Masters Theses or Dissertation

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Browsing Masters Theses or Dissertation by Author "Atsu, Kplaku"

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    Jesus Our Saviour: The Healer of Inner Brokenness
    (Tangaza University College, 2012) Atsu, Kplaku
    The idea to undertake this research on the topic of healing of inner brokenness came to birth on two different planes: one personal and the other academic. On the personal level, I discovered through Dr. Whitfield’s book, Healing the Child Within, the effect of trauma on the human psyche. He describes how a false self emerges when the “Child Within”, “that part of each of us which is ultimately alive, energetic, creative and fulfilled” 1 is not nurtured accordingly. Recent breakthroughs in the realm of psychology and psychiatry have shown that specific parts of the brain play an important role in forming a healthy emotional relationship, especially during the first year of life. However, “significant interruption of healthy development by repeated trauma often leaves a child in an out-of-control ‘fight, flight or freeze’ state, often called post traumatic stress disorder”. 2 In other words, our basic personalities depend on those who have either consciously or unconsciously loved us or refused to love us. Growing up in troubled families where sexual abuse, mental and emotional abuse, child neglect, and ignoring or thwarting the child’s spirituality or spiritual growth are rife, disrupt and impair the child’s integral human development. 3 This can lead to some vices such as homosexuality, masturbation and many other difficulties pertaining to feeling arousal or pleasure as an adult. The crux of the matter is that, there is a strong connection between what happened to us when we were little and our daily repetition, compulsion, addiction and craving. A coherent childhood’s story can easily account for our current type of personality. We are like the man under the law described by Paul: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. […] I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (cf. Romans 7:15.18-19). 4 Discovering the “Child Within” and its story is a pathway to personal growth, emotional and intellectual integration. Buddhists describe the Self as an endless peeling onion. To break free of being a victim or a martyr of our compulsive behaviour needs a thorough exploration and integration of the inner Self. Christianity claims that the salvation of the human race has been achieved in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus-Christ. How can we call Jesus of Nazareth, the Healer of inner brokenness in this context of human psychological suffering? Can he make whole our puzzling inner wounds and alienation? Over the years, people have developed an over-active brain and unhealthy defences due to the traumatic environment in which they have grown up. The language of the brain which is expressed through our feeling of fear, anxiety, anger, rage and impulsivity is nothing else than stress response systems to increased excitation of the brain stem cells. 6 The healing of our stress disordered brain and body is indispensable for our mental, emotional and physical well-being. Like the deer that yearns for running streams, our soul is yearning for a liberating healing from our childhood coping and survival response of anger that has long caused us unceasing problems. 7 With Jesus as the ultimate therapist can we start to relax in situations that used to trigger anger and rage? Is Jesus still relevant in our existential torture of loneliness and search for meaning? In the hope of trying to answer these questions and clarify the nature of healing causality, I turned to soteriology, the systematic study of salvation, namely Jesus’ saving work in our lives. Here comes in the second, more academic factor at the origin of this long essay. Having done an elective entitled, How does Jesus Christ Save us, and read Father Eamonn Mulcahy’s doctoral thesis, The Cause of our Salvation, my quest for salvific healing was increased. On the question: how are we saved by Jesus of Nazareth? The answer was: by the love mediated in the whole life of Christ – incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection and sending of the Spirit. 8 While we appreciate the many positive insights of this thesis, we shall attempt to articulate a mystical soteriology of union or oneness wherein all the major soteriological models find their expression – revelation, redemption, liberation, divinisation, justification, sacrifice, satisfaction, substitution and reconciliation.