1993, 08/15. Jung’s Treatment of Christianity.

August 15, 1993

Dear Mom,

Well, there is a lull in the activity here on this job.  This is an hour or so after the phone call I made to you Saturday night.

I just got off the phone with Dave A., who was advising me to stick with what I originally told him rather than getting into bickering or trying to set people straight.  What I had told him was that I was weary and that I needed a “sabbatical” to get away for a while and think things over, to seek God, to pray, to study.  This is more where I am at.  When I talked to him, I had nothing to prove and he wasn’t selling the party line so I was more on the level with him.  With everyone here, I get into debates and the real issues get clouded.  I have been here thirteen years and I would like to get away for a while.  Of course, this will not go over well either, but neither do I want to slip out the back door, so I am going to say it.  Then maybe, I’ll go.

Dave kept reminding me that if there is anything he can do, he will help.  Though I still find it hard to believe I am welcome if I show up.  (Yet, it’s him who is reminding me of our first phone conversation where I mentioned the sabbatical, as if he were advising me to take one.)  Perhaps there is a mixed message then.  Don’t leave; I don’t want to feel I am making you leave–why don’t you come on over.  Perhaps he doesn’t want to face the consequences of what he is offering.  It seems ambiguous, but it also could be me.  I might be projecting my personal dilemma on him.  Really, it’s me that is this way.  I’ll let you know either way.

Now, I would like to tell you about that dream in more detail.  And here I will just copy from my journal.  It was a curious and interesting one.  Whether or not it is a “message” I don’t know.  But it certainly reflects, or is a product of my present dilemma:

I had a dream last night.  There were numerous sequences of these guys trying to get me.  It all took place in a fellowship house.  Especially one big guy wanted to do me in.  They would never actually get far in their harm–only beginning push or poke me.  But one guy had a knife.  I yelled outside, “Call the police!” which only met with laughter or curiosity on the part of a crowd that was out there.  The big guy asked me if I “took the bike.”  When I said no, he said to his companions, “See, I told you he was lying.”

I realized I better get away from here.  (It hadn’t occurred up to this point to do that.)  There was a burned out section with rubble and rafters in the back.  It started to rain and though it was August, I realized it would be pretty cold out there.  I was going to get wet.  (The feeling I had to flee, a long trip in the rain and cold.)  I thought of grabbing a jacket from the second floor, but realized it would be risky and I couldn’t risk getting caught.  I would just have to go.

I got outside in the back yard.  I saw a fence to a neighboring yard. There wasn’t much room to run to, it was a small yard.  I was disappointed.

I stepped over this low fence, which rattled as if it were covered with pots and pans, alerting everybody in the house.  I fell over it landing on my back with both feet twisted into the meshwork of the fence and was caught fast by the feet.  I could see a light in the second story window.  I figured it was only a matter of time before they got me, trapped as I was.  But I kept trying to work my feet free, tugging, trying to cut the strands.

The darkness suddenly cleared, revealing a bright full moon.  Now I was even more visible than ever, lying on my back under the bright moonlight.  The light went out in the house.  I began to realize maybe I hadn’t been detected.  There was also a realization that his was like a World War Two escape story.  The idea that people have been in this kind of situation, sneaking though the fence by the guard tower without much chance of escape, desperate.  Yet they lived to tell of it.  In other words, they survived despite the odds, so maybe I could.

To my left in the distance, I could see a big lake with hills on the other side, a refreshing, beautiful sight.  I thought, “I wish I could be there, just let me go there.”   Then, continuing the World War Two motif, three American soldiers came along the fence.  I was being freed.

Of course, I would like to apply this dream to escaping the fellowship and the difficulty of doing so.  The dangers, fleeing on a rainy night; sneaking out of a camp.   Getting caught by my feet, snared and lying helpless on my back, just waiting for these people to come any second now to finish me off.

Perhaps I would need someone greater than or other than myself to get me out of it.  In the dream, I could flee, but couldn’t get out.  I never worked my feet out of the fence.  (There is a “fence” around the fellowship isn’t there?  You really can’t get out.  Soldiers from another place, the “good guys” came.)

So that was the dream, with some of my thoughts about it.  What do you think about it?  If I may delve into the idea of dreams a bit, though I don’t live by them or consult them, I do notice and write down any curious or unusual ones.  There have been others, but that seemed to be a prominent one.  Another curious one was that I was shown a book that had the words “C.G. Jung” on it and I was told that if I wanted help with my problems, I should “read the parts about sin, the Gospel of John, and human life.”  I had never read this author, though I knew he worked in the area of psychology.  I thought, why not check it out?  Upon picking up a copy of an introduction to his basic writings, I quickly found out that he wrote extensively on Christianity, devoting a major portion of his life’s work to it.  I also picked up “Jung’s Treatment of Christianity” at a used book store.

Some of the immediate things that grabbed my attention were his comments that a great number of his patients that came seeking help came to him from the theologians.  (He didn’t mean by this that these people were referred for counseling by theologians!  But rather that they are driven to the point of going crazy by the theologians because of Christianity as presented and the unrealistic or taxing demands thereof.)  He also spoke of the detrimental effects of having a false image of God.  But, I think there are deeper points to be gotten out of what he did.   I am making a general survey of his writings.  What I get out of it is that he was attempting to reconcile Christianity to its true or original meaning, in a way that would be useful to people.  And to reconcile Christianity to people who, for whatever reasons, had lost their faith, or their moorings.  Either way, he is a very interesting writer and also easy to read.  Great insight into the human condition, though not necessarily in the strict traditions of orthodoxy.

You say I seem pretty well adjusted on the phone, but really, I am going through a difficult time.

Dave, who I mentioned earlier in the letter, said he spoke to Mr. Wurmbrand on the phone from Germany.  He said that if he is invited, he will come again to Times Square Church to speak and that he would like Dave to talk to Mr. Wilkerson about this.  He will stay with Dave and also with some of the others.  It seems he likes them.  Dave told me a little more about his week with Richard Wurmbrand as a chauffeur-companion the last time he was here.  He went for long walks with him and he used to make him breakfast.  Mr. Wurmbrand gets up early in the morning and prays and sings in Hebrew.  I am invited to come.  So, whether I am living with them or not, I will attempt to be there.  He says Mr. Wurmbrand is a very approachable man.

Mom, I don’t know what the day will bring.  I mailed you a copy of “My Exit Statement or: Why I Desire to Leave the Church of Bible Understanding,” which I will distribute in some way.  There is great censorship here.  If I left and mailed it in, it wouldn’t get passed around too far.  I would be considered weird, in my own world (in other words, mentally ill!) and not worth listening to, or worse.  The paper would find its way into the trash can.  (I have found and read several outside dissenters’ letters in that location!)

God bless you Mom, pray for me,

James