Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 49, No.

3, 2001

Christianity and the Shadow Side of Human Experience

Kirk A. Bingaman1

In Jungian theory, every human being, including the Christian believer, has a shadow side to his or her personality. The shadow, then, like it or not, is a part of our common human lot, a part of the human beings fabric. The best any of us can do is to mitigate the effects of the shadow, by taking back into the self, integratively, those aspects of the shadow that we have projected onto others. As Jung believed, it is sheer fantasy to think we can eradicate the shadow from the self, or that, through religious devotion, suppress it into submission. Yet even if we could, by our own power and/or the power of God, straitjacket the shadow, would we want to live without that which not only at times brings us pain and sorrow, but at other times adds richness and depth to our living? This paper will take the position that it is in the best interests of the Christian believer to answer this question with a denitive, No!
KEY WORDS: Christianity; Carl Jung; shadow.

INTRODUCTION Down through the centuries, Christianity has not looked favorably upon human nature and human creatureliness. Martin Luther, for example, suggested that the root of our sin lies not in our works but in our nature (Luther, quoted in Althaus, 1966, p. 153). John Calvin was more graphic, when he explained that human nature is a veritable world of miseries and a teeming horde of infamies (Calvin, 1960, p. 36). Yet according to C.G. Jung, disparaging our very own nature, even if it does have historical and theological justication, will do the modern man or woman little good. Modern human beings, Jung believed, had heard myriad
1 Kirk

A. Bingaman holds a Ph.D. in psychology and religion from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and is a pastoral counseling associate at the Lloyd Center Pastoral Counseling Service, San Anselmo. Address correspondence to Kirk A. Bingaman, 11 Glen Dr., Fairfax, California 94930; e-mail: abingama@marin.k12.ca.us. 167
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2001 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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sermonic pleas to triumph over human nature, or the so-called shadow side of human existence, to subdue the esh and tame instinctual appetites, but to little or no avail. Even after 2,000 years of theological and homiletical exhortation, the shadow side of human existence is still very much alive. Thus, for Jung, it was time for Christianity to try a new approach, a new strategy, one that does not persuade human beings to distance themselves from their fundamental nature or creatureliness, but rather helps them make peace with it. As Jung pointed out so many times, the modern human being has heard more than enough about sin and guilt: He [sic] is sorely beset by his own bad conscience, and wants rather to know how he is to reconcile himself with his own naturehow he is to love the enemy in his own heart and call the wolf his brother (Jung, 1958, p. 341). The purpose of this paper is to examine C.G. Jungs analysis of Christianitys response to the shadow side of human existence. In reviewing Jungs shadow concept, we will discover that it is an indispensable aspect of psychical life, indispensable if ones goal is the integration of personality. However, Jung feared that Christianitys aim was to keep the shadow side of human existence at arms length, hopelessly relegated to the periphery of religious faith. Jung, though, will issue something of a warning to Christian theology: Do not be too hasty in condemning or ignoring humankinds biological inheritance. Indeed, Christian believers would do better to remember that they are bound to this earth and world, that they are rst and foremost bodies, and that they are fundamentally related to the animal world. Jung, in keeping before us the shadow side of human existence, was in many ways expressing his displeasure with Christianitys tendency to depreciate our basic, God-given humanity.

THE JUNGIAN SHADOW AND CHRISTIAN FAITH The Jungian concept of the shadow, argues Henri Ellenberger, should not be confused with the Freudian concept of the repressed: the shadow is related to die Unbewusstheit, or the phenomenon of unawareness, instead of das Unbewusste, or the phenomenon of unconsciousness (1970, p. 707). For example, I might be very effective (maybe this is wishful thinking) when it comes to marriage and family counseling, and yet I can still go home at the end of the workday and not always be the most loving husband and father. As a result, I begin to psychically gravitate towards the former, my persona as a pastoral counselor, as that which is most indicative of my fundamental identity. My polished social persona becomes the real me, in toto, while the other side of me, the shadow, is conveniently ignored. And it gets easier and easier to ignore my shadow, since it only seems to manifest itself in the hidden connes of my home, away from the public eye. Thus, in an increasing state of unawareness, I can incessantly embrace the good side of my personality, while overlooking my shadow side. Even worse, I can project my shadow onto the other members of my immediate family, seeing them as the provocateurs, the

