I'm reading a book titled Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. No, my title is not a mockery of the book - that's the title of the first chapter. That's as far as I am, but I'm hopeful that this book, which is the centerpiece of a teaching series in a small group I'm co-leading, will end up being valuable. That said, I wanted to share the 10-factor test he gives for "emotionally unhealthy spirituality," as it does overlap with some of what we discuss here.

1 - Using God to Run From God

These are Christians who don't nurture their own time with God. They're so focused on churchy-activities that they neglect their own time in the Word, prayer, scripture memory, etc. If your emotional stability is built on anything other than your validation in Christ, it will come toppling down. That includes activities that you say you're doing for Christ, when in reality you're doing them to try to prove yourself. This performance-based mentality of faith is not a healthy foundation for spirituality. Examples the author gives:

  • Do God's work to satisfy me, not him

  • Do things in God's name he never asked me to do

  • Demonstrate "Christian behaviors" so significant people think well of me

  • Use biblical truth to judge and devalue others

  • Exaggerate my accomplishments for God to subtly compete with others

  • Make pronouncements like, "The Lord told me I should do this," when the truth is, "I think the Lord told me to do this."

2 - Ignoring Anger, Sadness, and Fear

Christians are masters at sweeping things under the rug. We are told that certain negative emotions are ungodly, therefore we should not experience them. If we do, we must ignore them until they go away. I'm reminded of the hysterical musical, The Book of Mormon in the song Turn it Off, where they sing: "When you start to get confused because of thoughts in your head, don't feel those feelings. Turn it off instead. Turn it off, like a light switch. Just go 'click!' It's a cool, little mormon trick. We do it all the time!" Christians are trained to do the same things, quite often.

While the author doesn't encourage embracing these emotions, he does suggest we must deal with them rather than ignoring them or letting them control us.

3 - Dying to the Wrong Things

Some people read Luke 9:23 and take it too far. They deny themselves any actual pleasure. They feel guilty whenever they enjoy the things of this life. To quote the author: "God never asked us to die to the healthy desires and pleasure of life - to friendships, joy, art, music, beauty, recreation, laughter, and nature. God plants desires in our hearts so we will nurture and enjoy them. Often these desires and passions are invitations from God, gifts from him. Yet somehow we feel guilty unwrapping these presents."

Sound familiar to the way the church handles sex?

4 - Denying the Impact of the Past on the Present

Some people believe that becoming Christian means that all their baggage is gone. The burden of sin is certainly removed, but we still carry with us the influences of our past. He talks about how he was counseling a couple on the brink of divorce. He had them talk about their parents' marriages, using several one-word descriptors to paint a picture of what they saw in their parents and how marriage was modeled for them. Surprisingly, the couple was surprised at the fact that the words they used to describe their parents' marriages were the same struggles they were experiencing. Shocking, I know. We follow in the mistakes of the people who raised us.

That's why we talk about girls with daddy issues and how men need other positive masculine figures in their lives, especially if they didn't get this from their fathers.

5 - Dividing Life Into "Secular" and "Sacred" Compartments

If you go to church on Sunday and are cussing at the poor driver on Monday, you've got a problem. Some people treat "congregation time" (I still try to avoid calling these churches, as they're not) as an opportunity to unload the baggage they've built up through the week so they can go back and rake in more the next. After listing some stats, the author points out: "The data suggests that in many crucial areas evangelicals are not living any differently from their unbelieving neighbors."

This is a truly crying shame - and one of the reasons why we call men here to be different. To lead different. To model a new kind of life for the rest of the world to follow, and to begin that modeling through individual discipleship relationships.

6 - Doing FOR God Instead of Being WITH God

This one seemed a repeat of the first to me. Maybe he had to add it to hit an even 10-number. So, I'll just quote something he put in this section: "Work for God that is not nourished by a deep interior life with God will eventually be contaminated by other things such as ego, power, needing approval of and from others, and buying into the wrong ideas of success and the mistaken belief that we can't [aren't allowed to] fail ... we become human 'doings' not human 'beings.'"

7 - Spiritualizing Away Conflict

Rather than facing conflict head-on, some people find ways to avoid it and rationalize that they're just trying to be peace-makers. Isn't that what God wants? Of course not. That's not making peace, that's covering up war. He gives several indications that this is happening.

  • Say one thing to people's faces, then another behind their back

  • Make promises we have no intention of keeping ("I'll pray for you")

  • Give people the silent treatment

  • Blame, attack, be sarcastic, act passive-aggressively

  • Give in because we are afraid of not being liked

  • "Leak" our anger by sending an e-mail containing a not-so-subtle criticism

  • Tell only half the truth because we can't bear to hurt a friend's feelings

  • Say yes when we mean no

  • Avoid and withdraw and cut off [i.e. robot-mode butthurt]

  • Find an outside person with whom we can share in order to ease our anxiety [especially if this emotional ease makes you comfortable enough that you're not willing to re-engage in the conflict after the meeting is over]

How many of these do you do in your marriage/relationships?

