Reviewed Book: Capps, Donald. Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987

VanKatwyk, Peter L.

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 16Issue 1 Hermeneutics: Theory and Practice Article 195-1-1990Deadly Sins and Saving VirtuesPeter L. VanKatwykFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationVanKatwyk, Peter L. (1990) "Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues," Consensus: Vol. 16 : Iss. 1 , Article 19.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol16/iss1/19Book Reviews 127a process of theological reflection. It is impossible to read this fine textwithout engaging one’s own faith and life journey.Ironically, the word “loneliness” appears infrequently. I recall only threeplaces where the word is used. And yet most of the entries are earnestsearchings for meaning amidst despairing loneliness—both existential lone-liness and loneliness anxiety. The pains of loneliness are penetratingly there.The possibilities for loneliness are constantly elevated amidst the author’s“gospel musings”.This is definitely a book worth reading cls engagement in personal reflec-tion and as devotional literature. Beyond that, or perhaps as part of that,I can also see this text being used in courses in theology or els a resourcematerial in adult education, most notably in clergy-laity study groups. Thetext is written by someone struggling with faith and life issues, with livingin a trying and puzzling world, including in the institutional church. Andin the midst of all this, she is raising the deep questions: What does itmean to believe in God’s grace? Are we capable of truly caring for otherpeople?Arnold D. WeigelWaterloo Lutheran SeminaryDeadly Sins and Saving VirtuesDonald CappsPhiladelphia: Fortress Press, 1987In his latest book Capps resurrects the traditional canon of “deadlysins” which appeared long dead, at leaist els a significant focus area in thepractice of pELstoral care and counselling. This resurrection, however, doesnot constitute a return to moralism. On account of psychoanalytic theoryand even more so the impact of Carl Rogers’ non-directive therapy, thepEistoral care and counselling movement has adopted an attitude of “pos-itive regard” and “unconditional acceptance” to counteract the moralismheld responsible for what were considered the real “deadly sins”: neuroticrepression, a punitive conscience, and low self-esteem.Capps maintains this non-moralistic perspective by utilizing Erik Erik-son’s developmental theory els a dynamic context in which the “deadly sins”are counteracted by the “saving virtues”, which Erikson defines as humanstrengths which emerge in the healthy personality throughout the life cycle.Theologically this means that “original sin” is placed in tension with “orig-inal goodness” as both good and evil are inherent in the human condition.While the “saving virtues” dispose the person to the growth experienceof a fulfilling orientation to an ever- expanding world, the “deadly sins”arrest the person at critical points in the life cycle, thus condemning the128 Consensusperson to a restrictive lifestyle which is destructive of self and others. Thusthe various stages in the life cycle become kairos moments of critical lifeorientations: one direction offered by a “deadly sin”, another by a “savingvirtue”. The point of the book is that specific sins are contrasted by specificvirtues and that the alluring disposition toward a specific sin/virtue occursat a specific stage in the life cycle.While in a previous age of pastoral care and counselling the image of“the shepherd” appeared at centre stage, Capps represents a new genera-tion of pastoral care givers who see their primary role as a “travel guide”or “coach” in helping persons become better oriented in their world. Thisnew pastoral identity wzls first and most provocatively expressed in DonBrowning’s The Moral Context of Pastoral Care in 1976. In 1983 Cappsplaced this moral enterprise in life orientation in the context of develop-mental life tasks in his Life Cycle Theory and Pastoral Care, a book whichserves as perhaps the best introduction to Erikson’s theory and the presentbook under review.On account of this emergence of the orienting function of pastoral care,the Bible gains a new prominence as guide and map, not so much in ref-erence to the life here after, but for the here and now as it relates to an“active faith”. Capps incorporates Bible studies in his books, presentingthe Bible not so much as a “moral book”, a book that teaches and advo-cates morality, but as “a major resource for assisting individuals and groupsin the nurturing of a virtuous orientation to life and more specifically, of alife reflecting the saving virtues” (p. 5).Some of the Bible stories are used to illustrate the moral dilemma ofbeing pulled in opposing directions between the deadly sins and the sav-ing virtues. Such morality vignettes can easily degenerate into an exercisein biblical moralizing. A larger “metastory” approach is present in show-ing the “pilgrim motif” in the first eight books of the Bible which areingeniously linked in parallel process with Erikson’s eight developmentalstages. A faith development approach is illustrated by relating the eightBeatitudes to the eight life cycle stages. While some readers will objectthat all of this amounts to psychological reductionism of scriptural exege-sis, others will discover a fresh biblical approach in moral education andpcistoral counselling.Capps is a systematician with a rare gift of synthesizing a variety ofsources and theories. There are times when his tables and diagrams ap-pear a bit too neat; listing and expositing eight “deadly sins” is a bit ofa deadly, if not boring, exercise. The horror of the deadly sins, surely, isthat they cannot be tamed, not even in brilliant cognitive frameworks. Bytheological definition sin remains disorderly and unexplainable. Yet Capps’developmental and dialectical process approach to the doctrine of good andevil does inspire the pastoral task of contrasting the life-denying functionBook Reviews 129of “deadly sins” with the good news of the “saving virtues” as the pathwaysof life.Peter L. VanKatwykInterfaith Pastoral Counselling CentreKitchener, OntarioGuided Grief Imagery: A Resource For Grief Ministryand Death EducationThomas A. DroegeMahwah, New York: Paulist Press, 1987178 pp.Carl Jung, when he Wcls asked by the British TV host whether he be-lieved in the existence of God, replied “No, Mr. Freeman, I know'\ Jung’sfamous rejoinder speaks to our modern western preoccupation—both reli-gious and secular—with propositions and an overly intellectual approachto truth. Thomas Droege ’s excellent book on using imagery to help us facedeath serves to rectify our imaginative impoverishment while yet affirmingthe core of the Christian tradition. The author rehabilitates our capacityto image the real in the domain of death and grief, that is neglected in ourtechnologized churches and society.This is a book for pastors, counselors and educators and any committedjourneyer who thinks death, grief and loss are too important an ingredientof life’s journey to be left to reason and doctrine alone. Guided imageryand the experiential journaling approach of Ira Progrof are integrated witha variety of death-related material drawn from Christian liturgies and bib-lical material including narratives from the Pentateuch and the Gospels,the pastoral issues of the Pauline Epistles, as well as the existential excla-mations that constitute the Psalms.This book is both comprehensive in scope and rich in detail. Chapterone and five ground the use of imagery in a coherent psychological andtheological framework. In the third chapter Droege refocuses us from ourcultural thanatological myopia as he outlines historical shifts in the popularimages used for facing death over two millennia. This is the best summary Iknow of Philip Aries’ The Hour of Our Death. Four main historical phasesare described. Evidently until the seventh century the early Christians forthe most part seemed comfortable with “nearness to death” sustained bythe alarming warmth of the Paschal Mystery and affection for the earlymartyrs and their burial sites. Greater awareness of the individual self inmedieval times was accompanied by a preoccupation with the fate of thesoul at death together with a fear of a legalistic judgement. The horror

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