Hope in an Age of Anxiety

[Music] foreign good afternoon and welcome to all of you joining us for today's online conversation with Curtis Chang and Kurt Thompson on Hope in an Age of Anxiety I'd like to thank Susan Larson who is generously sponsored to today's online conversation as well as our friends at Duke Divinity School who are serving as our co-host today we so appreciate you both and we're delighted that we have over 2500 people who have registered for today's online conversation we just so appreciate the honor of your time and attention I'd like to give a special shout out to the over 300 people who have registered for the very first time for a trinity Forum online conversation great to have you here as well as the more than 265 International guests joining us from at least 41 different countries that we know about ranging from Angola and Australia to Tanzania and Taiwan so welcome from across the miles and across the time zones if you haven't done so already you can let us know where you're joining us from in the chat box feature it's always fun for us to know where people are Tuning In from from all over the globe and if you are one of those first-time attendees or otherwise new to the work of the Trinity Forum we seek to provide a space to engage the big questions of life in the context of faith and offer programs like this online conversation to do so and to come to better know the author of the answers we hope today's online conversation will be a small taste of that for you today it was in 1947 that wh Auden wrote the Pulitzer prize-winning long poem The Age of Anxiety a work that proved to be prophetic as well as poetic today anxiety is the most widespread mental illness in the United States and even as we speak is significantly increasing in 2018 before the pandemic over 60 percent of American college students reported feeling overwhelming anxiety at various times and other Studies have shown that both depression and anxiety have risen by almost a third globally since the pandemic started other studies indicate that nearly a third of Americans will experience anxiety at some point in their lives and 20 percent of our neighbors are doing so even now for those suffering from the stresses and distortions of anxiety everyday life can be difficult and hope can seem elusive for people of Faith who have tried and failed to pray away their burdens or lay them down there may also be an added sense of spiritual failure as well but our guest today will argue that for all of its challenges and difficulties anxiety also presents an opportunity for growth Grace and wisdom in the words of one of our guests it is one of the most powerful opportunities for transformation we will ever encounter and the responding constructively opens the door not only to improved mental health but also to spiritual growth it's a provocative claim and a hopeful summons and to help us unpack and explore it I'm delighted to introduce two experts and insightful guests Curtis Chang and Kurt Thompson Curtis Chang is a non-profit leader consultant and Professor who serves as the executive director of the faith-based non-profit group redeeming Babel as well as the co-founder and CEO of Consulting Within Reach a firm serving non-profits and government agencies in addition he teaches strategic planning in American University School of International Service is a Consulting professor at Duke Divinity School a senior fellow at Fuller Theological Seminary and the former senior pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church in San Jose California as well as the author of the brand new not yet out coming out on May 16th book the anxiety opportunity which we've invited him here today to discuss joining him is Dr Kurt Thompson Curtin is a psychiatrist in private practice and the host of the being known podcast which explores the connection between interpersonal neurobiology and Christian spiritual formation he is I am very proud to say a senior fellow of the Trinity Forum as well as a sought after speaker and consultant we'd figured out today that Kurt has actually appeared more on our online conversations than any other guest so Kurt it's great to have you back and he's also the author of several excellent books including the anatomy of the soul the soul of Shame and his most recent work the soul of Desire discovering the Neuroscience of longing Beauty and Community Curtis and Kurt welcome great to have you here yeah it's great to be back of course if you've been just doing these online Converse conversations is that in every book there is not only a story within it there is a story behind it and so I wanted to ask you what led you to write the anxiety opportunity oh thanks Cherie for asking that question and I feel like this is a book that I was uh being prepared by God and by life to write um because one of the things that is true about me that many people don't know is that I am deeply anxious uh and I've been anxious for all of my life I grew up in the 70s and I grew up as a in in the Chinese American community and I grew up as an Evangelical so those three things if I had just one of those three things um they would not prepared me to identify and help me realize that I was anxious I think all three of those sort of communities uh at least you know back then uh didn't recognize anxiety especially childhood anxiety uh you put all three of those together and there was almost no chance that my childhood anxiety would have been recognized and named in any uh recognizable way so I grew up uh anxious by not even knowing it and not and other people not knowing it but really actually developing what some psychologists call highly functional anxiety where anxiety is present and is actually driving a lot of very functional behaviors like staying on top of things planning anticipating and so forth and that led to a fairly successful life but even highly functioning anxiety especially when it is not named and recognized and responded to uh healthily uh can become dysfunctional anxiety and that explains uh one of the items that you read in my bio which was you said former pastor of an Evangelical Covenant Church so the reason why there's a former attached to that title is because in my 40s my highly functional anxiety under the pressures and stresses of being a pastor became highly dysfunctional and I ended up having a catastrophic breakdown uh of including two weeks where I did not sleep at all because at least consciously because of anxiety and that led to that's why that's the former there on the pastor and so I know anxiety from the inside out from all of my life and if there's anybody that would I think uh have some ability to say yeah anxiety is a horrible problem we should try to make it go away I think I have at least some claim to to make that that point and yet the point of my book is to say that anxiety is not just a problem it is as the book's title says it is an opportunity that's why I wrote it as the anxiety