{"id":838,"date":"2008-01-11T10:00:07","date_gmt":"2008-01-11T10:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/patton-dodd-how-do-you-move-be.html"},"modified":"2008-01-11T10:00:07","modified_gmt":"2008-01-11T10:00:07","slug":"patton-dodd-how-do-you-move-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/patton-dodd-how-do-you-move-be.html","title":{"rendered":"Patton Dodd: How Do You Move Beyond Blue?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dodd_P.jpg\"
\nFor today\u2019s segment of \u201cHow Do You Move Beyond Blue?\u201d I have the HONOR, the PRIVILEDGE, to interview the author of a favorite essay of mine, one that I read regularly to reassure myself that I\u2019m okay even if I\u2019m not following the latest fad in spirituality.
\nPatton Dodd is the editor for Christian features on Beliefnet. He is also involved in Beliefnet’s Community site, or social networking component. You can get to his page on the Beliefnet Community by clicking here.<\/a> Patton is the author of \u201cMy Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion,\u201d<\/a> which received a starred review from \u201cPublishers Weekly\u201d (and those are hard to get; I know because I used to write them).
\nHere\u2019s Patton!
\nPatton, I have to tell you that your article, \u201cOptimism Is Depressing\u201d<\/a> has been the most helpful piece of literature I\u2019ve yet read on how to interpret such philosophies as the Law of Attraction and the opinions compiled in \u201cThe Secret.\u201d<\/a> Many Beyond Blue<\/a> readers know this about me, but I continually struggle with what to say to friends and family who subscribe to this way of thinking. And I\u2019m frustrated beyond belief when people tell me such things as \u201cif you just counted your blessings\u201d or \u201cif you just mastered your thoughts\u201d or \u201cif you were just more positive and optimistic\u201d then you wouldn\u2019t be in so much pain.
\nI\u2019ve wanted God to give them a day in my brain so that they can really appreciate what they are saying to me and how it might feel if received on the other end.
\nAhem. Sorry, back to you.<\/strong>
\n1) You talk about how you became a Christian, attended a Pentecostal university, and embraced what is known as \u201cthe prosperity gospel.\u201d Let\u2019s stop there. In \u201cOptimism Is Depressing\u201d<\/a> you say this:<\/p>\n

So, I carefully considered the counsel of a fellow student who told me that if I had faith, I’d never have another cold. I prayed alongside a fellow student who “claimed in faith” that God would provide him with a new Toyota 4×4. Passages like Mark 11:23-24, where Jesus says that anyone who has enough faith can cause a mountain to leap into the sea, began to haunt me as standard-bearers for whether I had faith at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nI can see why the prosperity gospel attracted you. Who wouldn\u2019t love a faith in which you never had to hug the toilet again in your life. Do you think this is the main appeal for people\u2014that it provides a sense of control that we otherwise don\u2019t have?? It guarantees us health and wealth if we have enough faith?<\/strong><\/strong>
\nYep, that\u2019s the appeal. The prosperity gospel, The Secret<\/a>, and similar messages promise that you can have absolute certainty in your own comfort and security. It\u2019s hope that comes with a guarantee that the world can be precisely what you want it to be, and it can be that RIGHT NOW…if only you can summon up enough faith.
\nThe problem is that that\u2019s a bastardization of hope. It\u2019s a consumeristic hope, as if the universe, or God, is some kind of economic system where you can \u201cpurchase\u201d whatever you need by coming up with enough currency. It\u2019s a lie. (And I\u2019m not saying that people who teach this are necessarily liars\u2014they may very well be just as duped as the people who believe them.)
\n2) Then you lose your faith. You write:<\/p>\n

I’ll not blame prosperity teaching alone for my years of pained spiritual searching. But it was a lie that was hard to shake. To this day, when I have a bad day or a great need, somewhere in my mind is a voice accusing me of not having enough faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Man, I am so with you on that!! I worked a year at a very conservative Christian camp. They had to separate me and another counselor who bunked together because our faiths weren\u2019t strong enough to convert the little campers. Anyway, I want to hear more about why you lost your faith. What triggered it, or what made you think, \u201cI\u2019m not quite sure I\u2019m with these people?\u201d
\n<\/strong>
\nFirst, I\u2019d offer that your \u201cconservative\u201d Christian camp wasn\u2019t conservative enough! Sounds like it was too ultra-modern and too individualistic, and not in touch with the traditional, historical idea of faith as something that exists alongside questions, and that can be sustained even in the face of doubt. But I know exactly what you mean, and have experienced the same frustrating problems…
\nMy faith struggled in the face of many obstacles. Some of them were problems with the particular Christian community I was in, Some were problems that had more personal roots\u2014my own family, my own psychological and emotional constitution, etc. But one main issue that made me feel very solitary is just that I wasn\u2019t as certain as everyone else about being a Christian. In my faith culture, there was no safe place to be a skeptic, no place that welcomed questions and saw doubt as normal or helpful. We had the idea that to doubt was to disbelieve, and that true faith could not survive serious doubt. The more I recognized that I was filled with uncertainty, the more I wanted a community that could help me find answers that I could live with, answers that were intellectually honest and sustainable, instead of just one huge leap of faith after another.
\nMost of my questions were very basic\u2014Is the Bible true? How can I trust that Jesus is real? How can I trust the validity of my own religious experiences? Do I have to believe that all other religious views are false? And so on. Those questions are important and difficult, but are not necessarily scary if asked in the right context. I just had to find that right context so I could deal with them adequately.
\n3) Next you present a brilliant synopsis of the prosperity gospel and the law of attraction, and what they have in common:<\/p>\n

