Renewing America's Soul: A Spiritual Psychology for Home, Work and Nation [Hardcover]

Howard Butt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1996

"A must for all Christian counselors. All others interested in unlocking past hurts and present emotions and thought patterns will greatly benefit from reading it as well". -- Christian Retailing

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Howard Butt has given us all a splendid gift. The gift comes packaged in spiritual wisdom informed by psychological truth. Inside the package we discover the intimate linkage between spiritual struggle and psychological pathologies. But the real treasure is the insight we get for our own healing as we walk with Butt himself through the dark places of his own soul. More than richly informative, this book could indeed be the beginning of the renewal of America's soul."

Thomas W. Gillespie, Ph.D., President, Princeton Theological Seminary

Renewing America's Soul,/i> is a pioneer example of interdisciplinary thinking. Howard E. Butt, Jr., a businessman with keen interest in theology and psychology born of personal faith and emotional need, uses orthodox Christian doctrine to illumine the darkness of the soul as well as the insights of classical psychology to interpret the spiritual yield of theological understanding. This is an honest, provocative, and powerful volume--and it reads so interestingly."

Susan G. Baker, wife of James A. Baker, III, former Secretary of State

"Howard Butt's willingness to be vulnerable about his personal struggle with depression and the help that psychiatry provided makes a compelling backdrop for his examination of relationships - familial and societal. His treatment of the concepts of authority and submission in the light of Scripture offers new insight that is desperately needed today, and his challenge to the Christian community (Church ?) to change relationally is right on target. That Howard Butt's ideas have great relevance can be seen in the loving integrity of his own life."

Lawrence J. Crabb, Jr., Ph.D., Institute of Biblical Counseling

"Fresh, innovative, more than readable. Howard Butt brings an honest and discerning eye to Scripture, combines it with provocative insight into human nature and comes up with a powerful prescription for America's troubled soul. I especially like his call to ordinary people to seize their potential to do what we too often think only specialists can do."

James D. Mallory, Jr., M.D., Psychiatrist; Director, Atlanta Counseling Center

"I have been acquainted with Howard Butt and Laity Lodge for over twenty years. Howard, personally, and Laity Lodge, institutionally, have been a vital, powerful force for bridging the gap between a faulty, sacred-secular dichotomy. Howard has a unique ability to bring Bible scholars, theologians, ministers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and pastoral counselors, along with interested people, together to share ideas and learn from each other. Untold numbers of people have had life-changing and healing experiences through the ministry of Laity Lodge. We have discovered we are all flawed to one degree or another and are called to minister to each other. We have learned each is a vital member of the church (the Body of Christ) and through sharing, encouraging, confronting, and loving we promote health and healing for ourselves and others. "I believe Renewing America's Soul deals with the most basic, universal problems all people and institutions face. Unfortunately, the basics that Howard has described so well are often ignored or misunderstood; thus destructive history repeats itself. Conflicts between authority and submission are at the very heart of all conflicts that involve significant relationships. Howard's concept of the Trinity as the model and source of healing for these conflicts is profound, provocative, and, I think, correct. "The appropriate flexibility between authority and submission that is modeled between God the Father and God the Son through the person and power of the Holy Spirit is ultimately the basis for healing for all relational conflicts. A person who enters into a relationship with the Trinity through their own confession, repentance (submission) receives the gift of the Trinity's presence through the Holy Spirit and, thus, finds a basis for healthy authority if the appropriate flexibility is developed, aided and abetted by God's presence. "Many needless and destructive conflicts between males/females, government/populous, employer/employee, clergy/laity could be avoided or healed if flexible Trinitarian theology and psychology were understood and practiced. "I applaud Howard for dealing with difficult concepts and issues so well and modeling for us his own experience in 'Trinitarian flexibility.'" -- Lewis E. Smedes, Professor of Theology and Integration, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology,Pasadena

"Howard Butt, Jr., in this carefully crafted work, has done an original and intriguing work of combining the depths of his own personal pilgrimage with illness that called for psychiatric help with the best of psychological wisdom. He uses an exciting study of the life of Simon Peter and a profound exegesis of I Peter. He probes the meaning of equality and mutual submission in the home, at work, and in the nation in the light of Biblical theology and psychological wisdom. "I was especially informed by his treatment of the equality of submission in the Kingdom of Heaven in which we 'outdo one another in showing honor.' (Rom. 12:10) "Butt gives us the strong meat of the Word of God in his mature instruction. His book is for serious, adult inquiry in churches, corporate board rooms, and seminary classes."

