REVIEW OF THE ME I WANT TO BE BY JOHN ORTBERG A Paper Presented to Dr. Barry Jones Dallas Theological Seminary In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course SF901 Spiritual Formation in the Local Church by Christopher (Kit) Bogan February 2011 Box #176
REVIEW OF THE ME I WANT TO BE BY JOHN ORTBERG Ortberg, John. The Me I Want to Be. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010. 264 pp. Dr. John Ortberg serves as the pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. He earned his Master of Divinity from Fuller Seminary and his doctorate in clinical psychology from the same school. He has written many popular books on personal and spiritual development, and from the tone of his book, he is a very winsome character. This book began with a conversation while Ortberg was playing golf with some friends, where they dreamed about creating a movement for spiritual growth (p. 7). This book is very reader-friendly, not intimidating for anyone to pick off the shelf. Ortberg skillfully treats a a fear or disillusionment-inducing topic in a way that is accessible, practical, and applicable. Content He begins the book with a section on Finding My Identity. Here he lays out the basic reason why God made people: to grow towards a flourishing life. This growth involves the person s spirit, mind, time, relationships, and experiences: the major sections of the book. In one s spirit a person receives ideas and energy from a source beyond himself. In one s mind people find joy, peace, curiosity, and an active desire to learn that never tires or gets bored. In one s time a person learns to act artistically, with expectancy and with confidence. In one s relationships one draws energy, openness, and both forgiveness and peace in her desire for people. Lastly, in one s experiences he or she feels a desire to contribute and a sense of calling, of resilience, and of growth. Ortberg addresses the kinds of me I should not be: the showy false exterior, the one making bad comparisons, the victim defined by others, the external rulekeeper, or the languishing hopeless case. Instead, readers participate in a beautiful dance, where the me I am meant to be flourishes, changes, and is renovated not to something new, but to something renewed: like an old piece of furniture restored to its intended beauty (p. 16). 1
My Spirit. The only way to become the person God made you to be is to live with 2 the Spirit of God flowing through you like rivers of living water (p. 39). Ortberg argues that how a person grows depends on what energizes him, his temperament, her sacred pathway, her learning style, his signature sin, and her season of life. Surrendering one s will to a higher power (God), and doing so continually, even when it s uncomfortable, brings victory, freedom, and glory. The key is spiritual living is to try softer, not harder, moving from one who is incompetent and unaware to one who is competent and again unaware. My Mind. Rather than the stiff obedience of one who does only what ought to do, Ortberg reminds us that our desires, with the right perspective, should lead us to take pleasure in God and nurture a desire to please Him. Our mind changes as we avoid stinking thinking (p. 90), monitor our minds, and set them on excellent and life-giving thoughts (like the hope that that girl way out of your league actually likes you; cf. p. 103). After giving advice on how to feed our minds with the Bible, he exhorts worry-prone readers to dwell on God s love which casts out fear, and to decisively act to face one s fear as well. My Time. Ortberg demystifies prayer by demonstrating how to let talking flow into praying, a conversation with God where we trade our sanctimonious ought-to prayers for the problems we personally face and the desires we personally have. He handles temptation and sin in this segment of the book, with many suggestions to strengthen the reader against temptation. He wisely notes how a person s sin patterns often reflect a person s personality and strengths. When sin knocks us out of the flow, Ortberg takes a pastoral moment to address soulsearching, conviction, repentance, and hope. My Relationships. The first relationship to cultivate is with God, as Ortberg invites the reader to go off the deep end by spending time with Him specially. By making life-giving relationships a priority and being transparent human with others, we experience the power of connectedness, the treasure of happiness and joy in others presence, and the reality of living with other people in an imperfect world. Ortberg recognizes the importance of difficult people in one s life for spiritual growth and perhaps as a difficult person in others lives as well.
