Parenting Strong Willed Children

Parenting Your Strong-Willed Child

http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/positive-discipline/Parenting-Strong-Willed-Child

Have a strong-willed child? You're lucky! Strong willed children can be a challenge when they’re young, but if sensitively parented, they become terrific teens and young adults. Self-motivated and inner-directed, they go after what they want and are almost impervious to peer pressure. As long as parents resist the impulse to "break their will," strong-willed kids often become leaders.

What exactly is a strong-willed child? Some parents call them "difficult" or “stubborn,” but we could also see strong-willed kids as people of integrity who aren’t easily swayed from their own viewpoints. Strong-willed kids are spirited and courageous. They want to learn things for themselves rather than accepting what others say, so they test the limits over and over. They want desperately to be "in charge" of themselves, and will sometimes put their desire to "be right" above everything else. When their heart is set on something, their brains seem to have a hard time switching gears. Strong-willed kids have big, passionate feelings and live at full throttle.

Often, strong-willed kids are prone to power-struggles with their parents. However, it takes two to have a power struggle. You don't have to attend every argument to which you're invited! If you can take a deep breath when your buttons get pushed, and remind yourself that you can let your child save face and still get what you want, you can learn to sidestep those power struggles. (Don't let your four year old make you act like a four year old yourself!)

No one likes being told what to do, but strong-willed kids find it unbearable. Parents can avoid power struggles by helping the child feel understood even as the parent sets limits. Try empathizing, giving choices, and understanding that respect goes both ways. Looking for win/win solutions rather than just laying down the law keeps strong-willed children from becoming explosive and teaches them essential skills of negotiation and compromise.

Strong-willed kids aren't just being difficult. They feel their integrity is compromised if they're forced to submit to another person's will. If they're allowed to choose, they love to cooperate. If this bothers you because you think obedience is an important quality, I'd ask you to reconsider. Of course you want to raise a responsible, considerate, cooperative child who does the right thing, even when it's hard. But that doesn't imply obedience. That implies doing the right thing because you want to. Morality is doing what's right, no matter what you're told. Obedience is doing what you're told, no matter what's right.

So of course you want your child to do what you say. But not because he's obedient, meaning that he always does what someone bigger tells him to do. No, you want him to do what you say because he trusts YOU, because he's learned that even though you can't always say yes to what he wants, you have his best interests at heart. You want to raise a child who has self-discipline, takes responsibility, and is considerate -- and most important, has the discernment to figure out who to trust and when to be influenced by someone else.

Breaking a child's will leaves him open to the influence of others who often will not serve his highest interests. What's more, it's a betrayal of the spiritual contract we make as parents.

That said, strong-willed kids can be a handful -- high energy, challenging, persistent. How do we protect those fabulous qualities and encourage their cooperation?

Ten Tips for Positive Parenting

Your Strong-Willed, Spirited Child

1. Avoid power struggles by using routines and rules.

That way, you aren't the bad guy bossing them around, it’s just that:

"The rule is we use the potty after every meal and snack," or "The schedule is that lights-out is

at 8pm. If you hurry, we’ll have time for two books," or "In our house, we finish homework

before screen time."

2. Remember that strong-willed kids are experiential learners.

That means they have to see for themselves if the stove is hot. So unless you're worried about serious injury, it's more effective to let them learn through experience, instead of trying to control them. And you can expect your strong-willed child to test your limits repeatedly--that's how he learns. Once you know that, it's easier to stay calm, which avoids wear and tear on your relationship--and your nerves.

3. Your strong-willed child wants mastery more than anything.

Let her take charge of as many of her own activities as possible. Don’t nag at her to brush her teeth; ask “What else do you need to do before we leave?” If she looks blank, tick off the short list: “Every morning we eat, brush teeth, use the toilet, and pack the backpack. I saw you pack your backpack, that's terrific! Now, what do you still need to do before we leave?” Kids who feel more independent and in charge of themselves will have less need to be oppositional. Not to mention, they take responsibility early.

4. Give your strong-willed child choices.

If you give orders, he will almost certainly bristle. If you offer a choice, he feels like the master of his own destiny. Of course, only offer choices you can live with and don’t let yourself get resentful by handing away your power. If going to the store is non-negotiable and he wants to keep playing, an appropriate choice is:

"Do you want to leave now or in ten minutes? Okay, ten minutes with no fuss? Let's shake on it....And since it could be hard to stop playing in ten minutes, how can I help you then?"

5. Give her authority over her own body.

“I hear that you don’t want to wear your jacket today. I think it's cold and I am definitely

wearing a jacket. Of course, you are in charge of your own body, as long as you stay safe

and healthy, so you get to decide whether to wear a jacket. But I’m afraid that you will be

cold once we are outside, and I won’t want to come back to the house. How about I put your

jacket in the backpack, and then we’ll have it if you change your mind?”

She’s not going to get pneumonia, unless you push her into it by acting like you’ve won if she asks for the jacket. And once she won’t lose face by wearing her jacket, she’ll be begging for it once she gets cold. It’s just hard for her to imagine feeling cold when she’s so warm right now in the house, and a jacket seems like such a hassle. She's sure she's right -- her own body is telling her so -- so naturally she resists you. You don't want to undermine that self-confidence, just teach her that there's no shame in letting new information change her mind.

