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AR 22:39 - Discernment for pagans
In this issue:
MARRIAGE - imagine counseling without reference to the concepts of sin and repentance or God's love and forgiveness
OCCULTISM - the trivialization of truth
WORD-FAITH MOVEMENT - The Economist suggests its influence in the White House is how big?
Apologia Report 22:39 (1,359)
October 26, 2017
MARRIAGE
"Why Happy People Cheat" by Esther Perel -- "For years, I have worked as a therapist with hundreds of couples who have been shattered by infidelity. ...
"In Mexico, women I spoke with proudly see the rise of female affairs as a form of social rebellion against a chauvinistic culture that has long made room for men to have 'two homes,' la casa grande y la casa chica - one for the family, and one for the mistress. ...
"Never before have our expectations of marriage taken on such epic proportions. We still want everything the traditional family was meant to provide - security, respectability, property, and children - but now we also want our partner to love us, to desire us, to be interested in us. We should be best friends and trusted confidants, and passionate lovers to boot.
"Contained within the small circle of the wedding band are vastly contradictory ideals. We want our chosen one to offer stability, safety, predictability, and dependability. And we want that very same person to supply awe, mystery, adventure, and risk. We expect comfort and edge, familiarity and novelty, continuity and surprise. We have conjured up a new Olympus, where love will remain unconditional, intimacy enthralling, and sex oh so exciting, with one person, for the long haul. And the long haul keeps getting longer.
"We also live in an age of entitlement; personal fulfillment, we believe, is our due. In the West, sex is a right linked to our individuality, our self-actualization, and our freedom. Thus, most of us now arrive at the altar after years of sexual nomadism. By the time we tie the knot, we've hooked up, dated, cohabited, and broken up. We used to get married and have sex for the first time. Now we get married and stop having sex with others. ... Our desire for others is supposed to miraculously evaporate, vanquished by the power of this singular attraction."
Perel summarizes popular thinking: "If you have everything you need at home - as modern marriage promises - you should have no reason to go elsewhere. Hence, infidelity must be a symptom of a relationship gone awry." Then she discusses "several problems" with this "symptom theory."
"I meet people ... who assure me, 'I love my wife/my husband. We are best friends and happy together,' and then say: 'But I am having an affair.' ...
"One of the most uncomfortable truths about an affair is that what for Partner A may be an agonizing betrayal may be transformative for Partner B. Extramarital adventures are painful and destabilizing, but they can also be liberating and empowering. ...
"In taking a dual perspective on such an inflammatory subject, I'm aware that I risk being labeled 'pro-affair,' or accused of possessing a compromised moral compass. Let me assure you that I do not approve of deception or take betrayal lightly."
One example of an affair that Perel gives illustrates "neither a symptom nor a pathology; it's a crisis of identity, an internal rearrangement of [someone's] personality. ...
"The quest for the unexplored self is a powerful theme of the adulterous narrative, with many variations. Priya's parallel universe has transported her to the teenager she never was. Others find themselves drawn by the memory of the person they once were. And then there are those whose reveries take them back to the missed opportunity, the one that got away, and the person they could have been. ...
"It seems to me that in the past decade, affairs with exes have proliferated, thanks to social media. These retrospective encounters occur somewhere between the known and the unknown - bringing together the familiarity of someone you once knew with the freshness created by the passage of time. The flicker with an old flame offers a unique combination of built-in trust, risk taking, and vulnerability. In addition, it is a magnet for our lingering nostalgia. The person I once was, but lost, is the person you once knew. ...
"No conversation about relationships can avoid the thorny topic of rules and our all-too-human desire to break them. Our relationship to the forbidden sheds a light on the darker and less straightforward aspects of our humanity. Bucking the rules is an assertion of freedom over convention, and of self over society. Acutely aware of the law of gravity, we dream of flying. ...
"Even after decades of this work, I still cannot predict what people will do when they discover a partner's infidelity. Some relationships collapse upon the discovery of a fleeting hookup. Others exhibit a surprisingly robust capacity to bounce back even after extensive treachery."
In the same example, Perel tells us: "It is not my place to tell Priya what she should do. Besides, she has already made it clear that for her, the right thing is to end the affair. She's also telling me, however, that she doesn't really want to. What I can see, and what she has not yet grasped, is that the thing she is really afraid to lose is not her lover - it's the part of herself that he awakened. ...
"'You think you had a relationship with Truck Man,' I tell her. 'Actually, you had an intimate encounter with yourself, mediated by him. ... I know that it feels as if, in leaving him, you are severing a lifeline to all of that, but I want you to know that over time you will find that the otherness you crave also lives inside you.' ...
