Love Your Neighbor: How Psychology Can Enliven Faith and Transform Community (Katherine Douglass & Brittany Tausen) - Review
Jesus responded
to the question about which is the greatest commandment. He answered by
pointing to two commandments, both of which he drew from the Old Testament.
First, love God with your entire being; second, love your neighbor as you love
yourself. “On these two commandments
hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:36-40). While this may be true, what
does it mean to love one’s neighbor in practice? How do we actually love our
neighbors, especially people who don’t live next door or share much in common
with us? As we ponder this question, might we ask a further question regarding
what psychology might say about all of this?
Katherine Douglass and Brittany
Tausen, both of whom have backgrounds in psychology and educational ministry,
address questions about how we might love our neighbors while experiencing an enlivened
faith that leads to the transformation of the communities we inhabit in their
book Love Your Neighbor: How Psychology Can Enliven Faith and Transform
Community. While theology plays a role in discussions of how we love our
neighbors, Douglass and Tausen wish to bring the social sciences into the
conversation about our relationships as Christians.
Katherine Douglass, who serves as
an associate professor of educational ministry and practical theology at
Seattle Pacific University, brings to the conversation her background as a
professor of educational ministry and practical theology. For her part,
Brittany Tausen brings her background as a professor of social psychology at
Baylor University to the conversation. Together, the two authors seek to answer
questions about why we struggle to love our neighbors and how we might love
better. In organizing the chapters of their book, the authors start each
chapter with a section focused on "Learning with Psychology,"
followed by a section titled "Thinking Theologically." Finally, they
offer a section on "Living Faithfully." With these three sections
providing structure to the discussion, we hear from psychology and theology,
before putting things together so we can think about how we can live into the
call to love our neighbors. As good teachers, the authors invite readers to
test out ideas and concepts along the way. They even include a brief quiz in
the Introduction to test our knowledge of the psychology of helping behaviors
and social connections.
In terms of overall structure, Douglass
and Tausen divide the fourteen chapters in the book into three parts. They
title Part One, "When Circumstances Get in the Way of Loving Your Neighbor."
In the chapters in this section, they invite us to consider the challenges that
face us as we seek to love our neighbors. Appropriately, they begin with a
chapter titled "Noticing Your Neighbor" (Chapter 1). That is an
appropriate starting point because, as they point out in this chapter, the
neighbor we are called to love might not live next door or be similar to us. However,
the people we are friends with, according to psychological studies, are those
who live near us. Theologically,
however, the neighbor might not live nearby or share similarities with
us. Thus, living faithfully might involve expanding our circles of neighborliness.
In Chapter 2, titled "Hurrying Less," they remind us that one of the
reasons we fail to notice our neighbors is that, because we’re always in a
hurry to get somewhere, we end up incapable of noticing others. So, slow down! The
third chapter is titled somewhat interestingly "Decluttering Mental and
Physical Space." The focus here is on the many distractions that get in
the way of our relationships, including constant meetings, our phones, and even
our watches. With that in mind, the authors invite us to put the things away that
distract us so we can attend to the ones who are important. The final chapter
in this section is titled: "Assuming Responsibility, Even When It's Not
Your Fault" (Chapter 3). In this chapter, the authors focus on the
"bystander effect." This effect takes place when people stand by,
assuming they are not responsible for addressing situations before them (I’m
reminded here of the final episode of Seinfeld). To love our neighbors
as Jesus teaches, perhaps it is our responsibility to attend to the situations
before us.
After Douglass and Tausen offer a
discussion of the circumstances that get in the way of loving our neighbor, they
move on in Part Two to a section titled "When Thoughts and Feelings Get in
the Way of Loving Your Neighbor." The focus in this section is on our
inner person and how it can get in the way of loving our neighbors. They begin
by discussing "Giving Others the Benefit of Doubt" (Chapter 5).