6. Don't push him into opposing you.

Force always creates "push-back" -- with humans of all ages. If you take a hard and fast position, you can easily push your child into defying you, just to prove a point. You'll know when it's a power struggle and you're invested in winning. Just stop, take a breath, and remind yourself that winning a battle with your child always sets you up to lose what’s most important: the relationship. When in doubt say "Ok, you can decide this for yourself." If he can't, then say what part of it he can decide, or find another way for him to meet his need for autonomy without compromising his health or safety.

7. Side-step power struggles by letting your child save face.

You don’t have to prove you’re right. You can, and should, set reasonable expectations and enforce them. But under no circumstances should you try to break your child’s will or force him to acquiesce to your views. He has to do what you want, but he's allowed to have his own opinions and feelings about it.

8. Listen to her.

You, as the adult, might reasonably presume you know best. But your strong-willed child has a strong will partly as a result of her integrity. She has a viewpoint that is making her hold fast to her position, and she is trying to protect something that seems important to her. Only by listening calmly to her and reflecting her words will you come to understand what’s making her oppose you. A non-judgmental “I hear that you don’t want to take a bath. Can you tell me more about why?” might just elicit the information that she’s afraid she’ll go down the drain, like Alice in the song. It may not seem like a good reason to you, but she has a reason. And you won’t find it out if you get into a clash and order her into the tub.

9. See it from his point of view.

For instance, he may be angry because you promised to wash his superman cape and then forgot. To you, he is being stubborn. To him, he is justifiably upset, and you are being hypocritical, because he is not allowed to break his promises to you, but you broke yours to him. How do you clear this up and move on? You apologize profusely for breaking your promise, you reassure him that you try very hard to keep your promises, and you go, together, to wash the cape. You might even teach him how to wash his own clothes so you're not in this position in the future and he's empowered. Just consider how would you want to be treated, and treat him accordingly.

10. Discipline through the relationship, never through punishment.

Kids don’t learn when they’re in the middle of a fight. Like all of us, that’s when adrenaline is pumping and learning shuts off. Kids behave because they want to please us. The more you fight with and punish your child, the more you undermine her desire to please you. If she's upset, help her express her hurt, fear or disappointment, so they evaporate. Then she'll be ready to listen to you when you remind her that in your house, everyone speaks kindly to each other. (Of course, you have to model that. Your child won't always do what you say, but she will always, eventually, do what you do.)

11. Offer him respect and empathy.

Most strong-willed children are fighting for respect. If you offer it to them, they don’t need to fight to protect their position. And, like the rest of us, it helps a lot if they feel understood. If you see his point of view and think he's wrong -- for instance, he wants to wear the superman cape to church and you think that's inappropriate -- you can still offer him empathy and meet him part way while you set the limit.

"You love this cape and wish you could wear it, don't you? But when we go to services we

dress up to sow respect, so we can't wear the cape. I know you'll miss wearing it. How

about we take it with us so you can wear it on our way home?"

Does this sound like Permissive Parenting? It isn't. You set limits. There's just never any reason to be mean about it!

Here's why Permissive Parenting sabotages your child.

Need more ideas about

How to put Positive Parenting to work with your Strong-Willed Child?

Peter Enns - The Bible as a "Human Book"

4 thoughts about the Bible as a “human book”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2015/06/4-thoughts-about-the-bible-as-a-human-book/

by Peter Enns

June 17, 2015

Comments

Christians confess the Bible as “God’s word,” which means (among other things) that God had something to do with the production of it – though, the honest person will admit, we don’t really know, nor can we adequately articulate, what that “something” is, and calling it “inspiration” or “revelation” is simply assigning a multi-syllable word to that unknown process.

Be that as it may, the history of Christian theology hasn’t been at all shy about providing various models of biblical inspiration and the Bible as God’s revelation.

But the Bible was also – and this is self-evidently true – written by people, real people, with personalities, histories, questions, perceptions, worries, fears, etc.

That brings us to a struggle a lot of Christians have with the Bible: thinking of the Bible, God’s word, as a human book?

To which I would like to offer 4 points.

1. Change “as” to “is.” The Bible is a human book, meaning there is nothing in the Bible that does not fully reflect the human drama and that cannot be explained on the basis of its “humanity.”

In other words, there is nothing in the Bible to which one can point and say, “Ah, here is something that is divine and NOT human.” “As” falsely suggests distance between the Bible’s thoroughgoing humanness.

2. Though the Bible is not merely a human book, it is nevertheless a thoroughly human book. That is a paradox, a confessed by faith.

The evangelical challenge concerning scripture can be summarized as the need to work through a true synthesis where the “humanity” of scripture is truly respected.

In other words, the Bible reflects various and sundry (not one) ancient (not modern Christian) ways of thinking about God and the life of faith, and these factors need to be thoroughly integrated into any discussion of the “nature of scripture.”

