Diamonds Are Sexy

A conversation with my boyfriend, Justin, reminded me of a paper I wrote when I was in seminary. It focuses on a Bible passage that has been a mainstay for me over the years. I’ve posted the essay and works cited page below. Feel free to read and post comments.

Introduction

When I was a boy living in North Carolina, my parents thought it would be a good idea if my brother and I played on a little-league baseball team. Up to that time, I had never really developed much of an interest in baseball (or any sport really), but I didn’t dislike it, so I went with an open mind. I had no skills whatsoever. No one had ever taught me to hit, to throw, or to catch. I didn’t know how to slide, and I wasn’t a great runner. When I got a chance at bat, I struck out. When I was standing in right field facing a rapidly approaching fly ball, I would close my eyes, tense up my arms, my head and my face, and pray that the ball wouldn’t hit me. When I tried to throw, the ball would go 10 feet and plummet to the ground. I didn’t understand that you had to work at it to get better. All I knew was that I couldn’t do what everyone else seemed to be able to do. The guys on the team would either groan their disapproval of my mistakes or laugh at them, and it wasn’t long before I began to dislike baseball….

Twenty years later, I still avoid action sports.

It’s a sad story, and not uncommon in its basic principles. People have spent years of their lives avoiding situations that might produce anxiety—fearful to try anything new because of the intense discomfort that those situations produce. Certain individuals may even develop major phobias and insecurities because of the perceived traumas in their lives, while others can experience similar anxiety-producing stimuli and emerge unscathed.

Studies indicate that “the general category of anxiety disorders is the most prevalent class of so-called mental illnesses in the United States, … more common than either alcohol abuse or depression.” Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to even be an actual clinical definition for “anxiety” per se. To be specific, “it is recognized that ‘anxiety’ itself has not been shown to exist, apart from the bodily states and client reports from which the existence of anxiousness is inferred” (my emphasis). However, in my biblical studies, I have repeatedly found anxiety’s definition. Noted preacher and author Dr. John MacArthur states it two ways. First, from a rather logical point of view: “Anxiety is, at its core, an inappropriate response in light of the circumstances.” To qualify “inappropriate,” one might suggest that MacArthur must have some sort of absolute. He provides it in this, his second definition: “Anxiety is blatant distrust of the power and love of God.”

Dr. William Backus, Christian psychologist and ordained Lutheran clergyman, maintains that science has amply demonstrated what Scripture well attests: that there is power in learning to influence behavior. “Yet,” Backus states, “explanations based only on psychological formulations, useful though they may be occasionally, fall far short of offering an ultimate explanation for maladaptive anxiety and avoidance.” The purpose of this paper, then, is to examine from a Christian perspective why people experience anxiety, and to discuss how secular therapy has found success in reducing patients’ anxiety by using methods that seem to have foundational support in Scripture.

An important biblical text is Philippians 4:6 – 9, which, along with Matthew 6:33, have been touted by MacArthur as “the most comprehensive portions of Scripture” dealing with anxiety, and are “foundational to understanding how God feels about anxiety and why He feels that way.” This paper will examine the Philippians passage, primarily, but others will also be mentioned as they relate to the topic.

I am most appreciative of Dr. Gary Habermas, whose lectures on the subject of emotional doubt have served as the impetus for this work. Information borrowed from Dr. Habermas and other sources will be documented in the form of a “works cited” page (at the end of the paper).

Be Anxious for Nothing

To begin to see how anxiety sufferers find healing through secular therapy, we must first look more closely at how Scripture approaches anxiety. As the Apostle Paul nears the close of his letter to the Philippians in chapter four, he begins a series of exhortations to his dear friends. He sets the stage in verse two by discussing a need for reconciliation between two women (no doubt a source of anxiety among some), and immediately follows this admonition by reminding these fellow Christians of a foundational truth: “Rejoice! … The Lord is near!” This is the very substance for the next bit of counsel: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” The truth of the matter, in other words, is that it is because the Lord is near (because He is not unacquainted with suffering) that we need not be anxious! Paul is acknowledging that, even in emotionally troubling times, we do not have cause for anxiety.

In his book, A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms, J. Clinton McCann, Jr. offers a similar insight in his commentary of Psalm 88, a psalm of desperate cries from the darkest depths.

… Psalm 88 not only provides us with a way to articulate in the most extreme way that “life isn’t right,” but it also offers testimony to the extremes that God is willing to go to demonstrate faithful love for humanity. As the psalmist in Psalm 88 suffered, so God’s Son suffered life’s worst for us. That is what the cross is about. God loves us that much!

… To read Psalm 88 reminds us that even when we stand in utter darkness, we do not stand alone. We stand with the psalmist of old. We stand with Christ on the cross. To cry into the darkness “O Lord, my God” (Ps. 88:1) is an act of solidarity with the communion of saints and an act of faith and hope—indeed, an affirmation of the hope the resurrection.

It is our hope in Christ’s resurrection that Paul points to when he says, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” That God is a God of suffering is our ultimate victory over suffering and anxiety. Unfortunately, this is not the portion of God’s Truth upon which science relies.

Put Truth in the Place of Lies

It is also unfortunate that many individuals (myself included) who profess to belong to Christ still suffer from anxiety. Why is this so? In his article, First Aid in Counseling: the Threatened Nervous Breakdown, Frank Lake suggests that people suffer anxiety because they “insist on justifying [themselves] by works in a world in which human beings are so constituted that such a life, seriously maintained until the end, cannot fail to lead to depression and death of the spirit….” In other words, we’re human, and we’re sinners. Backus offers a similar explanation, reminiscent of Paul’s writings about the conflict of our natures in Ephesians 4 and 2 Corinthians 4. He writes, “This old nature is just as dedicated to opposing God and promoting the Devil’s program as the new personality is to loving and trusting God…. The major aim of this old personality is to push us to live in unrestricted independence from God.”