opportunity and that the deeply Christian response to anxiety is one of deep hope because anxiety isn't just a problem it is has certainly problematic aspects to it but it isn't just a problem it is also an opportunity for profound growth you know of course anxiety manifests itself differently in different people um and so kind of as we start off sort of laying the groundwork to know even what we're talking about um Kurt I'd love to hear from you as a practicing psychiatrist oh what is anxiety and one of the things I have noticed in really both of your books is a link between anxiety and shame and so would be interested in your thoughts on how these two disparate things are are linked as well well I one thing I it really strikes me about just right out of the gate of our conversation is uh we we tend to think that oh there are people in the world who are anxious and people in the world who are not and the the real thing the question that I would be curious about is to what degree I mean I think if you're a human you're anxious the question is not am I anxious the question is what do I do with my anxiety in any way shape or form because fundamentally we I I would say that uh anxiety first of all um is an embodied experience that's the first thing I think it's important like we don't know that we're anxious apart from our physical uh experience of it now we might think it's oh it's just in my mind like my cognitive thinking but my level of distress that accompanies this thing that I call anxiety is something that I only experience in my physicality even if only in very very minor ways whether it's my you know uptick in my heart rate or its attention in my face that I often don't even know that I carry with me and so forth and so on so to be human is to be anxious uh that's the first I think the second thing is to recognize and this gets to Curtis's point about it being an opportunity um anxiety we we often claim that it is a problem uh when I'm talking with patients I describe anxiety as simply being a signal um if I'm cooking bacon in the kitchen and the smoke detector goes off which it frequently does if Kurt is cooking bacon in the kitchen uh I don't like it I don't I like what just please stop I don't need your yapping I'm just cooking bacon it's not it's not on fire I'm just cooking bacon I don't like it but it is actually doing its job and so when we are anxious what we're really saying when people think like my brain isn't working well because I'm this anxious I want to say actually your brain is doing exactly what it should be doing under the circumstances in which it finds itself the question is are you aware of the circumstances under which you're living and so from a neurobiological standpoint it is this sense that it's a signal it's a distress signal and then I would say uh where I or I think you know psychiatry in the modern West doesn't really take this take this into consideration and this is where anthropology I think plays a huge role and I and I think that when you look at the second page of the Bible and you read that this first comment that it's not good for the man to be alone that ultimately anxiety is a signal that tells that is that is portending a catastrophic departure of connection with human beings now I'm not thinking this right you know consciously so forth but that's what my body that's what my that's what my sensing that there's something going on here the end point of which is going to be I'm going to be cut off and that sense of cut being cut off is this is the signal that's telling me I I really um I want to do something that's you know getting me back Connected people where shame plays a role is it's its unique uh it it's it's a unique uh physiologic response it's a unique cognitive response it's a unique uh like emotionally felt response that is related to anxiety and in some respects we might say is anxieties like nuclear option for us in terms of the particular felt sense of isolation me Turning Away From Myself turning away from you without the ability to reverse that process and so both interpersonally as well as neurophysiologically it's a signal that I would say is built into the system and when Jesus comes along and the sermon on the mountain says don't be anxious or be anxious he's not saying turn your brain off he's saying when the anxiety Comes This is what you're called to do it's the signal it's the opportunity that I think the Curtis is talking about you know it's so interesting to think about it as a signal and of course that sort of begs the question that what is going on and why is anxiety increasing so much um you're probably I mean social psychologist Jonathan height essentially said that when it comes to gen Z this is the most anxious and depressed generation in history uh you know anxiety and depression particularly among teen girls has um just significantly increased since since 2012. uh why does if anxiety is a signal why is it seems to be increasing so rapidly yeah I can jump on that I'd love to hear Kurt's thoughts on that um I would say there's two ways to answer that question and I liken it to answering the question why did Katrina happen right when you ask the question why did the disaster of Katrina happen you can answer it on two levels you can answer it on why did the storm build up as powerfully as it did and there's all sorts of high level complex atmospheric and climactic uh sort of factors that go in there and similarly with anxiety I think there are a lot of long-term structural societal factors in play that we can explore from the rise of smartphones to the rise of deep loneliness and social disconnection to go get to Kurt's point about the connection between anxiety and shame so there's there's a lot of high-level structural factors there's also another way you can answer the Katrina question which is why did the levees break why did the structures that we set up to prevent huge upsurges of atmospheric anxiety why did they not hold the line and that's really what my book is about because what I'm trying to argue and show in my book is that the ways that we have constructed especially in the Christian church are understandings our conceptual understandings and our pastoral practices and personal practices the levees that we have tried to erect conceptually and in practice have actually been deeply deeply flawed and that this upsurge is exposing the fact that of their deep flaws and that's one of the reasons why this upsurge of anxiety all around us is flooding into our lives with such you know damaging consequences and at the heart of that structural flaw is this belief that anxiety is just is a problem that we are supposed to make go away that it isn't a normal human condition the way that Kurt just described but that's actually a problem we have to push away and I you know liking it and I sort of categorized that there's really two main ways that Christians are tempted to make anxiety something that we make go away a problem we may go