Home Media Magazine - May 11-17, 2008 - (Page CER7)

product profile+ nothing to teach us but how to acquire material goods? Author, psychologist and speaker Dr. Henry Cloud is one such critic. “We are not God; we cannot just make these things happen,” Dr. Cloud says. When a publisher approached him about writing a Christian response to The Secret, Dr. Cloud was intrigued. He set out to discover what the Bible says about positive thinking, and what modern psychology can tell us about repairing relationships and leading more-successful lives. The result was his 2007 book The Secret Things of God, which was made into an educational DVD of the same name released in March by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. It features interviews with leaders of all faiths and those helped by the Bible and its ideals, as well as Dr. Cloud’s own brand of Christian-influenced psychology. The Secret Things of God uses a documentary-style presentation with organized learning. Dr. Cloud offers lessons that have Biblical passages as their foundation and cover happiness, relationships, purpose and spiritual lives. Viewing groups can pause the DVD at the end of each lesson and talk about their impressions of it. The lessons are more varied than The Secret’s singular focus, he says. Dr. Cloud puts it in simple terms: “You were created for a purpose. If you seek God, He’ll show up, and God wants an intimate relationship with you.” Dr. Cloud considers that intimacy an important part of the Christian counterpoint. In place of The Secret’s impersonal universe that acts according to human beings’ thoughts, Dr. Cloud posits the Christian God who says there is a place for everyone in His plan and that all things are not under your control. There are rules to help change a person’s thinking, but Dr. Cloud says he doesn’t believe that they have a supernatural power to affect the universe. To match The Secret’s success stories, Dr. Cloud called friends and acquaintances whose lives were changed by lessons such as those in The Secret Things of God. They speak on the power of the simple lessons, with Christina Ferrare narrating and sharing her own story. Ferrare herself met Dr. Cloud years before he wrote the book. “I saw him as a guest speaker at a church in Malibu, and he was extraordinary,” Ferrare says. “There’s something so genuine about him, so real about his demeanor. He just seems anointed.” Dr. Cloud’s sermon that day was about relationships, and his advice ultimately helped Ferrare forge a better relationship with her daughter. “I learned patience, that it was all in God’s time,” Ferrare says. “I got out of control when I tried the most to control my daughter.” Dr. Cloud’s book and DVD taught her that if you ask, it doesn’t mean you’ll get it right away. “But I really believe that if you eliminate the God factor in life lessons, you won’t get the same success,” she says. Dr. Cloud says that the book and the DVD were not intended to show God’s ways embedded in any particular religious context. That’s why he involved Orthodox and Jewish leaders as well as secular psychologists and laymen. He tried to walk the line with the book and DVD, attracting and involving nonChristians in the universally applicable life lessons, but also staying grounded in the Christian Bible. “I want these rules, the lessons, to be kind of like gravity — whether you acknowledge it or not, it’s the way the universe works,” he says. Dr. Cloud saw some early success with the DVD even during the filming. His handpicked audience members thought they were at a regular job as extras. But he has since received letters from some of them explaining that they were deeply moved to learn about the “Secrets of God.” “They thought they were just going to a job, but they had a real experience,” he says. Experts Weigh In A Lutheran theologian and a Jewish Rabbi give their thoughts on the assertions of The Secret — the idea that positive and negative thinking can affect the universe. R onald MacLennan, Ph.D., Professor of Religion and Humanities Division Chair at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan., sees nothing wrong with an emphasis on the power of positive thinking. But he says the pernicious part of The Secret is the idea that those who suffer are victims of their own negative thinking. “That’s a terribly guilt-inducing thing,” MacLennan says. He gave the example of his mother, stricken with polio and trapped in a wheelchair for 35 years. “She prayed every day. She wanted to walk, but her muscles weren’t strong enough. Tell her she doesn’t have faith and isn’t thinking the right thoughts — that’s nasty, mean and false.” “I don’t think any faith is proof against suffering,” MacLennan adds. “What I get from theology is the presence of God during that suffering.” Rabbi Neal Schuster, associate rabbi at Congregation B’nai Jehudah near Kansas City, Kan., agrees with MacLennan. He says he’s disgusted people would think that bad luck, disease and natural disasters might be the result of negative thoughts. Bad things happen to good people, and bad people get material rewards all the time, he says. “Who is the happy man?” Schuster asks. “In [the Jewish text Ethics of the Fathers], it is the man content with his lot.” Schuster explains that Viktor Frankl, a psychologist who lived through internment at a Nazi death camp, said happiness is not something to pursue. A sense of meaning, of purpose, is. “If you have happiness only because good things are happening, that scares me,” Schuster says. “What happens when it breaks?” CHRISTIAN ENTERTAINMENT REVIEW / MAY 2008 7

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Home Media Magazine - May 11-17, 2008

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