My Experience. A person who lets God flow into his or her work enjoys the joyful 3 flow of doing something well in the world God created. There is spirituality in honoring God in one s work and laboring in it wholeheartedly as a calling from God, not just a job to get done or a career for one s personal advancement. Everyone experiences adversity, which Ortberg addresses realistically before his conclusion. In his final chapter, Ortberg challenges the reader to ask for a mountain: a glorious burden at the intersection of the tasks that tap into one s greatest strengths and the needs that tap into one s deepest passions (p. 252). On this mountain, a person thrives in the flourishing life God has prepared for him or her. Compliments Ortberg is a very experienced writer who has done his share of research. He has a pastoral heart to serve others. He has a great awareness of the impact of personalities on personal counseling, as did Benedict of Nursia and Gregory the Great in their writings. The Enneagram is a personality profile that, while perhaps less familiar than the DISC profile or Myers-Briggs letter combinations, is easy to grasp quickly and is worth remembering for pastoral contact. He gives great advice on subjects for personal development, grounding many biblically: how to enjoy good desires as from God, dwell on good things (cf. Phil 4:8, Col. 3:2), overcome worry and fear with God s love (1 John 4), and fight bad habits and temptations. He offers steps for those beginning the Christian life to maintain throughout one s walk: going off the deep end with God at special times or places, or reading the Bible with a new set of questions to mine its riches. He also elicits laughter from the reader with the sublime ( If you can worry, you can meditate ) and the ridiculous ( I poke badgers with spoons describing original sin). He challenges the seasoned Christian in his walk as well. Thoughts on surrender and trying softer are excellent words for believers whose traits lead them to legalism, workaholism, or modes of spirituality that put self before God. His quadrants of growth and its perception (awareness and competence) help believers measure their progress in any aspect of growth. Lewis Sperry Chafer would have appreciated Ortberg s point in pages 71-72 that we must let the
Holy Spirit do what we cannot do by trying harder. Realizing that the reader might be the 4 difficult person in someone else s life is both tough and good. Ortberg s ending points powerfully to Jesus and His work on the cross as the source of the life which the Spirit offers to us, available at any moment (p. 254). Critiques The beginning of the book is very different from its powerful ending. Matching its unfortunate title, the opening is very you-focused, people-centered, and earthly-minded. Pages 16 and 40 repeat the sentence, You become you-ier, stressing his concept that people are not made new creations in Christ so much as they are renovated by Him. The you-centricity of his writing is in high gear when on one page he starts 18 sentences with You as the glorious subject. Ortberg s purpose for this personal change is so that people can be encouraged, gardens can be planted, music can be written, sick people can be helped, or companies can thrive in ways they otherwise would not. When you fail to become the person God designed, all the rest of us miss out on the gift you were made to give (pp. 31-32). But true Christian spirituality finds its end not in humanitarianism, in gardening or music alone. Its end is our eternal glorification and enjoyment of God. The picture Ortberg paints seems to glorify humanity and enjoy the earth forever too much for this reviewer s liking. The chapter on surrender could have broken free of this by leading the reader to claim the will of God positively as He accomplishes His will by His Spirit in us (cf. Phil. 2:12-13). Sadly, Ortberg stops short. What is most troubling is the paucity of references to the heart of the gospel: Jesus substitutionary atonement. Theologically speaking, the Christian s sanctification starts with his positional sanctification (justification) upon belief in Jesus Christ. If sanctification is the growing tree, its life-giving roots are salvation in Jesus sacrifice on the cross. When Ortberg fails to make mention of Jesus or the cross in the foundational first chapters of the book, one either hopes at best that Ortberg s readers are already firmly grounded Christians, or fears at
