WATER OF LIFE

Just before I opened my heart to the Lord I was trying to write a book on inequality. For many years I HAD DEVELOPED MY OWN PHILOSOPHY THAT MY WIFE EVENTUALLY COINED AS Brentopia. My philosophy had some anti-capitalist, social justice, and socialist similarities but my main thrust was to value other personality types and cultures. I WAS PASSIONATE THAT WE SHOULD VALUE OTHER CULTURE TYPES INSTEAD OF FORCING THEM TO CONFORM TO A WESTERN CULTURAL BEHAVIORS, VALUES, AND CAPITALIST SYSTEMS. My belief was that if we valued all personality types (through equal opportunities, rewards, etc.) and cultures (by preserving the richness of their culture through protection from capitalist exploitation) that the result would not only be a better world but an incredible synergy. Many of my blog entries before July of 2007 (when I rededicated my life to Christ) reflect my self-made philosophy. Here are a couple examples:
Type, culture and inequality.
Inequality Matters.

NOT ONLY HAD I CREATED MY OWN GRAND PHILOSOPHY BUT I had also self-defined my relationship with God. I prayed to God but didn’t believe in the church (and organized religion) and I thought that possibly we were all praying to the same god (hindus, muslims, buddhists, etc.), and that god was just differently expressed in other cultures and parts of the world. (By the way, I’m not into self-flagellation. Part of being transformed into the image of Christ is surrendering those parts of ourselves that He shows us we no longer need and I want share with others what I’m learning along the way.)

My equality concept was really the deception of self-sufficiency. It’s idea that man can create a better society without God or his help. Basically the Tower of BABEL ALL OVER AGAIN. The Book of Revelations also tells of a future time where man will once again attempt this. The European Union is an example of this. It seems great, politically and economically, but is it any coincidence that Europeans are falling away from Christianity, so much so, that now missionaries are being sent to Europe—and ironically some of them are coming from countries that Europeans had sent missionaries to years ago. God stopped the Tower of Babel by making all the people speak different languages. It’s interesting to note that cross-cultural communication (also part of the social sciences) is an effort to bridge the very differences that God had put in place to keep man from finishing the Tower of Babel.

Even if Babylon reaches the sky and fortifies her lofty stronghold, I will send destroyers against her,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 51:53

In some ways Japan is also like that ideal society. It’s extremely safe and the policemen don’t wear guns. The gap between the rich and the poor is much smaller than the US. Unemployment for many years has been low. Neil Verwey, a missionary in Japan for 50 years, said that ever since consumerism took hold of the culture the numbers turning to Christ decreased. There are less than two percent Christians in Japan. Pastor Paul Suzuki, of Life Chapel (in Japan), said it’s hard to keep your faith in Japan—and that’s not surprising seeing how the Japanese have built for themselves a safe, somewhat egalitarian, comfortable, consumer-satisfying society. But I’ve also seen with my own eyes that in this country there is river of sexual immorality that runs deep and that many families are hollow structures.

The ultimate outcome of the seeds of self-sufficiency is a turning away from God (Europe) or not turning to God (Japan). God’s ultimate plan (according the Bible and the Book of Revelations) isn’t to save the earth or even to perfect human society. GOD’S PURPOSE IS THAT WE ARE TO BE IN A DEPENDENT RELATIONSHIP WITH Him. ANYTHING CONTRARY TO THIS IS THE DECEPTIVE WORKS OF THE ENEMY AND THE ANTI-CHRIST (Revelations).

(Side-note: I’m not yelling with my capitalized text. That’s just the way it comes out of my text editor when I download it to my computer and I believe there is something providential about that.)