Feelings about actions on the part of others can inhibit our engagement with
them, so giving a person the benefit of the doubt can help move us past those
kinds of barriers. In an age when we've become increasingly polarized,
especially in the United States, the contents of Chapter 6 will be important as we seek to love
our neighbors. This chapter, which is titled "Recognizing Everyone's Full
Humanity," affirms the premise that our neighbors near and far are created
in the image of God, which, if embraced fully, can ameliorate some of the
barriers we erect. They write that “the dehumanizing attitudes we hold about
others are not always obvious, but they do impact our ability to love others
well” (p. 91). If we are to recognize the full humanity of others, whom we may
find ourselves dehumanizing, we will need to engage in "Letting Go of
Contempt," the title of Chapter 7. Contempt often leads to dehumanizing
others, so addressing this can help move toward loving others. With this in
mind, they note that "contempt toward others predicts how likely you are
to harm them" (p. 103). Overcoming contempt might start with prayer,
followed by paying attention to our own contemptuous behavior, such as sarcasm,
eye rolls, and other thoughts. Gratitude and appreciation can also help
alleviate feelings of contempt. Finally, they suggest we do some digging into
the background of people we may feel contempt for. Following up on that
feeling, we move to "Letting Go of a Scarcity Mindset" (Chapter 8).
When we allow the fear that there is not enough to go around, we tend to close
ourselves off to the needs of others. Letting go of that fear allows us to
imagine God's abundance, which is necessary to love others. They conclude this
section on feelings and thoughts that hinder love of neighbors with a chapter
titled "Being Open to Thinking Again" (Chapter 9). In this chapter,
they invite us to examine our core beliefs about life, ourselves, and others,
as well as God. They write that "for Christians, our beliefs are held
deeply, so deeply that we sometimes prioritize them over the command to
love" (p. 137). So maybe we will need to change our priorities, even if
that requires thinking again about our core beliefs.
The final Section of Love Your Neighbor is titled "Choosing to Love Better." Having examined
what it means to love our neighbors and attended to our feelings about others,
now it's time to begin putting into practice the command to love our neighbors.
Douglass and Tausen start with a chapter titled "Treating Every Place Like
Home" (Chapter 10). If we're going to love our "neighbors," we
will need to expand what we consider to be our home. This is becoming
increasingly important in this age of residential mobility and migration, such
that connection to place influences how we view our neighbors. If you move from
a homogeneous community, where differences in ethnicity and religion are few,
to one like the one I live in, which is both ethnically and religiously diverse,
you will need to adjust your sense of what it means to live in a certain place.
The next step involves "Strengthening Your Empathy Muscles" (Chapter
11). This is an interesting chapter since in some Christian circles, empathy
has become a dirty word. However, if we are to embrace Jesus' command to love
our neighbors, then we'll need to strengthen our empathy for others. As they
point out, "empathy is really all about love, letting our hearts hurt or
break with the pain of others, not just our own pain" (p. 169). The
Epistle of James calls on us to "Be Quick to listen, slow to speak."
This is not easy for some of us, but in Chapter 12, they call on us to embrace
"Talking Less and Listening More." Following up the call to listen
rather than talk, they speak of "Embracing the Power of Your
Presence" (Chapter 13). That is, there is power in showing up and being
with people, which can reduce the pain that others suffer. This is an act of
love, just showing up and being present. The final chapter of Love Your Neighbor
is titled "Persisting When You Are Being Treated Poorly" (Chapter
14). This does not mean being a doormat, but they insist that pushing through
obstacles will be necessary if we are to truly love our neighbors.
Love Your Neighbor concludes
with a reflection on "Being Who God Made You to Be." In this “Conclusion,”
Douglass and Tausen affirm the gifts and calling that each of us has as members
of the body of Christ. Bringing who we are to our relationships is important.
As we learn in this book, drawing on psychology and theology, loving our
neighbors can be challenging, but there are ways of mitigating those
challenges, even if we don't follow through perfectly. Part of the process
involves affirming the premise that we are all created in the image of God.
Loving our neighbors as we love
ourselves can be challenging. One way of living into such a commandment is to
limit who counts as a neighbor. In Love Your Neighbor, Katherine
Douglass and Brittany Tausen wish to expand the circle, believing that this is
what Jesus has in mind when telling his questioner that loving one’s neighbor
is the second great commandment. Remember that in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus does
exactly that with his parable of the Samaritan who stops to care for the one in
need. Love Your Neighbor is, in my view, a book that requires our
attention as we navigate an increasingly polarized world, where even many
Christians draw tight circles around themselves so they don’t have to love the
ones who are different from them.
You may purchase copies of Love Your Neighbor from your favorite retailer or you can purchase it at my Amazon Affiliate bookstore or my Bookshop.org affiliate.
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