Dan J. Brennan

A Sad Story: When Psychology Destroys Christian Friendship

When I became acquainted with them, one could almost say they were at the peak of their ministries.  They were respected authors.  Even though each had their own respective ministries they were close friends and partners in the ministry.  They worked together.  They did seminars together, they went to the same church together.  They had thousands of people on their mailing lists, buying their books from all over the world.  They would hold these week long conferences where almost 1,000 people would come and absorb their mature wisdom on coming out of relational brokenness, codependency, homosexual and lesbian behaviors, sexual and relational addictions, etc.  They would each speak several lectures during the conferences.  They were the archetypes of mature, seasoned Christian spiritual guides helping those who were struggling with relational brokenness.  They had blurbs on the back of their books from respected authors like Os Guinness, Dallas Willard, Paul Vitz, and Andy Comiskey.

At these week long conferences, there were book tables filled with all kinds of books dealing with relational brokenness, addictions, boundaries, codependency and then the author's own books.   I had gone to three of the conferences in consecutive years. 

The fourth year I went, one of them was missing.  He was nowhere to be seen.    Furthermore, the book table where hundreds of his books would be waiting for eager buyers during the conference was now filled with other books.  In fact, his books were nowhere to be seen at any table.  What happened?  Where was he? 

I have some reflections on the sad story of Leanne Payne and Mario Bergner.

Leanne Payne: The Healing Prayer Model

"The unique intimacy that comes with praying for other's healing holds great power, and we must manage that power wisely" (Rick Richardson, 197-198)

My life has been greatly impacted by the ministry of Leanne Payne.  I am deeply indebted to Payne.  My progress in fighting with self-hatred, my sense of who I am in Christ, my experience of incarnational intimacy with the Lord and others, for that and much more, I am grateful for the Lord has used her.  This post and possible subsequent ones under this title, is some of my thoughts concerning the healing prayer model in her books and ministry.  Much like my other recent posts, this is a conversation about healing, prayer, wholeness, and intimacy. 

7 Insights from Leanne Payne Pt. 6

There is a real opportunity to pursue the fullness of incarnational intimacy with the Lord and others at any given moment in our journey.

There's no way I can do justice to this insight from Payne, but I do save the best for last.   There is so much radical hope here, that is not offered by so many of the pop Christian psychologizers, by the pop evangelicals offering their own principalized version of spirituality, or by the pop charismatics. 

Christian brother or sister, if you are struggling with inadequacy, inferiority, shame, rejection, self-hatred, anxiety, addictive behaviors, narcissism, symptoms from sexual abuse or brokenness, lust, emotional dependency, relational disconnects, marital disconnects,  etc. incarnational intimacy is your deepest need and your deepest hope for healing.

It's spiritual formation 101, 201, 301, and 600 and higher. 

Incarnational intimacy is my way to describe what I believe Payne is after when she talks about "practicing the presence of God." 

"I have learned to instruct people, as soon as temptation strikes, to invoke the Presence, saying, 'Come, Lord Jesus,' and then to practice the Presence of God, with, within, and all about them.  In this way, they immediately get themselves centered; they abide in God" (RCS p.21). 

"But to acknowledge the God who is really there is actually a form of prayer, a way of praying always as the Scriptures exhort us to do" (HP p.25).

"This is sure and absolute, for in the Presence of God the Father, when we learn to listen and obey Him, we are affirmed as real men, real women, real persons" (HP 61).

"We alone have a Savior of the deep mind and heart, One who descends into it and becomes righteousness, its sanctification, its holiness.  Faith, knowledge, love, moral conduct, apostolic courage, hope, prayer, completion: all have to do with Christ in us" (HP p.135).

"Fixing our eyes solely on Him, they climbed up and out of the old center of self and into the new center, which is His presence living in them" (HP p. 82).

"those of learning how to practice the Presence of Jesus--the discipline of always calling to mind the truth that He was with her whether or not she could see or sense Him in any way.  Thus depending wholly upon Him, she would learn to hear the words from God that the Spirit sends, and these would replace the old negative words of self-hatred and destruction.  She came to posit her identity in Him (as all Christians need to do), and knowing herself to be God's child, would begin to love and accept herself and others aright" (Broken Image p.19).