One reviewer of my book said I raised more questions than I answered. I suppose there is some truth to that even in this blog entry. One Christian told me when he first came to Christ he saw everything black and white and rejected anything worldly. He gave the example of being offended by a pastor listening to secular music but that now, years later, he doesn’t see that as a problem. On the other hand, it may be that as we mature as Christians we leave behind (for good) things of the world including man’s wisdom and deceptions. Its only been two years since I rededicated my life to Christ and my blog has been an attempt to show people how God is moving in my life and how He is transforming me week by week into His character and image. So what is God showing me? Im not sure. Am I just going to a necessary extreme and as I mature in Christ? Will I come into a greater balance with worldly things such as personality type? Or is it that God’s plan requires me to surrender that, but that maybe his plan for others doesn’t necessarily require that. 

I’m on my second reading of the Bible, and as I go deeper into His Word, He shows even more through the Holy Spirit and I begin wonder why personality type is needed at all. My stand a year ago was that God can use anything, including type, to glorify Himself and work in our lives. And I still believe that. I came to Christ through a mix of psychology and Christianity but maybe I’m finding out that as I mature I NATURALLY SHED THE WORLDLY PARTS AND JUST FOCUS ON His Word and the Holy Spirit’s guidance, counseling, and teaching. Since His wisdom is limitless at what point would I need to turn back to man’s wisdom? Life is so short, especially now that I am forty, so why would I WANT TO SPEND MY TIME ON ANYTHING OTHER THAN EXPLORING AND GROWING THROUGH His unlimited wisdom and teaching? So why study anything at all? No, I’m just talking about psychology, which cross-cultural communication also falls under because its a categorization of behaviors. I still have a strong longing to explore the richness of other cultures but somehow applying categories and Jungian theory doesn’t seem right anymore. I sense a great deception in psychology and its derivatives. 

Recently, my boss sent me to a training and it turned out to be for the mini-DISC (another personality type system popular for leadership training). Even yesterday I was in a meeting with my bosses and everybody was sharing their DISC type. Coincidentally, after that type training class, I negatively stereotyped someone at work based on what I thought was their type and it created a huge conflict. Not everyone is as stupid as me but it makes me wonder what sort of spirit (of God or of the enemy) personality type introduces. I used to think it was a spirit of appreciation (of differences) but now I think its more of one that clouds our eyes under the guise of opening them—and that is exactly how the enemy works!  I may have abused or misused personality type but am I IN THE MINORITY OR THE MAJORITY? If the majority, then thats a confirmation that its a tool of deception used by the enemy. And its not because of a lack of training or understanding. I took the MBTI qualified practitioner course and passed the test with a score in the upper ninety percent. And I’ve read a stack of books and academic research on personality type. 

Back in 1966, Christian writer Tim LaHaye wrote a book called, The Spirit Controlled Temperament, that explains Christian temperaments using the old system of Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy and Phlegmatic (originally developed in 190A.D. by a Roman physician). He wrote a second book on this temperament system in 1984 called Why You Act the Way You Do. After that, LaHaye stopped writing about temperament and wrote his Christian fiction books (like the Left Behind series that are based on the book of Revelations and Biblical prophecy of rapture). The Spirit Controlled Temperament has sold more than a million copies and Why You Act the Way You Do has sold 250,000 copies. Obviously, there are many Christians who are interested in personality type.

Soultypes (1998, 2005) is the latest in the quest to make a connection between spirituality and personality type. Both authors are dominant intuitives (Jane is INFJ and Sandra is ENFP) and MBTI experts, which probably explains the intellectual approach of this book. This book follows in the tradition of academic Myers-Briggs personality type research and is definitely not a Christian book. There is no mention of the Holy Spirit. It is politically correct and in a new-agey way considers all types from “diverse spiritual backgrounds”. “Spirituality refers to aligning our souls with heart, mind, and body to fulfill one’s purpose, believing that reality includes more than the tangible, and it refers to pursuing a relationship with One greater than ourselves.” (Soultypes)

The thrust of Soultypes is to make “spirituality” (in churches, worship, prayer, etc.) more seeker-friendly through consideration of personality types. This book is promoted as “helping each of us find and develop the unique spiritual path that resonates with our nature.” The book concludes with a psychological/self-help push for reaching “spiritual wholeness”. LaHaye’s book also slips into the self help mantra and says it’s essential to know your temperament to maximize your potential and enable others to do the same. It’s funny how he contradicts himself by condemning American’s self-empowerment culture in the book: “We hear a lot in our humanistic culture about “taking control of your life.” That sounds good at first, but if you look deeper into this cult of the self-actualizers, you will find the worst sin of all—selfishness” (Why You Act the Way You Do).

