This is one of the most courageous books I have read ever. It confronts the failure of many Christian evangelicals and congregations to truly mature with joy. Scazzero blames the failure on our refusal to allow God to deal with our emotions, saying that spiritual maturity is impossible without emotional maturity. He details how our theology can negate the validity of our emotions and how that theology has allowed many of us to perpetuate the flawed emotional habits that we learned from our families of origin. Not only that, he makes an eloquent case for Christians to incorporate reflection and other spiritual disciplines we tend to associate with monasticism into our personal walk to allow space in our lives for true integrated emotionally healthy spirituality to emerge in each of us. He emphasizes that we are the objects of God's lavish love, indeed that we have been adopted into His family. Then he provides the counterpoint quoting Richard Rohr: "Life is hard. You are not that important. Your life is not about you. You are not in control. You are going to die." This book has teeth and Christians who want to grow should consider reading it.
Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality 2006
Thursday, December 2, 2010
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