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ones to blame for my unlovingness. But until I can withdraw the projection of my shadow, there will be for me no individuation. As Peter Homans reminds us, individuation, Jungs word for the process of human growth and development leading to wholeness and integration, only begins when the shadow has been confronted. In other words, confrontation with [the shadow] denoted [for Jung] a kind of prologue to the individuation process (Homans, 1979, p. 104). Quite frankly, the shadow side of human personality does contain certain inferiorities and dark aspects that we would often like to forget, or, to use Ellenbergers terminology, like to block out of awareness. The shadow is made up of all the reprehensible qualities that the individual wishes to deny, including animal tendencies that we have inherited from our infrahuman ancestors, as well as the modes and qualities that the individual has simply not developed (Wulff, 1991, p. 424). These reprehensible qualities and animal tendencies are undoubtedly what Luther and Calvin had in mind when they expressed their displeasure with human nature. Indeed, what Christian wants to be reminded of his or her shadow, when, after all, he or she is making every effort to be a new creation in Jesus Christ? One only has to remember the words of the apostle Paul: Anyone who truly belongs to Christ is a new creation; the old (presumably the shadow, or what Paul called the esh) is gone, the new has come (II Corinthians 5:17, NIV). Maybe Paul knows from experience that when one confronts, head-on, the shadow archetype, nothing, including ones religious faith, will ever be the same again. Let me put this plainly: ones religious faith will not and cannot emerge intact after it has confronted the shadow. Make no mistake about it, confronting the shadow is risky business. Why else would Christian theology put so much emphasis on putting to death the esh, on treating human nature as the enemy, as some sort of intruder or invader? While it is all well and good for Christians to think of ourselves as new creations in Jesus Christ, they would still do well to juxtapose this particular theological construct with Jungian psychology, as a way of giving themselves a reality check. As Jung never let us forget, it is sheer unreality and fantasy to believe that conversion to Christianity can eradicate the shadow from human personality, that our miseries and infamies can be miraculously corralled simply through faith in Jesus Christ. This, for Jung, to put it mildly, was wishful thinking. It perpetuates the ction that only the persona, the surface layer of human personality, needs our work and careful attention. Christian believers can work at polishing their personas, while leaving the task of eradicating the shadow or the esh to God. However, assuming God has the capacity to remove the shadow from the human psyche, we must ask ourselves this question: Do we want God to remove it? For Jung, the answer was a resounding No! The shadow, as Jung elucidated, does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc. (Jung, 1959, p. 266). Therefore, even if God does possess the power to turn us into shadowless creatures, is this what we want to put at the top of our wish list? Would we want to live without the fundamental dynamism,