LaHaye begins to scratch the surface of the problem of personality type: “The Spirit-controlled life is a behavior modifier. Mature Christians whose temperament has been modified by the Holy Spirit often find it difficult to analyze their temperament makeup because they make the mistake of examining the temperament theory in light of their present behavior. Temperament is based on the natural man; there is nothing spiritual about it. That is why we find it so much easier to diagnose and classify an unsaved person or a carnal Christian than a dedicated, mature Christian. Because such a person has already had many of his natural weaknesses strengthened, it is difficult to assess his temperament. He should either concentrate only on his strengths or consider his behavior before he became a Spirit-controlled believer” (Why You Act the Way You Do).

Revelation
On a personal note, recently I was like Balaam and his donkey (Num. 22-24). I spent a lot of frustrating hours trying to create a bridge between the MBTI and LaHaye’s system and found it impossible to make a correlation. Then I came across an article explaining how LaHayes temperament system (and personality type in general) is rooted in pagan practices and astrology:

http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/temper.htm
http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/e-books/4temp-ebk.pdf

Nevertheless, I thought I might possibly write a book about christiantypes (how different types come to victory in Christ) so I registered christiantypes.com and set up a christiantypes.com online forum website.

Eventually, it dawned on me that I was trying to move this jackass idea forward and didn’t recognize that I was facing supernatural opposition. I wasn’t paying attention to (or maybe willfully ignoring) God’s whisper in my heart. Kind of like Balaam when God’s angel was blocking his path and told him to do and say what God wants him to. Subsequently, I found myself writing all morning about why christiantypes aren’t needed. And then I turned off my online forum and forwarded christiantypes.com to my current website.

It may be that God had me register christiantypes.com not to make an MBTI version of LaHaye’s book but instead to reach Christians interested in personality type (especially Myer-Briggs) and show them the wisdom they seek is not from man but from God. That the answers to life’s problems is not in personality type or psychology but instead in God.

Personality type seemed pretty cool until I compared it to God’s wisdom in my life. I have been on the path towards God’s wisdom for some years now. I passed up a graduate school full-ride scholarship because I wanted to be a writer instead of an ivory-tower academic. Ultimately, I found it wasn’t desire to be a writer but it was a call to faith—which is bigger than any doctorate degree, bestselling book, or personality type system.

No, this isn’t a patronizing, schmoozy statement that God is greater than anything else—it’s an outright product of personal experience. Everytime I turned to personality type or psychology for an answer to a problem I always came up empty-handed or deceived, but when I turned to the Lord, He touched my life and relationships in ways no human system of understanding could even begin to comprehend. Not only is His wisdom of us and our situation infinite, but only He has the power to heal. I was freed from the bondage of addiction and inner vows. And no longer do I suffer in a prison of past inequities and unforgiveness. My mind was renewed not through man’s wisdom but through God’s supernatural power and Living Word.

Oh yes, you say, no one (but you) is stupid enough to think personality type has the solutions to our problems, but every week I get emails from CAPT (the Myers-Briggs foundation) selling another personality type solution to relationships, team-building, resolving conflicts, communication, empowerment, growth, overcoming trauma, spirituality, etc. One popular MBTI personality type book has an anecdote about a little old lady who has been married for a long time saying that her marriage had been saved by the understanding brought through personality type. But everytime I turned to personality type to better understand my marriage relationship I came up empty-handed—not because my wife isn’t interested in personality type—but because there are no answers there—only interesting observations and speculations of patterns of behavior. And how can that compare to the God’s all-powerful healing touch and infinite wisdom?