3. The evangelical system has not always done a good job of pulling off this synthesis. The thoroughgoing humanness of the Bible is often doctrinally uncomfortable, and so is adjusted, ignored, or neutered to protect theological statements about the nature of scripture.

Another way of articulating the challenge: true dialogue is needed between the Bible as a means of deep spiritual formation and “taking seriously” Scripture’s thoroughgoing humanity.

Of course, just what “taking seriously” means is the money question, and too often in evangelical formulations, at the end of the day, the diverse and ancient nature of Scripture is either tolerated or tamed rather than allowed truly to inform Scripture’s role in spiritual formation.

4. I offer three interrelated models for Bible readers today for engaging the Bible with greater attention to the Bible’s own character as a means toward, rather than impediment for, spiritual formation.

A dialogical model: Taking a page from the history of Judaism and much of pre-modern Christianity, the Bible is a book where God is met through dialogue rather than primarily as a source of doctrinal formulations.

Reading the Bible well means being open and honest about what we see there rather than feeling doctrinally pressed to corral all parts of Scripture into a logically coherent system. The dialogical model is woven into the Bible itself, e.g., Job, Ecclesiastes, and lament Psalms, which challenge the the status quo.

A journey model: Rather than a depository of theological statements disguised as a narrative, the Bible models our spiritual journey by letting us in on the spiritual journey of the ancient Israelites and first followers of Jesus.

This model allows the theological and historical tensions and contradictions to stand as statements of faith at various stages of that journey rather than problems to be overcome in preserving a “system” or “owner’s manual” approach to Scripture. (I focus on the journey model in The Bible Tells Me So.)

An incarnational model: I continue to think that an incarnational model of Scripture provides needed theological flexibility for addressing the realities of a Bible that is both located squarely and unambiguously located in antiquity and continues to be sacred scripture.

[This post is adapted from an earlier post from January 2014. Watch for the revised 10th anniversary edition of Inspiration and Incarnation coming out later this summer.]

Rob Bell - Everything is Spiritual 2015 Tour, Podcasts, & Films

Over the years I have been writing here at Relevancy22 how we might reach out to both believers and non-believers alike who have been turned off by the church. Recently, Jeff Cook's new book on the non-churched "nones" and the formerly church-involved "dones" was published describing what it means to be "none" or "done" in the world of church refugees. In a word, we have a spiritual responsibility to both the "nones" and the "dones" to think how we, as the church, might reach out in missional witness or pastoral care to a turned off, skeptical crowd composed of both disbelieving skeptics and jaded Christian believers.

And this is what Rob Bell does best as he lifts up Jesus to the masses and not to the "somes" who espouse church dogmas over God's outreaching love having nothing to learn from discussions like these except to feel irritated and upset as if someone had raided the kitchen refrigerator and left nothing to eat. (Don't believe it? Just listen to contemporary media reports, the preachers on the airwaves speaking up against Rob's tour, or even postings on Facebook.)

Unfortunately we get too caught up about perceptions and labels when we should be concentrating on minding the open message of Jesus to the "nones and dones" of his generation against the "somes" of the temple refusing not only Jesus' destestable message but even Jesus Himself eventuating in His unjust judgment by the councils of man and incongruous death by crucifixion as God's unblemished Lamb.

And yet, unfortunately, this categorical description of the church's "gate keepers," however sincerely believed and followed by its congregants, is how many outside of today's churches perceive Christian assemblies - not as welcoming and embracing fellowships but as an insiders club requiring qualifying mindsets and approving actions.

However there are movements afoot working to break down this public perception by learning to discern and place good biblical doctrine outside of bad church dogmatics. "What's the difference," you ask? Dogma always leads out with legalistic judgment coupled with personal bias whereas doctrine leads out with loving judgment against personal bias. There is a difference. One is a closed system, the other open. One has a closed bible, the other has an open one. One sees self, the other sees Jesus.

So then, when we talk of everything being spiritual... it is. Not some things are spiritual. Nor those things I select because of my religious preferences. Or because of my religious feelings or beliefs. But all things are spiritual. Everything. To know that we are a part of a larger fellowship. A fellowship that spans the entire cosmos of the universe as well as our own very human assemblies here on this earth.

We are not alone. We are together as a brotherhood. And that brotherhood starts with those next to us who need to see God through Jesus and not through our closed-minded church beliefs however desperately we wish to cling to them as unnecessary anchors to the gospel of Christ.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

June 15, 2015

For more information go to Rob's website -

http://robbell.com/portfolio/tour/

Everything is Spiritual Tour 2015 [1.27 min]

Everything is Spiritual [78 min]

With new discoveries right and left, more and more people are asking bigger and bigger questions about just what kind of world we’re living in and what that means for our hearts, our souls, and our spirits.

On the Everything Is Spiritual tour, Rob Bell does what he does best, making surprising connections between the universe you’re living in and the life you’re living, showing us how science and spirituality are long lost dance partners.

Wherever you’re coming from and whatever you’re wrestling with, let the Everything Is Spiritual tour experience inspire, provoke, challenge, and give you hope as we together explore and enjoy this beautiful, mysterious, and endlessly fascinating world we call home.


