For the last year or so I’ve been shifting my writing to EMBODIED FAITH, which is connecting spiritual formation and relational neuroscience.

More about me below…

Short Bio:

Geoff Holsclaw (PhD) is cohost of the Embodied Faith podcast, which seeks a neuroscience-informed spiritual formation. Geoff is also leading a DMIN in Spiritual Formation and Relational Neuroscience at Western Theological Seminary. He has also been an affiliate professor of theology at Northern Seminary (Lisle, Illinois) for the last 12 years, and a pastor at Vineyard North in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

Geoff is the author of several books, most recently Does God Really Like Me? Discovering the God Who Wants to Be With Us.

Longer Bio:

While a native Californian who lived in Chicago for 18 years (Go CUBS), I now live in Grand Rapids, MI.  I’m wonderfully married to Cyd (since 2000) and have two teenage boys (by the way, Cyd is a pretty awesome coach and spiritual director if you are looking for one).

Besides being a pastor, professor, and theologian, most of all, I’m just trying to work out my faith for the real world.

I serve as one of the pastors at Vineyard North in Grand Rapids, MI.

I’m a co-host for the Embodied Faith podcast on neuroscience, spiritual formation, and faith.

Cyd and I also wrote Does God Really Like Me? Discovering the God Wants to be With Us. Check out part of it here.

I also co-authored, Prodigal Christianity, with David Fitch, and wrote Transcending Subjects: Augustine, Hegel, and Theology (a version of my doctoral dissertation).

Please follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

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1) our culture is more aware/open about mental health issues so more people are getting help, overwhelming current resources?

Or, 2) our culture has raised the bar of social success so high that just about everyone feels they are failing (causing mental health issues needing attention)?

I generally hear from those in the church, who are coming out of a theological framework that eschews therapy, that it is #1.

But I read secular critics (who are psychologists and therapists) who think it is #2.

I bring this up to remind us of our social location, especially Christians who rightly want to make room in the church for being trauma-informed. The evangelical-fundamentalist church does need more mental health resources. But that is a subset of a larger cultural phenomenon.

So, we can still offer a critique of therapeutic culture—its values and assumptions…even its alternative gospel—by listening to secular critics of the sociological phenomena beyond the church.

The post Is the mental health crisis because… appeared first on Geoffrey Holsclaw.

Because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, we need to overturn this harmful equation of sex and salvation with a gender hierarchy.

In this LIVE Q&A with Dr. Beth Felker Jones (Thursday, March 9th (1pm EST), we will talk about…

• the recent outrage over the article “Sex Won’t Save You (But It Points to the One Who Will)”,
• its distorting and damaging theology,
• and point toward a better understanding of the goodness of sex, marriage, and the gospel.

ADD TO GOOGLE CALENDAR: http://bit.ly/3IZdkjO

Or set a reminder through Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqy3ilY1Vdg

Or through Facebook: https://fb.me/e/zAO03oLU

The post On Distorting Sex, Marriage, the Gospel (Live Q&A w/ Dr. Beth Felker Jones) appeared first on Geoffrey Holsclaw.

I find a disappointing irony in progressive Christian reticence, critique, and sometimes dismissal of revival, especially as it comes to thinking about the Asbury Revival (if ‘revival’ is a good name for it).

Down with Individualism!

On the one hand, most progressives critique the persistent individualism infecting conservative-fundamentalist Christianity, distorting biblical interpretation, church function, and mission. And I agree with them on that.

And we do need to recover a more social and communal understanding of the gospel, salvation, and the Kingdom!

I agree with this.

Down with Mass Hysteria and Social Manipulation!

But on the other hand, when it comes to understanding the Asbury Revival I see handwringing about the…

• manipulation of mass movements,
• social hysteria,
• youthful catharsis,
• social contagions,
• and collective effervescence.

I hear a persistent reframe that corporate spiritual experience can’t be trusted because it can be manipulated and that only personal, individual experience should be trusted (if that can even be trusted as an actual experience of God and not just some attachment longing…and I’m a big fan of attachment theory, as long as it isn’t used reductively).

So, which is it?

Is Christianity individual or social?

It seems that many progressive Christians are repeating the old Enlightenment dichotomy of private religion and public life (which is why I call it “progressive-liberalism”, because of the continuing parallels with older versions of Liberal (Enlightenment) Protestantism.

It seems the public work of social justice and peace work is properly social and anti-individualistic (which I generally agree with).

But it seems the spiritual life of worship, prayer, confession of sins, and of being “touched by God” are still part of the private life of individuals.

Can’t the Spirit be in the Sociology

…but not reduced to it?

I understand there is a kind of “revivalist theology” that is destructive of the true life of discipleship. It is a revivalism that looks for, even seeks to manufacture, movements of the Spirit. Long term this harms the true cultivation of life in the Spirit.

And I know there has been really harm and trauma caused by these approaches. And I’m grieved by that.

But we should be able to affirm that the Spirit moves in and through the sociology, in and through the movements of the masses, as a true work of the Spirit.

Revival is Messy: Weeping & Rejoicing

It always has been.

But if we are going to emphasize the social nature of discipleship as God-given and true, then that has to include whatever it is we call revival.

Any kind of revival led by the Spirit of Jesus should help us weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice (Rom 12:15).

• We weep with those who have been harmed, abused, and traumatized by revivalism and revivalist manipulation.
• We rejoice with those who feel a special filling, a special peace, and a special healing from the Spirit of God

Anything less is to fall into the old Enlightenment dichotomies of modern Christianity on the Right and on the Left.

For more on how classical evangelicalism united spiritual revival and social reform, download my Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

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Sign up for my newsletter and receive the FREE Does God Really Like Me? ebook.

The post The Irony of Progressive Critiques of Revival appeared first on Geoffrey Holsclaw.

I might have given the right information, but the…

• timing was wrong
• motivation was wrong
• approach was wrong
• delivery was wrong
• tone was wrong
• intensity (or lack) was wrong
• “wanting to win” was wrong

Being “technically right” is only half of what is going on.
It is only half of what counts as what “really happened”.

I was technically right but relationally wrong.

Cognitive and Affective Information = Human Reality

When it comes to “what really happened”, “what is really important about this“, and “what really matters”, we must unite

• the cognitive and affective information,
• the rational and the emotional
• the facts and the feelings

It is both that make human reality human.

Not Just the Relational

I’m not saying that cognitive, causal, logical, and linear information is unimportant.

I’m not saying emotions, feelings, and relationships are all that matter.

I’m not saying we can escape the process of thinking, analyzing, or arguing for the best way of understanding what happened, what were the causes, and what were the results.

But I am saying that the logical and linear facts go together with (but must come after) the social and relational feelings.

3 Steps for Being Relationally Right

Basically, you start and end with being relationally connected. And in the middle you add the cognitive information.

1. Start by affirming the relational/emotional context
   • “I can tell I’m feeling amped up about this conversation. This must be important to me.”
   • “I know that interaction we just had was hard/bad. This is what I could have done better.”
2. Convene the specific information, pattern, or facts about the situation.
   • “My understanding of what happened is that this happened first, then this happened, and then (etc). And it’s important to me because…”
   • “I feel this often happens because of “x”…”
   • “I believe this is what I said about that…”
3. Check-in relationally again
   • “How does that sound to you? Does that make sense?”
   • “How are you feel about me bringing up?”

How have you seen this work in your relationships (spouses, children, co-workers)?

IF YOU SAW YOURSELF in this (or you know someone who would) you probably have an avoidant-dismissive attachment strategy (which affects your relationship with God more than you think).

So, if you want to learn to attach to God beyond this avoidance, join our waiting list for our next learning cohort (coming in April).

See also: The Integration of Abiding: Feeling, Thinking, Doing

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I ask for what I desire:
that Jesus I would
know more intimately,
love more intensely,
and follow more closely

—Ignatius of Loyola,
The Spiritual Exercises [104]—

Two things have always stood out about this prayer.

I’m going to talk about the first one right now.
The second will be the next post.

Reflection #1: I ask for what I want

Throughout his Spiritual Exercises Ignatius regularly tells you to “ask for what you desire” or “ask for what you want”.

There is a funny contradiction in this.

First, I’m being told what I want…by someone else.
Second, I’m being told to ask God to give me what I want.

But you know what?

I hate being told to want something.

Don’t tell me what I want.
I KNOW what I want.
Not you.

Things like…

• I should want to eat healthier food.
• I should want to exercise more.
• I should want to empty the dishwasher instead of ignoring it and putting the dishes on the counter all the while hoping that someone…ANYONE…will empty sooner than later!

But I don’t generally want those things.

One Part of Me Talking to Another Part

But, on a deeper level, I actually do know that eating better, exercising more, and loving my wife by emptying the dishwasher are good for me (and others).

So one part of me (a more reflective part) wants it.
But another part of me (the more reactive part) doesn’t want it.

Check out How To Welcome the Parts Warring Within Us (Jenna Riemersma) on the Embodied Faith podcast

The genius of Ignatius is to help us talk to ourselves while talking with God.

Ignatius is helping us be honest about all the parts within us.

• To “ask for what I want” is to admit that I’m a divided self, double-minded, and easily distracted.
• To “ask for what I want” is to know that I’m often at war with myself.
• To “ask for what I want” is to name our weakness to want what is best for us, even when we know it.
• To “ask for what I want” is to confess that our heads and hearts are often confused and disoriented.

With a Little Help From Others

So Ignatius…

• is offering help,
• is guiding and directing us,
• is allowing us to lean on the journey of others

…so that we can unite our heads and our hearts, so we can want to want the greater things.

As Jesus say,

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Matthew 6:33

So learn to ask for what you want.
God might just give it to you.

I’ll post the second reflection on this prayer tomorrow.
If you know want to be at the mercy of social media sign up below (and get some FREE stuff).

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What if it was liberating and freeing for men and women?

What if the Christian sexual ethic was demanding self-control of men by freeing them from the inordinate and abusive sexual desire that was cultivated in (elite) men in Rome (late antiquity)?

What if the Christian sexual ethic was offering agency to women by allowing them to refuse the oppression of patriarchy through the freedom of celibacy/virginity?

Two Lines of Thought

Two lines of thought have me thinking about this. 

Re-evaluating Monasticism

First, there is currently a massive re-evaluation of early Christian asceticism and monastic life that shows it was not nearly as body-denying and repressive as commonly taught after Freud. Early monasticism took the body seriously, as a positive and negative place in which God is working out salvation. 

I’m thinking of something like

• “Glorify God in Your Body: The Redemptive Role of the Body in Early Christian Ascetic Literature.“
• The New Asceticism: Sexuality, Gender and the Quest for God by Sarah Coakley.

Why we are WEIRD

Second, the very important new book on The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, (by Joseph Henrich, Chair of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard).

He argues that the Church’s “Marriage and Family Program” (as Henrich calls it) ended up changing the psychology of the West by moving us out of tribal psychological practices (I’ll be reviewing this book more moving forward).

• Henrich’s summary of his book.
• And here is a review.

Is there something still to learn?

All of this to say, as shocking as it might seem, the counter-culture Christian sexual ethic changed the world.

And if that is so, perhaps there is something still for us to learn about the body, sex, sexuality, and spiritual formation.  

What do you think?

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Bottomline on Top

While continuing in local church ministry here in Grand Rapids, MI, we are jumping more full-time into resourcing and training the broader church.

Brief Backstory: A Dual Calling

Cyd and I have always had a dual calling in our ministry lives: one in and through a local church, and the other to the church more broadly.

• The local church calling has been expressed in over 15 years ministering in the suburbs of Chicago and the last 4 years in Grand Rapids, MI at a Vineyard church.
  
• The “to the church more broadly” has been expressed through my regular teaching in seminaries, writing books and resources, and podcasting. For Cyd this is through offering integrative coaching and spiritual direction, and other teaching and training opportunities.

But Covid, and church finances…

The pandemic, like for many churches, caused a radical change in finances.

While Cyd and I have been patiently exploring shifts in our allocation of time between the local church and other ministry opportunities, this fall our church needed to make some serious financial changes to continue moving forward.

