But that’s terrifying and most of us don’t have the courage to be truly free.  Do you?

Let’s see.

RUN AWAY!

In his classic book, Escape From Freedom, Eric Fromm argues that the last thing most people want is to be free because freedom requires work, responsibility and the willingness to put up with a lot of pressure and rejection from others who will be threatened by your freedom.  Because most people don’t want the hassle of all this, we settle for pretending to be free and we retreat into one of three alternatives to true freedom; namely, Control/Manipulation, Self-Destruction, Conformity.

Control/Manipulation

Freedom requires us to admit that however good we are, we are not quite good enough as we are (because there are so many times we can’t muster the strength to be our best selves) and that we need a lot of work to get there.  Life challenges us to grow in many different, unexpected ways, reminding us of how much we have to grow.  If we embrace this growth, we can be free.  But most of us would rather try to control our environment (and the people in it) than allow ourselves to be challenged by our environment to grow and change.

Most people settle for pretending they’re just fine–thank you very much–and, instead, assert that it’s everybody else who has to change to support them in their delusions of perfection.  If I adopt this escape from freedom, rather than admitting that I am a good but still broken person who needs to challenge myself to grow into my true, authentically free self, I will rage at any person or organization or circumstance that even dares to imply that I’m not awesome just the way I am.

Such a person likes to think of him or herself as a victim (persecuted by that individual, organization, or circumstance who fails to affirm them in their okayness).  This victim-thinking justifies all manner of abusive behavior in return.  As long as I can think of myself as a victim, I can bully, pressure, attack, name-call, and manipulate you with impunity… and feel good about it to boot.

Even so,  people who adopt the controlling/manipulative posture can never be happy because they know they are incapable of being their best selves (or unwilling to be their best selves) and blaming and bullying–even if it becomes a way of life– gets old fast.

Self-Destruction

Freedom requires us to exercise responsibility and demonstrate a commitment to becoming better than we are.

But that’s “boring” (i.e., “hard work”) so most people would rather engage in, unconsciously, self-destructive behavior.  Why?  Because if I won’t improve myself, I will inevitably become dissatisfied with my life and, in disgust and frustration, I will be driven to destroy what I’ve come to hate.   Under the guise of  easing the pressure of my unsatisfying life, I’ll engage in excessive drinking and drugging, promiscuity, partying, self-indulgence, and other socially-acceptable tools that enable me to escape from true freedom and anesthetize myself into oblivion.

Conformity

Freedom requires us to “own” our beliefs and principles and to admit that we are the only ones responsible for our successes and failures.  It also requires us to be OK disappointing others when their agendas clash with our beliefs and principles.

But that’s terrifying. No one wants to be that exposed or to risk not being approved-of or accepted.  Most of us would rather have someone else to blame when following our principles leads to complications.  We would like to blame, or at least diffuse the blame among our family, our church, our community or peers.  We choose to conform to a group so that we have psychological cover when the existential shit hits the fan.  “I’m not responsible for this mess, my mom and dad are.  My church is.  My friends made me do it.  ‘They‘ told me it was OK.”

Conformity isn’t the same thing as agreement.  Agreement means that you’ve checked out an idea for yourself and you believe it to be true.  That four million other people also happen to believe the same thing is besides the point.  You heard it. You tested it.  You agree with it.  By contrast, conformity just swallows the pill whole without checking the label to see whether you’ve been given a vitamin or poison.

A lot of people think that one has to be a “lone wolf” to be free.  That’s not true.  In fact, many alleged “lone wolves” are just conforming to a different, but equally unexamined, doctrine that is a mere reaction-formation (i.e., unthinking opposite)  to where they come from.  Such lives are not so much defined by what other people tell them to believe, but by what other people have told them they were stupid for believing and shouldn’t believe any more.

There is nothing new under the sun.  Inevitably, we must find some group of like-minded people to ally ourselves with.  That’s not necessarily conformity.  A person can, after evaluating the veracity of their parents’, church’s, community’s or peers’ truth claims for themselves, be a willing, happy, believing member of that group.  But the difference is that such people still recognize that they are solely responsible (not the family, community, church or peers) for the choices they make, the priorities they set, and the life they live.

Can you Handle Freedom?

If you want to be free, look at the areas of your life ruled by your own attempts at control/manipulation, self-destruction, and unthinking conformity and ask yourself what you need to do to leave it behind.

True freedom can only be found by taking up that challenging, terrifying, incredibly rewarding quest.

Right now, in the middle of the Fortnight for Freedom, many People-of-Faith are organizing to assert and protect our first and most cherished freedom, the Freedom of Religion which, although a universal human right, is legally enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution.

But with all this talk in the press about “freedom,” it might be useful to consider a few questions.  Namely; “What is ‘freedom’ anyway?”  And, “Are you free?”

Freedom vs. License

On the question of what is freedom, this is one of those areas where, at least historically, psychologists, philosophers and theologians (if not the general public) tend to agree.  As a rule, most people think that freedom means the ability to do whatever I feel like I want to do.  But that isn’t actually freedom.  That’s called, “license.”

