The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Out Deepest Questions About God by Dr. Dan Allender & Dr. Tremper Longman, III
NavPress, 1999; 270 pages; ISBN 1576831809
A Welcome Surprise To My Low Expectations
Though I had pretty low expectations for reading a Christian book on emotions, I was encouraged by the reassuring word in the foreword that the book is not just one more partner in the orgy of anthropocentric subjectivism that sadly seems to dominate the so-called “Christian” psychological self-help world:
These men are provocative, creative thinkers, bound by their unswerving commitment to biblical truths and by their zeal to lead lives that reflect an intimate dependence on Christ. This book is not another manual on emotions: what causes them and how we can handle them. It is not a book filled with techniques for getting over anger or relieving fear. It is not a book that lists a verse for dealing with every troubling emotion. We have enough of those books already (11).
Amen and amen! Pelagian self-help is robbing God’s people of Christ’s joy, and we don’t need any more of those kind of books. By mentioning dependence on Christ, the forward foreshadows the authors’ approach to applying Christ’s Gospel to Christians’ emotional life: the objective reality of God and His accomplishment of salvation sets the context for subjectively applying the benefits of salvation to believers. Such a Scripturally faithful approach which weds the objective realities about God and His Gospel to the subjective inner life of Christians is hard to find today, and accordingly readers ought to appreciate fully the strength of this book.1
Thesis: Our emotions are windows into God’s revelation of Himself
So, then, what does The Cry of the Soul have to say that Christians need to hear? Forgive another quote from the forward, but it summarizes well the purpose of the book:
Rather than explaining our emotions in order to help us gain control over them, Drs. Allender and Longman take us into new country. Their central idea . . . is that our emotional life, including those emotions we shouldn’t feel, forms a window that lets us see deep into the heart of God. Their rather surprising suggestion is that we explore our emotions not to get rid of the bad ones and replace them with good ones but rather to know God more fully (10).
Strength: Finding our story in God’s
A further strength drives the success of this powerful book: the authors’ theologically-informed presuppositions (14-18).
- First, they believe emotions are not neutral (amoral), rather emotions speak the inner workings of humanity’s depraved hearts.
- Second, the purpose of looking inward is not merely to better yourself, but to reveal your heart’s relation to God and others.
- Third, the Psalter is a key section of divine revelation for looking into hearts.
- And fourth, all emotions reveal the character of God.
Notice that these presuppositions join together God’s objective self-revelation and the subjective human experience and knowledge of God via this objective revelation. The strength, then, of The Cry of the Soul is that it seeks to tell humanity’s story in the context of God’s story; the distinction between Creator and creature is maintained while explaining the partners’ respective roles in redemption’s dance.
Chapter Highlights
Ch. 1: Our souls talk
The power of explaining the nature and purpose of emotions to be our soul’s cry helped me to see that my ups and downs, rages and joys are not mere feelings to be controlled, managed, ignored, or denied. Rather, my “insides” are constantly telling me what I am believing about God, myself, and the world. Accordingly, if I can learn to patiently listen to my heart instead of running from it, drowning its voice, or deadening its promptings, I will be more fully able to glimpse God’s glory of how He is redeeming the whole of me (inside and out), giving me back my dignity, allowing me to become fully human (delighting in God’s truth both in my inner world and my outer context). Such a view frees me from the doldrums of dead emotions; for, God created me both able to smile and to frown, and the emotions behind both actions reveal God to me. Furthermore, the glorious freedom of knowing God is that I am freed to more truly know myself, even through my emotions!
Ch. 2: Our souls sing the Psalter
Not only is it revolutionary to understand (ala chapter 1) that God “chooses to reveal His perfect heart by analogy with human emotion that is stained by depravity” (39); it is further amazing how God reveals his heart through ours: according to His self-revelation in Scripture (especially in the Psalter).
In the Psalms we are invited by God “to comprehend more richly the heart of God” as we “seek to understand our internal world” (39). Rightly understood in the context of God the Creator and man the creature, the fact that man’s knowledge of God is covenantally bound to man’s knowledge of the self is a glorious mystery replete in the Psalms. John Calvin speaks of this mystery in the opening lines of chapter 1 of his Institutes of the Christian Religion:
Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.
