal identity. Certainly heterosexuality is not defined only by it's erotic states. This "old shoe" theory of a maladaptive relationship with the father simply doesn't hold water in scientific studies. Also of note, is the "relapse" of the notable names in reparative therapy, (John Paulk among others.) Mainstream mental health professionals (heathens to the likes of Ms. Payne) believe that anyone can temporarily change sexual behavior, bisexuals for example. But behavior change does not equal identity change. Promoting that it does, is the big lie of christian counseling. (...)Payne and her ilk, (dispite growing evidence to the contrary) refuse to even consider the possibility that God created homosexuals. This does not fit into the evangelical rigid black and white thinking. Sadly, the clients I see have been tortured by this "Christian love", and are seeking a real path to heightened self-esteem through acceptance of themselves exactly as they are.Well, my goodness!
Having read Ms. Payne's book through at least twice, I can say with certainty that this reviewer grievously mischaracterizes her positions. For example, the reviewer accuses Ms. Payne of relying on the "'old shoe' theory of a maladaptive relationship with the father" to explain the occurrence of homosexuality. This is hopelessly reductionistic. An objective reader would tell you that her explication of causal factors eventuating in same-sex attraction, while including maladaptive relationships with parents, is far more nuanced and complex. My hunch is that the reviewer proceeded from his own prejudice against Christian notions of "reparative therapy" without giving Ms. Payne's book a fair reading.
The reviewer also made one general assertion about Christians that I want to address in some detail:
What all believers in "reparative therapy" ... cannot grasp is that behavior does not equal identity. Certainly heterosexuality is not defined only by it's [sic] erotic states.First of all, the reviewer is dead wrong about Christianity's failure to draw a bifurcation between behavior and identity. The very notion of salvation by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8)--a core tenet of Christian belief and practice--necessitates that behavior and identity (i.e., the personal aspect of an individual regarded as a persisting entity) remain distinct from one another. If it were true that we are what we do, then our deeds would define us. One who performs good deeds would be able to make a claim upon God for favor and salvation: "I am a doer of good, therefore I am good." The Bible, however, teaches us that (1) we are, by virtue of the universal fall of humanity, evil by nature; (2) as a result, even the good deeds we do are like filthy rags; (3) the pandemic of inner human wickedness, while perhaps masked at best by our good deeds, always belies them before God. Our good deeds can never sponge away the unresolved rebellion against God that every one of us is guilty of. Moreover, our evil deeds are merely consistent with the evil nature that precedes them. We are not what we do. The reverse is true: we do what we are, whether our nature is good or evil. This is the truth behind Philippians 2:12-13:
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.For those who are new creations in Christ, the identity is indissolubly bound up with that of Jesus Himself. The challenge is to be in deed what God has made us in nature: righteous.
This means that homosexuality is merely one of many symptoms stemming from unredeemed, human sinfulness. That is not the end of the story, however, because God does not leave us to wallow in our wretched estate. The message of Christianity is that our unredeemed nature is not God's ideal for us. We were originally made in His image and likeness, and His intent is to recover through Jesus Christ what our own sin and the sin of others have so marred and twisted. To the homosexual, Ms. Payne says, "Your broken, sinful self has eventuated in homosexual acts. Your true, liberated, and fulfilled self is to be found in Christ Jesus. Living in Him necessitates that you eschew--by His grace and power--that which is contrary to His nature. In uniting yourself with Him, He in turn works His righteousness and truth in you, so that you can work it out through what you do, think, and say." Or, to put it another way, "You are currently doing what you are, but God wants to make you new so you can live differently."
The reviewer I have cited above would no doubt dispute much of what I have said here. Nevertheless, his original comment is based on an erroneous understanding of Christianity. I suspect that he would still take issue with the notion that homosexuality is rooted ultimately in the sinfulness of humanity. On that count he is arguing not with me, but with thousands of years of inspired holy writ.
Blessings,
Rob Monti
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: Christianity, homosexuality, inner healing