I could multiply these quotes.

At the heart of practicing the Presence is the practice of incarnational intimacy.  Payne stresses one of the three great barriers of Christian and spiritual wholeness is a  failure to forgive others.  I want to suggest something that I learned from Payne.  If she didn't intend it, well, I still picked it up from her!  I learned that deep forgiveness, real forgiveness comes from incarnational intimacy.  It doesn't come from the theological principalizing about the theory of forgiveness.  You can hear lectures and read great theological chapters on forgiveness and how much we should forgive others because the Lord has forgiven us, but unless that incarnational intimacy is present, heart forgiveness is not coming. 

What the above quotations from Payne reveals is Christian spirituality comes out of incarnational intimacy--practicing incarnational intimacy, pursuing incarnational intimacy, with the Lord and with others.  This is what Jesus was all about with His Father: incarnational intimacy.  He practiced this, He pursued this in the wilderness, in the mountains, when He was depending upon the Father, praying to the Father, pouring out His heart with the Father, He was modeling to us, incarnational intimacy.

Incarnational intimacy is not cheap, or superficial.  There is one aspect of intimacy that goes by faith--it calls to mind those realities one cannot see--the solid and real presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It can passionately acknowledge powerful Christian realities which are at the heart of intimacy in the Christian narrative.  Surely the presence and power of the atonement are intimately real.  Payne talks about the intimacy of the cross as it were, when she talks about the fact that the cross is not static, but an ongoing reality (Real Presence; chapter 8, Healing Presence; 13 among others).  So many Christians see the cross--especially evangelical Christians have this "static" view of the cross, where it never enters the intimate depths of their soul.  It just stays in the realm of the intellectual compartment of the soul.  Payne shows the the intimacy of the cross--and one aspect of incarnational intimacy is getting in touch and vulnerable with the intimacy of the cross with our wounds and sins.  This is one of the reasons why this insight is so priceless.   

At the heart of spiritual formation and healing is this central aspect of incarnational intimacy.  But in Payne's vision of practicing the Presence, it is more than just recalling these things and bring them into mind.  It is more than just a simple excercise of memory recall.  It is a choice, an act to enter into intimacy with the Lord--there is a deep sense in which Payne follows the ancient practice of lectio/mediatio/oratio in the present moment--the "divine reading" as it were--is the recollection in your mind in the present moment of those great realities like, the Father is in Jesus, and Jesus is in the Father, and I am in Him and He is in me. etc.  Then there is the inherent meditation and meaning of those realities you call to your mind, and then there is petition from those, with a listening heart, a listening and humble posture, ready to hear the Father's voice of affirmation, ready to hear the Spirit's assurance, ready to hear the Lord's correction. 

This is incarnational intimacy at any given moment in our journey.

Listen to Payne's picture of this incarnational intimacy: "In this kind of relationship we cease to look for signs or some sort of sensory proof of His Presence and begin to rather delight ourselves in Him.  We practice His Presence with us as we read the Scriptures, as we pray, as we ride in our cars, as we move through our duties and our play.  We do not reprimand ourselves if we forget, but rejoice in the remembering once again" (Broken Image p 131)...To begin to 'keep in view' the great Unseen Real (Transcendent and Immanent) is to begin to practice the Presence of God, and this is our single most important discipline" (p. 130).

Watch what Payne describes takes place in this incarnational intimacy: "In the Presence, conversing with Him, we find that the 'old man'--the sinful, the neurotic, the sickly complusive, the seedly old actor within--is not the Real, but that these are simply the false selves that can never be rooted in God.  We find that God is the Real and that He calls the real "I" forward, separating us from our sickness and sins.  We then no longer define ourselves by our sins, neuroses, and deprivations, but by Him whose healing life cleanses and indwells us" ( p. 135).

So, at the heart of this practicing the Presence in Leanne Payne is the incarnational intimacy of dancing with the Savior and Healer of broken and wounded hearts and relationships.  At any given moment, if we are experiencing shame, wrestling with self-hatred, hurting from a disconnect with the spouse, etc. we can can choose to enter into this practice of incarnational intimacy, a transforming and healing intimacy with the Lord.