A popular example is James Bond’s famous, “License to Kill” which gives him the right to not only kill, but cause all manner of mayhem and destruction without fear of consequence.  While few, if any, of us have a license to kill, many people do act as if being true to themselves means having a license to follow whatever path their feelings want to take them down.  But this “license to follow one’s feelings” isn’t true freedom at all, and while feelings can be a source of wisdom, the commitment to the emotionally-driven life characterized by license can wreak its own kind of destruction in the lives of those who practice it.

True Freedom

By contrast, true freedom, is the ability to be your best self in every moment regardless of what your feelings–or anything or anyone else is pressuring you to be.

Think about it. If I always have to do what my feelings tell me to do, am I free?  If I always have to eat everything you put in front of me, am I free?  If I always lash out every time I get angry, am I free?  If I must do whatever you tell me, not because I recognize that you are giving me good counsel but rather out of fear of losing your approval, am I free?  Of course not.

Freedom, then, is the ability to be my best self–to do what it right, good, true and healthy at all times regardless of the internal or external pressures I am facing.  Any time I am not able to be my best self, I have surrendered my freedom.  I have, on some level, chosen to be less free.

Are you free?  When do you surrender your freedom and why?

In my next post, we’ll look at what Eric Fromm called the “Escape from Freedom.”  We’ll discover why people tend to choose Control/Manipulation, Self-destruction and Conformity over authentic freedom, and we’ll look at what it takes to break free of the chains that hold you back.

(*I was in the hospital for severe, acute, pancreatitis and ultimately had my gall bladder removed for good measure.  It was an ugly, horrible, painful experience, and I couldn’t be happier to be past it.  Thanks for your patience during my recovery)

Woman at the beach photo available from Shutterstock.

So what is the real relationship between religion and guilt?

Healthy v. Unhealthy Guilt.

It might be helpful to start by looking at guilt in general.  Is guilt ever useful? And if so, what separates healthy guilt from unhealthy guilt?

The truth is, there is such a thing as healthy guilt, and healthy guilt can serve a positive role in leading a healthy life.  Guilt belongs to the family of reactions  (like pain, fear and anger) that we might call “warning emotions.”  That is, these feelings tell us that something is amiss and that corrective actions may need to be taken if we want to be healthy and happy.

Just like healthy pain lets us tend to a physical injury, and healthy fear alerts us to a potential threat to our safety, and healthy anger alerts us to a possible injustice, healthy guilt lets us know about threats to our integrity.

Research consistently shows that self-esteem and a positive sense of self-worth is dependent upon “being true to ourselves.”  In other words, we can only truly feel good about ourselves if we perceive that we are living up to the values we claim to hold. That is, if we maintain our integrity.  Healthy guilt protects our integrity, and by extension, our identity strength and self-esteem.

3 Functions of Healthy Guilt

Guilt can be thought of as healthy if it does three things.

~First, if it alerts you to potential threats to your integrity (and, by extension, your self-esteem).

~Second, and even more importantly, guilt is healthy if it motivates you to take some concrete actions to address the offense to your integrity (and, by extension, your self-esteem).  The function of guilt isn’t really to make you feel bad.  Its function is to help you do something to fix a problem that poses a threat to your healthy functioning.

~Third, to be healthy, guilt should decrease as you work to resolve the threat to your integrity.

Guilt vs. Scrupulosity

By contrast guilt becomes unhealthy if…

~it is free-floating and not tied to specific offenses to your integrity.

~it doesn’t motivate you to take any action.  Unhealthly guilt is just happy to make you feel awful about yourself without giving you anything to do about it.

~it doesn’t decrease once you’ve addressed the perceived offense.

A better label for unhealthy guilt is “scrupulosity.” Interestingly, both psychology and religion view scrupulosity as problematic.  For the psychologist, scrupulosity can represent a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder in which moral contamination replaces the more common germophobia associated with OCD.  Likewise, for the religious person, scrupulosity is actually (and, perhaps, ironically) a sin, in that it separates us from an experience of God’s love and mercy. (N.B. that, by the way, is the definition of “sin”–i.e., “a privation of the good” or to put it another way, sin is settling for less than what God wants to give you.)

Religion and Guilt

So now we come back to the relationship between religion and guilt.  Ideally, religion, with its ideals, values and beliefs, helps believers clarify what it means to live with integrity.  Where non-believers can more easily convince themselves that whatever they are doing is just great–whether it really is or not–religious people have a community of like-minded individuals who challenge them to think more deeply about whether they are really living according to the principles they say define their sense of personal integrity.

When this system works well, you have a community of support that helps you both identify threats to integrity and self-esteem and develop a plan to efficiently overcome those threats.

Of course, people are broken, and some are more broken than others.  When a person is raised in a family of seriously broken people, or in a community that celebrates brokenness as a virtue, religion, like many other things, can become a tool of manipulation and coercion.  In these environments, healthy guilt is replaced by scrupulosity which, as I mentioned above, is actually condemned by both psychology and most authentically religious persons and institutions.

”Religious Guilt” is What you Make It.

So, in conclusion.

~Healthy guilt is good because it facilitates integrity, which is an essential component of self-esteem.

~Unhealthy guilt is actually scrupulosity, which is viewed as a disorder by both clinicians and authentically religious persons.