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the energic vitality, which not only at times brings us pain, grief, and sorrow, but at other times adds richness and depth and substance to our living? The shadow side of human personality, then, in Jungian thought, is a more neutral entity. Contrary to traditional Christian theology, the shadow, our instinctual inheritance, is not always an enemy, but is sometimes a friend, exactly like any human being with whom one has to get along, sometimes by giving in, sometimes by resisting, sometimes by giving lovewhatever the situation requires (Jung, 1964, p. 183). If the shadow is, as Jung suggests, an important and ineradicable component of psychical life, then the Christian believer, just like any other human being, must nd a way for the conscious ego and the shadow to peacefully coexist. Everyone, wrote Jung, carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individuals life, the blacker and denser it is (Jung, 1938, p. 93). Jung would have been further ahead if he had revised that last clause to read, the darker and denser it is. With the unfortunate decision to at times associate the shadow with blackness, instead of consistently using the image of darkness, Jungs writings on the subject could be construed as implicitly racist. Demaris Wehr points out that while the Jungian shadow is relatively free of sexist overtones, it is not free of racist ones (1987, p. 63). Jungs theory of the shadow, according to Wehr, was unfortunately whitecentric, especially when he traded the imagery of darkness for that of blackness. The implication, of course, in terms of the latter, is that the shadow side of human nature is subtly likened to a black-skinned person. Obviously, Wehr observes, this description (of the shadow) would not work for a black person since the shadow is the opposite of the conscious personality (1987, p. 63). Said another way, Jungs concept of the shadow, especially if it is imaged as the black side of human existence, cannot inclusively engage all human beings, cannot be applicable to every group of people. The problem, Naomi Goldenberg insists, is that Jung had a tendency to judge other peoples and cultures only in terms of his own. There are times when blacks in Africa and in America play the role of primitives for Jung, who obviously sees white European culture as much superior (Goldenberg, 1979, p. 55). Still, I would argue that while the Jungian shadow does have its aws, it is nonetheless a relevant concept, and can help the Christian of the Western world to reimage a more realistic human nature. For if we bring Jung and the neutral shadow into the theological discussion, then we cannot automatically assume, like Luther and Calvin, that human nature is vile and contaminated. In the seminar on Nietzsches Zarathustra, Jung suggested that if the human individual is integrated and whole, or at least on the road to becoming whole, then that particular persons shadow side will be visible. Jung believed that if the shadow was not visible, then a person was incomplete, as if painted at upon the wall:
People who have only two dimensions are identical with a sort of persona or mask which they carry in front of themselves and behind which they hide. The persona in itself casts no shadow. It is a perfectly clear picture of a personality that is aboveboard, no blame, no spot

Christianity and the Shadow Side of Human Experience anywhere; but when you notice that there is no shadow, you know it is a mask and the real person is behind the screen (Jung, 1998, pp. 6162).

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In Jungian thought, we must, as Christians, and even more fundamentally, as human beings, recognize that in addition to the more exalted ego of consciousness, the shadow is also part of the basic human fabric. History shows us that failure to do so can mean disaster. For example, if Christians deny their shadow side, then their shadow instincts and tendencies get projected onto a devil who is out there, or worse, get projected onto other human beings. We need only recall the history of Western civilization, and the various crusades of inquisition and racial purication, in order to see the pernicious effects of projecting the shadow out there, onto other human beings. More recently, in the halls of Capitol Hill and various state legislatures, we have heard of a war on illegal (and in some cases, legal) immigrants. This war, so we are told by our political leaders and legislators, is simply a matter of economics. Yet one intuitively gets the distinct feeling that this is not the whole truth. Noting Jungs point about our reluctance to see the shadow as residing within ourselves, I would venture to say that our government leaders, in many ways, have been projecting their shadows onto the immigrants. At a surface level, all of this is simply crafty politicians consciously using antiimmigrant rhetoric for political gain. On a deeper level, though, what we see is something more insidious and unconscious, namely the projection of shadow content onto other human beings. Immigrants, primarily from Mexico and Latin America, become, in the nonintegrated minds of politicians and legislators, intruders and trespassers, the spreaders of disease and economic chaos, a threat to the social fabric. We have come to the essence of the moral problem for the modern human being: acceptance of oneself. Jung was particularly inspired by the Oracle at Delphi, so much so that he inscribed above his doorway in Kusnacht the Delphic verse, vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderitSummoned or not summoned, God will be there. Another Delphic proverb that meant a great deal to Jung, which just happened to be particularly relevant to the modern problem of accepting the totality of oneself, was the familiar, Know Thyself. Acceptance of oneself, wrote Jung, is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of ones whole outlook on life. On the surface it sounds simple, but then again, simple things are always the most difcult (Jung, 1958, p. 339). Accepting the totality of ourselves, especially the shadow side of our nature, will be, for those of us living in the Western world, nothing short of a Herculean task. Said another way, consciously withdrawing the shadow content one projects onto others, and consciously integrating that content more fully into ones personality, will be easier said than done. After all, do we want to be reminded that we are instinctually related to the rest of the animal world, that our shadow side could even be, in the words of Jung, indistinguishable from the instinctuality of an animal (1959, pp. 233234)? However, because the shadow contains material not just from the collective unconscious, but also from ones own

