NEUROTIC GUILT IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
Faulty religious concepts can be injurious, and this is
why religion can crush the human soul as well as liberate it. A
religion that creates the wrong kind of guilt is a case in point. To
be sure, there is a necessary and genuine guilt, but there is also a
false and unnecessary guilt, which we shall call neurotic
guilt.
The right kind of guilt feeling is necessary to
happiness and maturity, while the wrong kind leads only to misery.
Jesus was careful to evoke only genuine guilt, which led to
meaningful repentance and a continued life of self-improvement. The
Pharisees, however, by way of false emphases and wrong concepts
produced an abundance of neurotic guilt. They made people feel guilty
for the wrong reasons. Even worse, they let the proud and arrogant
feel that they were free of guilt. This is always the way of
legalism: those who should feel guilt the
keenest bask in the false security of a self-assumed righteousness,
while the less guilty are reprimanded for the slightest deviations.
In order to understand neurotic guilt one must be able
to see its underlying causes. Let us see how it works:
First, a sense of guilt is experienced when we fail in
some cause with which we are identified. Failure suggests
inferiority, which may take the form of guilt feeling. Feelings of
inferiority and guilt are further intensified when a person is
identified with an individual or group that is always accomplishing
so little. This is especially true when the group, such as a
congregation or an entire brotherhood, is so boastful of being right
and scriptural and yet has to settle for a poverty of vision and
results. When there is such a gulf between the claims made and the
results realized, the sensitive soul is disheartened. He experiences
feelings of futility, if not downright worthlessness. As for the
insensitive and proud, they can go on in their blind stupidity,
unaware that their perspective is narrow that they falsely equate
sight with vision. Such ones always rationalize their failures.
Throughout our history as a brotherhood we have too
often preached and practiced (or tried to) a system of legal,
meritorious justification. We have not always been conscious of this,
but we have nonetheless been guilty of legalism. And herein lies our
difficulty, and herein lies the cause of neurotic guilt among us.
By legal justification we
refer to the idea of an infallible interpretation of the Bible, along
with an infallible knowledge and practice as necessary to salvation.
People who think in terms of an infallible interpretation of the
scriptures are slow to learn two important truths: (1) that all
error is not necessarily sinful; (2) that all
truths, while equally true, are not equally important.
The Church of Christ has stressed human achievement in
attaining salvation, and as a consequence has virtually ignored the
grace of God. We have even indulged in “playing God” in
that we have taken so much upon ourselves. A man that can save
himself does not need a Savior. This idea we have of meritorious
dogmatic achievement practically dethrones God. We have a kind of
“scoring test” on doctrinal issues that one must pass in
order to be approved by “the general”, and then by the
herd and then perhaps by the Christ — and in that order! In terms
of the larger brotherhood the doctrinal “exam” demands a
100 per cent passing grade, whether in terms of cups, classes, Herald
of Truth, or what have you. The moral “exam”
is a different matter, however, for one can be a cheat, or a
drunkard, or a fornicator and still get along among our many
congregations, who appear willing for moral issues to be taken care
of at home. On moral matters
we practice congregational autonomy! But when it comes to doctrinal
issues the local churches certainly cannot “give their own
exams and grade their own papers.”
When it comes to “doctrinal soundness” and
“conditions for fellowship” we are plenty rigid, but in
matters of human decency and morality we are as loose as they come.
We have replaced the grace of God with a system of works, and for
integrity of life we have chosen a cheap morality. It is true that
truth and accuracy are important, and we should be thankful for any
truth we may have, but we are never justified in our arrogant claims
of infallibility. This succeeds only in producing a grinning pride in
some and a neurotic guilt in others.
“No man can justify himself before God by a
perfect performance . . .” (Rom. 3:20 — Phillips) We should
be able to breathe easier once we see that a “100 per cent ism”
is not demanded. Paul goes on to ask, “What happens to human
pride of achievement?” His reply is: “There is no room
for it.” Then he jolts us with: “The whole matter is on a
different plane now, believing instead of achieving.” (Rom.
3:27 — Phillips) This shifts both the emphasis and the principle of
operation, for he asks: “Are we undermining law. . . Not at
all. We simply place law in its proper place” (3:31).
It is here that the Church of Christ believes
differently than Paul in that it teaches meritorious achievement in
salvation, which no one can possibly attain, and which God would not
accept if we could. This legalistic emphasis in the Church of Christ
has produced untold disappointment, frustration, fighting,
inferiority, and neurotic guilt. The harder we have tried to be right
about everything the more has been our strife and division. And it
will always be this way so long as we attempt to live by a
meritorious legal system.
