Questions for the Ministry

"Judge a person by his questions rather than by his answers." Francois Marie Voltaire

When analysing all the data we have about reincarnation, as I have explained elsewhere (see Pragmatic Reincarnationism), one cannot escape the conclusion that in the belief in reincarnation we are not dealing so much with an ideology, as with a new escapist habit of thought. The psychological motivations through which the idea of reincarnation is hooked into peoples' consciousness, seem much more important to me than any logical defences of the idea. This has consequences for our pastoral dealings with people who believe in reincarnation.

Is belief in reincarnation an "addiction"?

Allow me to draw a comparison with the problem of the habit of smoking cigarettes now so deeply ingrained in western culture. Tobacco smoke is a real killer. Smoking causes 30 percent of cancer deaths and is a major factor in coronary heart disease.

Governments run campaigns by which people are constantly advised of the real danger involved in smoking. Schools run educational programmes, with the help of excellent film material and personal witnesses, to inform youngsters about the risks involved. As a result, the vast majority of people in western society know that smoking presents the highly increased likelihood of contracting cancer or heart disease.

However, although the level of smoking has been reduced through these informational services, a very large proportion of people still continue to smoke. They know it is dangerous, yet they do not give up the habit. The reason is instructive. Smoking is addictive. It fulfils certain psychological needs.¹² Liberating people from the negative habit of smoking requires not only good intellectual information, but also a tackling of their psychological needs.

Could the same apply to the idea of reincarnation?

Since reincarnation is mainly adhered to because of its pragmatic reasons, because of the psychological needs it is perceived to satisfy, should a pastoral ministry counteracting reincarnation not do more than just clarify doctrinal positions?

Should our Christian message not be proclaimed in terms that address contemporary needs?

In the past we may not have sufficiently clarified the liberating aspect of our own Christian beliefs. For a number of reasons, theologians have been reluctant to develop a new language regarding death, regarding our absorption into God and our utter self-realisation in God's love in a language which would speak to our own contemporaries.¹³

• As we have seen before, death poses a special problem in western society. Bereavement studies on parents who have lost a child, show unequivocally that, also in our own time, religion helps people cope.  Parents with a personal faith in God adjust better to the loss.  Belief in God helps parents overcome an unavoidable sense of failure and guilt.  Believing parents report fewer difficulties of sleep disorder, nightmares, anxiety states and substance abuse. The same study also shows that many Christians too are ill-prepared for death, with vital questions being left unanswered.¹⁴

• Specifically, do many preachers not avoid speaking about heaven, because they feel instinctively that the old images are out of date, and they do not have appropriate new images to replace them? As a result, the Christian images of the afterlife either appear somewhat simplistic, childish pictures no longer appealing to modern people; or they have become incredibly vague and thus have lost their power to fulfil our psychological need of meaning and immortality.
• And what about the resurrection of the body? In our theology and preaching we may emphasize a physical picture that strikes people as either implausible or irrelevant. Should we not rather emphasize that the resurrection of the body entails the affirmation by God of our personal identity? Everything that is part of us, our searchings and successes, our sufferings and relationships, our dreams and our work are redeemed, embraced and sealed by God in an act of everlasting love. Is it not the meaning, rather than just the fact of our "bodies rising with Christ" that will make the appeal of reincarnation obsolete?

Will ministering to people's needs not be more effective than preaching?

The psychological needs of people that give rise to the easy acceptance of reincarnation, should also be addressed in more direct ways.

• What do we really do to prepare people for a healthy and wholesome death?
• Do we sufficiently address the need of personal healing in guiding and counselling young people?
• Are our liturgies geared to physically present the communion of saints as is so beautifully done in the orthodox rites?

When we, Christians, have the means to offer people the highest consolation possible through the healing power of God's love, why is it they turn to dreams and illusions?

From "Pragmatic Reincarnation. The belief in reincarnation among young people in western culture" by John Wijngaards

See also the following related documents:

• the increase of reincarnation belief in Europe;
• doctrinal reincarnation beliefs;
• pragmatic reincarnationism;