Incarnational intimacy is at the heart of Christian spirituality and is therefore at the heart of deep healing of the soul and relationships. 

But it gets better--this is not a merely a self-help deal.  You are not stuck with this--the essence of Payne's ministry is the acknowledgement that the Lord uses others to help us to walk and pray into that incarnational intimacy!  This is where communal and incarnational intimacy intersect. 

This is insight from Payne is priceless.

7 Insights from Leanne Payne Pt. 4

Whoever does not accept himself is engrossed with himself.

Those of you familiar with Payne, know this is taken word for word out of Restoring the Christian Soul (p.39).  It's such a powerful insight.  It's powerful because it is a deep truth that describes all of us who have experienced relational and/or sexual brokenness.  It's powerful because it's succinct light illuminates for us our inward spiral and pull in relational give and takes, in relational dynamics attempting to get off the ground, in long entrenched relational patterns with our spouses, our families, our friends, our pastors, etc.  This powerful insight is at the center of disconnects with the Lord and with others. 

"When we hate the self, we in fact practice the presence of the old self; we are self-conscious rather than God-conscious" (RCS p. 32-33).   She observes, "I can be a Christian filled with the Spirit of God, but if I hate myself, the light of God is going to emanate through me in distorted ways.  I will still be seeing myself through the eyes of others around me, those who perhaps could not love or affirm me.  I will not be seeing myself through the eyes of God" ( RCS p.26).

The paradoxical bind and/or struggle for those who come to see this is as something true of themselves is that it is usually difficult for them to receive self-affirming intimacy from the Lord and others.  There is no one magic healing prayer which totally reverses this narcisstic wound and condition.  Payne is aware of this to a certain extent when she acknowledges there are "dear ones" who come to her or others and request "one more prayer" (RCS p. 28).

If you have experienced relational brokenness and/or sexual abuse, then the path to experiencing communal/incarnational intimacy with the Lord and with others comes through this truth about yourself and how it affects your intimate relationships --whoever does not accept himself is engrossed with himself.

Payne suggests that listening/healing prayer is the way to be healed of this.  I think for some that's true.   Payne suggests some kind of initial help from prayer ministers will enable the self-absorbed to break free from such self-hatred and spirals of inward descents. 

Having experienced growth and healing in this area myself as well as observing how others have been helped in my ministry I suggest three things and none of them pertain to professional therapy.  If you can afford therapy, it may be a good option for you.  However, I've seen the Lord work in my life and others through these "non-professional" means.  I've seen this turn around in my own inner life, in my marriage and in my close friendships.  However, I am not saying this is simplistic. 

1. Relational Prayer--not the isolated kind--but relational prayer that pursues what I call communal intimacy with a soul-caring friend or spouse. 

2. Pursuing intimacy in soul-caring friendships and/or small group community.

3. Growing recognition of your inner self when your inner world begins to inwardly spiral. 

7 Insights from Leanne Payne Pt. 3

Discern the difference between pursuing intimacy with the Lord and the intimacy of spiritual lust

There is intimacy with the Lord that is always worth hungering after and then there is an intimacy of spiritual lust.  This is one of those insights where Leanne Payne stands head and shoulders above so much of what one encounters in various churches and ministries where experiencing God is such a significant value.  This includes Christians who are recovering from what Payne calls a "head/heart split."  This kind of split involves a certain kind of church or ministry culture where the analytical reasoning kind of knowing trumps the feeling, intuitive, imaginative ways of knowing.  Christians who are "friends of emergent" will eventually, if they haven't already done so, have to work their way through this difference, because they highly value an intuitive intimacy with the Lord and others.

Payne, writing to a "pre" post-modern Christian audience was a significant presence in addressing this modern head/heart split among Christians.  Her writings are peppered with statements like, "It is easy to know, in apparent detail, the doctrines of the life in Christ without ever experiencing the life itself."  Again, "This split in most Christians is characterized by an acceptance of their conceptual knowledge about God as reality while they simultaneously deny the primary ways of loving, knowing, and walking with God.  These latter ways are more closely allied to intuitive knowledge, without which we lose the good of reason, the good of conceptual knowledge" (Listening Prayer 134).