away one is we are taught to either pray it away or secondly we prescribe it away so the prayed away uh avoidance is that we're supposed to pray have faith uh that that categorizes anxiety as a sin in the extreme or as a lack of faith or as a character flaw so it's a problem we have to pray it away make it go away or we for in other Christian cultures uh maybe they don't go to that root but they will just say well it's a it's it's purely a secular mental health problem that we Outsource to secular mental health and we have it have them prescribe it away either through medication or through therapy now let me be clear I am a believer in medication and in therapy I myself have benefited from both of those things but I think as Kurt will will agree that secular mental health in the west has a strong tendency to pathologize anxiety into a mental health problem that they're supposed to just try to make go away and it isn't really well set up it's not it's it's not set up from its own fundamental Origins to treat it in the way that I think the I believe the Bible and Jesus's own life invites us to treat it which is not as a problem to make go away but precisely as a signal a signal an imitation what I call an opportunity an invitation to walk through anxiety to actually experience it in the way that actually we were designed to by God for spiritual growth in Jesus where we actually meet Jesus more deeply precisely in our anxiety it's not that we have to make anxiety go away and then finally then we're like qualified to somehow be with Jesus it's that actually in our experience of anxiety that's where we encounter Jesus most deeply and encounter our the truths about ourselves most deeply or to do anything to add I just think you know to Jonathan Heights Point uh when we talk about this particular generation 10 Z being more anxious and depressed um I I there there is a sense in which we would say oh this shouldn't actually surprise anybody uh in that we are kind of uh we're watching culture develop in a particular way such that the very way we then respond to anxiety by for instance pathologizing it or praying it away both of those tend to be ways in which we are actually avoiding the signal we're not really paying much attention to the signal now this is different than what happens when the signal is so strong that I absolutely can't function and therefore we're going to intervene with some kind of medical intervention this happens with patients of mine all the time um but what we're really saying to them in that instance is that what we really we really want to do is to provide your neurological system with a support until we can really help you begin to see that this is a signal that's trying to tell us something about your life and part of the challenge is that the way we have conceptualized and then approached our anxiety culturally and by cultural I mean in the church in the clinical community in culture in general the very ways that we approach actually reinforce the anxiety actually strengthen the signal that we then think is still the problem getting bigger because we still think it's a problem instead of so I'm like why do I have now why is the spoke signal in my in my bacon cooking kitchen louder when what I'm trying to do is just not pay attention I'm trying to get rid of the signal instead of getting instead of asking the question oh what's actually happening in the story what's happening with my body to what in what ways am I actually cut off have I stopped paying attention to Genesis 1 18 and then in my attempt to uh respond to my distress about being alone I do things that make me even more alone and so I think to Curtis's point in his in his beautiful book uh there is this way in which we're even thinking about the nature of it before we even get to what are we going to do we have to pause and just be aware that I'm telling the story about it in a way that is not actually consistent with the real world and so until I'm willing to pause and reconsider that as Curtis's book invites us to do uh it's going to be difficult because otherwise I'm just going to continue to want to repeat what I've always been doing and uh waiting for my brain to get to an even louder signal right that's fascinating you know Curtis one of the things I was really intrigued by in your book is you talked about the vital importance of naming you know of naming the voices in your head the stress responses in your body even the anxiety and different relationships um as a way of helping to differentiate uh one's anxiety from one's identity and um one of the things I notice a theme that could be inferred from your book as well is from yours kurd is the role that sort of deception and deflection can both play um you know in our emotional and mental struggles that um were either prone to kind of fuse our identity with our anxiety um which you kind of I think likened to Stockholm syndrome or to deflect it which has actually been linked to the rise in conspiracy thinking which I thought was just fascinating so I'd love to hear you say a little bit more about why naming anxiety is so important and how one begins that process of differentiating and naming our anxiety as a part from our either our core Identity or even external reality well this gets to how tricky anxiety really is as a as a thing we deal with in our lives because to picking up Kurt's point he's exactly right that anxiety is a signal we're supposed to pay attention to and one of the ways we pay attention to anything is by naming something uh it's like oh that's what that is that's the signal that's what and so the problem when we make anxiety a problem to go away is rather than actually facing it and naming it uh if we try to just suppress it or make it go away it actually grows louder and then it does this weird thing where it actually becomes us it enters us or we're tempted to to fuse with anxiety because we're not actually looking at it and naming and recognizing it as a phenomenon that is it somewhat in us but is also not exactly us uh it just it would become absorbed with it and this is where we this is the fusion that I'm talking about so one of the ways that we actually establish some ability to both recognize it but not fuse with it not get completely captured and hijacked by It Is by actually looking at it and naming it and I and for me I actually what's been really helpful that I write about my book is I actually name my anxious thoughts I I give it a name um because it's a way for me to establish some right direct recognition some understanding and also some differentiation so that I don't fall prey to this hidden hijack that happens and I really love Kurt's callback to Genesis in thinking about the basic human condition because what is what is the first human command that God gives us it's to name the beasts it's to name the animals and it's the way that we differentiate I am not a beast and I actually have some authority over the Beast um and so anxiety