Everything is Spiritual 2015 Tour Schedule

6/24 Los Angeles, CA – The Regent TICKETS

6/25 Los Angeles, CA – The Regent TICKETS

7/6 San Diego, CA – Observatory North Park TICKETS

7/7 Phoenix, AZ – Orpheum Theatre TICKETS

7/9 Tulsa, OK – Brady Theatre TICKETS

7/10 Austin, TX – Paramount Theatre TICKETS

7/11 Dallas, TX – Majestic Theatre TICKETS

7/12 Houston, TX – Cullen Performance Hall TICKETS

7/14 New Orleans, LA – Civic Theatre TICKETS

7/15 Nashville, TN – Rocketown TICKETS

7/16 Atlanta, GA – The Tabernacle TICKETS

7/17 Miami Beach, FL – Fillmore at Miami Beach TICKETS

7/18 Jacksonville, FL – Terry Theatre at Times-Union TICKETS

7/20 Durham, NC – Carolina Theatre TICKETS

7/21 Richmond, VA – The National TICKETS

7/22 Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore Silver Spring TICKETS

7/24 New York, NY – Town Hall TICKETS

7/25 Boston, MA – House of Blues TICKETS

7/27 Philadelphia, PA – Electric Factory TICKETS

7/28 Cleveland, OH – Masonic Auditorium TICKETS

7/29 Grand Rapids, MI – Intersection TICKETS

7/30 Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theatre TICKETS

7/31 Indianapolis, IN – Egyptian Room at Old National Centre TICKETS

8/1 St. Louis, MO – Pageant TICKETS

8/2 Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall TICKETS

8/4 Denver, CO – Paramount Theatre TICKETS

8/5 Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex TICKETS

8/6 Boise, ID – The Egyptian Theatre TICKETS

8/7 Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory – Spokane TICKETS

8/9 Reno, NV – Knitting Factory – Reno TICKETS

8/10 San Francisco, CA – The Regency Ballroom TICKETS

The RobCast

The RobCast is a weekly podcast hosted by Rob Bell.

Subscribe to the RobCast through iTunes.

You can also listen to the RobCast at Podbean.

The RobCast RSS feed: http://robbell.podbean.com/feed/

Past Episodes

Episode 23 | The Cellular Exodus

Episode 22 | Light Heavy Light

Episode 21 | Interview with Elizabeth Gilbert

Episode 20 | The QUADRATOS Interview with Alexander Shaia

Episode 19 | The Zimzum Is Strong With These Two – The Wretched Desert Interview

Episode 18 | It Comes In Waves

Episode 17 | What To Do With The Waste

Episode 16 | 19 Letters!

Episode 15 | The Minimalists

Episode 14 | You Are Always With Me And Everything I Have Is Yours

Episode 13 | Zimzum with Kristen Bell

Episode 12 | The Morning After The Morning After

Episode 11 | Truth and Triglycerides

Episode 10 | Making Room for the Immensities

Episode 9 | The Good Gift

Episode 8 | The Enduring Relevance, Astonishing Power, and Unexpected Brilliance of the Bible

Episode 7 | Changing the Tapes

Episode 6 | Listener Questions

Episode 5 | Atoms and Interiors

Episode 4 | Zimzum with Kristen Bell

Episode 3 | Receipts

Episode 2 | The River, The Mountain, And You

Episode 1 | One Thing

Films by Rob Bell

Short Films

Rediscovering Wonder

The Cross

Resurrection

Tour Films

Drops Like Stars

The Gods Aren’t Angry

Everything is Spiritual (2006)

Poets/Prophets/Preachers Film Series

NOOMA Film Series

The Christian Challenge to Philosophy

I recently came across several titles referencing Christian Philosophy or the Christian Challenge to Philosophy and would like to provide links for readers to explore these necessary areas of their 21st century faith.

As example (and I say this as much to myself as a point of note as to those reading this article), I think of the "Higher Criticism" disciplines of the Bible as falling into a number of research areas: from literary criticism (genre) to historical (fact versus fancy), from redactionary criticism (authorial/editorial/legacy description) to textual (manuscript transmission). 

And then, external to all of these critical endeavors comes the additional disciplines of anthropologic (cultural/societal), psychoanalytic (perception/awareness/identity), archaeologic (time, place, and event), philosophic (existential critique of either historical, mythological, or contemporary writers/readers), and theologic (theism and church history), to mention a few.

For example, is it fair to describe the gospel of John simply as an historical book or as a theological book. That is, how does the apostle John's singular descriptions of Jesus differ dramatically from the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke? And because they do, does it disqualify his gospel from being qualified as historical? And if so, by the inference of "higher critical research" become perhaps an intentionally colloquial description of Jesus as John knew him, or as the early church knew Him?

In higher critical terms, this discipline might describe the difference between the gospels as one of bearing differences between the "historical Jesus" (as seemingly evidenced in the synoptics) as versus "the Christ of Faith" (as found in John's gospel via either John himself or through an early Christian liturgy, teaching, and confessions. But this latter could be said of the synoptics as well). And then, of course, you begin the subjective vs. objective" process of questioning the biography of Jesus as presented by John as perhaps created by an authorial largesse pandering to the early Christian religion of its day, if not by the early Christian fellowship during this time of transcript creation.

