Skip to main content

Godly Love Impediments Possibilities

Godly Love:      

Impediments 

& Possibilities

By

Matthew Lee

& Amos Yong

Reviewed by

Geoffrey W. Sutton




The possibility of linking godly love to measurable outcomes intrigued me. As a psychological scientist teaching research methods and psychology of religion, I was eager to examine developments in this emerging field. The titles of two journals in my discipline (Journal of Psychology and Christianity, Journal of Psychology and Theology) focus on  ways that Christian faith and scientific knowledge can be integrated.

In Godly Love: Impediments & Possibilities, Amos Yong’s introduction offers an historical context relevant to both volumes. The interest in godly love has been inspired by social scientists affiliated with the Institute for Research on Unlimited love. These scientists and affiliated colleagues trace at least part of their heritage to work on altruism by former Harvard University sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin. In recent years, sociologists Margaret Poloma and Matthew T. Lee explored how the experience of godly love links to compassionate and altruistic outcomes. 

Yong explains godly love employing a quote from Lee and Poloma’s 2009 definition, “the dynamic interaction between divine and human love that enlivens and expands benevolence (2).” In the ten chapters that follow, thirteen scholars from theological, philosophical, and scientific perspectives analyze factors that mitigate or catalyze the manifestation of godly love.

Philosopher Craig Boyd considers impediments to godly love in the light of traditional human vices. He suggests the value of studying the classic concepts of virtues and vices and ends his essay with a nod to the recent research on positive psychology. Stephen Post assesses the tradition of human love and calls for ways to explore the possibility of God’s unlimited love in contrast to the ways humans limit their expressions of benevolence at tribal boundaries. In the early days of the classic story of American Pentecostal experience, two nascent phenomena were evident. People crossed the color line and gender equality emerged. Kimberly Ervin and James Bowers assess the early flourishing of godly love and its demise linked to the negative influence of the general culture on the Pentecostal experience. 

Ethical Encounter Theology is a worldview offered by Martin Rice to examine scientific and theological perspectives, which when integrated with ethics, promotes insight into factors facilitating or impeding godly love. Michael McClymond employs the case study method to find lessons of godly love in the life of Christian mystic, Madame Guyon. Confronted with imprisonment and the threat of torture, Guyon was sustained by inner peace derived from her relationship with God. After examining the sharp criticisms and alleged implications of her life, McClymond considers the importance of ambiguities when people encounter the divine.

Ralph Hood, Jr. and Paul Williamson offer a psychological perspective based on research among Pentecostal communities that suggests a reframing of experience can remove impediments due to rigid interpretations of sacred texts. Julie Exline examines the psychology of personal struggles, which can interfere with the experience of godly love. She suggests the importance of revised beliefs as a pathway to spiritual maturity, which may increase a person’s capacity to love others. 

Lee takes us in a different direction by examining impediments in society to godly love resulting from American traditions of justice, which employ punitive notions of justice and lack restorative value. He argues that a shift to restorative justice would facilitate the activity of godly love in the context of rehabilitation. 

Drawing on field research and extant literature, Robert Welsh and Michelle Owaka examine the impediments to godly love associated with dominance of one group by another. They examine the specific effects of white privilege and its attendant problems of stereotyping, racism, and diminished morality on the lives of those controlled by unloving power hierarchies. Tapping the spirit of liberation and following Jesus’ example of crossing cultural boundaries, they suggest ways to allow godly love to flow within the lives of those so entrapped. 

The process by which religious movements grow into social institutions and the impact on godly love is analyzed by sociologist, Michael Wilkinson. His study examines the powerful experience of participants in the 1994 Toronto blessing and the subsequent challenges of the leaders to sustain renewal. Soaking prayer is one example of a spiritual and God-focused practice that offers a way for believers to continue the connection between divine love and benevolence.

Matthew T. Lee & Amos Yong, Godly Love: Impediments & Possibilities. (New York: Lexington Books, 2012)

Related Book: Forgiveness Reconciliation and Restoration
 Available on AMAZON and from the publisher Pickwick/ WipfandStock












Connections


   My Page    www.suttong.com
   My Books   AMAZON     GOOGLE PLAY STORE
   FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton
   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton

Publications (many free downloads)
  Academia   Geoff W Sutton   (PhD)     
  ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton   (PhD)


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Denial of Death and the Meaningful Life- Book Review

  The Denial of Death   by Ernest Becker A Review by Geoffrey W. Sutton The prospect of death, Dr. Johnson said, wonderfully concentrates the mind. The main thesis of this book is that it does much more than that: the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity—activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man.  — Ernest Becker, xvii I completed a recent reading of this old classic yesterday (13 December, 2015) because I was interested in Becker’s contribution to Terror Management Theory, which I find so helpful in understanding the ways U.S. leaders are publicly responding to terrorist activities. Becker’s ideas are more than forty years old and many have not withstood the test of time. However, his basic premise that we deny the reality of death in many ways remains valid
3 comments
Read more

A Christmas Carol offers lessons in Psychology and Faith A Book Review

A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens A Review by Geoffrey W. Sutton My copy of A Christmas Carol was a gift on Christmas day, 1963. Two Christmases before I had walked the cold, fog-laden, smog drenched streets of Old London with my dad whilst my mother visited with her family. It was a grey day and a grey week. We took turns warming parts of our body by fireplaces here and there. After five years in the U.S. we had returned home to London on the occasion of my maternal grandmother’s death.  Dickens’ story paints a familiar tale textured by my early memories and enriched today by having watched my favourite rendition of A Christmas Carol ( 1984 ) with my wife on Christmas eve. My interest in reviewing the book is not just for a pleasant walk about the old streets of London but I'm motivated by a sense of appreciation for the poetic and colourful artistry with which Dickens plumbs the hopes and fears of humanity. So, follow
Post a Comment
Read more

WILLPOWER Setting & Reaching Goals- Book Review by Sutton

WILLPOWER Rediscovering the Greatest    Human Strength By Roy Baumeister & John Tierney Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton I go to a gym, which is crowded in January. Regulars know the early Happy-New-Year commitments to fitness will weaken sometime in February. Roy Baumeister has spent a good part of his career studying self-control. His book, Willpower   written with Tierney,  entertains and informs us with an organized set of findings explaining factors that influence self-control. Two critical factors weaken our judgments: food and sleep. We need glucose and sleep to be at our best when it comes to making wise decisions and marking progress toward our goals. A pretty woman can loosen a man’s grip on his career--we hear these news stories from time to time as one political group takes aim at each other's leaders--men who failed at sexual self-control and sadly blame women for their lack of self-control. Fat shaming happens. T
Post a Comment
Read more