The prosperity gospel goes by various names (Word-Faith, Word of Faith<\/a>, and more) and many forms, from Joel Osteen’s squishy “Just smile and receive happiness” approach to Creflo Dollar’s<\/a> direct name-it-and-claim-it approach to Bishop Bernard Jordan’s “laws of thinking” approach<\/a>. No matter its guise\u2014and some practitioners, like Osteen, don’t admit to being practitioners<\/a>\u2014Christian prosperity teaching emphasizes one or more of these doctrines:
\n– God wants to bless you with health and wealth;
\n– Health and wealth are a sign of God’s favor;
\n– Having the right thoughts and professing the right beliefs are the keys to receiving God’s blessings.
\nIn other words, you gotta believe it to receive it. And in still other words, the opposite is true: if you confess the wrong beliefs or think the wrong thoughts, you can expect to get the wrong stuff. What you think and say is what you get.
\nAs Kenneth Hagin, the father of the Word-Faith movement, put it: “Say it, do it, receive it, tell it.” As Rhonda Byrne, author of “The Secret,”<\/a> puts it: “Ask. Believe. Receive.”
\nRhonda Byrne is not a Christian prosperity preacher. But her message is a close cousin of the beliefs of millions of Christians who are influenced by prosperity teaching.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t know how better to explain \u201cThe Secret\u201d<\/a> and the prosperity gospel, but I presume some have disagreed with your interpretation? If you\u2019ve received any criticism on your case, what have they said?<\/strong>
\nI have to admit that at this late date\u2014I mean, after 13 years of wrestling over these questions\u2014I\u2019ve pretty much given up listening to a lot of criticism about this one issue. I\u2019ve done my time in the trenches of this particular battle, so when I\u2019m confronted with someone who is completely won over by prosperity thinking, I don\u2019t engage them too much.
\n4) Then you place \u201cThe Secret\u201d and the prosperity gospel in the context of the Bible as a whole. And here are the places the Gospel of Optimism comes up short:<\/p>\n

The idea that positive thinking always attracts good things to you runs smack up against the biblical witness, from (this could be a long list, but I’ll keep it brief) Job to David to Isaiah’s condemnation of a people who said “peace, peace, where there is no peace” to, most of all, the suffering of Jesus\u2014which, I might note, he prayed to be spared of. (Did his prayer go unanswered because he was being too negative?)
\nThe message of the Bible is not that there is power in positive thinking. The message of the Bible is that sometimes we have power, and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we have plenty, sometimes we have little. In both states, God is sovereign.
\nThe Bible is not a guide to optimism. It is a guide to hope. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dang, that\u2019s brilliant. The Bible is a guide to optimism, a guide to hope. And it makes me still be able to be hopeful as I\u2019m realistic.
\nBut why is that so offensive to \u201cThe Secret\u201d disciple? Because good thoughts ALWAYS have to produce good results.? What do they think when they think themselves to death and still no result? Moreover, is your concept\u2014the more realistic, more biblical concept\u2014harder to swallow because there are no easy, nice answers? What do you think?
\n<\/strong>
\nI guess it is harder to swallow in the sense that it requires admitting a certain amount of pain. Pope Bendedict\u2019s last encyclical, which is all about hope, speaks to this a lot\u2014how having hope does not mean denying what\u2019s wrong with the world. In fact, having hope rather than optimism requires admitting that the world is broken and can be nasty, and for some of us (myself included), it requires owning up to personal shortcomings.
\nBut I think it\u2019s only harder in the short term. In the long run, it\u2019s NOT admitting pain and lack that will be difficult. I know people who have clung to to the gospel of positive thinking most of their lives, and they are MUCH more weary than the rest of us.
\nLook, true peace lies down the path of self-knowledge. Saying \u201cI\u2019m not sick\u201d when you really are is going to exhaust you. Saying \u201cI\u2019m rich\u201d when you\u2019re poor is going to disappoint you. The better way is to admit your needs, however great they are, and ask for help. Think of the hemorrhaging woman in the gospel story who pressed through the crowd to touch Jesus. She wasn\u2019t trying to get in touch with the great \u201cSecret\u201d of the universe. She was desperate, and willing to make a fool of herself and to offend those around her to get the help she needed. When we\u2019re hurting, that\u2019s the model we need to follow.
\n5) Okay, now we get into your distinction between optimism and hope. We\u2019ve had this debate a lot here on Beyond Blue<\/a>. Many, heated discussions have been prompted by the difference between optimism and hope. This is what you say:<\/p>\n