8 - Covering Over Brokenness, Weakness, and Failure

Same thing as the "ignoring anger, sadness, and fear" one, except he picked 3 new things this time. We talk here about OYS. Own Your Struggles. Own Your Shortcomings. Own Your Self. Own Your Stuff. I don't care what you call it. Don't hide your weaknesses like Nice Guys. Own up to it. If you're hiding it, it shows signs of emotional immaturity because you can't cope with the fallout of honesty about these areas of your life.

9 - Living Without Limits

We must be willing to set boundaries and enforce them. He gives the example of a guy who complained, "I spent two hours on the phone listening to this guy and it still wasn't enough for him - it makes me want to run away." He references that Jesus "did not heal every sick person in Palestine. He did not raise every dead person. He did not feed all the hungry beggars or set up job development centers for the poor of Jerusalem. He didn't do it, and we shouldn't feel we have to. But somehow we do. Why don't we take appropriate care of ourselves?" That's a good word.

10 - Judging Other People's Spiritual Journey

We all get the concept of judging. Yes, we may judge those within the church for the purpose of reconciling them to God (not blank condemnation), whereas we have no business judging those outside the church - God can do that. The problem the author notes is when "we often turn our differences into moral superiority or virtues. I see it all the time. We judge people for their music (too soft or too loud) We judge them for dressing up or dressing down, for the movies they watch and the cars they buy. We create never-ending groups to subtly categorize people:

  • 'Those artists and musicians. They are so flaky.'

  • 'Those engineers. They are so cerebral. They're cold as fish.'

  • 'Men are idiots. They're socially infantile.'

  • 'Women are overly sensitive and emotional.'

  • 'The rich are self-indulgent and selfish.'

  • 'The poor are lazy.'"

The list goes on. These types of judgments show an insecurity on our own part - something that we're trying to compensate for by condemning others. This is the old "Hitler Excuse." "Yeah, I have my problems, but at least I'm not as bad as Hitler." Or, "At least I'm not as bad as those guys." This shows emotional immaturity - that we would need this form of validation in the first place.

From what I gather, this chapter was mostly about how to avoid validation-seeking and to own up to the negative aspects of your life. He's soft in the way he presents it, but the message is a good one all the same.

How do you all stack up? Here's my breakdown:

  1. I used to be more committed to my mission than I was to my Master. I've got that fixed now. My mission is a byproduct of my relationship with Jesus, not a replacement for it.

  2. I don't ignore anger, sadness, and fear anymore. I respect these feelings as they come, but it's also pretty rare to need to feel them in the first place if I've got God working for me.

  3. I don't have a problem with dying to the wrong things - biblical RP has taught me that it's okay to "eat, drink, and find satisfaction in my work, for this too I see is from the hand of God" (Ecc. 2).

  4. I do deny the impact of the past on my present. This might be the one area that I over-ignore. Perhaps it's because I've already recognized and overcome the major negative influences I had in my upbringing - like the way my dad's cold approach to serious conversations caused me to believe I was shy, and that I became quite extroverted when I learned to overcome this. But there may still be more lingering that I simply haven't considered yet.

  5. I don't have any problems compartmentalizing my life into "secular" and "sacred" bits - it's all "sacred" and my mission is always on all the time, no matter what I'm doing.

  6. Practice the Presence of God really helped me master the art of being with God at all times - whether I'm doing things for him or not. I highly recommend it.

  7. Developing biblical RP qualities precludes me from feeling like I must avoid conflicts. Amused mastery gives me the perspective to laugh them off and be okay with it when it happens.

  8. OYS again - no need to cover over brokenness and failures here, though I certainly had that issue in the past.

  9. I also know how to set clear boundaries and enforce them. Thanks again to biblical RP disciplines.

  10. I suspect many guys will struggle with the judgmentalism. It's inherent in the anger phase. I never went through the anger phase. Instead of judging women, as OZ recently wrote in his letter to an incel, I'm okay with embracing them as they are. Instead of burning with rage at the thought of blue pill pastors and incel church leaders, I see them as an extra mission field - people who need God's guidance, and that I might be a vehicle to give it.

All in all, I feel pretty emotionally healthy right now. No surprise there - I've been red pilled for a couple years now, and most of the journey is about developing emotional health. I couldn't have said the same before then. I would have failed most of these. Hopefully this list can give you all some basic metric for self-evaluation and new fodder for posting in the OYS threads!