~And finally, religion is a tool, like many other things, that can be wielded by psychologically healthy people to facilitate actualization and fulfillment in an extraordinarily efficient and powerful way, or by unhealthy people to facilitate oppression, coercion and destruction of the person.

Just like hammers can be used to either build homes or bludgeon people, it makes little sense to blame the tool for how it is wielded.  Religious guilt can be good or bad depending on what you make of it.

The first study, from the University of British Columbia, notes that “Analytic Thinking Can Decrease Religious Belief.”   (Although, considering the methodology, which appears to have involved having people do a questionaire measuring religious belief, do some mental activities like filling out additional questionaires intentionally printed in hard-to-read fonts [to engage analytic reasoning skills], and then retesting their belief levels, I’m not really sure what this study actually shows).

The second report is from UC Berkeley, which states, “Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than are Non-Believers.”   This study assessed levels of religious faith of participants and then examined how likely participants were to give “10  lab dollars” (??) to a stranger after watching a video about children living in poverty.

According to the lead researcher  “Overall, this research suggests that although less religious people tend to be less trusted in the U.S., when feeling compassionate, they may actually be more inclined to help their fellow citizens than more religious people.”

Um.  Okay.  Maybe…

On the surface, these would appear to be fairly damning critiques of religious faith. But I wonder if a little perspective might help…

Stages of Religious Commitment.

Obviously, people go to church for different reasons and with different motivations.  These motivations vary greatly, impact behavior differently and tend to evolve through predictable stages.

Stage 1.  Coerced Commitment–  This is the stage where people go to church solely because their mom and dad make them or they feel obliged for some reason to go.  Individuals at this stage have no real personal connection to their religion.  They go because they have to.

An interesting sub-set of this group are the people with a Rule-Based Commitment to their faith.  These individuals tend to be driven by an internal sense of coercion to comply with the rules of their particular religion but they tend to have very little connection to the heart of their faith.

Religious people in this sub-set are often perceived as “orthodox” adherents of their faith community but really are just suffering from scruples or, perhaps, a case of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder  with religious features.  (Incidentally, that’s OCPD, not to be confused with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which is a different kind of disorder entirely.)

Stage 2.  Social Commitment–At this stage, people attend church because of the social benefits they achieve from going.  Perhaps there is a good youth group.  Or perhaps a person has found a good group of people to hang out with. Or perhaps a businessman goes to church largely to make useful contacts.

Individuals at this stage aren’t necessarily sure they believe what their church teaches, and they don’t necessarily have well-defined personal beliefs,  but they’re happy enough to go along to get along because they’ve found a group of people they feel comfortable being with are beneficial to be associated with in some way.  Most periodic  (1-2 times/month) church-goers are at this stage.

Stage 3.  Emotional Commitment–At this stage, people have begun to experience a sense of personal meaning from their faith community.  They “draw comfort” from their church’s rituals and devotions and find their church involvement personally meaningful.  They don’t necessarily believe everything their church teaches (in fact, they may disagree with a lot of it) and their personal lives may or may not reflect a deep internalization of their faith, but they are attached to their church and would be deeply offended if anyone questioned their devotion.

Many people at this stage are at least minimally involved in some charitable or community service work as well mostly because it makes them feel good to give back in some way.  Most regular (i.e., weekly) church-goers are at this stage.

Stage 4.  Personal Commitment (aka, “Lived Religion”)–This stage represents about 10% of regular (weekly) church attendees.  This group does draw comfort from the devotions particular to their faith and they are socially involved in their church community, but their commitment to their faith primarily revolves around a quest for personal and spiritual growth.

These are the folks who challenge themselves to conform their lives to the teachings of their faith.  They are seeking metanoia–personal transformation/conversion.  They strive to understand and live up to the requirements of their church, but they are differentiated from the Rule Based Commitment individuals by their relative lack of judgmentalism and their increased sensitivity to human struggle.  They can be perceived as dogmatic in their beliefs, but they tend to be fairly pastoral in their dealings with others.

Religious People are Mean and Stupid–Redux

Ok, now that we’ve concluded our orientation, let’s get back to the research I cited at the beginning.

The problem with studies like these is that they don’t differentiate between types of religious commitment.  It is difficult to say anything meaningful about “religious” people without identifying what kind of religious people you’re talking about.

Religiousness and Reasoning

For instance, more Emotionally-Committed religious individuals, since they tend to have a more intuitive-emotional experience of faith, may very well go through a bit of a faith crisis, and even a loss of faith, as their analytic powers are engaged.  In fact, this is often exactly what happens to teens who lose their (formerly emotionally meaningful but intellectually immature) faith in college.

People have a tendency to assume that their experience of religion is the only experience that exists, and it can be confusing to suddenly have to intellectually justify things that they always just felt were true.  Ignorance of the possibility of an intellectually-enlivened faith often causes people to think that, now that their cognitive powers have been engaged, they are obliged to evolve past the emotionally-focused faith of their youth and into an much more enlightened agnosticsm.

That said, religious people at the Personal-Commitment stage tend to be fairly well-developed intellectually and take a robustly analytical and emotional approach to their faith.  They are aware of the intellectual challenges their faith presents and they have actively worked–or are working–through them.