is like a mental Beast right that we actually it's it we are encouraged by God to actually give names to so I in my book I write about I I have a radio station in my head that I call K fear it's the reason so that's wait for me to recognize oh I'm playing that station I'm playing my anxious thoughts on and once I actually like tune in not become it but tune in kind of from an observer a listener standpoint I I discover all sorts of kind of insightful things like oh actually my anxiety which seems so overwhelmingly and complex actually plays kind of the same song over and over again for instance and once I can recognize that song I can start paying attention oh this is what this this song is that's what that signal let that radio signal is trying to tell me so I actually you know I give all sorts of different names to the station to the songs that my anxiety plays um and and it's it's a way for me to recognize yep I'm anxious I'm not trying to make it go away I'm not trying to pretend it's it's not fair but I actually have some Authority as well I can pay attention I can pay less attention I can turn the volume up turn the volume down I can't make it go away entirely because it just is a station in my head that's what it means to be human but I am not subject to it I actually have some authority over it yeah and I think I think uh to that point um even Curtis you're right when when our anxiety is not seen as a signal that we then turn toward and want to have a relationship with and then it becomes part of us and we be confused with it it leaves us in this place where I am my anxiety I'm by myself once again it's going back to this we're replaying Genesis 1 18 over and over and over again uh you know there the work of Richard Schwartz and internal family systems some of our listeners may be familiar with this has been a really helpful model in giving us the opportunity to consider that oh we have different parts of us I have the part of me that is a husband a part of me that's a father part of me there's a friend a part of me that a different the angry part of me the anxious part of me these different parts such that when I'm anxious it could be that I like you know Curtis I like I I I I I think I'm anxious because I think you're actually you have more anxiety than I do and I want to say that I think I'm more anxious than you are we could have a contest right right but I'm anxious about that but the sense that like I I I can think that I am anxious when what I want to say is there is a part of me that is anxious and there is a part of me that is anxious about particular things but as long as I am left alone with that I have a very difficult time differentiating my anxiety part from other parts of me and this is why our connection to other people is so critical where by which they can be curious with me about this and give me some distance between this this signal that's going off in my kitchen such that I am not the signal oh it's the signal that is in my kitchen but sometimes it's so overwhelming that I need someone else to help me look together at this signal and their very presence can reduce my anxiety enough to then look at it so that I can see it for what it really is rather than me thinking that is it the problem that is the pathology that somehow needs to be treated and gotten rid of as Curtis has been so rightly emphasizing you know that's um that's so intriguing and that one of the things that you both have written about is it not just in terms of like attention and movement but um the role that embodiment plays uh that just you know even moving our body much less moving towards other people that um and that currently we can start with you is this largely because it shifts our attention or is there something also just in terms of being more um you know present uh moving uh or relational that has such an effect on anxiety well I think that um again when we say that anxiety begins as an embodied experience and it and and and people with different researchers would differentiate between anxiety and fear for example um but there's there's a there's a hair breath difference between these things and I can be anxious about a range different things some of which feel overwhelming some of which are not that overwhelming uh when it gets to the point where it is overwhelming it really has crossed into a point where I can feel paralyzed I feel like I'm not moving and so the only way out is to move rather dramatically and so I avoid I I move by like like I don't pay any attention to the anxiety I'm just going to bury it I'm just gonna pretend it's not there or I move with any number of my different addicting idolatrous activities or I become paralyzed and overwhelmed by it but again uh if someone says I mean this happens all the time when we're in therapy and like you you think of therapy it's like oh you go into an office and you sit down and then but we we are frequently up on our feet doing things we are moving in the office and of course somebody's like what do I like why are we standing why are we marching in your office Kurt why are we marching this is weird I'm like okay well let's let's March in our weirdness for a little longer and then when they say now and now I want you to tell me what has become of your distress what has become of your anxiety locate it now and they recognize that movement changes not just my attention but it changes what I am doing with my body in the presence of someone else who is allowing my brain to know that it is now no longer alone with this so that I can begin to as Curtis says again name that I am anxious and then further name what is the story that I'm telling that is behind it you know Curtis going back to something you've talked about a little bit earlier just the the spiritual opportunity that anxiety provides um and you've talked a little bit about what that means for the people suffering from anxiety but of course when someone uh suffers from anxiety it's usually not just they who suffer um but also their their loved ones sometimes their colleagues and the like and would be interested in what you would say to those who live love or work with those struggling with anxiety and what if any uh what if anything you see is the the anxiety opportunity for them as well yeah well I write about this in the book and I think the audience I most want to speak to are the parents of anxious children the CDC just recently released reports that show 60 percent of teen girls suffer from very severe anxiety or depression 30 in the last year have considered Suicidal Thoughts so that's that's alarming statistic not only for the depths of suffering of those girls and and it's lesser for boys but it's still Rising for boys as well uh but also behind every one of those girls or boys of course is a parent who is the parent of an anxious child and if you're a parent you know that being the parent of an anxious child if you're at all where if you're at all facing the your own signal means