I have quite a bit to say about both Christianity and personality type and I could write a cool, cutting-edge book describing how each personality type comes to the cross of Christ, but instead I find it necessary to preach the cross of Christ and trust that God knows exactly how each heart is reached—and does reach them miraculously in every sermon, relationship, and circumstance in their life. Someone will undoubtedly and eventually write a christiantypes book (and I’m sure I’ll be the first one to hear about since I have the domain name). It’s just that how could I write a book about christiantypes when I know something far greater exists? A life of victory in Christ is infinitely more valuable than stretching the small corner of man’s wisdom.

Culturetypes?
What about my system of culturetypes? The thrust of my book, Where in the World Do I Belong??, is to emphasize that different cultures reward different personality types. This helps us understand in what ways our personality type is different from our country’s culturetype or other countries that we may live in or travel to. I guess my point was to help people understand why they are different and sometimes don’t fit in their own culture.

“Personality typologies and tests put people under bondage to worldly systems and standards. Each psychological system presents a theory to explain the human condition, describes how they should be, and presents a method of change. Thus each system condemns people through a man-made standard of judgment concerning how they should be, and each system presents a plan and promises for change.” “Today, rather than trusting God to complete the work He has begun in every true Christian, many are attempting to become better Christians through secular and pagan psychological methods.” (Four Temperaments Astrology & Personality Testing).

Personality type discounts the work of the Holy Spirit. By focusing on personality type we are looking at our old selves (the old man) instead of ourselves as a new creation in Christ. “Henceforth we are not to live by that old life. It is to be counted dead (Romans 6). We are not to try to analyze it or improve it. Instead, we are to live by the new life in Christ Jesus.” “We are not set free to be me and to do my own thing. Instead we are free to live our new life in Jesus—not to reach our highest potential, but to become like Jesus to love and to serve” (Four Temperaments Astrology & Personality Testing).

“Countless Christians are adding the works of self-improvement through psychological systems, such as the four temperaments and other typologies. Thus, they are denying the efficacy of the Cross in terms of sanctification. Countless Christians are trusting in self-improvement formulas along with or instead of trusting fully in the sufficiency of God’s provisions for living the Christian life. In so doing, they are saying that Jesus’ death and resurrection are inadequate, that God’s grace is insufficient, that God’s Word is incomplete, that the Holy Spirit needs
“another helper,” and that the Gospel is limited to saving us from the final judgment” (Four Temperaments Astrology & Personality Testing).

Back to the Balaam analogy, God used Balaam to speak a blessing over the Israelites and to prophesy the coming of the Messiah. Balaam obeyed God and only spoke what God told him but he wasn’t truly a man of God and the Israelites killed him while destroying the Midianites. According to the Daily Bible, Balaam used “pagan ritual to search for omens”, is this the same as me using personality type (which is a pagan system)? Another word for omen is ’sign’ and the first definition in the dictionary says: “an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else” Personality type use personal preferences to predict probable behavior.

I guess God is leading me to change my stand (see my old blog on Christianity and Personality Types). Recently, I added my testimony to the front of my book on culturetypes (Where in the World Do I Belong??). And I just changed my blog name (from culturetypes.com) because I feel that God isn’t really blessing my book or research on culturetypes and may even be leading me to speak out against personality type. What do you think? Should I use my book as a platform to evangelize the masses that are seeking answers in personality type or stop selling it?

My new book, Discovering the Water of Life, is available on Amazon — just in time for Christmas;)

Here is the book description:

One man steps into a victorious life in Christ and experiences a transformation and renewal through baptism of the Holy Spirit. He describes God’s inner work, Christian dream interpretation, and God’s refining fire.

This book includes his observations on spiritual gifts, and comparisons of Christianity, personality type (Myers-Briggs), and culture types. It also contains inspiring articles on faith and revival in Hawaii and other countries.

“The water of life is the Holy Spirit in our lives. One of the reasons I moved to Hawaii is that the ocean is a spiritual experience or spiritually renewing for me. The water of life is not a physical drink—it’s spiritual—something that fills our spirit; heals our soul and body; and flows out of our heart to those around us.”