The Therapist's Boots

I am reminded of a therapist at Yale who always turned up for sessions with his clients wearing green rubber boots.  When I asked  him why, he explained that every morning he cleaned out his dog run, then he hosed off his boots and came to work; and I knew, as sure as I’m sitting here, that after talking with me he was going to hose off his boots one more time before going home.  His whole life was wading in crap from morning to night.

Many of us from the more liberal seminaries received no training in the theology of worship and prayer, or in systematic theology. Instead we received enough training in psychology and counseling to become cheap therapists. Got ordained, gonna get me some green rubber boots, and get to work. I hear tell from them what knows that this is still goin' on. When you think of it, it's kinda terrifying.

What were we trained in?  Altizer and Hamilton’s “Death of God Theology”, Joseph Fletcher’s “Situation Ethics,” that bloodless theologian Paul Tillich, biblical skepticism and social relevance.  There wasn’t enough weight to save a soul, not even our own.  What are the seminaries teaching today?  “Foundations for Theological Praxis,” “MCC Polity and General Convention,” “The Role of the Debates of Human Sexuality in Global Christianity and Mission,” “Third World Feminist Theology,” and “The Social Gospel and the New Social Creed.” 

There was an old bumper sticker seen around Harvard Square that advised “Eschew Obfuscation.”  If you don’t have a grasp of the simple basics of the Christian Faith and can’t apply them to yourself, you don’t have anything but obfuscation.  What is amusing in a sad sort of way is that the American Episcopal Church doesn’t understand why it is mistrusted in much of the two-thirds world.

"You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to have mercy upon her; indeed the appointed time has come.  For your servants love her very rubble and our moved to pity even for her dust," [Psalm 102;13,14].