The Psychology of Christian Character Formation

Joanna Collicutt

Description

The Psychology of Christian Character Formation offers clergy and those preparing for ministry some of the potential riches provided by rapidly developing branches of contemporary scientific psychology of which they might otherwise be unaware.

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 20 avril 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334051817
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Psychology of Christian Character Formation
The Psychology of Christian Character Formation
Joanna Collicutt
© Joanna Collicutt 2015
Published in 2015 by SCM Press
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, SCM Press.
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
On page viii, The Light of the World (1851−53) by William Holman Hunt is from the chapel at Keble College, Oxford. Photograph by www.wikipedia.org and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.
The Author has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this Work
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
978 0 334 05179 4
Typeset by Manila Typesetting Company
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon
Contents
Introduction
Part 1: The Nature of the Endeavour
1 The F Word: What is Formation?
2 Growing up into Christ
3 The Character of Christ
Part 2: Insights from Psychology
4 Understanding Ourselves: From Temperament to Character
5 Understanding Ourselves: The Shape of Our Stories
6 How Growth Happens
Part 3: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit
7 Intimacy with the Holy Other: Taking the Lord’s Prayer Seriously
8 Humble Power: Having the Mind of Christ
9 Heaven in Ordinary: Watching and Praying
10 Personal Coherence: Getting the Balance Right
11 Hospitality: Visiting and Welcoming
12 Compassion: Seeing, Feeling, Doing
13 Not Retaliating: Forgiveness and Repentance
14 Wisdom: Inhabiting Uncertainty with Confidence
15 Transformation: Embracing the Pattern of the Cross
Bibliography
Sources for Boxed Quotations
In memory of Steph
Transformed from one degree of glory to another

Introduction
This is a book about psychology and faith but, unlike most books on psychology and faith, it is not primarily about how to give pastoral care to others. It takes seriously Jesus’ saying about taking the log out of your own eye before you try and remove the speck from your neighbour’s eye (Matt. 7.5/Luke 6.42). That is, it is about applying psychology to your own spiritual formation. It is essentially a psychological manual for Christian spirituality. However, because this involves the cultivation of virtues such as compassion and forgiveness, there are clear implications for relationships with others.
Several schools of psychology are drawn upon, especially positive psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology and personality psychology. Cognitive psychology and object relations psychology also make an appearance. What these different psychologies have in common is a strong basis in empirical research, and throughout the book the degree of reliance that can be placed on their various claims is made clear. The aim is to equip the Christian disciple with well-grounded psychological insights and practical ideas that can support her spiritual growth, and may also resource her to help others. The book is written with Christian leaders or those training for leadership in mind, but it should also be helpful to all Christians who want to advance in the life of faith.
After a consideration of the nature of Christian formation in Part 1 , Part 2 presents some relevant psychological accounts of the development of personality and character in some detail. Part 3 is the longest part, and is devoted to applying psychology to the task of developing a Christlike character, always recognizing that this is first and foremost a work of the Spirit. Each chapter begins with several quotations from the Bible (usually in the nrsv translation), and references to the Bible occur frequently throughout. The reader is therefore advised to have a Bible to hand. Voices from the history of the Church from earliest times up until the present day are also to be found in text boxes in each chapter. These are included as ‘wise guides’, and have been selected to highlight the fact that ‘new’ insights from psychology have usually been anticipated or have resonances in the Christian tradition.
In line with the book’s practical emphasis, there are suggested exercises or activities at the end of each chapter, together with further recommended reasonably accessible reading. This, together with my relentless tendency to illustrate substantive points with ‘homely anecdotes’, reflects the fact that the book has grown out of many years of teaching students. Indeed, it could not have been written without their stimulation, challenging questions and wise insights. I would therefore like to acknowledge them: ordinands at Wycliffe Hall, St Mellitus College and especially Ripon College Cuddesdon; psychology undergraduates and postgraduates at Heythrop College; and my NHS clinical psychology trainees. I would also like to thank Ripon College Cuddesdon for giving me study leave to write this book, and Harris Manchester College, Oxford, for providing such a hospitable environment within which to research psychology of religion.
I have tried to write as clearly and coherently as I can, but I do not think this book is an easy read because it deals with complex issues, and stands at the interface of empirical psychology and Christian theology. It probably needs to be taken in bite-sized chunks. Each chapter builds on what has gone before (and the links are always clearly signalled), returning again and again to a relatively small number of key themes, aiming for their deeper appropriation by the reader through this recursive process. Like the Christian life that is its subject, the book gets progressively more demanding as it unfolds, but I hope and pray that it will also provide some correspondingly rich rewards.
Part 1 The Nature of the Endeavour
1 The F Word: What is Formation?
My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.
Galatians 4.19
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3.17–18
The use of the word ‘formation’ to describe the Christian life is a bit like Marmite. It is beloved of some and loathed by others, so much so that its appearance in conversation can serve as an identity marker, 1 indicating not only church tradition but also status; for it is part of the jargon of ‘spiritual professionals’. For this reason alone, one can see why some might treat it with suspicion.
Yet aversion to the word ‘formation’ can arise from more than this. It has about it a slightly concerning resonance with the work of the sausage machine, which minces and mixes up meat and then literally forces it into a uniform mould to suit the requirements of the production company. Here ‘formation’ means violence, restriction, blandness and objectification. Something similar to this troubling picture of formation is seen in descriptions of spiritual renewal that allude to a potter moulding his clay. 2 Again there is a feeling of people being bashed about and broken before they are squeezed into a shape that is not of their choosing. Surely the Christian life isn’t like this?
Indeed it is not. The image of the potter and the clay is to be found in the Bible, but not in passages that speak of the way God works in the life of the Christian. Instead it appears in the oracles that warn of God’s judgement on Israel and of his wrath on the nations such as Assyria and Babylon (e.g. Ps. 2.9; Isa. 41.25; Jer. 18.6–7). The image is invoked by Paul in his letter to the Romans (Rom. 9.17–24) in the context of an argument about Jews and Gentiles, where he applies it to God’s power over Pharaoh, crucially talking here of ‘moulding’ ( plass ō ) 3 rather than ‘forming’ ( morpho ō ). The image of the potter and the clay is used in each of these passages to assert the sovereignty and justice of the creator God in history, particularly in relation to corrupt and rapacious political regimes. It actually tells us little about Christian formation.
So if ‘formation’ isn’t about breaking, bashing, melting, mincing, squeezing and moulding, what is it? In this opening chapter we will consider seven key characteristics of Christian formation that are vitally important to a proper understanding, but that can also be easily overlooked or forgotten. We begin with its context.
Formation happens in the context of cosmic transformation
In the ancient world morpho ō was used to describe the mysterious unfolding development of a foetus. Notice how Paul uses the metaphor of childbirth when ta