"Our creative imagination seems to be richer when it comes to our transgressions than to our commitments. ...
"I don't condone deception, but I've also seen too many carelessly divulged secrets leave unfading scars. In many instances, however, I have helped couples work toward revelation, hopeful that it will open up new channels of communication for them. ...
"In the wake of devastating betrayals, so many couples tell me that they are having some of the deepest, most honest conversations of their entire relationship. Their history is laid bare - unfulfilled expectations, unspoken resentments, and unmet longings. Love is messy; infidelity, more so. But it is also a window, like none other, into the crevices of the human heart. ...
"It's far better to address these issues before a storm hits. Talking about what draws us outside our fences, in an atmosphere of trust, can actually foster intimacy and commitment. But for many couples, unfortunately, the crisis of an affair is the first time they talk about any of this. ...
"Every affair will redefine a marriage, and every marriage will determine what the legacy of the affair will be. Although infidelity has become one of the prime motives for divorce in the West, I've seen many couples stay together after the revelation of an affair."
Perel concludes: "These days, many of us are going to have two or three significant long-term relationships or marriages. Often when a couple comes to me in the wake of an affair, it is clear to me that their first marriage is over. So I ask them: Would you like to create a second one together?" Adapted from Perel's new book, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity [1]. The Atlantic, Oct '17, pp44-50. <www.goo.gl/XkBCdu>
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OCCULTISM
"A Pagan Framework for Discernment" by John Beckett, <www.goo.gl/pT7b8W> Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, and Coordinating Officer of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans -- begins: "We Pagans believe a lot of things.
"Oh, I know - 'it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what you do.' That statement isn't wrong, and Paganism's emphasis on right action over right belief is a very good thing. But still, we talk about a lot of things many people dismiss. ...
"Religious and spiritual ideas are notoriously resistant to proof, as our atheist friends like to remind us. But if we wait on absolute proof, we'll end up abandoning beliefs and practices that are meaningful and helpful to us. On the other hand, fundamentalists twist myths into history and deny established science to claim they have proof where no proof exists."
Beckett identifies "three major elements to Pagan discernment."
1) - Does it work?
2) - Does it conform with known facts?
3) - Does it make your life better?
In sum, "A belief is true if it works, if it conforms to known facts, and if it's helpful. ...
"We have an evolutionary urge to make everything black or white.
"But some things aren't black or white. Some things are complicated - perhaps so complicated we can't understand them. We do ourselves no favors when we oversimplify complex issues and situations."
Therefore, "there is little evidence that the Threefold Law and 'karma' work in the way many Pagans claim. If we want justice, we will have to work to build a fair and just society, and not count on the Universe to dispense justice in the way we wish it did. ...
"Our experiences may be so strong or so frequent we are certain our beliefs about them must be right, but if we are honest with ourselves, we can never be completely sure they are right.
"But we can ask ourselves if our beliefs work, if they conform to known facts, and if they help us lead better lives. If we can answer yes to these three questions, we can be confident that they are as right as they can be." Llewellyn Journal, May 15 '17. <www.goo.gl/MjF67s>
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WORD-FAITH MOVEMENT
How much weight does it carry in the American political sphere? The UK's Economist magazine finds that "the movement's influence on the religious right is hefty, and growing." This is the conclusion of an item titled: "Why evangelicals love Donald Trump" in the May 18 '17 print edition and which appears with the subhead: "The secret lies in the prosperity gospel." The piece begins with the observation that "the honorific [given President Trump] that most puzzles the world, perhaps, is that bestowed by American conservatives who praise the swaggering, thrice-married tycoon as a man of God. ...
"Sceptics have long suspected that conservative Christians - and above all white evangelical Protestants, who are among his most loyal backers - are embracing the president for a mix of reasons, including worldly politics and tribal loyalties. ...
"Some political scientists sound more like anthropologists than theologians when they dissect Mr Trump's success with whites who call themselves evangelical Protestants and attend church regularly - fully 80% of whom told a recent survey by the Pew Research Centre that they approve of his job performance. [P]iety is hard to untangle from other markers of conservative identity, from gun ownership to feeling the country is going to the dogs. ...
"Mr Trump's language is filled with echoes of a much-mocked but potent American religious movement with millions of followers, known by such labels as 'positive thinking' or the 'prosperity gospel'." <www.goo.gl/yHWYjx>
Then again, correlation is one thing, causation is quite another.
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, by Esther Perel (Harper, 2017, hardcover, 336 pages) <www.goo.gl/pG7oNx>
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