worst that his view of sanctification has little need for Jesus sacrifice. He writes on page 46, 5 No matter how wrongly you have erred in the past, if you are sincerely ready to listen and obey God, you do not have to worry about God being made at you. He is not that kind of God. Yet unbelievers certainly do have good reason for concern about the wrath of God (cf. Romans 1, Hebrews 10). Only the atoning work of Jesus Who satisfied the holy demands of God s character through His sacrificial death lets those who believe in Him live in His love without fear. His chapter on sin mentions repentance, but not Jesus or His cross. At last Ortberg mentions the cross in his final chapter (on page 246), but it feels like far too little, far too late. Another troubling aspect of the book is a weak pneumatology a fuzzy view of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. In talking about discovering the flow of the Spirit, he says, Then comes the line that takes your breath away: And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. This is good news You and I the leaves are to flourish for the healing of the nations. For the healing of the Gaza strip. For the healing of Darfur. For the expensive home in the suburbs ripped by a divorce. For the lonely worker at an office party. For the forgotten woman at a homeless shelter (p. 42). This is okay, but Ortberg leaves a great deal unexplained before this part. For starters, from where does this Spirit come? Two pages earlier he described the creation of Adam in Genesis 2, where God breathed into him the breath of life, pointing out that the Hebrew word for breath is the same word for spirit. Does Ortberg imply that the Holy Spirit is in everyone? Orthodox Christianity points to Pentecost as the day in which the Holy Spirit was given to the church (Acts 2), and to the act of faith as that moment in which the believer is indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Ortberg confuses the two uses of Spirit in English: there is no clear difference in his writing between a person s own spirit (as in someone who is high-spirited, or people exhibiting an esprit de corps) and the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Trinity who has intellect, emotion, and will distinct from any person; cf. Rom. 8:16). In the midst of Ortberg s lack of clarity about the character of God, the quotation from Teilhard de Chardin (p. 192) makes the theological student wary of Ortberg s doctrinal moorings.
6 Ortberg describes spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines badly. On page 29 he writes, Spiritual formation is the process by which your inner self and character are shaped. God is not present in this definition; given the lack of any spiritual quality to this definition, one would do better to call this secular counseling or personal formation, not spiritual formation. Describing spiritual disciplines, Ortberg writes, A spiritual discipline is simply an activity you engage in to be made more fully alive by the Spirit of Life (p. 52). Hopefully, the reference to the Spirit of Life does really refer to the Holy Spirit, the member of the Trinity. But what about the unsaved who have no life and no rebirth? One must assume that their sole spiritual discipline would be putting their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. Most of the disciplines on page 31, which match Ortberg s description, seem to require no prerequisite of spiritual rebirth: leading, recreation, exercise, family, long talks, laughter, leading a cause, or nature (prayer and evangelism are not on the list). Ortberg writes, To be spiritually alive means to receive power from God to have a positive impact on your world (p. 31). This reviewer disagrees vehemently: Ortberg mistakes a good result for the end game. Conclusion The big question that remains is this: Is this a book about a personally fulfilling life, or about a life that finds satisfaction in God through Jesus Christ by His Spirit? Ortberg often refers to biblical characters, and Bible verses appear often across the chapters. But here is the author s self-proclaimed foundational idea: The only way to become the person God made you to be is to live with the Spirit of God flowing through you like rivers of living water (p. 39). Without explaining how this Spirit of God flows into the believer in the first place through putting one s faith wholly in Jesus Christ s life, death, and resurrection for salvation from sin and for a righteous life on earth before God this claim has a truly weak foundation. On page 90 Ortberg writes, Becoming the best version of yourself, then, rests on one simple directive: Think great thoughts! Yet he neglects the greatest thought of all, the most cherished in the universal
7 church across all ages and places: God sent His Son to die and make possible the salvation and subsequent restoration of every human being. Readers can benefit from the book in many ways, reviewed above under the heading Compliments. But most of this book s message can be maintained without all the Bible characters and verses. Based upon this book alone, one learns to appreciate Ortberg as a psychologist who takes godly pleasure in bringing the Bible into his office. The reader must be on his guard regarding Ortberg as a pastor whose roots go deeper in psychological studies than in clearly applied orthodox doctrine. The reader who wants a book that sets the foundation of his or her Christian walk upon solid theology and soteriology must look elsewhere.