Religious people at this stage are committed to challenging their whole person–their mind and hearts–to conform to the teachings of their respective faith because they see it as a path to  actualization, true freedom, enlightment, or all of the above.  They aren’t saints, but they believe in the importance of demonstrating integrity between their life and their beliefs and they work hard at being living examples of what they profess.

Clearly, these individuals’ religious faith does not suffer by engaging their analytic powers. In fact, their religious experience is enhanced by bringing their intellect to bear upon it.

Religiousness and Compassion

But what about compassion?  Well, returning to UC Berkeley study, I have no doubt that the Emotionally-Committed religious individuals would be among those who gave their “10 lab dollars” to a stranger after watching a emotionally charged commercial about poverty-stricken children.

They, very much like the non-religiously engaged participants (who are similar to their religious opposites for their largely emotionally-based agnosticism),  would be very susceptible to spontaneous, emotionally-based acts of giving (not–as Jerry Seinfeld put it–that there’s anything wrong with that).

But Coerced/Rule-Based religious people would not do well in this study because, for them, religion is not about compassion, its about rules that separate “us” from “them.” Likewise, the Personally Committed religious people might not have done well on the Berkeley compassion study either because they are, by definition, more conscious about their charitable commitments and are probably already more charitably/pastorally engaged on an ongoing basis than their more Emotionally-Committed counterparts.

Since they are most likely already consciously doing what they believe they can do to respond to the needs of their community/world, they are less likely to be surprised by an emotionally manipulative commercial into the need to do even more in this moment.

In other words, just because someone is more easily emotionally manipulated into spontaneous giving doesn’t mean they’re necessarily more compassionate overall. If I were on this grad student’s dissertation committee, I would have recommended a much more interesting study comparing rates of sustained giving and general awareness of human suffering between highly religious and non-religious individuals.  That, I suspect, would be a much more valid assessment of this study’s hypothesis.

Religious People: Not All the Same Under the Hood

None of this is to say that the studies cited above–and others like them–aren’t interesting. It’s just to say that you have to take any study about “religious people” with a grain of salt.  Likewise, when you think or talk about religious people, it would help to have an understanding of which kind of “religious people” you’re talking about.  They are definitely not all the same.

Rosary photo available from Shutterstock.

As the religion guy around here, I thought it might be helpful to take a moment to suggest that this view is really missing the point.

The most serious objections to gay marriage have absolutely nothing to do with religion.  By and large, it is simply incorrect to frame the debate about marriage as primarily a “religious issue.” 

Marriage: A Natural Institution–Not A Religious One.

Both gay marriage advocates and many church groups have largely succeeded in framing opposition to gay marriage as a religious issue.  And yes, there are certainly significant religious dimensions to the debate, but frankly, religious arguments aren’t really the most interesting or even relevant issues in play.  Why?  Because marriage didn’t start out as a religious institution and, at its core, it still isn’t.

Marriage was, is, and always has been first and foremost a social institution.  Over time, it has taken on significant religious significance (like water has taken on religious significance because of baptism, or bread has taken on religious dimensions because of communion, but neither of these facts make water or bread religious inventions per se), but at its core, marriage is not essentially a religious institution as much as it is a natural,  secular, social institution. People have forgotten that.

So what? 

Understanding how social institutions are created, and why marriage is one, is kind of a big deal for this debate.  In fact, it’s the Big Enchilada of this debate.  Nowadays, everyone thinks of marriage as a state-sanctioned stamp of approval on the person you have an emotional connection to and enjoy having sex with (or, for the more traditionally minded among us, would like to have sex with).   

But that isn’t what marriage was ever intended to be and it isn’t really what marriage is now despite widespread, popular misconceptions to the contrary.

Here’s the (very) short and (incredibly) incomplete (but still essentially accurate) history of how and why marriage became a social institution, and why it is hard to argue that gay marriage–whatever other benefits it may or may not convey–is actually marriage as we have understood it for over 4000 years.  (BTW, that’s not to say it couldn’t be.  I’m just proposing that the context for this debate ought to be very different than the religious one in which it is currently being held.)

Sex (& Marriage) in the (Ancient) City

People tend to think that opposition to gay marriage is rooted in hatred of homosexuality, but in the ancient world (going back at least to 2000 BC) it does not appear that anyone really thought anything negative about homosexuality.

For instance, throughout the ancient world there were many, many popular artistic renderings of both homoerotic and hetero-erotic scenes suggesting popular acceptance of a variety of sexual orientations.  Likewise, while there were at least some laws against rape and incest, there do not appear to be any more laws against homosexuality than there were laws against heterosexual activity.

Basically, for the ancient, sex was sex. Gay, straight, whatever.  So, for instance, ancient Babylon, by today’s standards, would have been a pretty sexually liberal place to live and work.

Well, back around 1800BC, in the middle of this quite sexually liberated culture, Hammurabi, the King of Babylon and developer of that famously, eponymous “Code,” observed that while there were lots of different types of people having sex with each other, only some of those sexual relationships were actually beneficial to society-at-large.

