...And the Place Was Shaken: Holy Boldness

The Two-Factor Theory of phobias uses a behaviorist paradigm to explain how phobias maintain their strength. By definition, a phobia leads me to avoid the feared object. If I have an elevator phobia, I get really anxious about getting on an elevator. If I decide to take the stairs instead, I feel immediate relief. The immediate relief reinforces the decision to avoid the elevator, strengthening an avoidance response. So I become more and more likely to avoid elevators.

One of the most effective treatments for phobia is in vivo exposure - that is, exposure to the feared stimulus in real life, not just in one’s imagination. Exposure therapy has clients approach the object of their fear, in real life, in the company of the therapist. The first goal is to break the link between avoidance and anxiety relief, through repeated experiences of the feared object. The second is to forge a link between approach and anxiety relief.

For example, for an elevator phobia, I would learn relaxation exercises to practice while I and my therapist repeatedly rode the elevator - up and down, up and down, up and down. At first, my anxiety would hit the roof. But, with repeated elevator rides, the reassurance of my therapist, and the gradual realization that nothing horrible was going to happen, my anxiety would gradually subside. With each repetition, the anxiety would increase less and decrease more quickly. Eventually, I would begin to associate going into an elevator with a sense of reasonably calm competence, rather than terror.

As I addressed in my last post, we are living in troubled times. The woke culture increasingly pushes against Christianity, especially in the areas of sexual identity and morality. Freedom of religious belief and conscience is attacked, whether it’s about baking a cake or hiring an employee at a Christian institution.

Naturally, we like to avoid situations that could lead to being ridiculed, ignored, patronized, or harassed. Maybe if we keep our heads down, the de facto persecution will stop. The Big Bad World will go away. If we stay in our bubbles and don’t say too much, perhaps the Cancel Culture will leave us alone. So when God calls us to speak up or act with courage, we may not.

The avoidance of backlash may bring relief - though maybe with it a sting of conscience. The danger is that the more we avoid speaking out as Christians, the more we get confirmed and paralyzed in our fear. In Two Factor Theory terms, our avoidance of standing up for the truth gets reinforced by our relief at escaping society’s backlash.

But this is not what God is calling to us in our day.

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and love and self-control.(2 Tim 1:7, RSV).

The Church of God is not to be on the defensive, but on the offensive.

Our parish recently had a mission led by Deacon Keith Strohm, who hails from my home town, Chicago. Born with a congenital defect leaving him with just a third of his left arm, he is an inspiring speaker with a great testimony of deliverance from shame through the power of God’s love. (To find out more about him, or to have him speak at your parish, go to www.m3catholic.com.) The third evening of the mission, when he spoke about why we need the Holy Spirit, the church was absolutely thick with the presence of God. He preached on Matthew 16:18 -

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (ESV)

Deacon Keith pointed out that the gates are guarding hell, not the Church. That is, the Church is not crouching behind a protective fence or wall in fear of Satan’s attacks. We are on the attack, taking back ground from the powers of evil. The gates of hell will fall to the Church, not vice versa.

The early Church lived in this reality. Holy boldness was the hallmark of the Acts community. It was this boldness, along with faith-filled reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit, that caused Christianity to spread like wildfire throughout the Roman Empire. For example, Acts 3 and 4 narrate the episode where Peter and John heal a lame beggar and are brought before the Sanhedrin, the same judicial body that condemned Jesus to death. Instead of cowering with fear, Peter preaches with power, urging his listeners to believe in Jesus.

When Peter and John are released, they gather the other Christians who live in Jerusalem. The whole assembly prays. For protection? For the Jewish authorities to leave them alone? No - for even greater boldness! “They threw us in jail. They threatened us with dire consequences for speaking out about Jesus. So - let’s do it again! But even MORE boldly!”

They pray

“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:29-31, ESV).

Oh, how the Body of Christ needs that holy shaking! How we Christians in the West need to abandon our gospel of comfort, conflict avoidance, and people-pleasing for the holy boldness of the early Church, of the early Jesuits, of today’s house church movement in China, of the faithfulness-unto-death of the MANY Christians being martyred worldwide even as I write this!

Those who are living in that boldness will tell you: “I used to be so afraid of speaking out. But as I began to do so, my fear dissolved. I became ALIVE as a Christian. I could unashamedly say, ‘This is our faith. This is the faith of our Church. We are proud to profess it, in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ “

I had a tiny taste of this years ago, when a friend organized a sit-in in front of a Milwaukee abortion clinic. As we gathered at the church before going to the clinic, my anxiety rose. My friend Robin quoted, “Rejoice in the Lord always! I shall say it again! Rejoice! Have no anxiety at all…”, from Philippians 4. That was encouraging - but I was still scared.

We arrived well before the clinic opened and sat shoulder to shoulder, blocking the front door and praying silently. And suddenly, I felt amazingly calm. I remember thinking, “I have never felt so proud to be a Christian. I have never felt so solidly RIGHT, for standing up for the unborn and witnessing publicly to what the Church believes.” I had an inkling of an inkling of what St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote on his way to martyrdom - “Now I begin to be a disciple.”