There is kind of deep, holistic intimacy which is absent in Christians who focus on analytical ways of knowing the Lord at the expense of the intuitive.  It's not that they don't know the Lord, they just experience some kind of intellectual intimacy that rarely grows to a holistic and mature intimacy--with the Lord and with others.  Everything is centered around a propositionalist orbit.

But on the other side, Payne reminds us as we seek intimacy with the Lord and others, there is an emotionally driven kind of intimacy which is unholistic and immature, too.  In this kind of intimacy, everything becomes centered around an experience-centered orbit.  When that happens, it is driven by spiritual lust.

"It is a mistake to pursue experience, to desire 'high impact' encounters.  There is such a thing as spiritual lust.  Like the more physical lusts, we must uncover and deal with the motives behind it.  We may find, for example, a desire to prove God to oneself and to impress others.  We may find the type of unbelief or even ignorance of the immensity of divine reality that leaves us pridefully demanding to walk not by faith but by physical sight" (LP 143). 

She believes "we face an unhealed body of Christ that has a large population of adults who are narcissistically immature...this is a practice of the presence of the old self--the old nature--where one's feelings speak so loudly that they block out all else..what results is a subjectivity that not only blocks the way to listening prayer but substitutes for it" (LP 209). 

So from Payne's perspective, one may say there is a center of "unhealed" intimacy, an "orbit" of intimacy--emotionally driven.  If we don't have an awareness of these "unhealed" issues in our hearts, we pursue intimacy from with the Lord and with others with a spiritual lust.

7 Insights from Leanne Payne Pt. 2

Before I continue to the next point, I want to add a little more to the last insight under praying with and for someone is a practice of communal intimacy.  Although Payne acknowledges at various stages the need and wisdom for professional therapy for wounded souls, her ministry and writings focus on the concept of "healing prayer."  In my book, I am going to distance myself from that phrase but I am going to keep what I think is the most important dymanic embedded in that Payne's vision of healing prayer and that is what I am calling communal intimacy.   

Non-charismatics may not understand or embrace something like healing prayer but all of us Christians desire communal intimacy for communal intimacy is at the heart of Trinitarian spirituality.  There is a unique and special dyanmic that may, and many times, is present and accessible in the presence of God's community "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them" (Matt. 18:20). 

Over and over again Payne talks about the healing of souls that astonish professional counselors.  For instance, on one occasion she writes, "The psychiatrists and depth psychiatrists among us are amazed at how the word of the Lord comes, bypasses what would be for a person years of therapy, and brings healing--not just insight--into the problems."

Without being critical of the therapeutic profession (while simply acknowledging that the therapeutic model has strengths and weaknesses) communal intimacy, deep communal intimacy, is at the heart of healing any wounded soul, whether they have been sexually abused, or wrestle with self-hatred or anxiety disorders.  While we should acknowledge the value and the need for professional therapy, we should not underestimate the value, the significance, the power, and the spiritual authority rooted in the dynamic of communal intimacy--of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit reaching, touching, blessing, affirming and reassurring wounded souls through the presence of another, i.e. the presence of an "amateur" or non-professional. 

In a deep and complex way of intimacy, God has done this through the ages before professional therapy became so ubiquitous in the Western world, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 Cor. 1:3-4). 

This by no way means a simplistic call to a thin "charismatic" view of merely speaking in toungues and freeing wounded souls of depression--although that has happened and will continue to happen.  For some, God moves and touches that way--but the important dynamic that I want to unpack in my book is the relational intimacy that ushers in healing, perspective, and hope to the wounded soul in communal intimacy.  The instant healing or release model that happens sometimes in charismatic circles is "thin" when the model is pushed as a one-size-fits-all model for God to fit into.   

7 Insights from Leanne Payne Part 1

I was chatting the other day with a new visitor to our church.  We connected at Starbucks and talked about Anglican spirituality, the emergent conversation, Leanne Payne, and psychology.  He's a therapist.  Our conversation stirred me to blog on seven insights from Leanne Payne. .

I am sure there's more insights one can gather from Payne, but these are my top personal ones: