A Christian Psychiatrist Asks . . .
by Truman G. Esau, MJD.
T h e f a s h i o n in which a person relates to and deals with persons in authority is of vital importance not only to his own life but also in his relationships to others. Despite the demands for freedom in our time, the func tions of authority and the administration of authority are essential if intrapsychic and social anarchy are to be avoided. The individual and the group require controls from within themselves, or the law enforcement agencies of the culture will impose them from without. Within the last century there have been widespread significant changes in attitudes toward the patterns of authority within our culture. The church has all too often been molded by these changing patterns rather than influ encing the pattern themselves. This article will examine some facets of this interchange of the church with its culture in respect to the issues around authority and the implications of the same issues for the individual Christian. First, a few comments are in order on the changes which have occurred in this sphere in the last century. It seems that no area of life or thought today has escaped the questioning, probing inquiry into the validity of authority. The traditional bulwarks within which people have found safety have been significantly questioned. We once thought this would set us free but now are no longer so sure of this. What was once accepted with certainty in the field of physical science is now open to question. Many of the “natural laws” which were con sidered inviolable have been overthrown. The very ori gin of our existence, its nature, and the interrelation ships of all living and inanimate creation are inter preted differently from the established “ laws” of even a generation ago. This trend seems true of all intellectual pursuits. No one would question that similar changes have arisen in the arts. The canvas, music, and dramatic
arts have undergone such startling changes that they suddenly seem unrecognizable. Whether these changes are desirable is not the focus of our discussion. Rather we are concerned with the motivations and the implica tions of alterations. Before we examine the meaning of these reactions against authority in detail, consider the evident changes in our mores. Marriage, divorce, fashion, and adolescent behavior are vastly altered in today’s patterns. Our culture is in a state of flux, un certain about the validity of its sociological, psychologi cal, and spiritual heritage. The American home has suffered in the most dire fashion. The American parent all too often awaits his child’s growth into adolescence with a kind of helpless terror. There are those families who adhere to the former standards, but in today’s world the ability of an individual or a group to isolate itself from the main stream of life is sharply curtailed. To maintain an outlook on life which markedly differs from the surrounding culture is fraught with danger of dis ruption within the family as the children grow to ma turity. Group pressures seriously hamper this kind of noncomformity. To disagree with the cultural pattern is insufficient. The kinds of interpersonal relationships required to preserve a family pattern which is at vari ance with the cultural pattern are increasingly difficult to maintain. This brings the church and the Christian family into focus. Would it be too much to say that the average Christian family doubts its ability to withstand these cultural pressures? The dynamic, revolutionary character of the Christian idea is sufficiently thwarted today so that many seriously consider the activity of the church of little significance in our changing ways of life. This cannot be dismissed when we see the crisis patterns which emerge in the Christian young person as he matures in adolescence.
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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