appreciate your thoughts Ashley. I just wrote something about the same issue (https://onceaweek.substack.com/p/ theologians-call-things-what-they) and find Eric Johnson and the vision of Christian psychology to be an incredibly helpful guide. I'm new to your work but intrigued by your title “Beauty Leads the Way”. Have you read The Ethics of Beauty by Timothy Patitsas? He has some helpful (if at times overstated) critiques of modern psychotherapy from an Orthodox “beauty first” perspective. If we are able to move beyond the back-and-forth critique (of which my article is guilty, but I do believe it’s necessary at times) and do the positive work of a distinctly Christian psychology, the heritage of Christian soul care can help us greatly. I believe this is especially the case with the Eastern Orthodox tradition (eg the Philokalia), because it maintains a biblical focus on beauty first rather than truth or goodness first. I personally don’t think we’ll make a lot of progress if our focus remains on the level of language, because our social imaginary (eg the “therapeutic”) is deeper than that. We need a vision of healthy shepherding (eg vision of beauty, representation and imitation of Jesus) more than we need a critique of sinful shepherding (which gets stuck on what is true/false and good/evil, necessary as those questions are).
appreciate your thoughts Ashley. I just wrote something about the same issue (https://onceaweek.substack.com/p/ theologians-call-things-what-they) and find Eric Johnson and the vision of Christian psychology to be an incredibly helpful guide. I'm new to your work but intrigued by your title “Beauty Leads the Way”. Have you read The Ethics of Beauty by Timothy Patitsas? He has some helpful (if at times overstated) critiques of modern psychotherapy from an Orthodox “beauty first” perspective. If we are able to move beyond the back-and-forth critique (of which my article is guilty, but I do believe it’s necessary at times) and do the positive work of a distinctly Christian psychology, the heritage of Christian soul care can help us greatly. I believe this is especially the case with the Eastern Orthodox tradition (eg the Philokalia), because it maintains a biblical focus on beauty first rather than truth or goodness first. I personally don’t think we’ll make a lot of progress if our focus remains on the level of language, because our social imaginary (eg the “therapeutic”) is deeper than that. We need a vision of healthy shepherding (eg vision of beauty, representation and imitation of Jesus) more than we need a critique of sinful shepherding (which gets stuck on what is true/false and good/evil, necessary as those questions are).