Reviews for Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: Unleash a Revolution in Your Life In Christ

The average rating for Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: Unleash a Revolution in Your Life In Christ based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-10-10 00:00:00 Harouri Houlet TLDR: not a great book. Just to get this out of the way… The author respectfully quotes a sainted Roman Catholic mystic on one page, and then throws Charles Spurgeon under the bus on the very next page. He has a tendency to insert bracketed words when he quotes verses, and he uses The Message translation. The author never uses the word "sanctification", never defines discipleship, and merely alludes to the sovereignty of God. ''' A combination of a self help book and autobiography, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality is broken into two sections, the first explaining the problem of emotionally unhealthy spirituality and the second prescribing the pathway to emotionally healthy spirituality. Woven through the book is documentation the author's personal experiences and journey. There are ten top symptoms that he lists for emotionally unhealthy spirituality. And they are valid symptoms'covering over brokenness/weakness/failure, denying the influence of the past, judging other journeys'to name a few. But these are symptoms that are complex, and could point to any number of root issues (such as pride) other than the issue of emotional health. However Scazzero perceives all problems through the lens of emotional immaturity due to his own story and experience, one that is heavily marked by emotional immaturity. Reading through this lens presents an incomplete picture of the process of sanctification. The book presents a "radical truth…a simple but profound reality", referring to the concept that emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable. But, this life changing truth comes without a Scripture reference. It is indeed a valid point that the two are connected and related. But, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality errs however in placing it's hope in this concept, that emotional health and contemplative spirituality combined are the key to fixing things. He states, "…if we do the hard work of integrating emotional heath and spirituality, we can truly experience the wonderful promises God has given us'for our lives, churches, and communities. God will make our lives beautiful." He goes on to quote Gal 5:22, and to expound upon the fruits of the Spirit. But this passage in Galatians is a call to walk by the Spirit (v16) instead of the flesh; Scazzero's application of this text to deal with emotional health. Trading the call to walk by the Spirit to emphasizing emotional health, we are left to walking a fine line of a sort of prosperity gospel: follow the seven steps and you will be blessed. Scazzero employs the metaphor of an iceberg to illustrate that our deepest person is untouched by Jesus when we are emotionally immature. In effect, that we are keeping the Holy Spirit chained up in the above-water portion of our iceberg spirit. This underscores the author's limited understanding of the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, and the sovereignty of God over all of His Creation. I would argue that the converse is true, we ourselves cannot access the depths of our own souls, our knowledge and awareness of our sin and our true identity are only be revealed by the work of the Spirit. (Ps. 139: 23-24/ 1Cor 2:10-11) We have not, and in no way can we limit God. In his description of the contemplative tradition and practices, it strikes me as thoroughly odd that we are only given practical examples of this practice from the lives of monks and the likes of Mother Theresa. Why is this? Did the apostles not prescribe such a practice? Or did they demonstrate this in their life work? The practice of monasticism is simply not prescribed in Scripture. The second part of the book breaks down the pathway to emotionally healthy spirituality into seven steps. The very first one raises some very serious concerns: "know yourself that you may know God." How can such a statement be made? Surely we must know God and His Word in order to know ourselves! To do this backwards is surely to place our deceitful and personal claims upon God, rather than standing before the truth of His character and subsequently understanding ourselves in light of who he created us as, and the role that He gives us in His story. So, rather than diving into the theological and anthropological issues that this chapter presents, I'm just going to dismiss the entire chapter as fundamentally flawed. Step two outlines how to process the past in order to move forward. I did find this chapter relatively helpful, as our personal histories are a huge element of sin patterns and relational problems. And this chapter was less theological, and serves as a good reminder that we should be aware of how our past affects our present and future. The third step introduces the strange concept of "The Wall". Another concept that comes without a Scripture reference. This refers to a "dark night of the soul", something through which we must persevere or remain stuck in emotional immaturity. Scazzero presents the stages of faith in a linear way, with "the wall" being a block between different stages, God leads us to our "wall" and we either get "stuck" here or "drop out". Scazzero points out that we don't control the seasons/stages of faith, nor do we control our walls. But simplification of these six stages seems to underestimate the variety that God uses in sanctification, and the unique ways that he sanctifies each believer. If for example, a believer doesn't hit a wall in their life, are they forever stuck in a shallow faith? Or must the young believer wait years for God to give them a wall before advancing to the "next" level. Yes, most believers will be tried and tested, but this is an oversimplification and rather misleading description of that process. Next up, grief & loss and accepting your limits. This chapter spends a lot of time trying to anecdotally explain all the different types of pain and loss. The story of Job is heavily used in this chapter, but makes the final point: "as he followed the difficult path of allowing his losses to enlarge his soul for God, God blessed him superabundantly." Which places an inordinate emphasis on the blessing. "Embracing our limits" is to understand that we are human and unique in our gifts, and for some reason, we are also treated to St. Benedict's Ladder of Humility in this confusing chapter. The next step outlines and recommends the use of the Daily Office and also refreshes our approach to the Sabbath. The recommendation of the Daily Office again feels odd because of it's monastic history. An analysis of the routines of the early church as laid out in the New Testament would have been welcome, rather than basing a prescription for regular prayer and devotion throughout the day upon the highly scheduled lives of monks. The reminder of God's design for Sabbath rest and the author's exhortation to keep it is helpful and biblical. The next to the last chapter offers practical guidance for growing in emotional maturity'how to handle conflict, be a peace maker, etc. Helpful, but not groundbreaking. The last chapter focuses on yet another new concept called the "Rule of Life." Apparently Daniel had one, or rather we can infer that Daniel may have had one, and the other examples of the "Rule" come from monastic communities and practices. The idea of the "Rule" is to create an intentional plan to keep God at the center of everything we do. Valid point, but again strikes an odd chord. And here lies the biggest issue with Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: the entire book is undergirded by personal experience rather than being based in Scripture and the book places too much stock in the practice of contemplative spirituality. While it mixes in enough Scripture to make the entire book palatable to the average evangelical Christian, the concept of contemplative spirituality should be approached with great caution because it is rooted in mysticism, which is not biblical. However the book raises a few good points that would likely be helpful to readers who haven't studied the topic of emotional health in respect to the Christian walk.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-06-13 00:00:00 Don Heflin So this is a book that I read for therapy, because, just in case you are unaware, I have issues. When my therapist recommended it I was highly skeptical, but also kind of desperate because it was during a particularly difficult bout of depression. So I picked it up and then avoided reading it for several months because anything with the word "spirituality" in the title just makes me leery. I am not a "spiritual" person. "Spirituality" to me sounds vague and unspecific and trendy and New Age. I like theology and liturgy and apologetics. I am into the Disciplines.. I am not into freeing my mind or releasing the power within. And when I flipped through and saw the words "inner child", I seriously considered giving up all together. I want a relationship with Christ, yes, but based on fact and theology and Scripture, not on feelings. I find feelings highly unreliable. I was honestly just preparing myself for a watered-down, feelings-oriented, let's-not-make-any-waves Christianity. The kind that is all "your sins are forgiven" and forgets the "go and sin no more". I was thrilled when I finally got into this book and learned that my expectations were completely wrong. Scazzero does focus his book on the forgiveness and hope that is available through Christ (which I admitedly tend to neglect), but he does so on a firm theological basis. Yes, there is some inner child business that kind of made me twitchy, but his basics were well-founded on Scripture, which is ultimately what I need to see in order to take a Christian book seriously. Writing I was fine with the writing, with the exception of the use of buzz words that I found off putting. It was the typical psycho-babble-esque words like "inner child" and "authentic self" that really annoyed me. Basically if it's a popular psychology term I've seen the Real Housewives fight over ("You aren't being your authentic self! Just be real!") I'm turned off. Scazzero does use those terms somewhat frequently, but the spiritual depth he included with them made me feel a bit better about them. I was, at least, able to overlook them and didn't spend the majority of the book rolling my eyes and imagining reality tv characters trying to prove a point. Anyway, I realize I'm kind of missing the point by ranting about something Scazzero avoids. What I mean to say is that I like the writing fine and had no problems with the way he used Scripture to illustrate his points. Entertainment Value I can't really say I was super entertained by this one, although I got a lot out of it. I definitely think I had some breakthroughs in reading it and learned some things about myself, but, I don't know. It's a book about feelings. Feelings are not my favorite thing to explore, which is probably why I need therapy in the first place. Overall It's a good book. If you struggle with giving yourself the same grace you give others, it's a really good book. Also good if you have a hard time knowing the difference between being loving and obedient to God's command to put others first and being a doormat. I have a hard time with that one too. Was it a book I rushed home at night to read? No. But I'm glad I read it and I think I had some definite mind-change moments in the process. Unicorn moment: I actually paid full price for this book from Barnes and Noble. That happens almost never.