In Sociology and Psychology, crisis is the situation of transit, or external and internal change accompanied by restlessness. In crisis, the person does not behave in a habitual way and reacts based on tensions, blockages, frustrations that border on the abnormal. All transit is crisis, but the term is generally reserved for those convulsive changes that produce imbalance in feeling, thought or behavior.
Religious crises, in particular, involve changes in moral attitudes or beliefs, due to internal causes (affective, moral or ideological disturbances) or external causes (scandals, blockages, confusion, aggressive clashes, harmful influences).
Special importance for the educator of the faith and for the catechist are the religious crises that occur in the stages of formation of the person (religious doubts, guilt complexes, scruples, etc.). Some are classic and, as far as it goes, they are normal: abandonment of religious practice upon reaching a certain age, religious shock at a scandal, surprise at the destruction of a naive myth, belief or ideal. And others are deeper or more personal: for example, ideological or affective manipulation by an influential member of a sect.
The important thing about crises is not that they occur, because in religiosity as in other human traits there is always the possibility of disturbance or alterations in normal rhythms. The important thing is, for when the case comes, to be prepared with moral strength, with ideological clarity and with emotional serenity.
It is precisely the mission of the educated, that of guiding the person, buffering imbalances, paving the way in difficult times. And the same crises are positive elements of moral and spiritual formation. The unprepared will have less chance of rebuilding themselves.
In the face of a crisis, the educator’s attitudes must be intelligent: understanding, analysis of causes, flexibility, patience, giving time for reaction, using indirect procedures when the person is closed, avoiding sterile advice, clarity of approach and not excluding prayer entrusted to God to help solve the problem.
The best treatment in these situations is not alien to the most convenient psychological techniques: counseling, group therapy, etc. But, if it is about religious crises and not only psychological, spiritual therapies are essential. (See Psychotherapies)
Pedro Chico González, Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy, Editorial Bruño, Lima, Peru 2006
Source: Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy
SUMMARY: I. Language indications – II. Bible Illuminations: 1. OT Anthology; 2. Anthology of the NT – III. Crisis situations: 1. Today is in crisis; 2. Positive crisis of historical man; 3. Crisis in the spiritual life: a) Theological crisis, b) Ethical crisis, c) Institutional crisis: family, Church, sacraments, priesthood, religious life, vocations – IV. Guidelines to overcome the crisis: 1. Realism: 2. Optimism; 3. Globality; 4. Culture; 5. Exemplarity; 6. Communion; 7. Asceticism; 8. Mystic; 9. Prayer; 10. Wait.
I. Language prompts
In ordinary language, the voice crisis resonates with accents of anguish and trembling; evokes an unfavorable and dangerous contingency; encourages to intervene, with all possible means, in the healing of the affected sector. It is a word loaded with pessimism. The etymological origin and the correct lexicological meaning do not motivate such one-sidedness. In the Greek vocabulary, the term krisis appears with a variety of meanings: crisis is a distinctive force, a dispute, a separation, an election, an option; it is judgment, rejection, dispute, sentence, condemnation; it is success, solution, achievement, explanation, interpretation. The noun is derived from the verb krino, equally rich in meanings: I distinguish, I choose, I prefer, I decide or judge, I interpret or explain, I establish or resolve, I make it enter into a decisive phase, I estimate or suppose or value… Attention to the verbal form is priority, because the action precedes its semantic cataloging, that is, the verb precedes the noun. In the Latin vocabulary, the fundamental meaning of crisis is restricted to the concept of “decision” (decisive turn of a disease, for example). In our linguistic environment, the most commonly used meanings of this term are applied, following its etymological vein, to specific phenomena: crisis is a sudden change, for better or worse, of a pathological situation (in clinical terminology the positive meaning is usual). : crisis as sudden disappearance of morbid manifestations and, therefore, appearance of well-being); crisis is disturbance, the most acute moment of a situation (for example, political, social, financial, psychological, etc.). The crisis, according to these meanings, is the decisive point, the determining threshold, the line of change of a situation. The etymology and the scientific application of the concepts rescue the word “crisis” from the dark use that has worn it out. But exegesis, even the most scientific and enlightened, does not resolve the crisis situation. In fact, the crisis is a situation, a way of facing a reality. Crisis is a situation of the person; because it is the person, not the external reality, that is situated or is in a crisis relationship with said reality. Crisis is a human condition. The anthropological sciences -psychology and psychiatry, sociology, some branches of philosophy, medicine, etc.- have their own methodology to analyze the crisis, to identify its etiology, to be able to reach a diagnosis of it, to apply an eventual therapy , in order to get out of it in a positive way.