Certainly, the chief “tie” that binds together our double knowledge of God and self is God’s revelation through His Scriptures. Accordingly, Allender and Longman explain well how the Psalms disturb us into facing our heart’s idolatries in the light of God’s strange love. The Psalms shock us into the light, both by inviting us to rage, cry, mourn, call down revenge upon our enemies, question God, etc., and by constantly calling us to believe in God’s everlasting covenant love (hesed). Through the Psalms God teaches us to sing His strange song of redemption, even when we can’t hear the music or see the Conductor.
Chs. 3-15: Our souls cry through the whole range of human emotion and always within our covenantal/relational union with God
It is precisely in the long moments of not hearing the music (the “how long?” of chapter 3) that God invites us into the depths of our covenantal union with Him. The “how long, O Lord?” challenges our hearts through the whole range of human emotion. Allender and Longman focus on anger, fear, envy, despair, mockery, and shame, showing both the idolatrous and the glorious sides of these windows into God’s heart. Each of these emotions invites us to wrestle with the question “how long?” in a way that reveals God’s faithfulness more fully to us, thus enabling us to be more faithful, specifically with that emotion, in our faithfulness to others.
Chs. 16-17: Though He is mysterious, God is good
Allender and Longman set the soul’s cry in the context of God’s mystery and God’s goodness. God is mysterious because He seems to hide his presence at the very times we need it most. He seems to let the unjust prosper at the very time the just are being abused. He seems to allow us to hurt and suffer at the very times that we desire relief most earnestly. Though God’s goodness is mysterious, it is truly good.
God’s faithfulness never fails! He never breaks His covenant promises! He leads us from the dark valley to the top of Mount Zion! He turns our mourning into dancing, even making our dancing more deep and joyful because of the mourning. Just as suffering Job received much more blessing than he had suffered, so our suffering Christ received all blessing as His reward for suffering. And Christ passes on those blessings to His children, even though He himself calls us to wander as pilgrims.
Suggestion for Improvement
This wonderful book could be even better by by adding some material on what it means for one’s soul to cry corporately, in the communion of the saints. The subtle undertone of individualism latent throughout the book (i.e. an “it’s just me and Jesus” spirituality) needs to be met with further thinking on the individual’s relation to the body of Christ (i.e. ecclesial praxis). Perhaps some interesting questions along this line could be explored, such as:
- Do we ever read, sing, recite, or reflect on the Psalms in corporate worship?
- Does the liturgy of corporate worship allow time for the worshipers to pour out the cries of their souls in quiet?
- Does our pastor ever lead a corporate cry, perhaps reading or praying one of the “dark” Psalms in worship?
- Does our congregation sing exclusively “happy-clappy” songs, or do we also sing sorrowful laments?
- Does my family worship time allow my family to voice the cry of their souls?
Conclusion
The Cry of the Soul truly leads us to God by honestly taking us through the whole spectrum of our hearts’ idolatries and the full context of God’s cosmic redemption, including how God redeems our emotions by using them as a window through which to shine His Light into our souls. This book helps us to see all our hearts’ stupid idols, all of the dry breasts we so stupidly fondle as we seek for life-giving milk that only God Himself can give even as He has already done so by sending His own Son to redeem us, body and soul.
Notes
1. In this specific regard, The Cry of the Soul evidences a vast improvement over Dr. Allender’s solo publication, The Healing Path. Perhaps this improvement reveals the balancing strength that comes from uniting a professional Christian psychologist (Allender) with a professional theologian (Longman) as is the case with The Cry of the Soul.
More Books by Allender and Longman
And in the third place this action of the Holy Spirit is evident from the productiveness of theology in times when the operations of the Spirit in the Church are powerful, and from the poverty and meagreness which are seen in contrast, as soon as those operations of the Spirit withdraw themselves from the Church. Subjectively this can be expressed by saying that theology has flourished only at the times when theologians have continued in prayer, and in prayer have sought the communion of the Holy Spirit, and that on the other hand it loses its leaf and begins its winter sleep when ambition for learning silences prayer in the breast of theologians.