you're anxious um and so you have in all of these families parental anxiety with childhood anxiety and so if if we don't have the correct way to think and respond to anxiety ID we're going to get into this horrible case where everybody's anxieties is paying off of each other an unknown and unnamed ways and I know as a parent when my child is anxious it's actually activating that that anxious self in me like the anxious child in me is getting activated and this is sort of just how parenting Works our our children kind of reactivate kind of our own sort of childhood experiences and because my childhood was raised in this chinese-american culture that really both shamed anxiety and tried to suppress it and say why are you so anxious why are you so anxious would be the response and and want to make me not be anxious uh that gets activated when my own kids are getting anxious I want to problem solve it away I want to make them not be anxious and really the driving motivation there for me that I've had to come to realize and this is part of another example of my own and spiritual growth through anxiety is as I've paid attention to my own parental anxiety I realize that you know it is of course some of it is concern for my kids but a lot of it is I want to I want to quiet and suppress my own inner anxiety and so and so when I go into this problem-solving mode where I'm trying to actually kind of make them feel less anxious by making it the problem go away for them um I'm actually acting quite self-centeredly and my kids actually pick that up they subconsciously realize hey this is no longer about me this is something something else they can't name it exactly but uh the term that we've named in the Chang household is it's when Curtis dad becomes consultant to Dad uh and that's when I just I'm in consultant mode with my kids and I'm just trying to solve their problems and I'm not actually making room for them I'm not actually being present to their true selves because I'm actually treating them like a consultant like a problem to solve and so I've had to learn the spiritual growth for me there has been to move from what I call consultant dad to grieving dad and grieving dad is just somebody that makes room for my kids pain and grief and rather than switching to problem solving mode I'm just trying to suffer with them and be with them in their pain uh so that's one example I think of how we move towards others in embodied fashion which is sometimes rather than intellectually solving a problem it is patting them on the shoulder it is giving them a hug it is nodding and showing physical symptoms physical expressions of sympathy and that that is what parents can offer their kids that no one else can offer is that deep parental unconditional acceptance that all of us all children crave most deeply from their parents especially especially when they are anxious and so more than and this is something that no medication no therapist no one else can offer that you as a parent of an anxious child what this is what you can offer them is you can offer them deep unconditional acceptance that as you move towards them and make room for their suffering their anxiety not trying to make it go away for them but actually being willing to be in it with them with them to accept them we often talk to patients who talk with us about their the distress that they have about their children and as we remind people that uh any human being's anxiety any distress my distress is always always ultimately about me my distress about my children is still always ultimately about me it's not only about me but it is always ultimately about me and so one of the reasons that we say that one of the most help the you know the most the single most helpful thing that we can do to create secure attachment in our kids is for us as parents to make sure that we're taking care of our own story that we are making sense of Our Own Story that we are responding to and resolving the anxiety about what's going on with me in order for us to then be a SP you know create that space that Curtis is talking about for our children so because our children can read oh I'm talking about all my stuff that's upsetting me and my dad's listening and he seems to be okay with this and what it trains our children to learn is that oh I can be okay with not being okay but I have to learn that by having an experience in which my not being okay is being received and giving me the space then to work through that and discover I can be okay on the other side of this that's great we're going to turn to audience questions there's so much more I'd love to ask you both but I see that our first question from Betsy Kodak and basically is along the lines of something I wanted to ask anyway so Betsy I'm going to embellish upon your question Betsy's question is what is the role of the church in serving an anxious world and what I want to just sort of Ladle on top of that is the fact that we know that anxiety is growing um we also know that pastors are increasingly anxious there was a bar in a survey that found that last year over 40 percent of pastors seriously considered leaving the pastor a job because of just the increasing difficulty within their their congregations and so would love really to kind of give both of your thoughts um and Curtis maybe we can sort of start with you on oh what the church not just the leadership but us corporately um as the body of Believers can do in uh serving the anxious both within the church and the broader world yes well this is why I wrote the book was because I think the church actually has the best most important answer to anxiety but it's it's gotten it's gotten it needs to get that it needs to reground itself on that true answer and uh this gets to uh at the existential level what is anxiety so the way I describe it which is very congruent with way that uh Kurt describes it is anxiety is about loss anxiety is about some feared loss we have in the future and most deeply at the center of it I agree with Kurt is the loss of presence within others it's the loss of relationship but there's other you know sort of other corollary losses loss of our self-esteem loss of our self-image loss of um Financial Security loss there's all sorts of losses that if we pay attention to the signal if we listen to anxiety at the heart of it is some feared loss right now if if any of our listeners our audience uh would could even do this exercise and just like name and anxiety that they're currently feeling if they drill down enough of it they would be able to name there's underneath it some loss that they fear and this is why the church actually needs to get the message right about anxiety because a message about anxiety is really a message about loss so if we're saying you cannot you should not experience anxiety anxiety is a problem to make go away you are saying to the world and to yourself This is the story that you're telling that you should not experience loss that that