Christopher Kaczor - The Gospel of Happiness: Rediscover Your Faith Through Spiritual Practice and Positive Psychology

What is real happiness? How can I experience it? How can I live it? Every thoughtful person asks such questions. Thoughtful Christians add a few more questions, such as: How can I enhance Christian living? Is there any proof that Christian practices enhance happiness? Does Christianity provide happiness in a way that other paths, like psychology, cannot?

These questions are worth exploring, but I never expected to write a book like this looking at happiness from a theological and psychological perspective. My only personal experience in psychological counseling had not been positive. As a graduate student studying philosophy and theology at the University of Notre Dame, I was under tremendous academic and financial pressure. I wanted to be a philosophy professor, but I wasnt sure if I had what it took to make it. My wife and I were struggling to support our young family of three children on my graduate stipend of $10,000 a year. Financial pressure, family struggles, and the intensity of my academic work took a toll. A friend suggested I seek psychological counseling, so I did. After the second session, the psychologist said to me, You know, Chris, there are two kinds of people for whom psychological counseling is completely worthless. One group is hard-core drug addicts. The other group is philosophers. Needless to say, there was no third session.

So, although my initial experience with a psychologist had not proved helpful, in reading about the philosophy and theology of happiness, my scholarly work on the subject of happiness eventually led me to something called positive psychology, which opened my eyes anew.

When Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1998, he chose positive psychology as his theme, launching a new movement within the field. Traditionally, psychology has focused on peoples problems such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. Seligman challenged psychologists to find empirical answers for new questions, such as: What makes people happier? How can people become more resilient? What are peoples signature strengths?

Seligmans recasting of psychology opened up a flourishing new field that focused on optimism rather than helplessness, signature strengths rather than pathology, and growth in happiness rather than depression. Tal Ben-Shahar, author of Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment, began teaching about positive psychology, and his class became Harvards most popular undergraduate course. The University of Pennsylvania and Claremont Graduate University now offer advanced degrees in positive psychology. This new field also generated bestselling books such as The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want, by Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. Unlike Norman Vincent Peale and his idea of the power of positive thinking, researchers in positive psychology stress that their approach is empirical and scientific. Like new medications, the various strategies for increasing happiness are tested via double-blind, replicated studies that make use of control groups.

What I learned from positive psychology was astonishing. First, although some people believe that faith and psychology contradict each other, researchers in positive psychology found that traditional Christian practices such as giving thanks, forgiving others, and serving your neighbor promoted human happiness and well-being. I learned that I did not need to choose between Christian faith and positive psychology, any more than I had to choose between Christian faith and modern medicine. Christian believers can embrace the findings of positive psychology, even if its source is secular science. As St. Augustine wrote in