Abstract
Relationships are integral to who we are, and humans cannot survive without relationships with others. Even though we may seem fine on our own, most of us talk about the need for relationships and thirst for them. People expect to be connected with someone.
Dr. Hall is a clinical psychologist and a professor at Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University. While Hall researched relational spirituality intensely for nearly 20 years, he developed several measures of relational spirituality and wrote the book Relational Spirituality: A Psychological-Theological Paradigm for Transformation in 2021. The book reviewed here has a subtitle, “The Art and Science of Relational Spirituality,” which suggests that The Connected Life continues his work.
The book comprises four parts, beginning with the crisis in our connections. Then, Hall explains relational knowledge; this knowledge is a foundation for attachment bonds, the topic of the third part. He closes the book with the longest part regarding transformation.
Chapter 1 explains the causes of the connection crisis. Hall begins with his childhood and family story and describes how it affected his relationships. The family structure is the most important social context for young children in which they form attachment bonds and learn how to connect with people and God. Moreover, civic and community group activities declined significantly, and place-based connections became function-based social connections.
The spiritual effects of disconnection are discussed in chapter 2. Hall again starts with his personal experiences regarding the link between social and spiritual disconnection. We create unhealthy relational patterns to reduce the emotional pain caused by disconnections to maintain relationships with important persons. However, our defense mechanisms backfire, especially preventing us from truly connecting with God and others. Thus, social disconnection in the early ages creates spiritual disconnection with God and spiritual communities. Many Christians, especially emerging adults, feel disconnected from God and spiritual communities.
Chapter 3 discusses three unwise approaches to our spirituality. The first is the willpower approach by trying to push harder, and the second is the intellectual approach, by which we strive to know more. The last is the spiritual-emotional approach, by which we endeavor to feel good. All these approaches can negatively influence us when practiced without loving God and neighbors. Therefore, Hall introduces the relational approach as the fourth, which “involves living a connected life—a life in which our spirituality empowers us to face our pain with the help of loving relationships, and to develop more authentic relationships with God and others” (p. 37). Chapters 4 and 5 deal with this relational knowledge.
Chapter 4 demonstrates two kinds of knowledge: explicit knowledge, which is logical and language-based, and implicit knowledge based on emotion. One of the subtypes of implicit knowledge is relational knowledge, which is “the foundational way of knowing in relationships” (p. 53). How we relate to people is not different from how we relate to God. The experience of our human relationship with our attachment figure is naturally projected into our relationship with God. Therefore, this implicit relational knowledge determines how we engage with and relate with God.
Chapter 5 deals with emotions and feelings. Emotions are the foundation of our implicit relational knowledge regarding the healthy and loving way of relationships. Emotions immediately reveal what our experiences mean to us regarding our well-being. Our emotions transport information that is critical to understanding and loving people. We know things through feelings; we feel ideas through stories. Healing occurs when we allow others to gaze at our suffering or to hear our stories. Emotions can motivate our decisions under conscious awareness and become a gatekeeper for our thinking. Specifically, a healthy emotional response requires transforming from implicit relational knowledge. Because this relational knowledge is the foundation of attachment bonds, Part 3 deals with attachment bonds that “shape our soul and ability to love” (pp. 73–74).
Attachment theory was founded by Bowlby, who claimed the importance of the childhood experience of having a relationship with their parents. He explained that infants and young children must have an intimate and continuous relationship with their caregivers, and those warm relationships will be their satisfaction and enjoyment. A patient of schizophrenia (wrongly recognized as a genetic disorder), through loving relationships, eventually experienced emotional and spiritual improvement. Based on various scientific research, Hall concludes that “attachment relationships shape not only our genetic expression but our sense of self and how we relate to others” (p. 86).
We all need an attachment relationship to grow and be healed. To be attached is to have continuous care and protection by our attachment figure. Infants feel attached through physical closeness; adults feel connected through emotional intimacy. Relational experience with caregivers in the first three years can cause long-lasting relational and spiritual effects. However, this can be healed through time, and our role is to help others develop and heal. Our experience of human attachment filters shapes our attachment to God, and God can reshape our attachment despite painful relational experiences. Attachment is a fundamental need for us, and it has the power to transform us.
Chapter 8 presents three patterns of attachment that mold our relationships: secure, preoccupied, and dismissing. People with a secure attachment filter feel comfortable in attachment relationships and can relate to God in the same pattern. People with a preoccupied attachment pattern usually have difficulty managing their emotions, suppose others to be unreliable, and have relatively large anxiety in their relationship with God. People with dismissing attachment filters tend to ignore their attachment needs and are less likely to rely on God in times of need. Finally, attachment filters are stubborn.