Specifically, men and women who entered into lifelong, sexual partnerships  (as opposed to same-sex relationships or heterosexual sex with temple prostitutes, or affairs with the servants, etc) seemed to benefit society in the following ways (this is not a complete list, but it is representative).

5 Benefits Marriage Grants Society

1.  Lifelong heterosexual partnerships–unlike other sexual partnerships–tended to secure the socio-economic status and security of women in general (who tended not to fare well as well without the support of a man). (NOTE:  Even today, in an age where women can support themselves, this tends to be true. Less educated unmarried and divorced women, even today, have lower socioeconomic status than less educated married women.)

2. Lifelong heterosexual partnerships–unlike other sexual partnerships– tended to increase the likelihood that men would claim children that resulted from the sexual union, leading to less juvenile crime and poverty.  (NOTE:  Even today, this tends to be true)

3.  Lifelong heterosexual partnerships–unlike other sexual partnerships–tended to increase the likelihood that children would have both a mother and a father, providing them with the nurturance and security necessary for children to become healthy citizens.  (NOTE:  Again, this tends to be true even today).

4.  Lifelong heterosexual partnerships–unlike other sexual partnerships–tended to decrease the likelihood that women would be forced to raise children on their own, which led to less poverty among women and less juvenile crime.  (NOTE:  You guessed it. Still true)

5.  Lifelong heterosexual partnerships–unlike other sexual partnerships–seemed to socialize men (NOTE:  Yup.  Even today, married men are about 30% less likely to commit violent crime than unmarried men).

Ostensibly, in response to the benefits Hammurabi noted these relationships gave to society, he dedicated about a third of the nearly 300 laws in his Code to regulating these relationships and granting them special social status–and a social institution was born.

People entering into this institution we now call “marriage” promised to live by certain rules so that society would benefit from their relationship and, in exchange, society would extend certain benefits back to the couples in those relationships. This is how marriage came to be.

Any social rewards given to married couples were given in response to the benefits those couples were already giving to society.  Marriage was a social institution long before religion ever got anywhere near it. And, contrary to the way most people think of the institution today,  marriage never really had anything to do with validating anyone in their okay-ness, or giving a state stamp of approval to your personal sexual relationships.

Gay Marriage in Context

Now, we flash forward to gay marriage.  The argument people really should be dealing with–instead of this religious argument stuff–is whether or not gay marriage can provide the same social benefits that society has counted on marriage to provide for over 4000 years.

The problem is that–at least at this time–this is not at all clear from the available data. In fact, it has been argued from the available data that many benefits society has enjoyed from traditional marriage may acutally be directly undermined by legal recognition of gay marriage.

For instance, if gay unions are not, statistically speaking, as stable or as faithful as hetero-sexual unions (and, it would appear, even Dan Savage would agree with this), then that undermines benefits related to the well-being of children.  Also, where gay marriage is legalized, fewer people in general–gay or straight–get married at all, thus undermining the socio-economic benefits poorer women might otherwise enjoy in a more robustly, pro-traditional marriage society.  (Note: To be fair, gay marriage does not cause this trend exclusively. If no-fault divorce and the social acceptance of cohabitation critically poisons the patient that is marriage, gay marriage simply adds more poison to the institutional system, hastening the decline instigated by these other marriage-hostile trends.)

The point is, in all the huffing and puffing about the religious arguments fer ’n agin’ gay marriage, very few people are having the conversation that really matters.  Namely; can gay marriage provide the benefits society has depended upon marriage to provide (and which heterosexual marriage continues to provide even today–as tattered as it is) or can it not?

And if not, by what right should it be called “marriage” any more than any other relationship in which two people like each other and have sex with each other should be called marriage?  If gay marriage does not provide the social benefits that traditional marriage does, then why should it be given any more legal status than any other cohabiting arrangement?

Certainly, it should not be persecuted, condemned or attacked, but that’s different than saying that should it be enshrined as a social institution over and above say, heterosexual cohabition. From a social science perspective–at least at first and maybe even second glance–there is little differenve between these two types of relationships (gay relationships and heterosexual cohabiting couples).

Why favor one over the other?  Why not just make everyone who lives together “married”?   A case could easily be made that gay marriage advocates don’t go nearly far enough in their advocacy for the extension of marriage rights.

Feelings…Nothing More Than…Feelings…

As I stated at the beginning of this post, Vice President Biden commented that he feels comfortable with the idea of gay marriage.  I’m happy for him, but the case for or against gay marriage ought to have nothing to do with how anyone feels about it.

What kind of a basis for civilization are feelings for heaven’s sake?  Mental health professionals are constantly fighting an uphill battle trying to get people to stop building their personal lives around their damn feelings.  Shouldn’t we have at least the same standard for, I don’t know, civilization?

Preferring to support traditional marriage in favor of gay marriage can be is not necessarily an argument against the dignity of homosexual persons, or a statement of homophobia, or even religious zealotry.  The case for preferential treatment of heterosexual couples in a lifelong, committed relationship is not primarily a religious one.

It is primarily a historical and social science argument.  The battle should be waged on those grounds, not the shifting sands of competing revelation and sentiment, no matter how sincere either might be.  There may be a case to be made on the grounds of social science for same-sex marriage, but that, by and large,  isn’t the argument being advanced.