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personal unconscious, there is some hope for bringing it more fully into conscious awareness. If at any time we are tempted to believe that the shadow is forever cut off from conscious awareness, Jung, with biting wit, encourages us to go to church, where our memory can easily be refreshed by a Sunday sermon (1959, p. 17). Jung is obviously being facetious, with his comment on the usefulness of a Sunday sermon. While a sermon on Christian theology can jog our memory, can help us recall or recognize the darker contents of our nature, it cannot, as Jung pointed out, help us integrate those contents more fully into the totality of human personality. Much of the problem is that Christian theology, in its present shape and form, makes it virtually impossible for believers to even discuss the possibility of integrating the shadow more fully into their lives and into their religious faith. As Jung argued:
The moral categories are a heavy, even a dangerous inheritance, because they are the instruments by which we make it impossible to integrate the shadow. We condemn it and therefore we suppress it (1998, p. 355).

Moreover, not only do we suppress the shadow within ourselves, we also project it onto others, enemy and friend. When this happens, writes Murray Stein, there is usually strong moral indignation and the groundwork is lain for a moral crusade (1995, p. 17). In case we have doubts about the moral categories being a dangerous inheritance, we can always turn our attention to the representatives of the Christian Right, whether they belong to the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and so forth. Here we see a squeaky-clean morality that repressively leaves no room for any trace of shadow content. Where, then, does this content go, if Christians refuse to integrate it into their theology and into their personalities? It gets projected out there, onto the vilied them of American society, the homosexuals, feminists, unwed mothers, and political opponents. Christians, then, whether they be conservative, moderate, or liberal, who distance themselves from the shadow side of human existence, run the risk of developing, in clinical language, a split personality. At the very least, they are in possession of a one-sided personality, which anytime it is lled with indignation, tends to crusade for moral purity. Moral giants, we may conclude, are not necessarily the most integrated human beings. To be sure, we have invested for quite some time now, in the Western world, a great deal of energy trying to sever ourselves from our animality, from our instinctual drives and energy. Whether it has been the dualism of Christianity, Docetism, or Cartesianism, we have been waging an all-out battle against our basic humanness, to little or no avail (unless one believes that we should be guided by a dualistic framework). Yet the fundamental dynamism of the human race, the energic vitality to survive and procreate, to create and evolve, resides in the shadow side of our nature. In other words, the instinctual dynamism that has at times brought the human race so much pain and misery is the very same force that has inspired us to evolve, to be innitely more than we have ever been before. Thus,

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back again to the same question: Even if the shadow could be eradicated (Christian theologys unnished attempt, even after 2,000 years, to subdue the shadow of the religious believer is a stark reminder that this is a very, very big if), would we as a species, even as a community of religious believers, want to cut ourselves off from this vital force of strength and energy? This is a rhetorical question. According to Jung, these 2,000 years of Christian history tell the story of the progressive development of Western consciousness. Before human consciousness could become more sophisticated, there rst had to be a period or aeon of differentiation, of conscious judgment about good and evil categories. Indeed, Christianity has played a crucial role in this development of consciousness, and specically the development of moral consciousness. It seems to have laid the foundation for the union of oppositesgood and evil, spirit and body, persona and shadowwhich, as Jung believed, will be the central issue of the next aeon of Western history. Jung, I would argue, had a tendency to make the issues even more complicated than they were before. While he certainly had the capacity to take in and juxtapose myriad aspects of the big human pictureevolution, religion, history, psychology, and so forthhe also had a tendency to make the waters of analysis very muddy. Instead of, like Freud, addressing the issues with brevity and precision, Jung always had a desire to analyze his way into virgin territory, which did add tremendous breadth to his writings, but also left a multitude of loose ends. Still, the above critique notwithstanding, I would argue that Jung does provide us with a useful conceptual framework in which Christianity can be interpreted vis-` a-vis the bigger picture of human evolution. Christianity, as Jung saw it, has been the Western worlds guide through the past 2,000 years, but there is no guarantee that it will be our primary guide throughout the coming millennia. Since, as Jung believed, the future aeon of Western history will be about the union of oppositese.g., mind and body, spirit and shadow, good and evil, masculine and feminineChristianity will necessarily have to undergo something of a transformation, from a religion with a dualistic orientation to a religion of integration and unication. As human beings continue to evolve these next few centuries, individually and collectively, it would seem that integration and unication will be the necessary prerequisites to the survival of the species. But can Christianity, as it has done throughout the previous aeon of Western history, lead us into the coming age of potential integration and unication? According to Murray Stein, Jung had his doubts:
Jung regarded our times as the turbulent trough between two vast religious and cultural eras. Modernity, he felt, was a transitional space between two great epochs that stretched out over four millennia. And even from his vantage point, he saw the religious and cultural scene of his time as both the receptacle of the wreckage of a passing aeon and the perceptibly swelling surface of a new. The dominant religious tradition of the past era, which for nearly 20 centuries had been evolving through stages of growth and change side by side with developments in Western culture, had now attened out. . . . (1985, p. 179).