Even with this explanation, the means by which we oppose God as it relates to anxiety needs further exposition. Herein is where science has made an effort to understand anxiety. Drs. Frank Dattilio and Arthur Freeman, noted authors and editors of several publications on cognitive therapy, make the following allowance: “The issue of what produces or fuels a crisis is not simply defined by a particular situation or set of circumstances but rather by the individual’s perception of the event and his/her ability (or inability) to effectively cope with that circumstance” (my emphasis). Further, they state that “[at] its most basic level, cognitive therapy is based on the assumption that there is an interaction between how individuals think and how they subsequently feel and behave.”

William Backus and Marie Chapian, collaborators on several books written from a Christian psychological perspective, concur with this assumption, citing Proverbs 23:7 as their primary biblical support of the notion that “man’s feelings, passions and behavior are subject to and conditioned by the way he thinks.” Ergo, “Our feelings are caused by what we tell ourselves about our circumstances, whether in words or in attitudes.”

Perhaps this is why, in Philippians 4:8, Paul is very specific in his instruction as it relates to struggles with anxiety: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Several types of cognitive therapy are centered on this idea. In fact, “much of the cognitive-behavioral literature stresses the importance of relating symptoms to the misinterpretation of interoceptive cues [how the body feels] and catastrophic cognitions” (my emphasis). (A formal assessment has even been developed, called the Symptoms-Automatic Thoughts-Emotions-Behavior assessment, to help panic sufferers recognize the progression from the initial bodily sensation to their catastrophic responses, linked by false cognitions/beliefs like “I’m getting worse”, “I’m having a heart attack”, “I’m not going to make it”, “I’m going to die”, etc.) The goal of the therapist in cognitive-behavioral models is to “organize the trauma memory, and either directly or indirectly [alter] the victim’s schemas of self and world….” In other words, the patient is assisted in the replacement of—reconditioning—the old associations with new, less threatening, associations.

Backus and Chapian call their own version of this method “Misbelief Therapy.” Their three-step method involves (1) locating the misbeliefs, (2) removing them (arguing against them), and (3) replacing the misbeliefs with the truth. The major difference is that the “truth” Backus and Chapian speak of is based on the assurances from God’s Word.

Not surprisingly, both secular and Christian therapists report statistically significant success using these biblically based models. In fact, Dattilio and Freeman report that from 1970 to 1992 there was a 600% increase in professional interest in cognitive therapy.

If only the gospel message would spread so quickly!

Practice These Things

One of the likely reasons cognitive-behavioral techniques are becoming so popular is because they are “well adapted to short-term or brief therapy sessions,” no doubt a positive element in our health management plan-oriented society. Indeed, one can see how easily, in most circumstances, truth could be argued against the misbeliefs an anxiety sufferer tells himself about a particular fear or situation. For that session, or short series of sessions, the anxiety-causing stimuli may indeed be desensitized, with the patient free from the trauma for an extended period of time. The problem remains, however, when the patient doesn’t apply the conditioned truth in other circumstances. The knowledge of truth must become the application of truth.

God’s Word instructs us that “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” This is likely Paul’s thinking when he tells the Philippians to put into practice all they have “learned or received or heard … or seen.” MacArthur teaches that “Paul’s words speak of action that’s repetitious or continuous,” much like a musician practices an instrument or a doctor practices medicine. The idea conveys a routine, or pattern of life. Backus also supports this notion: “Faith will always prompt and urge us to go ahead and do our duty in spite of our fears. So by actually facing our fear, and doing our duty regardless of our impulse to avoid doing what we ought to, we find that faith causes us to do what will, in the long run, cure our fears—though in the short run it may create some discomfort.”

Conclusion

It is tragic that people are so debilitated by the lies they allow themselves to believe. How much richer would our lives be if we would only believe and activate the truth evident in the resurrection: that in Christ we can persevere through situations that threaten humiliation, failure, ridicule, or even death? The fullness of life is in this truth; that we may “rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” This is our hope, issued by the very words of Christ, which assures us that in Him we may have peace: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!”

Works Cited

Bruce A. Thyer, and Pamela Birsinger, “Treatment of Clients with Anxiety Disorders,” Cognitive and Behavioral Treatment: Methods and Applications, Ed. Donald K. Granvold (Belmont: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1994)

John MacArthur, Jr., Anxiety Attacked (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1993)

William Backus, The Good News About Worry (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1991)

Philippians 4:2 – 5

J. Clinton McCann, Jr., A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms

Frank Lake, “First Aid in Counseling: the Threatened Nervous Breakdown,” Expository Times, June 1967

Philippians 4:6

Philippians 4:7

Both 2 Corinthians 4:7 and Ephesians 4:17-24 speak of the paradox of Christ’s eternal spirit indwelling us, even though we are still sinners and finite.

Frank M. Dattilio and Arthur Freeman, ed., Cognitive-Behavioral Strategies in Crisis Intervention (New York: The Guilford Press, 1994)

William Backus and Marie Chapian, Telling Yourself the Truth (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1980)

John G. Allen and Lisa Lewis, “A conceptual framework for treating traumatic memories and its application to EMDR,” Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, Spring 96, Database: Academic Search Elite

Gary Habermas, Introduction to Apologetics, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, Lynchburg. 7 September 2000

James 2:17

Philippians 4:9

Romans 5:3-4

John 16:33