Even more than a call for civility, I would like someone to start calling for sanity and social science to inform the debate–front and center–on this critically important social issue.

Nu?  It could Happen…

Perhaps asking people to think about research, facts and history is too much to expect around such a hot topic, but even though gay marriage isn’t really a religious issue, as the religious guy around here, I would like to think I could still believe in miracles.

For Further Reading…

For readers who would like a much more thorough and much better-articulated version of what I have presented here, I highly recommend David Blankenhorn’s excellent work in  The Future of Marriage.

Gay couple’s hands photo available from Shutterstock.

Christianity teaches us that everything we have; our talents, our treasure, even our minds, bodies and spirits, have been given to us as a gift that we are to use to work for the good of others.  Every one of us was created with a specific purpose in mind.

God has a plan for your life and we can discern God’s intention for our lives by asking ourselves, “How can I use my gifts, talents, experience, heart, mind and strength to make the lives of the people around me better TODAY?”

People-of-Faith often struggle with the concept of self-esteem.  It just seems too self-aggrandizing, too inwardly focused. But recognizing that we are God’s gift to the world doesn’t mean that we glorify ourselves.  It means that we glorify God by recognizing what incredible wonders he can do with the limited resources we give him to work with.  The person of faith finds himself–and a connection with a healthy sense of self esteem–by making a gift of himself.

Today, glorify God by living more abundantly and asking yourself how you can be a gift to someone you know.

Questioning woman photo available from Shutterstock.

In the interview, we share a bit about our life, our kids, and what it really takes to raise children who can be authentically loving, responsible, joyful adults.  We had so much fun with Lisa Hendey that we thought we’d share it with our friends at Faith on the Couch.

Join us for a chat!

Q: Please briefly introduce yourself and your beautiful family to our readers.

Hi! We’re Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak. We direct the Pastoral Solutions Institute, an organization dedicated to helping people find faith-filled answers to life’s tough marriage, family and personal questions.

Through the Institute, we direct a group, pastoral tele-counseling practice that provides over 8000 hours/year
of ongoing psychotherapy/counseling to couples, families and individuals around the world.

Together, we host More2Life Radio, a call-in, Theology of the Body based advice program that airs M-F, Noon-1pm Eastern across the US on the Ave Maria Radio Network.  Between us, we’ve authored over a dozen books (including  Parenting with Grace, For Better…FOREVER!, and Holy Sex!) on different life-application topics that integrate cutting-edge psychological insights with solid theology.

Our mission is to help people live more abundantly by applying their faith to every aspect of their life and relationships.

In addition to our speaking, writing, broadcasting and counseling ministries, Dr. Greg serves as adjunct faculty for Franciscan University of Steubenville in both the Psychology and Graduate Theology Departments.

Q: I’d love to hear a bit of background on how you and Lisa met, and how you found your way to your current vocations?

We met when we were both students at Franciscan.  Within a month of beginning to date–although Greg hadn’t yet(!) proposed–we’d reserved the chapel on campus for a tentative wedding date (just in case!)  We were pretty sure where things were going to end up right from the beginning (although both of us couldn’t have been more surprised at the time). Greg proposed on our second month anniversary!

Everyone thought we were crazy–and of course we were.  We got married the day after graduation in the Spring of 1989. It was the best, craziest thing we’ve ever done and it’s just gotten better from there.

Q: Congratulations on the relaunch of your newest book Beyond the Birds and the Bees — what’s new in this new edition of one of your classic works?

The new Beyond the Birds and the Bees is completely revised and updated. This book is not just about fostering healthy sexual development, it’s really about what it takes to raise moral kids from the ground up–birth through young adulthood.

In the last ten years, there have been some remarkable developments in two areas that impacted the original book.  First, so many more people have learned about the Theology of the Body.  While the first edition of the book drew from TTOB, this edition is much more TOB integrated.  We really show parents what it means to raise children who don’t just understand TTOB as a concept, but who know how to live it in their bones.

Second, brain science has helped us understand what it takes to train a child’s “moral brain.”  Everyone wants to raise kids who don’t just know right from wrong, but who can make great, healthy, moral decisions on-the spot, under pressure, even when mom and dad aren’t looking.  Parents can do a lot to train their children’s “moral brain” to do just this.  The techniques and ideas we present in the book not only make parenting easier, they make it possible for your kids to completely internalize and “own” your moral values on an emotional, relational and neurological level!

Beyond the Birds and the Bees isn’t just a guide for the moral education of your kids, it’s a guide to help parents form the next generation of authentic, whole and holy, moral persons–kids who will have the strength and courage to bring the world to Christ through the example of their lives.

Q: What do you hope parents will take away from their reading of this book?

First, that it’s possible to raise strong, loving, responsible, moral kids in this crazy world.  Parents don’t have to be afraid of the world.  God’s grace will prevail–not just at the end of time, but right here and now in your family and in your kids’ lives.