The problem, as Jung saw it, was that the symbols and images of Christian theology and ritual had less capacity to hold and contain the varied experience

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of modern human beings, to help them make sense of this complicated turbulent trough, these in-between times. Nor, he argued, will the traditionally and historically one-sided imitation of Christ be of much help, to modern men and women who feel that the integrated shadow offers substance to the conscious personality (Wehr, 1987, p. 60). Too often, the Christ-symbol only represents, both theologically and psychologically, one side of human existence, the good and more spiritual side. Without any shadow content, the Christ-symbol loses its esh and blood, its root connection to the concrete experience of human beings. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews does suggest that because [Christ] himself suffered, when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted (Hebrews 2:18, NIV). This verse of scripture, of course, has brought comfort and assurance to generations of Christian believers. But stop and think for a moment: Can the gure of Christ, beatically imaged, bring modern believers any lasting comfort and relief, men and women whose cardinal temptation is to deny their shadow and project it onto others? Unless the Christ-symbol acquires some shadow content, it is rather doubtful that this fundamental symbol of Western religion will be a denitive guide for modern men and women, who struggle with some very unique and specic temptations. Thus, if religious faith revolves around the traditionally onesided imitation of Christ, rather than a reimaged, more fully-embodied imitatio, then the modern Christian believer is in danger of becoming detached from his or her own humanity. Naomi Goldenberg explains:
Many Christians . . . treat Jesuss life as their only archetype. They grant most attention to the parts of their lives that can be seen as conforming to his. The parts of their lives that do not reect Jesuss life do not receive such attention and are treated as ungodlike and mundane. Sexuality becomes highly problematic because there is so little of it in what we know of Jesuss life. Likewise, the lives of women seem inferior because they differ so enormously in both form and focus from the life of Christ (1979, p. 63).

If Christian theology, either intentionally or unintentionally, pushes us further and further away from the shadow, then it will be part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to the modern predicament. Whether the shadow is sanitized, as in the case of the Christian who tries to imitate a shadowless Christ, or demonized, as in the case of theologys attack on basic human nature, the result is always the same: no wholeness or integration for the religious believer, no opportunity to symbolically reconcile the opposite sides of his or her nature. If Christians of the Western world have in their possession a symbol that can only unify their theological, but not their psychological experience, then they are living, as Jung feared, in precarious and even perilous times. Anytime the shadow side of human nature is suppressed, ignored, or not treated with proper respect, it becomes more powerful and dangerous. Edward Edinger makes the same point, only more starkly and chillingly:
Darkness is most likely to get a hold when you are safely settled in the good and righteous position, where nothing can assail you. When you are absolutely right is the most dangerous position of all, because, most probably, the devil has already got you by the throat (1996, p. 57).