I

And so, there seems to be at least these several factors to consider why the gospel of John was written and to whom:

Firstly, sound, biblical theology is never separated from history - though many times history can be separated from theology through dissemination of denominational, sectarian, and cultic teachings. To say that John's gospel is without historical significance is to deny to any author of the bible their personal critiques of the "God event" they are witnessing or testifying to. That is, biographies should be considered every bit as historical as historical tracts might be labelled as novellas.

Secondly, Jesus is either an historical figure or not. And if not, then He has been lost to the church through its many varying claims of who or what Jesus is so that He becomes the "Christ of that believing group" though not necessary the Christ of the Bible. But this is where theology steps in to reclaim who or what Jesus meant then, as now, so that the church may continue in its traditions of homage and missional witness to God's redemptive event through Jesus both as an historical personage as much as what this God-event meant to us (the theology behind the historical event).

Thirdly, criticism has this built in lens of "negativity" within it. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it seems when it is connected to biblical studies its negativities almost always invalidates the reality of the God event - such as illustrated here in the testimony of John to his Lord. In doing so the discipline of higher criticism considers the Jesus of John's gospel as disqualified from the Jesus of the synoptic gospels. However, this artificial negativity (or attitude of disbelief) is not necessarily as helpful as it can be when lost within contemporary science's attitude of skepticism and disbelief. Hence, at least for myself, (higher) criticism has its place, but it must also be remembered in just what place criticism is to be used, why, where, when, and how.

II

Conversely, just as it is absurd to divorce theology from history and then make reckless claims of who Jesus was or was not, so too is it absurd to not think "higher criticism" cannot be helpful. What is required is a bit of common sense and the ability to step away from one's self, background, and personal judgments to be able to read Scripture in a sense that is different from the traditional vernaculars or popular sentiments of the day.

To help with this, one method is to utilize different academic disciplines as external tools of objective judgment in critiquing a text, teaching, or belief. But, like the disciple John, given all that we know we still must make way for a personal, subjective decision to whom and what Jesus was then for John himself and his early fellowship as well as for ourselves today set within our own fellowships. For John, Jesus was "very God eternal come to Redeem men." He had no dithering on this subject and felt compelled to describe the Saviour of man through personal insight and in relation to the theological teachings of his day.

Many times we must question ourselves and our motives as much as that of any other academic disciplines we intentionally enter into which promise truth and grace. Many times simple awareness of ourself and our objectives for undertaking a particular line of study can be as helpful in determining what we wish to accomplish as unhelpful in belying the truths we set out to discover. The disciple John may have been skeptical at first when meeting Jesus but after his conversion to his Lord he then spent a lifetime of service learning to disseminating what Jesus meant to his world around him as Christ's apostle as well as to the fellowships which moved towards his graceful teachings of Jesus.

Even so is this true for the church today. To learn to healthily critique itself and its doctrines so that it might better reflect the Christ of its faith to more truly correlate with the historical Jesus of time and event not only to early Christianity but to God's heart of intent towards mankind immemorial. For the church to critique itself can be as much helpful as it can be destructive, and yet, the trick is to pray for God's discernment through His Spirit in allowing any criticism of the Christian faith to build stronger communities of the Lord to the outreaching of God's will and word in Christ. For those uncaring to these "higher critical" endeavors "of spirituality" we may regard them as scholars but perhaps not as shepherds to God's children.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

June 15, 2015
edited June 17, 2015

Related Links:

The Christian Challenge to Philosophy, by W.H.V. Reade, S.P.C.K., 1951

Philosophy and Christian Theology, by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2002 (with substantive revision through 2012)

Analytic Philosophy & Christian Theism, by Klaas Kraay, April 2015

Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy in Late Antiquity, Essays in Tribute to George Christopher Stead, E.J. Brill, 1993

Christian Philosophy, by Wikipedia

Christian Philosopher, Alvin Plantiga

Thomas Oord - Ways to Think about Providence

As an introduction to today's topic let me ask the following questions: Is God omni-controlling? Or, put another way, is God omni-determining? If so, then do we have free will or are our lives predestined? If they are not predestined then what does free will mean in relation to God's ruling sovereignty? Is God sovereign? Can He be? If not, than in what way is God sovereign?

Or, put another way, is our future open or closed? If our future is determined and free will is a fiction then it is closed. But if our future is open and we do have free will then what does this mean in relation to God's rule of sovereignty?

These questions and many more all fall under the general category of "God's Creative Providence" which is explored in today's article by a fellow friend and theologian who continues to think about what it means for God to be a God of love.

R.E. Slater

May 29, 2015

Ways to Think about Providence

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/ways-to-think-about-providence

by Thomas Jay Oord

May 25th, 2015

Comments

Christians have many ways to think about how God acts in creation (providence). Each way has implications for making sense of life in light of God’s love, power, and other attributes. But some ways are better than others.

