In this post-Christian age where those of us who follow Christ find ourselves increasingly moving towards the religionless faith that Bonhoeffer so accurately predicted would emerge, ideas that engage our spirituality continue to capture our attention. We are looking for paths to follow that take us beyond dry and heady formulations of faith and allow us develop as spiritually whole persons. So as one who participates in conversations regarding what a spiritually holistic faith might look like, I was excited to be sent Robert Kellemen’s and Susan Ellis’ new book on soul care and spiritual direction. Sacred Friendships not only claimed to explore such topics, but to do so by giving voice to the myriad of silenced women’s voices in those fields throughout the centuries.
So it was with great eagerness that I started reading Sacred Friendships. I desired to learn from the voices of the women who, according to the authors, participated in the “sustaining, healing, reconciling, [and] guiding” of their fellow believers. I also greatly appreciated that the authors had chosen to listen to the voices of women from different time periods, many of which were outside of their own Evangelical camp. In fact they make a good argument in the book for why Evangelicals can and should look to the full tradition of the Christian experience for inspiration and guidance. I was grateful for that stance and dove into the book with high expectations. Unfortunately those expectations were quickly disappointed as I became more and more uncomfortable with the picture of faith and women I encountered on the pages of the book.
Instead of holistic portrayals of women living a realistic faith, I discovered instead truncated hagiographies of women in traditional gender roles throughout history. Although the authors stated that they had a great passion for empowering those who had been robbed of their voice, the authors took great care to let the reader know that in their desire to give voice to the silenced voices of women they were not supporting feminism. And in fact they only gave voice to women in traditionally nurturing and caring roles like mothers, wives, and nuns. While I fully agree that such women’s voices should be heard, I missed the voices of the teachers or preachers. Even the stories of the women who perhaps skirted too close to that leadership line were quickly explained away as them simply living into their role as nurturers as best they could. I failed to see how any of the included voices could ever have been considered silenced since they seemingly support historically approved roles for women.
Similarly many of the women profiled as saintly nurturers were in fact women from history that I would be quite hesitant to lift up as examples of positive faith at all. Women like Augustine’s mother Monica who is generally known for her toxic manipulative faith were praised for speaking the truth to bring others to Christ. There was no balance to the picture or admitting that sometimes guilt-tripping others into the faith might not be the healthiest way to spiritually direct a person. But I soon discovered that the authors’ very definition of spiritual direction was simply confronting people with their sins and guiding them to conformity in Christ. In no other context have I ever heard spiritual direction defined in such a way. In my experience (and according to the definition provided at Spiritual Director’s International), spiritual direction involves conversations that help people discern where God is touching their lives directly or indirectly. While making people feel guilty through confrontation or manipulation might make a woman a hero of the faith in the authors’ definition of spiritual direction, I could not affirm that as the most healthy or effective means of leading others into the faith in our post-Christian world. Those of us within the postmodern sensibility see the hurt and the pain around us and we know we are responsible for causing that pain. Being consumed with guilt and feeling bad about it doesn’t produce the fruit that is needed to change and heal the situation. Healthy spiritual direction should help us get on board with what God is doing in the world, not paralyze us with navel-gazing introspective guilt. While I think the authors might agree with me there, the endless stories of women presented in the book presented a far different story that encouraged readers down toxic spiritual paths.
I felt similar unease with the presentation of soul care in the book. While the stories of women who helped others through their pain and suffering were inspiring, I found the manner of how to do so to be generally unhelpful. The authors made clear their disdain for modern therapy and the use of drugs to treat depression (which was equated at one point with the sin of sloth). The alternatives they presented though often promoted Gnostic dualisms like the rejection of the body and this world in favor of focusing on the blessings of heaven to come. They similarly encouraged readers to simply dwell on the idea of Jesus for healing as if he were some sort of magic wand that can make everything all better. I cringe at such advice because I have seen too many people hurt by the counsel to just repeat the mantra of Jesus’ name without ever doing the hard work it takes to heal their hearts and relationships with others. While Jesus is of course the one who heals, healthy soul care should offer more substantial advice that to just “fix your eyes on Jesus.”
Our world has changed and the name of Jesus is no longer best proclaimed through systematic ideas and structures. People are desperate for a holistic spirituality to guide their faith journey. The idea of reaching back into the wealth of historic voices, especially the voices of women, to find wisdom to shape that journey is a beautiful thought. Being sustained in our faith, healed of our pain, reconciled in our relationships with God and others, and guided into where God is already working are all concepts that should be affirmed in this postmodern world. I just couldn’t get onboard with the often unbalanced and unhealthy ways of doing so suggested in Sacred Friendships.