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To those who might be tempted to treat the shadow without due respect, who are tempted to suppress it or ignore it, Jung issues his own eloquent warning: What is small by day is big at night . . . besides the small by day there always looms the big by night, even when it is invisible (1959, p. 30). An important rule of thumb to always keep in mind is that the brighter the persona of consciousness, the darker and more dangerous the shadow of unconsciousness or unawareness. In some ways, Jungs analysis of the shadow side of human nature anticipates feminist thought, particularly feminisms emphasis on the harmful and corrosive effects of Western dualism. Men and women in the West, as feminists rightly point out, have difculty feeling at home in their own bodies. In keeping desire, passion, pleasure, and sexualityi.e., shadow contentat arms length, we become alienated from ourselves. We do not, as Jung put it, feel at home in our own bodily houses, and, consequently, we are not held fast to our own personal and corporeal life (1998, p. 348). Jung urges us to begin reimaging the Christian mandate to love the least of these, for in so doing, we will stay better connected to our own personal life. He asks: But when it happens that the least of the brethren [sic] whom you meet on the road of life is yourself, what then (1998, p. 353)? Indeed, what if the Christian community broadened the particular mandate to include those typically vilied, split-off aspects of human personality, the shadow content of human nature upon which Christian theology has typically frowned? This, undoubtedly, will alarm those who deplore the psychologizing of Western culture, particularly the psychologizing of Christian religion. Self-denial, especially denial of the shadow side of ourselves, has long been one of the fundamental virtues of Christian religion. Therefore, resistance in the Christian community to reimaging the least of these as within, and not merely outside the believer, will be understandable. Nevertheless, until Christianity can reimage a more realistic theology of human nature, the words of Jung must be taken seriously:
One should love oneself, one should accept the least of ones brethren [sic] in oneself, that one endure to be with oneself and not go roving about. And how can we endure anything if we cannot endure ourselves? If the whole of mankind should run away from itself, life would consist on principle of running away all the time. Now that is not meant; Gods creation is not meant to run away from itself (1998, p. 353).

FURTHER IMPLICATIONS FOR CHRISTIAN FAITH In the gospel of Luke, Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come. It seems they were looking for a prediction, a precise and literal day and time. Jesus, however, did not give them any sort of prediction, but rather shifted the discussion from the celestial to the existential plane. The kingdom of God, he replied, does not come visibly, nor will people say, Here it is, or There it is, because the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20b21, NIV). And it is probably safe to assume that Jesus, a Jew who likely never ventured beyond the bounds of rst-century Palestine, was not speaking of the

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kingdom being within in any Platonic sense, lodged within the puried soul of the individual. Instead, Jesus, in keeping with his Jewish theology, was really saying that the kingdom of God is within each of us who belongs to the community of faith. The kingdom, then, is within you, within the group as a whole and within each religious believer. Jesus, who was teaching from a Jewish standpoint not yet modied by the radical dualism of Greek thought, could only have meant, in terms of the individual believer, that the kingdom of God is within all of you, within every ber of your being. Since the monism of Jewish theology had not yet given way to the dualism of Judeo-Christian theology, one can surmise, exegetically, that the kingdom for Jesus is rmly lodged within the entire being of every religious believer, spirit and body. Now if we keep this exegesis of Luke 17 in mind, it soon becomes evident that the profaning of ourselves, the depreciation of our basic human nature, is theologically unwarranted. The kingdom of God is within you, Jesus teaches, and from a Jewish point of view he means all of you and all of me. To profane the body and the instincts, to profane the shadow side of our existence, is to profane an aspect of ourselves that is just as basic to our existence (maybe more) as the more polished, conscious, and spiritualized ego. Certainly, the question for Christianity is, Does religious faith, as it did for Jesus, apply to every ber of our being, or is religious faith merely a matter of polishing the surface layer of human personality (the persona, in Jungian terms)? The kingdom of God, Jesus makes abundantly clear, is not in some distant, future heaven, but is rather in you and me, in our souls, spirits, and bodies. Moreover, locating the kingdom of God in our bodies means, quite frankly, that the Spirit of God is more in our humanity, and even animality, than in some future celestial sphere. The implication here, of course, is that the shadow side of our existence is as representative of the kingdom of God as the more polished ego. As I pointed out earlier, we begin the process of psychological individuation by confronting the shadow. For those who prefer spiritual language, I would recommend substituting the word wholeness for individuation: Christians begin the process toward wholeness after they have rst confronted, in a way that is more neutral and realistic, the shadow side of their existence. As Jung reminded us, it is only confrontation with the shadow, that deposit of animality, instinctuality, and energic dynamism, that gets us moving in the right direction, towards psychological and spiritual wholeness. So it is a sort of redemption of the body, he wrote, commenting on Nietzsches Zarathustra, something which has been lacking in Christianity, where the body, the here-and-now, has always been depreciated (1998, p. 193). If we did not know any better, we might be tempted to conclude that we were reading words taken from a page of feminist theory. Jungs redemption of the human body, and the here-and-now of earthly reality, is nothing short of an afrmation of the totality of human existence, an overt and unequivocal yes to human life. In certain ways, this sounds very much like the Deuteronomic mandate to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). However, Christian