In my forthcoming book, The Uncontrolling Love of God, I identify seven models of providence. Among them is the model I call “essential kenosis,” which I find most satisfactory overall.

One chapter of my book explores the powerful proposals on providence from John Sanders, The God Who Risks. Although I find much in Sanders’s proposal that I appreciate, I also offer some criticisms and counterproposals.

The Kenotic Love of God

Essential Kenosis Table of God's Sovereignty vs. God's Love
(A Scale of Religious Systems and Doctrines: Calvinism-Wesleyanism-Deism/Mysticism)

Three Ways

When offering his open and relational model of providence, Sanders seems to think Christians choose among three options when thinking about how God creates and acts providentially.

1 - The first option is a form of process theology. Sanders is wary of process theologies that say, as he puts it, God is “pervasively conditioned by creatures.” He wants to avoid saying God, by necessity or by nature, depends on the world. Sanders believes God can unilaterally act on the world, and he doubts process theologians can affirm this (p. 162).

Let’s call the first option, “The world conditions God.”

2 - The second option Sanders wants to avoid is a form of Calvinism. He is wary of Calvinist theologies that say, as he puts it, “the divine nature necessarily must create a world in which God is omni-determining.” This view says God’s ongoing providential control is “a manifestation of the divine nature” (p. 231). Creatures are not really free, and randomness and chance are illusions.

Let’s call this second option, “God constantly controls the world.”

3 - The [third] option Sanders prefers says God sovereignly gives freedom but allows evil. Sovereign activity lays the framework of the creation project. “The divine nature is free to create a project that involves loving relations with creatures,” says Sanders (p. 231). But God could have created a world without free creatures. And God could (and perhaps occasionally does) control creatures or situations to bring about some outcome.

Let’s call Sanders’s third option, “God sovereignly, not of necessity, decided to create a world with free creatures.”

Questioning God’s Love and Power

In general, open and relational theology says a relational God of love collaborates with creatures. God’s love takes risks in relationship, as Sanders puts it. Because love does not control others, the risk model of providence does not offer the guarantees divine determinism does.

God’s relationship with creatures, says Sanders, “is not one of control and domination but rather one of love and vulnerability” (p. 71). God “does not force [creatures] to comply” (p. 174). In sum, Sanders believes “love does not force its own way on the beloved” (193).

I agree with the statements in the above paragraph. Most open and relational theologians would also agree.

But these statements invite important questions. After all,

• if God’s preeminent attribute is love and love invites cooperation without forcing its own way, it makes little sense to say sovereign freedom allows God to create in an unloving way.

• It makes little sense, for instance, to say God voluntarily decided against exercising meticulous providence.

• If love comes first and love does not force others to comply, it makes little sense to say, as Sanders does, that “God is free to sovereignly decide not to determine everything.” If love comes first, God cannot exercise meticulous providence or determine everything.

Hence,

• Why should we think a loving God who “does not force the beloved” is truly free “to tightly control every event that happens?”

• Why should we think a loving God is free to control others entirely, even if God never exercised that freedom?

If love doesn’t force the beloved and God is love, God can’t force the beloved.

A Fourth Way

I prefer a fourth option. We might call my view, “God’s loving nature requires God to create a world with creatures God cannot control.”

My option is part of the essential kenosis model I describe in my forthcoming book. At the heart is the idea that love logically precedes power in God’s nature. To put it differently, God’s love always preconditions God’s creating and providential activity.

In my view, it was out of love that God decided to create a world. And because love is God’s primary attribute, it is necessary that God creates.

Because God’s essential nature is self-giving, others-empowering love, God cannot control creatures. God cannot, to use Sanders’s language, “sovereignly decide not to determine everything.” God cannot “force the beloved.” God cannot “tightly control every event that happens.”

This limitation on God’s part does not come from something imposed upon God from the outside. Like Arminius and Wesley, I say God’s limitations come from God’s love. And in God, love comes first.

Conclusion

There is obviously more that must be said. And I offer further explanation in The Uncontrolling Love of God. I hope you look for it this fall.

Author Phyllis Tickle faces death just as she enjoyed life: ‘The dying is my next career’

Phyllis Tickle is a Southern-born and -bred mother of seven and a doyenne of religion writers.
She is now 81, and a widow living on a small farm in Lucy, Tenn., just outside of Memphis.
On the land where her cows once roamed, stray dogs she has adopted and some family
surround her. She is being treated for Stage IV cancer.
| Religion News Service photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

Author Phyllis Tickle faces death just as she enjoyed life: ‘The dying is my next career’

http://www.religionnews.com/2015/05/22/author-phyllis-tickle-faces-death-just-enjoyed-life-dying-next-career/

by David Gibson

May 22, 2015

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LUCY, Tenn. (RNS) Over the past generation, no one has written more deeply and spoken more widely about the contours of American faith and spirituality than Phyllis Tickle.

And now, at 81, she’s working on her final chapter: her own.

On Jan. 2, the very day her husband, Sam, succumbed to a long and debilitating illness, Tickle found herself flat on her back with a high fever, “as sick as I’ve ever been” and racked by “the cough from hell.”