that's really what you're saying when you say you should not experience anxiety you should not experience because loss is anxiety and this is where this the Christian misunderstandings of the Gospel uh I think is is coming to the fore because too many Christians too many churches essentially teach that if you're a Christian you should not experience loss that God is some Cosmic insurance broker in the sky that is there to ensure us from ever experiencing loss and and this is the Prosperity Gospel or this is or other less sort of obvious versions of this and this is simply not true that actually the Christian message the church is meant to bring to the world is not God will save you from experiencing loss it's that God will accompany you through loss and on the other side is the hope the ultimate hope of Resurrection that's what the gospel is is that it's not you will never die in other words and death is the loss of all losses it's that no you go through death in and with Jesus and on the other side you participate in the resurrection promise of Jesus that all that we lose including all the people and relationships we lose are restored to us one day but that's a very different message it's a it's a totally different message to say in Jesus we go through loss and with the hope of restoration in the in the ultimate resurrection of all things the restoration of all things we have the hope of restoration that's that's a very different message than yeah just praying anxiety away and God will make sure you never lose anything that valuable in the world and so I think the church needs to re-ground itself it sounds simplistic to say but like on Jesus I'm the gospel I'm the one who himself experienced loss and by the way also experienced anxiety and this is why we know for definitively anxiety is not a sin because Jesus himself experienced anxiety as he faced his loss just read all the gospel passages of the Gethsemane passage they are they're so rich as a story of anxiety it's Jesus facing his loss experiencing anxiety and and by the way what does Jesus most want and most need in his moment of deepest anxiety and into somebody what does he most crave he craves presence with his disciples he wants his disciples to be with him right and so that's how we're supposed to go through anxiety is go through it with others and then ultimately in the hope not in the hope that as we go through it not avoid it not try to make it go away but as we go through it there is the Hope and promise of Resurrection which is the restoration of laws so our next question comes from Craig and I'm going to direct this to you Kurt and there's a couple of questions essentially on avoiding passing on anxiety so Craig M asked how can a very anxious parent not pass on his anxiety to or her anxiety to his or her children and there's also an anonymous viewer who asked what would you tell a newly married couple to consider if they want to create a household that is a Haven from anxiety well you know I think that both of these questions are related to the question that you just asked Curtis about the church the role of the church and and I would respond in in both of these to both of these the questions that you're posing to me now uh reflecting and there are a couple of passages that actually come to mind and and uh the first is the second sentence of the Bible because when we read that the spirit of the the world was chaotic and without form and dark and the spirit of God hovered over the Deep and God spoke and brought order and purpose that God is a God who is not afraid of distress God is a God who is not anxious about our anxiety God is hovering God is present God is with and he enters into those spaces uh for the purpose of he turns toward the anxiety he turns for the purpose of speaking and bringing order and purpose to those things and then you get to John's gospel with the middle of the farewell discourse and Jesus says I've said these things to you so that in me you will have peace notice he doesn't say so that now that you have this knowledge you will have peace now that you have this information you buy now that you have this correct theological understanding of the Gospel you will have so that in me you will have peace in not peace like the world gives in the world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer because I've overcome the world and to answer the question about what the church can do and what parents can do uh one of the things that we would say like we we are a very uh wordy people and we think that telling people things uh and giving them information is the place that we start and we like to remind people that the brain operates bottom to top and right to left I first I sense things and only then do I make sense of things of what I sense I first sense that I make sense of what I sense and so I need to have an embodied experience of being with someone who will with me turn toward my anxiety so to the parents I would say who are the people who are in your life with whom you are exploring your anxiety so that your children won't have to do that for you that's really what we're inviting them to do that's how you help your children not receive your anxiety you do the work of looking at it yourself the church as a whole as well it's not just preaching it from the pulpit it is also about what does it mean for us to provide like literally embodied contexts in which our stories are being so deeply told and told truly that we can name our anxiety and that we can have we we can be God's presence in the chaos and hover and be receptive to what's happening and to say tell me more about what's making you anxious and for you to have the experience of telling me about your anxiety and sensing that I'm not anxious about you being anxious let you borrow my brain which is what Jesus is saying to the disciples you borrow me you borrow this this world you got tribulation you borrow me you don't borrow a philosophy you don't borrow just a theological concept you're borrowing real embodied experience in the world as a way to create Beauty and goodness in the very space where chaos Reigns where you think oh nothing beautiful can come out of this who would have thought that in Genesis 1 2 beauty would have come out of the chaos but this is exactly what happens yeah Eureka if I could just add um that on a very practical note one way to put into practice everything that Kurt just said is to look for relationships and settings in your church precisely where you can do this naming experience so actually the precursor to my book was a small group curriculum of video based small group curriculum that I created on redeemingbabel.org this is the platform that I have for Distributing much of our content it was actually started as a small group course uh video based mug of course and it's still there but what we realized is that it's actually most helpful for sometimes for like the small group leader or for the pastor to absorb this content first