Exploring the Dark Night of the Soul Experience...

In seminary education (other than perhaps in a Catholic seminary), the concept of the dark night is rarely examined, if ever. Therefore, a seminary-trained Protestant pastor may well enter into the dark night of the soul without any warning and without any understanding about what is happening. Unfortunately, the pastor who has never heard of this phenomenon may discern this gracious work of God in his or her life as a personal mental problem, such as a form of de-pression, or even a spiritual failure on their part.---*---*---Thus the pastor may enter into a crisis of faith in their pastoral service and thereby miss the benefit of the experience. Similarly, a devout and mature lay Christian may also enter into the so-called "dark night of the soul," and have no idea what is happening.---*---*---The modern Christian psychologists fail to answer the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" The biblical theology presented by Saint John of the Cross (a 16th century monk in Spain) does answer that question, providing a sufficient and satisfying understanding of why troubles do indeed arise in everyone's life. My hypothesis is that many pastors and lay-Christians are largely unaware of the teachings of Saint John of the Cross and are very unaware of the biblical theology of the purpose of sorrow and suffering. Thus when sorrow and suffering come into their lives and ministry, their leadership effectiveness in pastoral ministry or church leadership is negatively affected.---*---*---This book (the first part of several parts to come) explores the realities that Christians have "imperfections," and that God is working on those imperfections. This is a thoroughly biblical theology, backed up by many scripture verses quoted in context. Happy reading!