The last part deals with the goal and process of transformation. Chapters 9 and 10 deal with love. Two components of love are (1) pursuing the good of the other and (2) desiring connection with the other. Love requires a lot of discernment and sacrifice for people. Thus, the ultimate good for others is sharing a loving connection with God to them. Loving others requires responsiveness; ways to respond are various due to different relationships. Loving others can be the life-long process of growing to focus on others while we go through our emotional insecurities and barriers. Our limited resources make us love certain people more than others. The attachment relationship infants receive from their parents is the attachment filter that works for life and is the prototype of love. Expansion from loving close people to loving “others” is a continuous tension in life. Christian love in all kinds of relationships should reflect trinitarian love; God's love is the source of our love for others.
Deep growth is like a twisting, long journey; help from God and fellow travelers is crucial. After the long breath of spiritual practice, a significant shift, called “a spiritual tipping point,” occurs, and the change results are revealed. Implicit relational knowledge and explicit knowledge should be integrated to make deep growth. This key process is explained in chapter 11, and chapter 12 discusses how to cultivate deep growth.
While telling our stories, we interpret our experiences and feel an idea about those stories. These two ways produce the integration of two kinds of knowledge in four phases: preparation, incubation, illumination, and interpretation. Narrating experiences can shift our perspective on those experiences because those experiences are interpreted. Feeling an idea is “a knowing that exists in our emotions and experience but carries within it an idea” (p. 155). Stories contain knowledge, and the events in stories create an imaginary experience for the listener. Through stories, ideas are felt, integrated with relational knowledge, and transformed.
Our role in cultivating deep growth is to engage in deliberate spiritual practices that create the internal and relational conditions for growth. Such spiritual practices indirectly influence our growth by facilitating the relational processes that transform us. Chapter 12 presents two authentic methods: Scripture and contemplative prayer. Reading and meditating on the Scriptures have been used as foundational practices since the early church because they assist people to know about God and integrate explicit knowledge with relational knowledge. We can meet God relationally and develop our intimacy through the Bible. Mindful awareness is another kind of prayer that focuses on God's direct experience through the Holy Spirit. Contemplative practices make a secure attachment to God possible.
No one welcomes suffering, but suffering can lead us to grow through specific processes. Suffering lets us change our unhealthy implicit beliefs into healthy beliefs and makes us depend on God. By presenting our suffering in the form of lament used in the Bible, two ways of knowing will be integrated knowledge that changes our soul. People who have been transformed through suffering have testified that they experience changes in three broad categories: their philosophy of life, the self, and relationships. The chapter ends with eight indicators of growth in three areas.
Contrary to people's expectations, belonging to a church is complicated due to many variables. Even the early church had conflicts and tensions due to its diverse membership. Chapter 14 discusses ways to build a sense of belonging in a spiritual community. To form the structure of belonging, sharing an identity, an experience, and a purpose is essential. Healthy churches have all these characteristics. Thus, commitment and mutuality are two kinds of adhesive of belonging. A community where its members grow should be authoritative or a mix of warmth and system. Then, in spiritual communities, “small groups are the unit of belonging” (p. 196).
Hall's persuasion for “the connected life” is distinguished and successful in the book through his scholarly knowledge and various experiences. Although humans are born to connect and belong, the connection with God and others is easily ignored. This book may ignite the necessity of our connected life. Moreover, without using the word “gospel,” Hall presents the “gospel” in a different way by emphasizing that the love of the triune God is the foundation of restoring our broken relationship. Therefore, we, the saved, are to love others based on that love.
He presents the complicated concepts well so that readers can understand and project the concepts into one's own lives and the lives of others. One is the explanation of emotions in chapter 5, which is about how emotions are formed and function. The explanation about the distortion of implicit relational knowledge and the integration of the two different kinds of knowledge enriches the understanding of humans and relationships. A summary at the end of each chapter is helpful; the summary in the last chapter wraps up the whole book. Finally, the book is well-structured and concrete.
For those who are estranged from God and find it difficult to relate to others, this book may provide some clues to understand themselves. Through many stories in the book, readers can find similar experiences to their own. This book is also recommended for ministers and educators involved in the care of souls. This book will give a new perspective on connecting with God and others. It will motivate them to serve congregations and students to connect with God and others.
One disappointing part is the limited explanation of contemplative prayer and mindfulness in chapter 12. I agree with his confirmation that the ultimate purpose of Christian contemplative practices is an intimate relationship with God. Hall intends to explain that contemplative practices positively affect increasing attachment to God. However, there is no specific explanation of how they are different or similar practices, making it difficult to understand. People who are not familiar with such spiritual disciplines may be confused.
The reviewer concludes that The Connected Life provides enough profound ideas and warm stories as the starting point to transform our relationships with God and others. We are born to relate and search for the meaning of our lives. “Relationships are where we find the meaning that defines our lives” (p. 198). Furthermore, through an intimate relationship with God, we can live a life based on his purpose and plan while experiencing profound growth. This book can help us with that process.