THE MENTORED LIFE by James M. Houston
Among Christians, there is a widening difference concerning the expression of our faith, in both our attitudes and the way we live. After 50 years of mentoring, the author is convinced that this confusing situation is real and deserves the utmost concern. To the author, becoming a Christian is a ‘demolition’ of one’s individualistic identity and ‘to become radically reconstituted as a “person-in-Christ”. How the formation of such an identity is to be differentiated from contemporary false forms of mentoring underlies the theme of this book.
In the first part of the book, the author selectively discussed three models of contemporary mentoring: the historic Heroic, the Stoic and the Therapeutic. The heroic model mentor works towards the ambitious pursuit of excellence, feeding upon man’s godlike abilities and aspirations. It fosters individualism and narcissism, celebrating champions and heroic leadership. It is a “more bodily expression of consciousness”. The Stoic model has a more “deliberately moral code of behavior”. It reflects moral “self sufficiency” for its own sake, and believes that all virtues can be “rationally controlled and effected deliberately by self disciplined effort”. The author traces its history and its dangerous influence on western Christianity. The therapeutic model is more health conscious, personally and socially. Beginning from Freud’s first introduction of the term psychoanalysis in 1896, psychotherapy transmutes “the moral” to “the therapeutic”, “sin” into “mental sickness”, and “God” into “self projection”. It raises the role of therapeutic mentor to a never before authoritative status, pointing the needy towards the goals of self-realization, self-expression, self-fulfillment or in short, becoming more egocentric. These three models represent three distinct levels of mentoring that are the representative of the developmental stages of our lives. However, when we turn the natural into the absolute, we create heresy.
In contrast, the author believes that Kierkegaard’s three stages of human consciousness provide a reliable model of biblical mentorship, redeeming us from the fatalism of the corresponding historic models. Kierkegaard distinguishes the three stages of selfhood as Aesthetic, the Moral and the Religious, linking to differing categories of “despair” or “sin”, a “malady affecting all dimensions of the self”. Historical mentors equate “thought” with “reality”, but Kierkegaard sees unity of self only in the union of knower and doer, since “Christ did not establish any doctrine…he acted”.
True Christian mentoring is the self “actualized by the personal encounter with, and the response to, Jesus Christ”. Mentors must communicate the “how”, and not merely the “what” of Christian living, and this is discipleship in its essence. Mentees become participants in the “triune life of God”. Formation of personhood must replace individualism. The “person” is human created in the image of God. It is in essence relational, inwardly and outwardly. Hence, mentees are discipled through personal faith in Christ, through obedient response to the Word of God and through the selfless communal worship of God in love. The end is a new identity: “the discipled life of Christ”.
If you plan to enter a mentoring relationship, this is the book to have as a guide against false practice. It also points you to the direction of true Christian mentorship, but it will not tell you how. The participation of the triune God in the mentoring relationship is beyond definition. We should all approach this important duty in awe and humility since, in reality, life is grace from beginning to end.
朱立仁（現正從事屬靈轉化研究工作）
我們對信仰的表達，就是在基督徒之間，無論是態度上或生活方式都存在甚大的差異，這是作者候士頓博士極表關注的。他認為基督徒要除去個人主義的身份，徹底地以「在基督裡的人格」取而代之，本書的主旨正是要指出這新身份的塑造跟現代不同形式的所謂生命導引有甚麼分別。
書的第一部份，作者討論了現代生命導師的三種模式: 英雄式迷思的導師、斯多葛派的道德導師和世俗的心理治療導師。作者從歷史淵源、文化、意識型態等評論以上三種模式的弊端、所產生的效應，以及如何成為信仰上的異端。然後在第二部份，作者以神學家祈克果所帶出人性認知的三個階段（美感、道德與宗教）作為參照，建立合乎聖經的導師模範。
真正的基督徒生命導引，是個人與耶穌基督相遇、回應祂的實現，並幫助受導者參與三位一體真神的生命。在基督裏的「人格」是按神的形象被創造的，應該取代個人主義的個人，那是關係性的，兼備內程及外程的展現。受導者通過在基督裡的信心、對神話語的順服和回應，以及在愛中的團契敬拜，最終就得著新的身份－基督的門徒。
假如你打算成為別人的生命導師，這書告訴你要避免一些假師傅的做法，同時指導我們作真正基督教的師傅的方向，但作者沒有提出具體的方法指引。與三一神有份的師徒關係誠然超乎言語所能表述，我們唯有懷著戰競與謙卑的心領受這任重道遠的角色，生命自始至終全是恩典！