As a situation of the person, the crisis is possible and real also at the level of the spirit. Spiritual theology has its own methodology so that the way out of the crisis has a positive effect. But the person who is “in crisis” is a unit; hence the different methodologies, to provide an optimal service, must intercommunicate and integrate. For this reason, if we separate the treatment by focusing on one dimension -that of spirituality in these pages-, we do so not to establish watertight compartments, which would not make sense, but for reasons above all of culture and method. Spiritual theology takes into account above all the person. Other methodologies can refer to “critical situations”, being interested mainly in the circumstances, although always depending on the person. In the life of the spirit there are no real “crisis situations”; when we (incorrectly) consider certain events as such, a transfer of the crisis from the personal interiority to the exteriority of the phenomena takes place. With rigor not only verbal, but also conceptual and content, it will not be necessary to say crisis of faith, of hope, of charity, but crisis in faith, in hope, in charity; and, analogously, we will not say a crisis of the priesthood, of religious life, of the family, etc., but rather the priest, the religious, the family, are in crisis; likewise, we will not say a crisis of the Church, of the institutions, etc., but an ecclesial (or ecclesiastical, according to phenomenologies), institutional crisis; finally, it will not be said crisis of the sacred, but rather a crisis in the face of the sacred. This language (or similar) immediately leads to the root of the problem, that is, to the person. In substance, it is always an identity crisis. The crisis is never collective, nor epidemic; the conditions of the same situation can involve several people, the community, a group, the entire community; but experience teaches that the reaction is unique and according to the character peculiarities of the individual. In the crisis of faith, the neurotic will respond with anguish, while the apathetic will react with indifference; faced with the ecclesial or institutional crisis, the introvert will be self-critical, in a reserved way, while the extrovert will behave with versatility and restlessness. And so on. According to this point of view, the crisis is always surmountable with the collaboration of the person from within.
II. Bible Illuminations
The Greek texts of the Bible never present the verb krino or the noun krisis with the current meaning of “crisis” as an atypical personal situation. And in the Latin biblical concordances there is no word coined from such an etymology. In the Latin translation, krinein is equivalent to iudicare, iudicio contendere, aestimare, indicia subiici, decernere, proponere, statuere. This adoption of numerically reduced meanings, as well as the exclusion of others -undoubtedly inadvertent on the part of the biblical authors-, may amount to a choice and a suggestion for today’s reader.
However, “man in crisis” also fills the world of the Bible. Human crises do not manifest themselves with a categorical word; they are rather described with images and through the analysis of moods. Biblical authors narrate crises from within the person, achieving high-level literary, introspective, anagogical and parenetic results. In order to read the crises of the characters of Scripture, one must move to their existential situation, free oneself from cultural and lexical conditioning, feel the current of brotherhood and equality, or at least of analogy, that unites the inhabitants of the past with the living of the present.
According to the biblical vision of the world, man is not condemned to crisis, nor does this constitute a permanent state for him. However, the crisis surprises man from the dawn of his existence.
1. OT ANTHOLOGY – The opening pages of the book of Genesis describe the first and most important of human crises. The cosmic implication to which it gave rise, according to the scriptural interpretation, could lead to classifying it as the only true crisis. The question of Adam and Eve -the unity-man (Gén 5,2)- can be read making use of the concepts grouped around the word crisis. The crisis of the head of the lineage is ontological: it gives an assessment of its own essence, as well as that of the other surrounding realities and even of God, and this under the pressure of suggestions that are discordant with the previously accepted model. The cause of such a crisis, says the biblical page, is listening to the voice of the evil one, which pushes man to rethink the meaning of God’s presence and action and the meaning of one’s relationships with him; it is also a theological crisis. It is a crisis in the face of the sacred; God had described creation as very good (Gen 1:31), and this divine assessment attributed a sacredness to essences and phenomena, but man expresses a different assessment and manifests a different sensitivity, which introduces disturbing elements into that sacredness. The creation of…