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Friday
Jan222010

Training scars

Law enforcement and the military have a term for an inappropriate or mistaken response that was mislearned during training, a behavioral script that gets laid down during the officer's training that would clearly not be helpful in a real situation, or perhaps even yield a deadly result. The term is "training scar."

David Grossman, in his book, On Combat, describes an officer-in-training who learned how to grab a gun out of a would-be criminal's hand. During practice, the officer would grab a gun from a colleague, then give it back to him in order to rehearse it again. During a real confrontation with an assailant, the officer surprisingly grabbed the gun from the man's hand, then gave it right back to him. Fortunately, the officer's partner dispatched his own weapon and shot the attacker. The officer who had learned an inappropriate response during training -- giving the gun back -- nearly cost someone's life. That's a training scar.

The Church today is functioning with numerous training scars, or behavioral scripts that are not serving us well. These scripted beliefs are wreaking havoc on The Body. These rehearsed patterns of thought are perhaps even neurologically wired into our brains in ways that lock the spirit and body (Spirit and Body) into dis-ease. The training scar I'm particularly concerned about is our continuing belief that the human heart remains dark, inwardly bent and sinful even after Christ has given the Christian a new heart, goodness and identity at their conversion.

We have remained in the Old Covenant approach to relating, refusing to pass over into the New. Listen to most sermons on any given weekend, and you'll discover the following ingrained script: "Your heart is still selfish and prone to wander. Kill you heart and call that 'holiness.' It's our job to help you behave more like a Christian so that you can do more, be more committed, and stop being so spiritually inept. You don't really want to follow God, so we'll pressure you into becoming like him."

The script of "New creation in Christ, but bad heart, still" is the pervasive training scar of the day. It is not the Gospel. And the result to the unwitting Christian is this wound: "You're not pleasing to me. Try harder." ---------------------------------

For more on behavior scripts, see Laurence Gonzales' books, Deep Survival and Everyday Survival. "Training scar" gun story, from Everyday Survival.



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Reader Comments (2)

Seems to me Jim, that the answer is fellowship. We listen to pastors to be fed, to learn and to maybe be enlightened. Fellowship is where ideas and inspirations are tried and tested, any validity found. Congregations who endure what you've brought forth have the parkings lots cleared within about 15 minutes after the door open. It is for the legalistic church goer, they aren't really listening anyway. This is also one of the reasons that mainstream churches are dwindling away. True Christianity still lives, it is just harder to find because of the training scars. I might be seeing this different than you intended, my apologies if so.

January 25, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMarsha

HI Marsha. I fully agree that true Christianity is alive and well. I also believe that training scars can be found in more organic, non-institutional fellowships as well as typical congregations. It's a mindset,more than a location.

It's the responsibility of each individual to sift through what they're hearing to see if it gels with Scripture and the person of Jesus.

Thanks for joining the conversation here.

January 26, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterJim Robbins

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