The fever eventually subsided, but the cough wouldn’t let go. When she finally visited the doctor last month, the diagnosis was quick, and grim: Stage IV lung cancer that had already spread to her spine. The doctors told her she has four months to live, maybe six.

“And then they added: ‘But you’re very healthy so it may take longer.’ Which I just loved!” she says with her characteristic sharp laugh.

Indeed, that’s the kind of irony that delights Tickle, even in sober moments like this, and it embodies the sort of dry humor and frank approach that leaven even her most poignant, personal reflections. It’s also central to the distinctive style, delivered in a rich Southern register, that has won her innumerable fans and friends who will be hard-hit by the news of her illness.

Phyllis Tickle and one of the stray dogs she has adopted on her farm in Lucy, Tenn.

| Religion News Service photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

Tickle has been writing almost since she can remember, with poetry the focus of her earliest efforts. At 21 she married Sam Tickle, a medical student and childhood friend from Johnson City, Tenn. He went on to become a doctor; she took a variety of teaching jobs and launched the first of what would become a series of publishing ventures.

But Tickle really began to achieve prominence when she was recruited by Publishers Weekly in the early 1990s to start its religion division. Then her first “big” book, “Re-Discovering the Sacred: Spirituality in America,” came out in 1995, followed two years later by “God-Talk in America.”

In poems and essays, homilies and memoirs, countless public talks that explored sociology and history and the next big thing, Tickle has diligently mapped the pathways of the heart and the demographics of the soul while becoming one of the nation’s leading public intellectuals on all things religious.

‘Am I grateful for this? Not exactly. But I’m not unhappy about it.’

Even after she wound down her career on the lecture circuit last year — at 80 she decided she’d rather not spend up to 40 weeks a year on the road and away from her ailing husband and their beloved farm north of Memphis — Tickle was still in good form. Her puckish humor and youthful vigor always pulled her beyond the travails of the day and kept her focused on future writing projects and a couple gigs as a visiting professor.

She’s best-known for a range of essays and books on faith and life, most notably and successfully her series on “The Divine Hours,” about the power of daily fixed-hour prayer. (Raised a Presbyterian, Tickle was drawn to the Episcopal Church and its liturgy and has called herself “the world’s worst, most devout evangelical Episcopalian.”)

In 2008, her landmark work, “The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why,” probed how a new and vibrant Christianity is recovering elements of the past and carrying them into a whole new future. That’s a theme she continued to develop in a 2013 book, “The Age of the Spirit: How the Ghost of an Ancient Controversy Is Shaping the Church.” She has yet more to say on that, cancer permitting.

Phyllis Tickle. | Religion News Service photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

Taken together, Tickle’s works combine the sprawling scope of historian Karen Armstrong with the fine-grained command of sociologist Robert Bellah and the rural sensibilities of poet Wendell Berry. Throw in a dash of Thomas Merton’s sense and spirituality for good measure.

“Tickle has earned her place as one of the modern spiritual masters of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries,” her friend and occasional collaborator Jon Sweeney writes in the introduction to an upcoming selection of Tickle’s writings in Orbis’ Modern Spiritual Masters Series.

What’s just as impressive is that she did all this and raised six children — a seventh, a son, died just two weeks after he was born — mostly on a 20-acre working farm, where the family moved in 1977. It was a big change for the kids after living for years in the upscale Central Gardens neighborhood in Memphis.

“They hated it,” Tickle says in her Tennessee drawl. But they love the country life now, and the Farm in Lucy, as she calls it, has always been a backdrop, or even a character, in much of her work.

In spite of this impressive literary lineage, however, it is the cancer that is shaping the last chapter of Tickle’s life.

And yet, she displays a remarkable equanimity in the face of this final, and most merciless, deadline.

“At 81 you figure you’re going to die of something, and sooner rather than later,” she says, sitting at her kitchen table for her first interview about her diagnosis. “I could almost embrace this, that, OK, now I know what it’s probably going to be, and probably how much time there is. So you can clean up some of the mess you’ve made and tie up some of the loose ends.”

“I am no more afraid of dying than I am of, I don’t know, drinking this coffee,” she continues, pointing to her mug. (It’s actually filled with Postum since she’s had to give up caffeine. She remains, thankful, though, that she can still drink a nightly whiskey. “Jack Daniels, of course!” she says, shocked at the suggestion that a Tennessee native would drink anything else.)

During a morning-long conversation, Tickle is regularly interrupted by a nagging, sometimes racking, cough that alternates with her signature laugh. “This is part of it,” she says matter-of-factly.

Her once boundless energy starts to fail by midday. She started radiation treatment on Thursday (May 21), mainly in an effort to forestall the possible collapse of her spine, which would leave her helpless and in intractable pain. “That sounds a little formidable to me,” she says. “I was never much for suffering.”

She goes on, her words carefully chosen. “Am I grateful for this? Not exactly. But I’m not unhappy about it. And that’s very difficult for people to understand.”

