No, Stockwell Day, I Cannot Choose Which Emotions I Feel
Photo by Colby McCaskill
The opinions reflected in this OpEd are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of staff, faculty and students of The King's College.
(OPINION) On Thursday, Jan. 19, Interim President Stockwell Day made the first announcement of the semester about upcoming changes to The King’s College. As recently reported, many of our activities at King's are now looking and feeling very different. This moment in King’s history is fraught with uncertainty. To top it all off, Day advised the student body on how to respond.
Sadly, Day’s comments did not strike me as helpful; instead, they were just the opposite. Day’s allegorical instructions, while good-intentioned, deeply misrepresented biblical processes of grief and scientific literature on how we as human beings feel.
As the son of a pastor, I’ve inhabited countless spaces that aim to abide by the truths of the Bible. A constant grief of mine is a thread of “wack theology” that creeps in time and time again: negative emotions are ungodly.
In light of the new updates and alterations to our student experience and institution as a whole, lend your ears as I aim to untangle this self-spun web of emotional suppression that stifles our relationship with sorrow and hope alike.
Along with the various budget cuts, Day discussed the attitudes he wished we, the student body, would project in this time of uncertainty. In an explanation of John 17, Day explained that in the midst of Jesus’ high priestly prayer on the eve of his crucifixion, “he’s praying for his disciples, not that they’ll be safe from the soldiers, not that they won’t be arrested, he’s saying ‘God, I pray that the joy that you and I are experiencing right now will also be theirs.’”
Day continued, saying that “God’s ultimate goal is that number one, we would be thankful, two, that we would have joy, and three, that the message that we project to others would cause them to draw nearer to God.”
In another story, he showcased the joy of his friend Mercy in the face of her life-threatening situation culminating in amputation. He explains how he saw her recently at a party reception, and “her face was beaming. I thought: whatever trial I have to go through … [that's] my standard for what my attitude is going to be, and what I’m going to project.”
He also emphasized the attitude he believed we must adopt when living through these changes by saying that “a lot of this stuff is for real, but a lot of this really needs to be taken into perspective,” citing a hypothetical response from a missionary as his evidence.
These imperatives don’t necessarily seem all that harmful on the surface. Besides, doesn’t Christ indeed pray for our joy and desire our thankfulness? Isn’t perspective a good sobering thing to hold when venturing through trials? Day’s instructions do lead to great theological questions.
However, Day’s exhortations did not explain the entire story of emotions, nor were they entirely biblical. The fault doesn’t fully lie with Day. This is indicative of a larger cultural urge for humans to shy away from expressing authentic emotions and for Christians to attach moral judgments to them.
Have you withheld worry, anxiety and sorrow from your roommates, friends and teachers (lest you be considered somehow less of a Christian)? I hope not, but I imagine you have.
“Toxic positivity” is a way of thinking that prioritizes pleasant feelings over authentic ones. In Christian circles, it is often punctuated with shaming language to keep difficult emotions at bay. If we are feeling overwhelmed, we better tell ourselves that others have it worse. If we are angry, we must make sure we thank our God regardless of our actual feelings. If we are overcome with worry, we are doing something wrong because God wants us to have joy. If we experience loss, the godliest response is a brave face and a beaming smile. According to this view, we can both control which emotions we feel and doing so makes us a “good Christian.”
I cannot stress enough how inaccurate this understanding of emotional response is according to both modern psychology and biblical theology.
Emotional suppression is not healthy. In an article published by Harvard Business Review, David Kessler, an expert on grief and loss, advocated that “emotions need motion. It’s important we acknowledge what we go through.”
Dr. Brett Ford, the director of the Affective Science & Health Laboratory at the University of Toronto, explained in a Psychology Today article that “emotional acceptance can be a particularly powerful strategy of emotion regulation. It can help you feel better, partly because you don't perpetuate your negative emotions. The goal shouldn’t be to get rid of or stifle all emotions.”
One study on the bodily maps of emotions out of the Aalto University in Finland argued that “[even] though we are often consciously aware of our current emotional state, such as anger or happiness, the mechanisms giving rise to these subjective sensations have remained unresolved.”
The psychological fact about the way our brains function is pointed out explicitly by Adam Young, a licensed social worker and a fellow of the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, in a podcast discussing spiritual wounding. He advocated strongly that “you have an emotion before your prefrontal cortex has even processed the interaction. You can’t think about the Bible. You can’t think about Jesus. You can’t think about anything related to your faith until you’ve felt your emotion.”
This truth, that emotions arise involuntarily, is an exceptionally hard one to grapple with. It seems to be a debilitating reality that we’d rather not accept. If my emotions are out of my control, I’m forever prone to be controlled by inner brokenness. If I feel angry, I’ll act with anger. If I feel worried, I’ll act with worry. This is not the case.
There must be nuance here. You cannot control which emotions you feel; meaning that you cannot dictate how your physical and chemical mind reacts to different situations. At the same time, however, you can control how you respond to your emotions, as you have the ability to temper, shield or suppress those emotions. This is exactly what Christian and non-Christian psychologists are saying: You do not hold the power to decide which emotions you feel, but rather how you deal with those emotions.
The statement “I don’t ever feel annoyed” cannot, in principle, be true. You have no ability to restrict your psycho-chemical system from producing specific emotions. You only have the ability to restrict the symptoms once your body has begun to produce the emotion. Upon further reflection, it may be more accurate to say that “I, for whatever reason, do not want to feel annoyed.” Furthermore, the godliest and most honest statement might be “I sometimes feel annoyed, but I do not want to live by my annoyance.”
Dr. Dan Allender, a prominent Christian therapist and founder of the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, beautifully displays the biblicalness of recognizing unpleasant emotions in his book The Cry of The Soul. He writes that “ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And the reality is where we meet God.”
There is an incredible amount of biblical precedence for allowing unpleasant emotions. Much of the Psalms are cries of pain and torment. Jesus spoke words of worry, fear and anger. There is an entire book devoted to grief, and from it, we learn about the often-overlooked concept of lamentation.
Lamentations are, in our vernacular, processes through grief; an exercise of sharing our deepest emotions with God. As the Psalmist continually pleads, “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away?” (Ps. 10:1) “Will you forget me forever?” (Ps. 13:1) “Why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1) In Psalm 103, we even see David consoling his own soul. He writes, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” He understands the truth about how we think and feel: our emotional responses are out of our control, but our responses to our emotions are not.
Andrew Bauman, the director of the Christian Counseling Center For Sexual Health & Trauma, illuminates the godliness of The Pilgrimage of Grief when he writes that Jesus shows us a wonderful picture of grief on the cross. He feels the pain. He acknowledges the emotions. He cries out to God. He must die. He feels alone. But that is not the end, for he rises again. “We are called to live into the tension of all three days, moving in and out of each, and living honestly into both grief and joy,” Bauman said. “Truly our wailing hearts are the doorway to God.”
If we give into the narrative that the standard of emotional responses is only joy and thankfulness, we disrespect our bodily need, and the biblical imperative, to feel the breadth of our emotions in the safety of God.
As more and more changes come to The King’s College, you may not be worried. You may be joyful or thankful. You may be worried and anxious. You may be overcome by fear. Those are all entirely valid emotions to feel, and God does not want them stifled. God’s ultimate goal is not that we would project joy and thankfulness. God wants, above all else, an authentic relationship with you.
Colby McCaskill is a freshman at The King’s College majoring in Journalism, Culture and Society. He is also the City Editor for the Empire State Tribune. He loves to write and enjoys long runs in the rain.