The police arrived. We were handcuffed and put into paddy wagons and jailed for a few hours. We were released after paying a fine for “disorderly conduct”. Although one or two prospective clients decided not to enter the clinic when they saw the sit-in, we probably didn’t affect the abortion clinic’s “business” otherwise. But the experience affected me. It freed me - a little - from my fear.

As one becomes accustomed to speaking the truth in love and facing the possibility of backlash, fear diminishes and boldness increases. One becomes more focused on saving souls and less focused on possible losses, just as formerly phobic elevator riders become more focused on getting where they want to go quickly and easily than on the fears that once paralyzed them.

We don’t need to seek out conflict. Western culture is clearly moving in a direction where it will seek us out. But neither do we need to avoid it. We need to be open to whatever battles the Lord calls us to fight - in humility, but firm in our faith.

We need not, we cannot live in fear. In St. Ignatius of Loyola’s stirring image, we are soldiers under the captainship of Christ, in a battle not fought with earthly weapons but with love and truth. We are taking back ground for Christ. The gates of Hell will not prevail against us.

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change,
    though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved;
    God will help her right early.
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge (Ps 46:1-4, RSVCE).

If not for the holy boldness of the earliest Christians and every generation of Christians since, I would not be writing this post and you would likely not be reading it. We stand on the shoulders of giants who risked all for the sake of Christ. As my pastor, Fr. Mark, asked, “Who is going to stand on our shoulders?” What are we willing to risk? How far will we follow Jesus?

The mountains may shake and tremble, nations rage and kingdoms totter. Let us be shaken by the power of the Spirit and “speak the word of God with boldness.” And the place was shaken…

These Troubled Times: Responding with Joy and Hope

I see a level of anxiety and discouragement in general and among my fellow Christians such as never before. This is even among lifelong, deeply committed Christians. It brings to mind, disturbingly, Jesus’s prophecy of the apocalyptic crisis, “which will lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Mt 24:24, RSVCE). (At the same time, there are many exciting signs of renewal and revival in the Body of Christ, but these are not the focus of this post.) These are indeed troubled times. We are seeing a unique, unprecedented, worldwide conjunction of events: 

• a worldwide pandemic; 

• serious calls by powerful corporate, national and even Catholic church leaders for a one world government, (in the name of managing pandemics, saving the natural environment, and battling overpopulation); 

• the capacity for global monitoring and collection of data about our personal information and location;

• an escalating movement toward hard or soft totalitarianism; 

• the possibility of a cashless economy; 

• open warfare against the unborn, the family, gender, and Christian, especially Catholic belief. 

As Christians, we’re called to read the signs of the times. It’s not my place or calling to determine whether we are entering the final crisis, the Passover of the Church. But if not, to use Catholic evangelist Ralph Martin’s words, “we are in a very convincing dress rehearsal for it.”

Part of the cloud of anxiety over the world springs from how difficult it is even to know what is truly going on. Driving in dense fog is nerve-wracking - and that’s where most of us feel we are. A premier temptation in all of this is to consume more media. If I know what’s going on or what seems to be coming, this gives me a sense of control. Unfortunately, with growing censorship and bias, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find reliable media sources. And most of the media peddle anxiety, because anxiety sells. Our fallen nature thrives on watching train wrecks in other people’s lives - the “I’m glad that’s not me” or “Oo, that could be me” factor.

A second, related temptation is to focus on legal or political solutions, or secular messiahs, to the point of losing our focus on Jesus as the solution. Not that Christians should abandon the political arena or cease fighting for our constitutional rights - but ultimately, “the battle belongs to the Lord” (Prov 21:31).

A third, more deadly temptation, is to wall up our hearts by getting cynical, negative, bitter, sarcastic, discouraged, and hopeless. We start to hate the sin, not the sinner. We forget that

we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Eph 6:12, RSVCE)

But our call isn’t, like the Pharisee, to thank God that we aren’t like other men (Lk 18:11), or to cast stones while claiming sinlessness for ourselves. We need to rescue the prisoner and bring people from darkness into light, as we ourselves have been rescued and saved.

Cynicism pretends to protect my heart from hurt. It’s a way to avoid feeling too much about what I can’t control. I was recently struck by how destructive that can be. We had hosted a dinner at our home, and a friend and I were making cynical, sarcastic jokes about the silence of many of the bishops and the scandals in the Church. Another guest, a beautiful, sensitive girl, suddenly began to cry. It stopped me in my tracks. Shouldn’t we all be weeping? Shouldn’t we all be struck to the heart? Jesus did not mock Jerusalem when he foresaw its destruction: he wept. His heart was broken that the city would not let itself be loved and rescued.