and so that's actually why I wrote the book was to actually get these ideas out to people first and then they can decide oh I think I'd like my small group to go through something like this and then we actually have a course on redeemingbabel.org you can go on to anybody can sign up and um and and help and take that course but I actually recommend people to read the book first to get the concepts and decide yeah yeah is my small group ready for something like this is it is my small group ready to to have a naming conversation where we actually name the anxiety in each other's lives so that we can actually be present with each other in it so uh I encourage folks on a very practical level if they want to bring this into their Community to go through this process of read the book and then come to redeemingbabel.org to see if if that's that small group course could be something that your own small group could go through um so I'm seeing a bunch of questions basically wrestling with the biblical admonition to be anxious for nothing and so I wanted to read a few of them out to you and um Kurt maybe I'll toss this to you first uh Michael asked about uh the fact that uh when he says when he was a resident physician a favorite attending used to say regarding anxiety you have to have a certain amount or you just slide right out of your chair to what degree should we be anxious and why without violating the admonition to be anxious for nothing Sarah cloakly asked could you uh could you expand on what you've said in relation to Paul's crucial teaching about do not be anxious about nothing something important seems to be captured here my fear is that we might in our effort to pray anxiety away be confused about his teaching and not fully uh embody that and then Kevin ofner asks it seems both Jesus and the Apostle Paul are fairly direct and telling people don't be anxious is it sometimes appropriate out of love to Simply tell one another don't be anxious I realize we all need empathy encouragement and coming alongside one another but there are there ever times lovingly just to tell one another stop being anxious so a lot of questions about what that means that biblical injunction and how it plays out uh Kurt maybe we can start with you in invoking the Bob Newhart form of therapy just stop it just stop it uh well I think again I I think I'd like to uh acknowledge that I I would want us to read the texts in the context in which they were written we read these texts through a modernist perspective through a logical linear lens that says well don't be anxious and so therefore like I'm not supposed to be that as opposed to recognizing that it it's not so much a matter of like oh I don't be that or I don't be that ever it is a matter of when I uh when I when I sense it am I going to sit in this am I going to sit in this anxiety am I going to continue to allow the signal to become the problem to become my Identity or anytime I sense it what am I going to do what's going to be my choice in this moment remember it's a signal am I then going to choose to move toward it and respond appropriately in such a way that I'm actually uh I'm actually becoming more integrated more whole more like Jesus because I'm paying attention to what the signal is pointing me toward or am I simply going to ignore it because I'm reading the text as some instruction that says stop that don't ever do that as if Paul would not you know in all of his distress right he talks about in in what I have plenty in want all these things all we were under like oh Paul I thought you said that you weren't supposed to be under duress or under in distress like what what gives I think there's this question of like look uh anxiety is a signal it is part of who we are the question is how do we respond do I respond to it as an invitation as Curtis has been talking about do I respond to it as an invitate this is my this is my inbuilt system my god-given system it is inviting me to to be curious about the fact something else is going on here what am I and the moment that I start to explore the something else my anxiety reduces because now I'm actually taking anxious on the very like I'm so I'm responding to the signal so I think it's it has a lot to do with how we read the text and assume that the writer is saying don't ever let your neurophysiological system behave the way it was created to behave that's not what the text is saying the text is saying every time you encounter this you have a choice of being overwhelmed by it and then giving in to him and becoming it cognitively behaviorally physiologically or being curious and choosing what is the signal telling me and how can I respond what is Jesus what is the spirit trying to get my attention about here and how can I act on that Sheree let me just jump in there because I get this all the time and this is why on the 12th page of my book I deal with Philippians 4 6 because it is the clobber verse that I call it's it's what what Christians wield as you shouldn't be anxious and I so for those who are interested in in-depth exegesis of Philippians 4 6 encourage you to read the book two quick points I'll make for free here you don't have to buy the book to get this um is first of all Philippians 4 6 does not say hey don't be anxious and if you do these things you will never feel anxious again what Philippians 4 6 is don't be anxious and really if you want to execute that is don't don't actually like stew in your anxiety but in everything prayer and supplication and Thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and here's the promise and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus you'll guard your hearts and Minds in Christ Jesus that's not the same thing as and then you'll never feel anxious again all right because actually if we look at what it means to have our hearts guarded in Christ Jesus we see in somebody in Jesus somebody who experienced anxiety so it can't be that actually this means all anxiety goes away there's something else going on in Philippians 4 6 that is not just a a Bob Newhart injunction of just stop it um and so encourage you and then just if you're really doubtful if you really think no I still think anxiety is a sin here uh in Philippians just go a few paragraphs earlier in Paul in Philippians so 4 6 is the do not be anxious Philippians 2 28 Paul says it's it's a he's talking about his concern about epaphroditus he says uh you know so make sure you send him to me again so that my own anxieties will be laid to rest so Paul has just said a few paragraphs earlier I'm really anxious right now about my friend epaphroditus it would be very odd having just confessed his own anxieties so clearly to then turn around and say anxiety is a sin just stop it so uh there's something so I'm that's a I'll just say that to invite people to look at uh anxiety the way Paul does as something much more interesting and Invitational than just a simple stop it don't feel this well and I just just to