Phyllis Tickle walks the farm where her cows once roamed.| Religion News Service photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

Phyllis Tickle walks the farm where her cows once roamed. Religion News Service photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

This image is available for web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

‘It’s a gift’

How then, did Tickle reach such a state of grace so quickly and, seemingly, easily? Is it the wisdom of age? Years of religious practice? Or the relentless attempt, as Sweeney has written of her, “to come to terms with the essentially and elusively spiritual in the world about her”?

Tickle’s answer is as surprising as the revelation of her diagnosis: She had a near-death experience at 21, she says, thanks to an experimental drug she was given to try to prevent a miscarriage.

In the middle of the night, she stopped breathing; her husband, a medical student at the time, was able to revive her long enough to get her to the hospital.

“Mine was a classic near-death. So, not much to say,” she begins. “I was dead.

“I was like a gargoyle up in the corner of the hospital room,” she continues. “And I remember to this day looking down and watching Sam beat on me again and screaming for the nurses, and the nurses coming with the machines and the whole nine yards. And then the ceiling opened and I just went out the corner and into a tunnel, which was grass all the way around. Ceiling, sides, the whole thing.

Phyllis Tickle’s glasses rest on a large piece of paper where her creative scribbles lie
until they find their way onto real pages. | Religion News Service photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

Phyllis Tickle’s glasses rest on a large piece of paper where her creative scribbles lie until they find their way onto real pages. Religion News Service photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

This image is available for web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

“And I went to the end of the tunnel to this incredible — people call it ‘the light.’ I guess that’s as good a name as any. But an incredible peace, a reality, unity, whatever. The voice, which was fortunately speaking in English” — she laughs again — “said, ‘Do you want to come?’ And I heard myself saying, ‘No, I want to go back and have his baby,’ meaning Sam.”

She recalls that she turned around and went back down through the hole in the ceiling and into her body.

It’s a startling story coming from Tickle, and one her husband admonished her never to speak about, much as she wanted to. For him, a medical professional, it was simply a result of hypoxia, or lack of oxygen. “That’s not religion,” he would say.

Years later, he himself had a few uncanny spiritual experiences that softened his opposition, and in recent years she began to speak a bit about her episode, most recently and expansively to a television crew that’s making a documentary on end-of-life experiences.

“You’re never afraid of death after that,” Tickle says of her long-ago taste of mortality. “I’m sorry. You could work at it but you’d just never be afraid of it. … You don’t invite that kind of thing. It’s a gift. It’s not like you can prepare for it or anything. It’s part of the working material you’re given.”

‘Christianity isn’t going to die!’

Yet it isn’t material she has ever used — though that could change.

Tickle had been mulling a book on aging before her diagnosis, and she hopes to finish it, knowing that it will probably be informed by her new perspective. “I hope it won’t be another model, ‘this-is-how-we-die’ thing,” she says. “If it veers over to that I’ll be the first to burn the manuscript. Or pull the plug.”

She is also assembling a collection of her poems, though she is not as high on them as others are: “I would have been a poet had I had the skill or the gift. What I have is a very little skill and a very moderate gift.”

Phyllis Tickle in her bedroom, where she sleeps in a bed made by her
great-grandfather and surrounded by other family furniture and her books.
| Religion News Service photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

Phyllis Tickle in her bedroom, where she sleeps in a bed made by her great-grandfather and surrounded by other family furniture and her books. Religion News Service photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

This image is available for web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

She’s also chewing over another “big picture” book on what she sees as a “rapprochement between Western Judaism and ‘emergence’ Christianity,” and just musing on the idea starts her on a riff on the transformation of religion after the Reformation, which she then seamlessly links to the blockbuster Pew Forum survey earlier this month that showed Christianity quickly losing ground in the U.S. as the number of unaffiliated “nones” spikes sharply.

It’s all grist for Tickle’s mill.

“Christianity isn’t going to die!” she exclaims, almost offended at the suggestion. “It just birthed out a new tributary to the river.”

“Christianity is reconfiguring,” she says. “It’s almost going through another adolescence. And it’s going to come out a better, more mature adult. There’s no question about that.”

For Tickle, the most interesting cohort in the survey is not the usual “spiritual but not religious,” but the “neither spiritual nor religious” who get “lost in the shuffle” but are in fact the key to the future of faith.

“There is an honesty in their conversation and self-understanding that, it seems to me, makes them much more open to conversation and analysis and perhaps, ultimately, to persuasion than is true for other groups,” she writes in a follow-up email. “I may be wrong, but I am, as I say, fascinated.”

Yet, that will have to be another book for another author.

‘If that makes me a mystic, so be it’

As she reflects on her life, Tickle says she has always seen herself as a listener, something she admits may surprise those who know her literary output and her gift of gab.

It’s an inner voice, she says, that has always told her what to do, what was coming next in a life filled with so much variety. And it’s a voice she has always obeyed.

“It’s the truth. Just like I’m told to do this,” she says, referring to her terminal illness. “Which is why it doesn’t bother me. The dying is my next career.

“You can call it whatever you want to. Spooky? I hate the word ‘mystical.’ It has such a cachet now. Like an exquisite and high-priced perfume. But if that makes me a mystic, so be it.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

For further reference ~

Emergence Christianity by Phyllis Tickle