A Graceful Creed @ScottStapp @christianaudio @caReviewers

Somehow I made it through high school and college without knowing the band, Creed. I discovered them after finding lead singer, Scott Stapp's solo album during grad school. The music and lyrics were very meaningful to me and helped validate the pain and struggles I felt as my aunt died of cancer. Creed's music was also powerful. I've looked a few times to see if he was releasing another album, to my disappointment.

But then last month, he releases his memoir, Sinner's Creed, and the lack of releases make sense. This incredibly courageous reflection on his life, faith, success, and struggles was quite powerful. I found it particularly relevant and moving from both a psychological and spiritual formation perspective.

I've written before about God image, the psychological concept describing how we view and experience God. Stapp's book is a wonderful example of how experiences in life and relationships with others impact our perspective of and relationship with God. If someone did not believe in the incarnational way God works and how we affect each other's relationships we God, I don't know how they could doubt it after this book.

Stapp's preface is particularly powerful, explaining how obtaining God's love required certain behaviors and work. Things had to be black-and-white clear. So clear that questions were banned. He goes on to say, "And yet the story of my life is profoundly unclear... What remains clear, though, is my passion for the God of love" (p. x). His life and story clearly demonstrate this process.

At the same time, the end of the book seemed a bit strange, going back to a sin-centered narrative rather than a love-centered narrative. While sin is clearly important in the Bible, do we see everything through the lens of sin or through the lens of love? It has some major implications. Stapp seems to move toward the love lens only to almost awkwardly end on the sin lens. I actually wonder if this is in part due to the influence of the 12 step approach in his life in the last few years. While not originally true, in many areas, the 12 steps have taken on a neo-Calvinistic sin-focused condescension. Perhaps this continues to be part of Stapp's journey.

The book is well-written (and narrated, although it would have been wonderful to hear Stapp narrating his own story). It was interesting to me, as a fan, but I'm not sure it would be as attractive to non-Creed or Stapp fans. It's another story of a celebrity's crash and redemption. At the same time, I think in our societal Cult of the Celebrity, it is important to continue to hear these stories to remember that not all is wonderful with fame. In fact, it can destroy life and faith more than anything else. I actually summarized part of Stapp's story in a parent education group a few weeks back when so many parents were more concerned about their kids' grades than their mental health.

One powerful message of this book that we all need to hear is remembering our priorities. This will make all the difference. Despite Stapp's weaknesses, I was quite impressed with how hard he tried to maintain his priorities and keep his son's needs first. In fact, all-in-all, I have so much more respect for Stapp after reading his memoir and am an even bigger fan. I listened to his solo album and the Creed records for at least a week. The meaningful music became all the most meaningful.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Why did you become a Christian?

Over the past several months of conversations and observing spiritual dialogues, one of the things I've become aware of (in part thanks to my wife's observations) is that the reasons people became Christians makes a big difference on their current faith and how they approach faith challenges. This may not be a big surprise, but I've never heard anyone talk about the relationship.

I became a Christian on Palm Sunday my freshman year of high school. It was a quiet decision during youth group. I was a bit embarrassed. I know I didn't realize the full weight of the decision until I built my relationship with Christ. I don't remember all the details, but I know I finally believed God was real in Christ. His story made life make sense, and I wanted a relationship with him.

My decision didn't have to do with eternity. I don't recall Heaven and Hell being on my mind at all. Nor was doctrine or the Bible. It was simply wanting to know this God who structured the world and gave meaning to life.

I think that's why I'm so able to hold a lot of my beliefs relatively loosely. I don't need to have a clear definition of who is going to Heaven and who to Hell to feel secure in my faith because that's not a motivator for me. I also don't need to defend the Bible or particular doctrinal issues because they really don't affect my relationship with Christ.

Of course, we could argue that if you don't believe in the Trinity, the Christ with whom you think you have a relationship is not real. There is some truth to that. Yet, God still pursues us. And our God image develops over time and through relationship. I didn't have a fully accurate picture of my wife when I married her. I still don't. But it develops over time and that doesn't diminish the reality and power of our relationship.

What's your story? Do you see that affecting how you deal with questions, doubt, and controversy?

Learning from the Children @ERBks

This review originally appeared on the Englewood Review of Books and was made possible by a complimentary copy from the publisher.

As a child psychologist with a particular passion and speciality in spirituality, particularly spiritual formation, I was very excited to review Catherine Stonehouse and Scottie May’s Listening to Children on the Spiritual Journey. This book discusses the results from multiple projects exploring childhood Christian spirituality. Before thinking it may be boring, allow me to assure you that it’s not. While it could definitely be used in an academic setting (the publishing house emphasizes that), it really is meant for laity, not academics.