As part of that process, Cyd and I volunteered to reduce our ministry hours at the church, even while continuing in pastoral leadership.

So we are jumping into the next thing about 12 months earlier than we thought! And without the finances already figured out.

What is the next thing?

We are moving toward more closely combining our ministry focuses around helping others have a vibrant Embodied Faith (stay connected by joining here).

You could think of it as helping people get unstuck in their spiritual lives through science-informed spiritual formation (yes…I just made that up).

• Our first combined expression of this kind of work was Does God Really Like Me? Discovering the God Who Wants to be With Us (only $11 @ Amazon [wink]). In it we combined a biblical & theological view of God’s presence with a neuroscience view of joy and shame.
  
• Currently, we are working on material that combines spiritual formation and attachment theory.

What Are We Doing…with all this free time?

Well, we are as busy as ever (probably more so).
We are focusing on three things for the next 6 months.

First, we are working to build out resources for an Embodied Faith. This will mean

• having Cyd join the Embodied Faith podcast, and adding short practices and meditations on the topics we talk about.
• creating resources and a learning cohort on “Attaching to God“.
• and creating some kind of online space for this project.

Second, we will continue building Cyd’s coaching work (because she is pretty awesome).

As an integrative coach, Cyd works at the intersection of

• integrate your body, emotions, and mind to feel grounded & wise
• clarify your purpose to feel more whole and free
• embrace your parts in order to be more aligned with your identity
• secure your attachment with God to increase resiliency & capacity

Third, we are doing some fundraising, and if needed, seeking part-time work.

We have always experienced that where God calls God also provides.

So, being confident in our dual-calling, we are seeking God’s provisions and opportunities moving forward…which is already happening through generous gifts and unexpected speaking opportunities.

The Wrap-Up…

So I guess get ready for more of my writing, resources, and learning cohorts to hit your inbox here.

And if you, a friend, or a corporate or church team could benefit from integrative coaching, please connect with Cyd.

And the best way to stay connected about all this is to join the Embodied Faith newsletter.

Blessings, Geoff

P.S. We are staying in Grand Rapids, MI for the foreseeable future. We don’t feel God moving us out of this place as we move forward.

P.P.S If you want to learn to attach to God beyond our anxiety and avoidance, please sign up for our waiting list (coming in April).

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This comes as a contrast to the opposite orientation that thinks more certainty equals more maturity. We could call this the more fundamentalist Christian view.

Sometimes we need both

• Sometimes we do need to be less certain about what we believe.
• Sometime we need to be more certain about what we believe.

Spiritual maturity is balancing both movements.
Not prioritizing one over the other.

This could be call the ancient Christian view.
Or what I like calling the embodied faith view.

My Certainty – A Demonstration of Love

For me, I’m becoming more and more certain of the demonstration of God’s love in the Son’s life, death, and resurrection (Rom. 5:8), applied to us in the pouring of that love into our hearts by the Spirit (Rom. 5:6).

And I’m certain this particular work of the Triune Father, Son, and Spirit — culminating in and through the humanity of Jesus, the crucified and raised Messiah, who is LORD — is not better redescribed in the impersonal language of “force”, “energy”, or “source” of love.

And I’m certain that I can’t know anything about this love or imitate it outside this concrete, lived, and embodied display of love of Father, Son, and Spirit.

To become less certain about these — even if I can’t fully explain the incarnation or the Trinity, in knowing the love that surpasses knowledge (Eph. 3:19) — would be to become less certain about love, making it a vacuous abstraction.

Posts in “Unsystematic Thought’s on God’s Demonstration of Love” Series:

• From Abstraction to Demonstration of Love (#1)
• While We Were Still Weak (#2)
• God Proves to Us (#3)
• On God’s Unique Kind of Love (#4)
• While We Were Still Warring (#5)
• Enemy Love as Forgiveness (#6)

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Sign up for my newsletter and receive the FREE Does God Really Like Me? ebook.

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But the gospel is clear that God is righting all wrongs, repairing all ruptures.

So let us never say that God is the cause of our suffering. But let us always say, hope, and know that God (the Father sending the Son in the power of the Spirit) IS THE CURE.

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