Second, effective moral training involves much more than giving your kids good, faithful information.  It involves training your child’s brain to use that information in the moment, under pressure, when you’re not around to make them behave. Kids can’t just know the right thing to do, they have to feel it deep inside in their neurology and muscle memory.  Drawing from TTOB and brain science, we show parents how easy it is to raise moral kids from the inside out!

Q: With your own children growing and maturing, what words of wisdom would you offer to parents of young children who are just beginning to discuss theology of the body issues with their little ones?

We are seeing the fruit of Beyond the Birds and the Bees in all our kids, but especially the oldest.  They have such incredibly healthy views about faith and relationships that it, frankly, blows us away.  The approach we advocate in Beyond the Birds and the Bees works even better than we’d  ever dreamed possible thanks to God’s grace. We couldn’t be happier with the fruit its bearing in our children’s lives.

When the first edition of Beyond the Birds and the Bees came out we believed that we were presenting the best moral training resource available for parents and kids.  Now, we have the life experience that really proves it. And not just our lives, but the stories of so many other moms and dads who have shared the fruit of this approach in their own families.  The fact is,  with God’s grace and the ideas we share in Beyond the Birds and the Bees, parents really can raise amazingly faithful, responsible, moral, and loving children.

As far as specific advice, in the short space we’ve got, we’d suggest three things to parents.

First,  BE. NOT. AFRAID.  Yes, the world is scary.  Yes, there are lots of things in the world that threaten to pull your kids away from you and from God and from a moral path of life.  But we have a faith against which even the Gates of Hell cannot prevail.  There is no reason to fear what the world thinks it has to offer.  As Christians, we have the truth of what it takes to live a life of authentic freedom and real joy rooted in God’s all-consuming love.  Beyond the Birds and the Bees will show you how to make this possible in your kids’ lives.

Second, BE POSITIVE.  Traditional Christianity is NOT the wagging-finger “Church of No” that everyone has been led to believe it is. Traditional Christianity is a positive option. It is the path to a joyful, loving, authentic life.  When you talk to your kids about morals, don’t focus on what they can’t do, focus on what being a moral person enables them TO do; namely, be genuinely free, joyful people who have what it takes to creates relationships founded on a love that the rest of the world can only dream of.

Third, BE A MENTOR.  If you want to be effective at forming your children,  you cannot be a scold.  You definitely cannot be aloof.  If you want to pass your values on to your kids, you must maintain the kind of strong relationship that makes them want to ask you your opinion on life, the universe, and everything.  Your kids have to feel it in their bones that you love them if you want them to really internalize the lessons you are trying to convey.

The embodied love you demonstrate to your kids and the investment you make in knowing their hearts makes them not only receptive to what you are trying to teach them, it actually makes them want to ask you to teach them and follow what you teach!  Parenting should be a discipleship relationship.  Christian parents are, first and foremost,  mentors for Christian living.  Beyond the Birds and the Bees shows parents how to create the kind of loving mentor relationship with their children that makes kids genuinely receptive the gifts parents want to give them in the form of their faith and values.

Q: If families have not made this a priority with children who are teens, is it too late for them to make this a priority? How would you advise them to begin prioritizing it in their homes?

It is never too late to become your child’s mentor.  In fact, teens need their parents to mentor them more than any other group of kids.

To start, begin by getting regular one-on-one time with your teens. It doesn’t have to be a ton of time, but it has to be regular and fairly frequent.  Mentors and mentees need time to foster their relationship.  If you’re just beginning to create this kind of relationship with an older child, you will need to back off the lectures and lessons for a while.  Concentrate on winning their hearts back.  When their hearts are open, then you can start to teach the lessons that will last a lifetime.  You won’t have to argue.  You won’t have to pressure.  You just have to lead with love and courage.  Beyond the Birds and the Bees will show you how.

Q: As a parent, what have your children taught you that has impacted upon you spiritually and professionally?

That relationship is everything.  It’s really what St. Paul says in Corinthians, you can speak with the tongues of angels or have the wisdom of the ages, but if you don’t have love–the kind of love that you don’t just acknowledge but can feel in your bones– it all amounts to nothing.

Q: Please share with our readers about your professional practice and your radio show.

We’ve really been blessed to see how so many people’s lives have been transformed though the work of the Pastoral Solutions Institute.  Our motto is “building a Civilization of Love by helping people find faithful answers to life’s difficult family, marriage and personal questions.”  It has been such a blessing and an honor to see this happening everyday in the lives of our clients and callers to the show.

It can be extremely difficult to find a faithful place to turn to help when life gets tough.  We’re pleased to be able to offer people an oasis of healing and encouragement that allows them to really begin to experience the love God wants us all to live.

If folks are interested in learning about working with a faithful, professional, counselor, they can contact us through the website at www.CatholicCounselors.com or give us a call at 740-266-6461

For anyone who would like to tune in to More2Life, our radio program that airs every weekday from Noon-1pm
Eastern, you can check your local Catholic radio listings (if we’re not on in your area, ask your station to pick us up!).  They can also listen to our online simulcast, via podcast, or via the AveMariaRadio IPhone and Android
apps, all of which can be accessed at www.AveMariaRadio.net

Kids at the park photo available from Shutterstock.