The fruit of overconsumption of the media, looking for purely political solutions, and caving into cynicism is desolation, in Ignatian terms. Check how you feel after a strong dose of the news or after going on a cynical tirade. I’ll bet it’s restless dissatisfaction, a sense of distance from God, distaste for spiritual things. The fruit are hatred, discouragement, unrest, and irritability. These come from the flesh. They are precisely opposite of the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23a, RSVCE).

Admittedly, it’s perilously easy to find issues to be angry and cynical about. As a psychologist, I am the last to simply say, “Stop it!” or “Don’t feel that way!” Our distress is understandable. We are indeed in very difficult times. It’s not just ourselves, but our children, siblings, parents and loved ones we’re concerned about. Millions of babies are being slaughtered. Souls are being lost. Children and teens and adults are being misled. Christians - and all of those who don’t accept the woke narrative - are, or shortly will be, actively persecuted.

But discouragement and cynicism can’t be the final word. We need to feel, to process, to grieve, to vent - and ultimately, to move on. How do we do that?

At the end of January, our pastor and our son’s pastor both preached inspiring homilies about standing fast and living in truth and love no matter what’s coming. Amen! That Sunday evening, as is our custom, my wife Mary and I set aside special time to pray together and see how the Lord seemed to be leading us. As we prayed that evening, and entered into some worship and praise, I felt that there was yet MORE, good as the homilies were. God calls us not just to endure and be faithful, but to THRIVE, no matter what comes.

As we prayed and worshipped, the Lord was present with great sweetness and power, and he spoke to our hearts about the cynicism and negativity. Independently of one another, Mary and I felt a call to REPENT: 

• for me, to repent of my negativity, critical spirit, sarcasm, and judgment of political and especially Church leaders

• for Mary, to repent of focusing on the storm and  her own human weakness, rather than the Lord

We also felt a call to JOY. I recalled the verse, and a couple of songs based on the verse, “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh 8:10b, RSVCE). When I first came to know Jesus as my Lord and was baptized in the Holy Spirit, what drew me to seek him in the first place was how happy those who knew him clearly were. I tasted how sweet and good he is. He was so clearly at work in miraculous ways. During our prayer that Sunday evening, the Lord reminded me that he’s the same Lord now. The God who had brought us safely through trial after trial, rescuing , would continue to do so in whatever tribulations come.

Only then did we remember that the theme of that Sunday’s Gospel was the start of Jesus’s public ministry. Jesus’s first recorded words in Mark are, “Repent and believe the good news!” (NIV). As persecution looms, I haven’t been focused on the “good news” that Jesus is Lord. I’ve been focused on, “Torture? Prison? What if they do things to my fingernails? If I have to be martyred, Lord, I’m putting in an order now for being shot or beheaded - quickly!”

But whatever comes, he’s the same Lord. He will supply all that we need exactly as we need it. He will enable us not just to endure, but to joyfully endure. He will give exactly the grace we need, because he is good. He is sweet. He loves us. He knows what we can and can’t take. He is good.

During our prayer, I recalled what I’d just read in the 16th century St. Catherine of Genoa’s Treatise on Purgatory. The Treatise is a summary of her private revelations during mystical experiences. Per Catherine, the souls in purgatory suffer tremendously. But their wills are completely aligned with God’s. They’ve already said their final “Yes”. They are joyful in their sufferings, because they only want what He wants. They wouldn’t cut it short a moment if it were against God’s will.

The Vietnamese St. Paul Le-Bao-Tinh, gave this inspiring testimony before his martyrdom in 1843:

I, Paul, in chains for the name of Christ, wish to relate to you the trials besetting me daily, in order that you may be inflamed with love for God and join with me in his praises, for his mercy is for ever. The prison here is a true image of everlasting hell: to cruel tortures of every kind—shackles, iron chains, manacles—are added hatred, vengeance, calumnies, obscene speech, quarrels, evil acts, swearing, curses, as well as anguish and grief. But the God who once freed the three children from the fiery furnace is with me always; he has delivered me from these tribulations and made them sweet, for his mercy is for ever.

In the midst of these torments, which usually terrify others, I am, by the grace of God, full of joy and gladness, because I am not alone—Christ is with me.

Our master bears the whole weight of the cross, leaving me only the tiniest, last bit. He is not a mere onlooker in my struggle, but a contestant and the victor and champion in the whole battle. Therefore upon his head is placed the crown of victory, and his members also share in his glory.

Whatever suffering comes, let us seek the same grace - to find in God’s will all of our joy, to want only what He wants, and to count ourselves blessed to suffer for the sake of the Name. Let us say with St. Thérèse of Lisieux, “I am always content with whatever He sends me. I love all He does.”

If we just continue to say “Yes” to Jesus, to cooperate with the grace that He infinitely wants to give us, then the worst possible outcome of whatever happens to us is eternal bliss - life forever in ecstatic union with the Blessed Trinity, the host of Heaven, and the glorious communion of saints! It most literally doesn’t get any better than this. There is no down side. Repent, and believe in the Good News. It is really that good! How can we not rejoice? Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!