Why is this true? Because of the law of reverse effect which binds humanity as surely as does the law of gravity. The law of reverse effect asserts that when one desires to do a thing and continually finds himself unable to do it, the harder he tries the more impossible the task becomes.
Our idea of salvation by merit not only runs counter to
the scriptural teaching of the grace of God, but it actually puts us
in opposition to God. This is why our feelings of futility and guilt
are manifold. The harder we try to live up to our distorted view of
what is right, the more helpless and defeated we feel. Thus we have a
brotherhood full of neurotic people who are afraid to live and scared
to die. It is indeed pathetic!
Take for an example the boy who disobeys his father and
then repents. He comes to his father for forgiveness, which is
readily granted. The son makes more mistakes, coming to the father
each time for forgiveness of his wrongs. In time the father shows
instability and irritability, and gradually becomes unapproachable.
It appears to the son as if the father now avoids him, moving back
from him as he approaches. In the first encounters the son found the
father approachable and helpful and easy to find; but now he appears
faraway and difficult to find. This frustrates the son, making him
feel guilty and resentful.
As the son intensifies his efforts to get through to
his father, he only meets with further failure. The harder he tries
the more difficult the task. This all adds up to neurosis, for “the
harvest of conflict is neurosis.” God is either our full-time
ally or a part-time enemy! God, of course, never backs away from us
as a parent might a child, but a legalistic understanding of God’s
dealings with man would make it so appear.
The Church of Christ has created a sort of “fireman’s
ladder” which must be climbed for salvation. The rungs of the
ladder include (1) infallible doctrinal interpretation, (2) exact
items and acts of worship, (3) the rigidity which demands a 100%-ism
and which is always stiffened by a quoting of “Whosoever shall
keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all”
(James 2:10), and (4) the exactitudes that run from compulsory Bible
school attendance and handing out tracts on Head Coverings and
Institutionalism to long lists of do’s and don’t’s,
always backed up by the quoting of “To him that knoweth to do
good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” The way we use this
verse it creates lots of neurotic guilt!
To further stress that the Christian life is a most
trying and exasperating task we have greased the ladder. And so many
of our people find themselves climbing four rungs of the ladder and
sliding back six rungs. God becomes increasingly inaccessible. The
Christian life becomes a grappling and grasping experience that has
little hope of peace, poise, and power in the human soul. We will
forever be on this merry-go-round of frustration unless some of our
thinking changes. We must learn the meaning of the love of God and
the place of mature trust. We must shift our emphasis of a “what
we know and can do” to a “what God can do with us.”
Until that day comes we will forever be racing our motors, spinning
our wheels and getting nowhere.
Our neurotic guilt is further evident in what we shall
call fault and concealment, which
constitutes a double burden. This is the case with those who know
they should speak out on certain matters, but do not do so for fear
of the brotherhood, concealing their true feelings. Preachers are
especially suffering from this kind of repressed feelings of guilt.
They realize that it is their duty to say what they truly believe,
but they dare not, lest they be “cast out of the synagogue.”
Guilt feelings result.
We have all heard something like this: “While I
wouldn’t say this publicly, I will tell you. . .” Such
ones are trying to operate with the brakes on. They are frustrated
and nervous rather than free men. This explains why many are rising
up against the “paralysis by analysis” of legalism. They
are tired of being enslaved to a system that follows the herd
instinct, ruled over by men who so often know far less than those
they seek to control.
One important factor about all this is that nothing
is as powerful as an idea when its time has come. Perhaps
that hour has come.
All that we have said points up one sober fact:
neurotic guilt is caused by the failure to be oneself. The fear of
the judgment of others keeps us from being ourselves. We must rise
above this fear of others by realizing that we are responsible for
what we do not say as
well as for what we do say.
To be free men we must speak out! The false self cries to us from
within, “Conform, Conform.” And yet there is the cry of
the true self to be free and honest. So long as this conflict obtains
there will be frustration, mental stagnation, and even spiritual
infertility. These are the fruits of forced conformity within a
forced religion.
Our brotherhood’s bickerings have resulted in a poverty of love. Just as parental fussing causes children to feel unloved, so does the fussing among preachers cause people to feel further from God. This whole scene of Church of Christ people, who so badly need God’s grace and love, but who appear unable to accept it and enjoy it, is a pathetic spectacle. — The Editor
(Adapted)
Certain it is that work, worry, labor and trouble, form
the lot of almost all men their whole life long. But if all wishes
were fulfilled as soon as they arose, how would men occupy their
lives? What would they do with their time? If the world were a
paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey,
where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any
difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or
there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end
mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to
accept at the hands of Naute. — Schopenhauer