I recently began a spirituality group as part of my organization’s child partial hospitalization program for psychiatric problems. This book was helpful in developing some activities to initiate discussion on spiritual topics. However, it really is meant for a parents and church-based ministries rather than therapists. And it is focused on Christian spirituality. So if you’re looking for ways to explore the spirituality of atheist children, this book is probably not what you’re looking for (although I would also argue it’s techniques could be altered for the appropriate spiritual context).

Stonehouse and May begin their tome by beautifully introducing their passion for developing child spirituality and discussing their research methodology. It’s detailed enough to moderately satisfy those of us with a critical eye on methodology (their more detailed appendix helps), but does not get bogged down in academic technicalities so as to lose readers of the intended audience. They then wisely move into beginning to tell some of the stories of kids’ responses to various prompts. I think it was wise for them to begin this way because it emphasizes that children can and do talk about deep spiritual concepts… when given the opportunity. I can vouch for this in the groups I have run. In fact, as I discussed on my blog, I think children are just as sophisticated as many adults. What often seems to happen is that we, as a society, do not develop children’s spiritualities, so as adults, we are essentially stunted at the childhood developmental level.

Stonehouse and May do not make this argument, but I saw continued evidence for this as I read the stories. The child participants are often more willing to ask questions than most adults. They are also able to more vibrantly verbalize their experiences with God and Christ. In fact, their desire to truly be with God far surpasses the desire of most adults I know (including myself).

From this foundation, they continue to tell stories, weaving in various techniques to stimulate spiritual discussion and also challenge children to grow. These are the techniques that are both useful for research and are incredibly practical for use in homes, churches, youth groups, schools, etc. At the core of many of the practices is a concept of reflective engagement, the idea of letting the children meditate and contemplate spiritual ideas for themselves. Some are done with others, some individually. While some people may think children may not be able to do this, Stonehouse and May’s anecdotes passionately prove otherwise.

While this book is intended to help people develop children’s spirituality, I think it has just as much potential (if not more potential) to help form adult’s spirituality. In fact, several of the reflective engagement practices are conducted with the whole family or in dialogue with adults. It is meant to let everyone experience God together, in a true corporate worship experience. And then seeing the innocent and pure love of Christ cannot not affect the adult hearts that have been hardened by cynicism, pain, and suffering. Truly, we will learn from the children.

Not-So-Imaginary Jesus @caReviewers

The next book I have reviewed for the christianaudio Reviewer's Program is Imaginary Jesus written and narrated by Matt Mikalatos. As should be obvious, I did receive a free copy from christianaudio in exchange for reviewing it. As followers of my blog know, my other reviews of their works have been less-than-stellar (I wish they'd choose other options for review because they have a lot of great texts, er audio). So this positive review should emphasize that this is not an over-inflated review due to getting a free audiobook. :)

Imaginary Jesus caught my eye due to the title and the synopsis. It looked creative and in my interest area because of the idea that we have constructed a Jesus in our minds that clouds the real Jesus. That is precisely what this book discusses, but not in such a bland and boring way as I just described it.

Mikalatos (who does an excellent job narrating--I particularly love when authors narrate their own works, especially when they are of such a personal nature) does a very creative job tackling (sometimes literally) his imaginary Jesuses, guiding us through his imagination in what many ways makes this book feel like a novel. I must say that about an hour or so into the book, I got a bit bored with the Jesuses, but this gave way to appreciation. Without these descriptions, the final chapters, which were more propositional (although not terribly explicit), would not have been as powerful. The chapter, "Holy Mother of God," was particularly moving, I thought. I don't want to give too much away because the process of moving through Mikalatos' imagination is part of the power of the book.

In many ways, this reminds me of the mystical texts that some of the saints used to describe their inward journey to meeting Christ. Mikalatos takes a more humorous approach. However, it is funny because it is terribly accurate (in particular, I loved the Secret Society of Imaginary Jesuses). He does an effective job of crafting a modern mystical experience that is at once both individually contemplative and communal.

Further, I realized toward the end of the book that this is a perfect example of describing God image. This refers to the construction of God we have created and with which we interact. It's a natural psychological phenomenon everyone does with anyone with whom we relate. It can be a hard concept to understand, but this book makes it much more understandable.

In sum, I highly recommend this book. I'm not sure how it would be in written form, but the audiobook is excellent. In many ways, I the audiobook may be better if for no other reason than the author reads it himself. That conveys a message no written text ever could.