The interview itself is fairly wide-ranging, but apparently the most shocking and surprising thing for the editors of CNN.com is that the Dali Lama (and perhaps, gentle reader,  you should sit down for this)…

…finds women attractive!

(The headline, as of this writing, is “Dali Lama Interview: Women alluring?  “Yes.”  I can just imagine the shock in the press room.  “STOP THE PRESSES BOYS!  WE GOT US AN EXCLUSIVE. Women are attractive?  Well, Damn! Whooda thunk it?!?  Thank heavens the Dali Lama pointed that out for us.”)

Why is it surprising to people that religious people in general, and celibates in particular, experience sexual attraction?  In Buddhism, bramachariya is the practice of monastic abstinence from sex.  It is done, not out of a hatred for sex or sexuality, but because there are certain things even more desirable than sexual union.

For the Buddhist, that thing which is more desirable is enlightenment.  Simply put, Buddhism teaches that sexual intercourse makes it difficult to quiet the mind and to pursue the detachment that is necessary for true enlightment.

Likewise, for the Catholic priest or religious sisters or brothers, celibacy is not a condemnation of sex.  It is a positive witness to the world of two things.  First, celibacy points to the Eternal Wedding Feast that is Heaven.  The celibate person is a reminder to the world that there are delights beyond that of the body and those delights are so profound, they are worth making sacrifices to attain.

Secondly, the celibate is free to serve the whole world wherever and whenever he or she is needed in ways that a married person simply cannot do.  That doesn’t make the priesthood or religious life better than marriage.  It just makes it more versitile.

Regardless, no person takes on celibacy because they don’t have a sexuality. Every human person is sexual.  Even religious persons.  Even religious persons committed to a life of holiness and service. The celibate person still experiences attraction to others.  But the celibate learns to channel that generative energy into those activities that lead to, well, holiness and service. (For a wonderful reflection on the positive understanding of sexuality and heaven that celibacy points to, check out this article–Is There Sex In Heaven– by Boston College professor Peter Kreeft)

Obviously, celibacy calls for incredible self-discipline, but that’s the point.  Some things are worth waiting for.   In their own ways, albeit to somewhat different ends, Buddhist monks and nuns, and Catholic priests, brothers and nuns all exist to remind the world that there are deeper mysteries that we are all called to encounter in our own way and those mysteries are worth making sacrifices for.

Which brings us back to why I always chuckle when I see articles like the one from CNN that inspired this post.  The surprising thing isn’t that the Dali Lama experiences sexual arousal from time to time–he is a human being after all.  The truly surprising is that unlike most of the rest of us, he is able–like all healthy celibates of any faith–to view sexual energy as a catalyst for transcendence instead of viewing it as a pressure that must be released.

As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (“God is love”), properly understood, “Eros tends to rise ‘in ecstasy’ towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.”

The celibate doesn’t renounce sex.  He or she announces that by harnessing the sexual impulse, a deeper mystical, and even nuptial union with both the Divine and all of humanity is not only desirable, but possible.

To discover how you can take sex to a deeper more meaningful level in your life, check out Holy Sex!  by Dr. Gregory Popcak

Buddhist monk photo available from Shutterstock.

He was referring to the premium Christianity places upon being willing to sacrifice oneself for the good of others. Like many people, he confused co-dependency with what is more properly called,  “redemptive suffering” and there’s a big difference.

One way to think of redemptive suffering is to view it as the suffering you endure when you stand up for what is good and just.  Imagine that I do something wrong and you–charitably–tell me about it.  Even if you were kind about it, you might suffer because I might be upset with you, and I might suffer because I’m being challenged to change.  But that suffering is redemptive because you are strengthening your backbone and I’m getting a chance to be a better person.

But co-dependence represents an unhealthy counterfeit of redemptive suffering.  Codependency is what happens when you suffer because you’re too afraid, tired, or worn down to stand up for what’s good and just.

Let’s use the same example.  Imagine I hurt you, but this time, you don’t say anything  because you just don’t want the trouble.  You’ll suffer, all right, but that’s not redemptive suffering.  If this tendency takes hold over the long haul in an unhealthy relationship, it becomes co-dependency,  and there is nothing virtuous about it.

Whether you are a believer or not, there will be times when you are challenged to sacrifice your comfort, security, or peace, for some greater good.  Knowing the difference between co-dependence and redemptive suffering can spell the difference between a worthwhile sacrifice and one that’s wasted.

Suffering man photo available from Shutterstock.

In the famous words of Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Unfortunately, this happens way too often in marriage.  The one we love tells us exactly what it would take to make him or her happy, but instead of doing what we’ve been asked to do, we do only what we want to do and we pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. Then, if our beloved has the nerve to get upset, we pull the old, “I can’t do ANYTHING to make you happy” routine.  But if we had to be completely honest with  ourselves, the truth is, we never really tried.

Jesus says, “He who has ears, let him hear.”  (Matt 11:15).  Well, most of us have the capacity to hear, but we lack the will to listen.  Today, when your loved one speaks, open your ears. Listen. If you do, you’ll be taking the first steps to learning how to really love.

For more information on how to really love your spouse, check out For Better…FOREVER! and other resources by Dr. Greg Popcak

Cupped ear photo available from Shutterstock.