follow up on that I I just want to say uh that whole notion Sheree of someone saying please just stop or preaching from the pulpit or saying to someone don't do that um what it does even interpersonally and neurobiologically is that if you're the anxious party and I say no you don't need to be don't be anxious I now put you at arm's length for me I further isolate you as the one with the problem I don't have the problem I'm telling you don't have the problem and the signal that and what I'm doing is I'm actually ramping up the very signal that you're trying to reduce but I'm doing it by my very action for me to say instead wow tell me more about what your anxiety is well tell me more about that I am making a bid for connection I want to hear more not less about your anxiety and in so doing we get to as we've said we we get to the story that is underneath this that we are telling ourselves out of which my anxiety is emerging and if you then get to the point where you are less isolated because others are more Curious and being with you again here's Genesis 1 2 and God was he was with the chaos God is with us that with ness presence in and of itself becomes the primary load-bearing effort if you will at reducing our anxiety in the first place so again another reason why uh what our embodied Material World experience is is so reflected in this beautiful exegesis that Curtis has just shared with us um Curtin Curtis this this has been this has been great just really fascinating thank you so much for joining us and in just a moment I want to give Curtis and Kurt the last word that but before that a few things to share with you immediately after we conclude we'll be sending around a feedback form we really encourage you to uh to take advantage of that we read every one of these we try to incorporate your suggestions whenever we can to make these programs ever more valuable and as a small token of appreciation for your time and thoughtfulness and filling that out we will send anyone who does a link to a free download of a trinity Forum reading so we encourage you to take advantage of that opportunity uh in addition we'll be sending around a video or rather an email tomorrow with a video link of today's edited online conversation along with a bunch of different recommended resources and readings to go a little bit further some other readings that we would recommend include Augustine's confessions our Brave New World reading the long loneliness by Dorothy Day wrestling with God by Simone Vay and many others and we encourage you to to share today's online conversation with your friends and family start a conversation about what has been said here today or we hope that these that these discussions will be helpful not only in real time but for some time afterwards as well in addition we'd love to invite all of you watching to join the Trinity Forum society which is the community of people who help further Trinity forum's Mission of cultivating curating and disseminating the best of Christian thought for the common good there are many benefits to being a trinity foreign Society member including a subscription to our quarterly readings our subscription to our daily what we're reading list of curated reading recommendations and as a very special incentive for those of you who joined the Trinity Forum Society or with your gift of a hundred dollars or more we will send you a signed copy of Curtis Chang's book the anxiety opportunity so that we hope that you will Avail yourself of that invitation and become part of the society that furthers Christian thought in the Public Square there's a bunch of activities coming up that we want to let you know about next month we'll be hosting a number of online conversations including one with Felicia Wu song on social media and Danny Carroll on caring for refugees perhaps others to come as well stay tuned on that and also wanted to let you know about our most recent podcast series on living wisely and well the most recent podcast released with our guest here today Kurt Thompson and our new one coming up released on Tuesday is strength in the second half with Arthur Brooks finally as promised I wanted to provide the last word to Curtis and Kurt Curtis well I'm going to take a last Shameless plug and then a last word so here's the last Shameless plug as um I I think that uh we we a little evaded a little bit about why anxiety is rising so much and I think there is one factor which is the world is sending us anxious signals the the world is actually sending us and we need to actually pay attention to those signals and make sense of it so I actually want to invite readers if the the particular or listeners the if the particular anxiety their feelings about what's happening in the world to consider joining a conversation that we're having every week on the good faith podcast where we're trying to make sense of the world we're trying to actually look at the world and make sense of it because I think until we do that we will be vulnerable to the anxiety that the world sends us so invite listeners uh you're the audience to check out the good faith podcast and then in terms of the last word that is actually a word is is very simple is that um if you're feeling anxious right now and you're like this just feels like why is this happening to me uh I just want to give a personal word that there really is an opportunity for you I in the depths of my anxiety myself uh when I was suffering from a breakdown as a pastor I just felt utterly abandoned by God by others and and abandoned of Hope and uh that was probably the most hopeless moment in my life that I remember was when I was in the depths of that anxious breakdown and yet here I am 15 years later and I'm with Kurt Thompson and you and talking to 2500 people about anxiety and offering I what I believe is a Redemptive opportunity here let my example be just a little sign of hope that read deep Redemption is possible not only possible is Promised by God uh it's that promise is true in scripture I am a living embodiment of that and I invite you to lean into that opportunity all right I would say well first of all I'm just so grateful to have had the chance to be with you again Cherie and with Curtis and I just want to say um uh to all of our listeners that Jesus is not worried and I don't say that flippantly I say that he's not worried because he's too busy working on our behalf and his longing is for us to have embodied connection with others to remind us that he and we can be present and hover with each other looking for those places where our anxiety rests in order for that to become the very space where Beauty and goodness can be created and not where our lives will become catastrophic Bert and Curtis thank you so much thank you to all of you for joining us have a great weekend [Music]

Channel: The Trinity Forum

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Length: 61min 9sec (3669 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2023