“Always trust your feelings.” 

This is one of the great “untruths” of our time. Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt penned a book last year entitled, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Even though this book isn’t written from an explicitly Christian perspective, it’s a thought-provoking work that deserves wide circulation. They address three great “untruths” and one of them is: always trust your feelings. 

I’m guessing this modern, American value isn’t surprising to you. We’ve been fed the message “indulge your emotions” for decades. It was only a matter of time before someone finally connected the dots. “If satisfying my emotions is good, then my emotions must be right.” 

Lukianoff and Haidt draw on ancient classics to demonstrate how radically different the mantra “always trust your feelings” is from centuries of previous cultures. Summing up writers such as Boethius and Epictetus, they state, “Sages in many societies have converged on the insight that feelings are always compelling, but not always reliable. Often they distort reality, deprive us of insight, and needlessly damage our relationships.”

While the Bible discourages stoicism (read the Psalms!), it also raises suspicion as to the trustworthiness of our emotions. (Numbers 13-14 and is a superb case study in our emotions’ ability to distort reality.)

But perhaps the clearest way to think of this is to look at the life and ministry of Jesus. If you grant that Jesus loved all people really well, then what do you do with the hoards of people who did not like the way Jesus loved them? There were times when Jesus frustrated religious leaders and even enraged mobs - to the point of them killing him. But he loved them well. This reality confronts us with an interesting disjunction: feeling loved and being loved are not the same thing.

It is possible for you to love someone truly, but they don’t feel loved by you. (If you’re a parent, you get this!) Understand that in a society that holds to the unwritten value of “always trust your feelings” such situations will be challenging to walk through because the charge is easily made: “if I don’t feel loved by you, you are guilty of not loving me.” This “emotional blackmail,” as one pastor describes it, is an unjust device.

The conclusion of the matter is relatively straightforward: we need something outside ourselves, outside our thoughts, outside our emotions, outside our cultural values to turn to in order to understand what love is and isn’t. We need God’s Word. We need to read it frequently, thoroughly, thoughtfully, and with a posture that says, “This is the very Word of God - each syllable is authoritative.” Only then will we be able to truly love and feel like Jesus. 
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We are addicted to outrage! There are days when I feel like I’m living in a foreign land. I scan the comments’ section or social media feed of a news outlet (yes, even this blog) and I’m jerked awake stunned over the intensity of rage that can result from the slightest provocation. How did we become such an angry culture? 

I’m not sure the name Stanley Fish will be all that familiar to you. Among other things, Stanley Fish is a literary theorist who subscribes to “literary pragmatism.” One of the primary pillars of literary pragmatism is the idea that “textual meaning is determined by the reader.” So if a reader is coming to engage with a text, how does that reader determine the meaning of the text? Fish answers, “The reader’s response is not to the meaning; it is the meaning.” In other words, “meaning” is not something I come to the text to discover, but “meaning” is something I come to the text to create. The intent of the author of that text is immaterial. The reader’s interpretation is final.

In the early 2000’s I had to spend a bit of time studying literary pragmatists like Fish. It was a very academic endeavor and I wasn’t sure how practical such study would be. After all, I didn’t actually know anyone personally who subscribed to “literary pragmatism.” But as a professor of mine once said, “Ideas are like rain - they start in the clouds invisible to the eye but finish on your front yard for all to hear, see, taste, touch, and smell.” I’m wondering if literary pragmatism’s influence has reached Main Street. How so?

Derald Wing Sue, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, coined the term “microaggressions.” He and several colleagues defined the term as: “…brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.” I’m happy to shout from the rooftops that we have historically marginalized groups who continue to face frequent acts of bias and prejudice. And this is a grave injustice. However, when Sue decided to include the term “unintentional”, he pushed over a domino that let lose a deluge of outrage addiction. Slights are now defined solely on the basis of the listener’s interpretation. “If I feel offended by you, you are guilty of offending me even if your intent was benign.” Assuming the worst about people and reading their actions as uncharitably as possible creates perfect conditions for outrage addiction.

From a theological perspective the crux of the matter lies in this: both literary pragmatism and Sue’s “microaggressions” grant sovereignty to the reader/hearer/receiver without any consideration given to the author or speaker’s intent. The reader, hearer, or receiver has become “God"...and therefore by implication, sinless.

First John 1:8 says, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." It would be unthinkable for the offended party to even consider her own personal sin playing a role in her own offendedness. But this is what Scripture teaches. The Christian community, where the full-orbed gospel is being taught, ought to be a counter-cultural outpost of "unoffendable" people.

“A person’s patience yields wisdom; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” - Proverbs 19:11
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Rest. You probably want or need more of it. You’re tired of the rat race. You always seem to be proceeding full-throttle. But resting…easier said than done? 

I spent some time reflecting on this over the holidays - which was a time of rest for me. Out of this time of restful contemplation came a couple of biblical truths that I think will help you rest.

First, God is ruler - you are not. In Hebrews 1:3, we’re told Jesus sustains all things through his powerful word. Jesus sustains all things. You don’t. Therefore, you can let go of some things. You don’t always have to be “on.” Do you realize that when you rest, you are making a positive declaration about God? You are saying, “God is ruler, I am not. I trust him to rule the universe and my life better than I ever could.” Whether or not you believe this is tested in your ability to rest.

Second, God is hero - you are not. When God reiterates the need for Israel to rest on the Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5, he uses his rescue of them from Egyptian captivity as the basis for it. You might think you need to keep going. Another person, another situation, another some-thing-or-other needs rescuing, but in reality, you aren’t the hero - God is. But when we rest, we make another statement about God. We are saying, “God is the hero of my life’s story. He does the rescuing.”

So before you go to sleep tonight, remember, that night’s R.E.M. is a reminder God is ruler and hero - you are not. Sleep well!
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