On Being Bad: Theological Retrieval as a Means of Harmonizing Spiritual Attachment and Christian Atonement
Brian A. Mesimer, PhD, LPC, Assistant Professor of Counseling, Richmont Graduate University
Attachment theory has emerged as a pervasive model in the helping professions for understanding human development, conceptualizing the impact of childhood trauma, and tracing the pathogenesis of mental health disorders. It has also become a theory of choice among religious, and particularly Christian, helpers who desire to apply its insights to understanding spiritual growth and attachment to God. Assuming an analogous relationship between human-to-human and divine-to-human parental relationships, Christian advocates of attachment theory assert that the insights of attachment science aid in conceptualizing and remediating experiential deficits in the divine parental relationship.
Yet such assumptions necessitate a divine parent full of love and warmth ready to repair such spiritual attachment trauma. While Christianity has historically taught the existence of such a God of love, it has also taught that this same God is a God of wrath and justice Who requires atonement in the face of human sinfulness. This latter doctrine has proven a difficult cup to drink to the dreg for advocates of integrating attachment theory and Christianity because God’s pronouncement of guilt upon humanity is also a pronouncement of human badness, complicating one’s ability to attach to God. This tension threatens an integration of trauma psychology with religion, thus questioning the limits of both when dealing with childhood trauma.
In response to this tension, many Protestant advocates of attachment theory choose to rework their understandings and emphases regarding Christ’s atonement in a more palatable way. Penal or substitutionary motifs, which have long been a Reformational heritage for many Protestants, are jettisoned in favor of models that deemphasize human sin and badness. This ostensibly makes it easier for the believer to experience God’s love without having to engage their moral badness. Such theological shifts may be further motivated by evangelical thinking and preaching which lopsidedly emphasizes human sinfulness.
Yet such a reaction may be an overreaction made without knowledge or access to streams of theological insight which serve to experientially and theologically harmonize God’s love and human sinfulness. Chief among these include overlooked biblical texts as well English Puritan John Owen’s work on communion with God. When such resources are added to the conversation, many tensions between attachment theory and Protestant resolve, paving the way for a modified integration of attachment theory to matters of spiritual import.
Yet such assumptions necessitate a divine parent full of love and warmth ready to repair such spiritual attachment trauma. While Christianity has historically taught the existence of such a God of love, it has also taught that this same God is a God of wrath and justice Who requires atonement in the face of human sinfulness. This latter doctrine has proven a difficult cup to drink to the dreg for advocates of integrating attachment theory and Christianity because God’s pronouncement of guilt upon humanity is also a pronouncement of human badness, complicating one’s ability to attach to God. This tension threatens an integration of trauma psychology with religion, thus questioning the limits of both when dealing with childhood trauma.
In response to this tension, many Protestant advocates of attachment theory choose to rework their understandings and emphases regarding Christ’s atonement in a more palatable way. Penal or substitutionary motifs, which have long been a Reformational heritage for many Protestants, are jettisoned in favor of models that deemphasize human sin and badness. This ostensibly makes it easier for the believer to experience God’s love without having to engage their moral badness. Such theological shifts may be further motivated by evangelical thinking and preaching which lopsidedly emphasizes human sinfulness.
Yet such a reaction may be an overreaction made without knowledge or access to streams of theological insight which serve to experientially and theologically harmonize God’s love and human sinfulness. Chief among these include overlooked biblical texts as well English Puritan John Owen’s work on communion with God. When such resources are added to the conversation, many tensions between attachment theory and Protestant resolve, paving the way for a modified integration of attachment theory to matters of spiritual import.