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believers may not be in much of a hurry to redeem bodily and earthly reality, particularly if they continue to assume that God is made happy by the subjugation of their basic humanity. The danger, then, is that they and their theology of human nature will become dull, at, and colorless. Christianity, anytime it distances itself from the shadow side of human nature, is bound to become, in many ways, a religion of one-sidedness and fragmentation, rather than a religion of wholeness and redemption. Part of the problem, for Jung, has to do with the ideal of perfection. Some Christian groups, down through the centuries, have claimed that the perfection spoken of by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5:48) is a real and tangible possibility for the present life, while other groups have decided, primarily due to the dark cloud of human nature, that perfection is a future hope to be realized in the afterlife. In either case, the goal is essentially the same: salvation from human nature, from the world of miseries and the horde of infamies lurking within. One can see, without too much difculty, why Jung would be especially critical of this religious ideal:
(Jung) believed that this ideal was both impossible to attain and responsible for the harsh repressiveness with which we treat ourselves and others. Christian perfectionism is a main factor in the creation of our individual shadows. Having been brought up to deny anger, greed, envy, sexual desires, and the like, where do these feelings go? Into the shadow, claims Jung (Wehr, 1987, p. 60).

Thus, the shadow becomes bigger and more bloated. It no longer is just the repository of primitive instincts and energy; now it expands to include all the suppressed desires, moods, and affects. We saw previously that this shadow content does not stay where it is, within the individuals psyche, but gets projected out there, onto other individuals, groups, and nations. This is precisely what makes the shadow the fundamental moral problem for each and every human being, non-Christian and Christian. Like it or notit really makes little differencethe shadow is a part of our common human lot, a part of the human fabric. Realistically, the best any of us can do is to mitigate the effects of the shadow. It is, as Jung made very clear, sheer fantasy to think that we can, even with divine intervention, eradicate the shadow content or beat it into submission. But again, back to the recurring question: Even if we could, in the pursuit of spiritual perfection, straitjacket the shadow, would we want to live without that which not only brings us trouble and distress, but also adds richness and color and drama to human living? In Jungian terms, writes David Wulff, without the opposition of the shadow, there would be no psychic development and no actualization of the self (1991, p. 424). This has major implications for Christian faith: without the opposition of the shadow, the Christian may very well reach a state of one-sided, spiritual perfection, but this will not necessarily be an indication that he or she has experienced what Jesus called abundant living or the fullness of life. The Christian pursuit of perfection, according to Jung, leads us down a blind alley, towards psychological and spiritual one-sidedness and underdevelopment. Perfection, he argued, can never bring the human individual, not even the most

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devoted Christian, any sort of lasting fulllment. What, then, is the alternative? The modern individual, Jung pointed out, after striving in vain for the goal of nal perfection, is obliged to lower his [sic] pretensions a little, and instead of striving after the ideal of perfection to content himself with the more accessible goal of approximate completeness (1963, p. 428). We have reached the crux of the matter, the bedrock of Jungian thought, where we discover Jungs teleological goal. It is certainly safe to assume, by now, that the telos for Jung is not a state of nal perfection. Instead, what matters most to Jung is human completeness or wholeness, approximate wholeness, that is, not absolute wholeness. Absolute wholeness would connote, much like nal perfection, a state of static being, instead of a dynamic state of becoming. Like the great process thinkerse.g., A.N. WhiteheadJung believed that reality has been, is, and always will be a process. In fact, this evolution of reality depends upon the interplay of spiritual and shadow forces, and where this evolution of reality is ultimately headed is and will be beyond our knowledge (Jung, 1995, pp. 17 & 2021). It should be clear by now that for Jung, the pursuit of perfection and the imitation of an all-good Christ gure will lead us down a blind alley. While the ideals of nal perfection and the imitation of an all-good Christ may have theological justication, may be theologically true in the abstract, they are not necessarily representative of what is ontologically real. Know thyself means more than familiarizing ourselves with our all-good, spiritual side; it means to become consciously familiar with every aspect of human personality. Each of us, Christian or not, has a shadow side to his or her personality, and all the sermonic exhortations to triumph over a human nature contaminated by original sin will do the modern man or woman little good. Jung adds:
The worldas far as it has not completely turned its back on [Christian] traditionhas long ago stopped wanting to hear a message; it would rather be told what the message means. The words that resound from the pulpit are incomprehensible and cry for an explanation (1959, p. 34).

