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Inside-out Spirituality
I am supervising a Psychology thesis on how people cope with chronic skin conditions and how a person's spirituality might be important to them. It is well know that Religious Behaviour such as church going is important and helpful for people's mental health in chronic illnesses, but is this just because you have access to a supportive community?
What about the deeper aspects of spirituality? Does belief in God or 'something out there' help? And is this seperatable from social behaviour. One researcher differentiates Extrinsic and Intrinsic Spirituality:
The extrinsically motivated person uses his religion,whereas the intrinsically motivated lives his religion? (Allport & Ross, 1967, p. 434).
It will be interesting to follow this research, especially as most of this sort of thing has been done in bible belt USA where most people seem to go to church. This study will be done in dirty inner-city Leeds. I have included some of the questionnaire in the longer version of this post - click below.
Do you think Extrinsic and Intrinsic is a useful distinction? What are alternatives? Do you think it is the extrinsic or intrinsic aspects of faith that most help us deal with life's problems in general and chronic illness in particular? |
Rob Waller, 24/08/2008 |
1 Comment
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| | | Jonny (Guest) | 07/02/2010 20:40 | The extrinsically motivated Christian who actually sees the world in the way Christ does (very few of us) will be extrinsically acting in a way that Christ did. It is easy for us to be moved by the crowds in compassion when we are walking down a busy high street, council estate or university campus.Therefore we are motivated by the need in the world to try and make a difference.
Herein lies the problem, we cannot make a scrap of difference unless we are also motivated intrinsically. On our own, without an inner intrinsic motivation in a move of the spirit - a stirring or call within us, we cannot achieve anything, or we try to justify our actions as righteousness. This only leads us to a pattern of religious behavior as the Bible clearly demonstrates -just look at the pharisees, extrinsically motivated without following Gods guidance? Yes, in a hypocritical way to the world around them e.g. money, greed, pride and hierarchy. I doubt they had a genuine intrinsic motivation in the spirit, Christ could see this.
Leading back to being extrinsically motivated as Christ was, in being greatly moved by the crowds with compassion -Matthew 9:36. We can be motivated in this way but i believe it wouldn't be a genuine motivation unless we are also intrinsically moved and motivated by the spirit at the same time.
Christ clearly was as he was always doing how the Father directed in the spirit. If we are to follow Christ we then need to be intrinsically moved by the spirit and with this direction we will meet the need of the extrinsic motivations around us. Its Gods plan to meet those needs and its us who he moves through.
My argument is that the motivations go together hand in hand and the boundaries cross over, the real distinction between the motivations is that if we are following the spirit - in line with Gods will in any situation (motivated intrinsically) it would be impossible to not also be motivated extrinsically as in the spirit we receive a heart to reach those around us - this would be having Gods heart for people. And alternatively we cannot fully reach extrinsic needs on our own behalf and with our own wisdom without the guidance of the spirit intrinsically, as only God truly knows what each individual around us needs. Do you agree?
With this then I would certainly say that to understand chronic illness in particular we cannot separate the two aspects of faith. Extrinsically we understand where illness comes from and intrinsically we learn with Gods guidance how he deals with it, by his grace through us and in his spirit.
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