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?
