Archive of Self-Esteem
How did practical minded mainstream Americans buy into the “I have a right to do my thing” mantra of the hippies?
Americans have a reputation for being practical people, not philosophical eggheads. Yet, there is nothing at all practical about assigning the individual the right to do his own thing.
Common sense insists that doing so will result in chaos. For example, if you tell a college student that he has the right to do his own thing, do you think he will go to class? Do you think that instead he might get his girlfriend pregnant and then bail out on her?
This is precisely where that philosophy has led. We find the rubble all around us.
We understand why college students would buy into this philosophy. During those idyllic days with no spouse and kids to support and mom and dad footing the bill, it is not hard to choose between responsibility and fun. Give them a philosophy that makes doing their thing noble, and of course they will immediately grasp its profound wisdom.
But one would think that mom and dad would know better. Well, they did, that is until a psychologist named Carl Rogers came along.
Just as an aside, it seems that every society adopts its own gods. The Canaanites chose Baal, the Europeans, after rejecting Christianity, opted for philosophy. Americans, in our post-Christian pagan state have deified psychology.
As Isaiah demonstrates so graphically, idolatry is idiotic, making fools out of its followers. Philosophy has made fools out of intellectual Europeans. Psychology is doing likewise for Americans.
Rogers taught that we optimize ourselves as human beings by accepting ourselves unconditionally, i.e. feeling good about ourselves regardless of how bad we live. A bad self-image is the ultimate disease and unconditional self-acceptance is the cure.
However, we can only accept ourselves unconditionally if significant others accept us unconditionally. This means that allowing our kids to do their own thing will not turn them into unbridled hedonists, but will make them into psychological saints—wholesome, actualized individuals.
This belief that unconditional acceptance fixes broken people and makes them into the persons they were meant to be dovetails beautifully with the gospel denuded of repentance, described in the past two postings.
In the absence of repentance, the gospel is reduced to unconditional acceptance. Though this is an unbiblical message, in our culture shaped by the psychology of Carl Rogers it feels right.
Rogers taught us that unconditional acceptance provides the power to change and grow. The gospel stripped of repentance seems to be saying the God agrees. It seems the grace is synonymous with is unconditional acceptance. Salvation comes through a realization that God accepts me “just as I am.”
Change comes, not from repentance, but from this realization that God accepts me apart from any intent to change—even though I am living with my girlfriend, watching pornography, and smoking pot. As I experience God’s grace, His unconditional acceptance, I change will come spontaneously.
This is a life-changing gospel in the sense that it gives people freedom from guilt without change of lifestyle—sort of like spiritual Paxil offered free at your church pharmacy. This is not a biblical gospel and, as George Barna has demonstrated, the promised change in behavior is not occurring.
However, evangelicals are hooked on the message because it is extremely comfortable, fits well with secular culture, and sells well.
Evangelicals have sold a lot of this elixir to their Republican friends. Now these politicians know the God feels good about them regardless of self-serving pork and political duplicity.
Polls reveal that the American voters are not accepting them unconditionally. They may make it, but only because the political alternative is worse.
Make it or not, one can only hope that the voters’ ire will generate enough repentance-producing guilt to produce some change in their behavior.
The goal of the left is power. They are shamelessly obvious in their pursuit of it. Thwarting the will of the people through judicial fiat and holding our educational system hostage via the NEA represent just two liberal power grabs. A recent news report mentioned one California initiative approved by the voters that was held up in the courts for 10 years. Therefore, even though their political fortunes have waned, liberals retain a stranglehold on significant segments of our society.
The bad news is that when liberals impose their will on our society, they do not take responsibility for the resulting failures. Virtually everything liberals touch deteriorates, be it economics, education, or other aspects of society. Yet we never find them acknowledging the chaos they inflict. And because they have controlled the media and educational institutions, it is difficult to hold them accountable.
Practically every major psychological theory is a liberal idea. These are at root humanistic concepts, spawned and propagated by liberals, extensively in liberal academic institutions. One of the tragedies of our day is that conservatives, including evangelicals, have been taken in by liberal psychological concepts. This is especially tragic because these ideas have not been supported by valid research and had not proven to be effective. To the contrary, they have proven to be ineffective. Yet, as with other liberal initiatives, rather than admitting the failure for their ideas, liberals continue to promote them as valid.