What’s the difference? The philosopher Cornel West has marked it as well as anyone. West says that optimism is a belief that things will turn out as you want them to\u2014we might say it is faith in the law of attraction. Optimism begins in the self\u2014desire for what you want is the basis for belief and action. Hope is different\u2014it’s a conviction that something must be, because it is right and it is just, and you are prepared to fight for it regardless of the circumstances. Hope makes claims on you and pushes you beyond yourself.
\nHope is neither optimistic nor pessimistic: it is realistic. With hope, you can acknowledge your current circumstances\u2014Jesus suffering in anguish in the garden\u2014you can want for something better\u2014Let this cup pass from me\u2014and still know that your life has meaning and value beyond your pain\u2014Not my will but yours be done.
\nOptimism doesn’t let you acknowledge what’s wrong with your life; it encourages you to lie to yourself, and over the course of the years, to live in willful blindness to your real problems. Optimism tells you to be positive no matter the circumstances\u2014which, if you can’t keep it up, is a recipe for depression. Hope lets you be honest about the circumstances, and still urges you to look toward something better.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I get what you\u2019re saying. But here\u2019s the thing: I have a lot of hope in my life right now. I\u2019m a very hopeful person. But I think some people think I\u2019m too stuck in my disease \u2013 that if I imagined that I wasn\u2019t bipolar, I wouldn\u2019t be anymore. They see my reality check as pessimism.
\nI tried for a time to pretend I wasn\u2019t mentally ill. I was in the process of weaning off my meds; I pumped up my vitamins, meditation, yoga, etc. I continued to cry and shake. One person said, at that time \u201cyou didn\u2019t TRULY believe \u2026 because if you had, you\u2019d be okay.\u201d
\nI guess this is my question: how do you know what is a necessary way of reframing your thoughts\u2014and not being stuck in your disease\u2014and what is unrealistic expectations? Also, how can I respond to people who tell me that \u201cI\u2019m as okay as my thoughts\u201d in a nonviolent way?
\n<\/strong>
\nSecond question first: You can either ignore those people, or if they are open to it, offer them a critique along the lines of what we\u2019ve discussed here. Either way, you will be doing them a service in showing them that their position is untenable.
\nAs for reframing thoughts, there\u2019s no doubt that we all absolutely have to do the (sometimes very hard) work of maintaining a cheerful heart and a hopeful outlook. I just don\u2019t think that means being happy every day. Rather, it means fundamentally deciding that your life is worth living, that people are worth loving, and that you are valuable. Most of all, it means being part of a community that is fulfilling and challenging\u2014that helps you when you are in need, and makes claims on you when others are in need.
\n6) The final paragraph of your outstanding essay:<\/p>\n

Hope is part of the longstanding tradition of the Christian faith because it allows you to admit the condition of your life, warts and all, and trust that God can recreate that condition. That’s the story that we’re invited to participate in: God is at work renewing all things. Some of his work is now, and some of it is eventual, but we’re called to have hope and join in that work. That\u2014as I learned in those years of spiritual searching\u2014is what it means to believe. Faith is found not in getting your best life now, but in having hope.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now we\u2019ve been having a debate here on Beyond Blue<\/a>, as well, on the whole thorn in the side thing. Did God really intend for Paul to have that thorn? Did he create it so that Paul would be a better person and have more faith? Or was it an accident, about which God said, \u201cAsk me for help, which is all you need, and get over it.\u201d I mean, some people have said that Mother Teresa wouldn\u2019t have done all her charitable work if she hadn\u2019t been in such a state of pain. Do you agree?<\/strong>
\nThis is a philosophical and theological question, and I think reasonable people can disagree about the answers here. I think trials can be authored by God\u2014the Bible attests to that again and again. It also attests that some people bring trials on themselves, and still other trials are brought on by others. It\u2019s fine and proper to ask \u201cwhy\u201d about suffering, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s wise to get stuck there, because it\u2019s an unanswerable question. I try to read Job, and Ecclesiastes, and realize that I\u2019m not nearly the first person to not be able to figure out the great purpose behind my trials. Instead, I look for smaller purposes in suffering\u2014What good can come of this, and how can I extend that good to others?
\nObviously that\u2019s just my ideal perspective\u2014I\u2019m not saying I live up to it. But I try to put one foot in front of the other in this way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For today\u2019s segment of \u201cHow Do You Move Beyond Blue?\u201d I have the HONOR, the PRIVILEDGE, to interview the author of a favorite essay of mine, one that I read regularly to reassure myself that I\u2019m okay even if I\u2019m not following the latest fad in spirituality. 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