Christians, then, whether they have been pursuing an obsolete spiritual ideal and/or attempting to imitate a beatic Savior, must begin to rethink their theology of human nature. The shadow side of that nature can no longer be automatically dismissed as something anathema to God and religion, no matter how much this simplies our living. Besides, where there is no energic tension, no clash of oppositesgood and evil, mind and body, spiritual and materialthere is no creativity, no imagination, no life. Without the willingness to live squarely within the tension, ambiguity, and complexity of human life, Christian faith will be a particularly dull and lifeless enterprise. Certainly, human living, including our religious faith, must have a certain degree of order and structure, but not before there has been the initial energic tension which comes from the clash of opposites. A religious faith grounded in the pursuit of perfection can only bring a premature, pseudo order to ones spiritual life. Order and structure must eventually emerge,

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but only after one has encountered the dynamic and creative power of the shadow. Christian theology, though, often tends to reverse the process, insisting from the get-go that there be structure and order. Yet when we try to tap back into that force of creative energy within ourselves, we wonder where it has gone, why it seems to have disappeared. An authentic, rather than a forced, pseudo sense of order can only be found on the other side of the confrontation with the shadow, not before the shadow is ever confronted. If a rigid order is forcefully applied too early to ones religious faith, then the fundamental dynamism of human living, the shadow that fuels human aggression and destructiveness, as well as human creativity and imagination, will be unalterably straitjacketed. Without the clash of opposites, without a certain amount of energic and creative tension, ones religious faith is bound to die, or at least become stagnant and inert. As Murray Stein observes:
. . . . Jung would put forward a theory of opposites: psychic reality is made up of ordered patterns that can be spread out into spectra of polarities and tensions like good-to-evil and male-to-female. Without the energic tensions between the poles within entities like instinct groups and archetypes, there would be no movement of energy within the relatively closed system of mind/body wholeness. It is the tension within these polarities that yields dynamic movement, the uctuations of libido in the psychic system (Stein, 1995, pp. 1617).

REFERENCES
Edinger, E. (1996). The new God-image. Wilmette, IL: Chiron. Ellenberger, H. (1970). The discovery of the unconscious. New York: Basic. Goldenberg, N. (1979). Changing of the gods. Boston: Beacon. Homans, P. (1979). Jung in context. Chicago: University of Chicago. Jung, C. G. (1938). Psychology and religion. New Haven: Yale. Jung, C. G. (1958). Psychotherapists or the clergy. In Vol. 11 (Psychology and religion: West and East) of Collected works. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. New York: Pantheon. Jung, C. G. (1963). Mysterium coniunctionis. In Vol. 14 of Collected works. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. London: Routledge. Jung, C. G. (1964). Man and his symbols. New York: Dell. Jung, C. G. (1998). Jungs seminar on Nietzsches Zarathustra. Ed. & Abridged by J. L. Jarrett. Princeton: Princeton University. Jung, C. G. (1995). Jung on evil. Selected with Introduction by M. Stein. Princeton: Princeton University. Stein, M. (1987). Jungs treatment of Christianity. Wilmette, IL: Chiron. Wehr, D. S. 1987. Jung and feminism. Boston: Beacon. Wulff, D. (1991). The psychology of religion. New York: Wiley.