In my previous post, I mentioned the destructive impact psychology has had on marriages. Psychology has also exercised a commanding role over our society’s approach to parenting, with similar results. In his book, A Family of Value, psychologist John Rosemond describes how psychology gained influence over the child-rearing process in our society and how badly it has failed. He goes on to share how ultimately he came to reject the psychological concepts he had learned. In so doing, Rosemond underscores both the influence and the failure of psychology in this arena. (John Rosemond: Cassette Tape Series, A Family of Value)
We find the same process at work in the field of education. Maureen Stout has described this phenomenon in her book, The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing Down of America’s Kids in the Name of Self-esteem. (Maureen Stout, The Feel-Good Curriculum; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Books, 2000) Her book makes essentially the same points that we have observed in other areas, that psychology has had vast influence and has produced negative results.
In the face of all of the evidence, we must conclude that major psychological theories when applied to various societal areas have been counterproductive. This is not to suggest that every contribution made by psychology is flawed. However, it does appear that whenever psychology provides the commanding theoretical position, the core concepts, the guiding principles, in a given area, the influenced area experiences decline.
Therefore, though some may argue for accepting psychology as science, as the product of valid research, it is best to listen to the old cliché that warns that the proof of the pudding is in the taste. The success or failure of a theory must be determined by the bottom line. And while the bottom line for the natural sciences has for the most part been highly favorable, the bottom line for psychology across the past number of decades shows a serious deficit balance. Since the psychological theory that has enjoyed the most influence in these areas is that of Carl Rogers, this warning holds special application to his concepts.
Thus, we must be cautious in labeling the findings of psychology as “truth.” We agree that all truth is God’s truth, but viewing the creations of the left as truth constitutes an expensive mistake. And if we are waiting for them to admit the failures of their psychological concepts, we should not hold our breath.
Is the therapeutic approach of Carl Rogers Christian? I had one conservative counselor and pastor tell me that Rogers had stumbled unwittingly onto an essentially biblical approach to understanding people and dealing with their problems. Therefore, he contended that though Rogers might be humanistic, his ideas were essentially Christian.
At least at first blush, this seems to be the case. Here’s how it all fits together.
As I described in a previous post, the essence of Rogers’ theory is that we need unconditional acceptance by significant others. As they accept us unconditionally, we can accept ourselves unconditionally—experience self-esteem “just because I’m me”. This, in turn, will enable us to develop into the person we were meant to be. Therefore, unconditional acceptance is the key commodity of life—to being a healthy person. It is the change agent. We are messed up because we don’t receive it. We get better when we do.
That understanding of human nature seems to dovetail precisely with the teaching of Scripture. Grace might be viewed as another name for unconditional acceptance, since it seems to refer to God accepting the individual apart from performance, hence unconditionally—in the words of the old hymn, “Just as I am.” Therefore, the central theme of the Rogerian approach turns out to be the central theme of Scripture. Grace and unconditional acceptance are essentially the same.
Scripture also runs parallel to Rogers’ theory in that grace (unconditional acceptance) seems to be the change agent in both. It is as we experience God’s grace, His unconditional acceptance, then we can accept ourselves unconditionally (enjoy self-esteem not based on performance), and become the persons that God designed us to be.
In my next post, I will show even more parallels between the Rogerian theory and evangelical Christianity. However, the similarities we have considered so far suggest that my pastor/counselor friend was right after all. Rogers’ theory is essentially biblical. In fact, the gospel is actually an improvement on, a completion of, Rogers’ theory. Rogers offers no basis for our unconditional acceptance. Evangelicals understand that we are accepted unconditionally, and we can accept ourselves unconditionally, through Christ. Therefore, the evangelical worldview is in essence completed Rogerianism.
All of the above makes perfect sense, seems perfectly legitimate, to the contemporary evangelical. These concepts are obviously correct and provide the heart of the contemporary evangelical worldview.
However, might it be that this seems so right, so self-evident, so intuitive because these concepts form the basis for our secular culture? In other words, might it be that because we have adopted Rogerian concepts from the secular realm that we so easily accept and synthesize them with a Rogerian version of Christianity? Could it be that what seems so obviously right to contemporary evangelicals might in fact be blatantly unbiblical? That is the topic for future posts.