Bruce Larson The Crystal Cathedral; Author, Pastor, Lecturer

"Howard Butt's unique credentials have enabled him to write a book that is filled with biblical and secular wisdom. It deserves reading by every thoughtful Christian. It will shed light and challenge as well as encourage."

Jimmy R. Allen, Former President, Southern Baptist Convention; Emmy Award "Best Special Program" in 1988 produced by ABC; Board of the Freedom Forum, Vanderbilt University

"In this day of America's obsession with soul search, Christian businessman and lay leader, Howard E. Butt, Jr., speaks movingly and discerningly from his personal journey and keenly focused insights. Though he disclaims scholarly expertise, his understanding of what we have discovered about both the mind and the soul reflects the best of scholarship as well as experience. This book is important to our dilemma of dealing with the complexities of a new age with the basic principles which have made our nation strong."

William Randolph Smith, L.L.B., Partner Ret., Vinson & Elkins

"All of my adult life I have tried to live my life in keeping with the servant-leadership concept which you so beautifully develop in Renewing America's Soul but I never knew what to call it or how to be specific about its origins. Like most, sometimes I fail and occasionally I succeed, but the beauty is in the concept. "You have put your finger on the pulse of our problems and then laid out the answer." -- Wayne E. Oates, Ph.D. Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus, University of Louisville; Former Professor, The Psychology of Religion, Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville

Renewing America's Soul integrates scriptural and psychological wisdom in an effort to strengthen national well-being.

Abilene Reporter-News, April 28, 1996

In Renewing America's Soul, Howard Butt shows us that out of pain and suffering can come triumph. As we heal our souls, we become personally and socially transforming peacemakers; agents of conciliation; signs of hope in our democracy.

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Former Divinity School Professor at Harvard, Yale, and Notre Dame; best-selling author, The Wounded Healer and many others; Psychiatrist, Management Consultant and Lecturer; author, The Road Less Traveled,, and others

"Inspired by his own experience with great psychiatry and by his deeply Trinitarian Christian faith, Howard Butt had the courage to write a book about the healing of relationships and its effect on the individual and the society in which both 'disciplines' are fully integrated. "By using the Apostle Peter's gradual growth from a compulsive, moody man to a wise and wholesome witness for Jesus, Howard Butt not only throws new light on the Gospel stories but also on the spiritual significance of emotional and mental healing. "A deeply personal, spiritually challenging book about the full meaning of healing and wholeness."

M. Scott Peck, M.D.

"Full of insight, this book offers valid, profound, and inspiring leadership to the nation and to evangelical Christianity in particular."

Madeleine L'engle, Newbery award-winning author

"Like the great prophets, he does not forecast the future, but he tells us where we are, right now . . I wish this courageous and realistically hopeful book could be required reading for all lay and ordained people in all denominations."

Peggy Noonan, Journalist; Author; Former Speech Writer for Ronald Reagan

"I am enormously impressed by Howard Butt's book. It is highly original, and it has a kind of direct, uncluttered quality, as if Howard Butt is seeing things with clean new eyes. He really does connect the Bible's stark messages with the facts of the world in which we live. Serious Christians, and serious others, can learn from this book." -- Publishers' Weekly, February 12, 1996

"All too often psychiatry and spirituality are pitted against each other, as antagonists. Howard E. Butt, Jr. does a masterful job of bringing them together, with each field informing the other. I learned a lot."

James I. Packer, Professor of Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

"Howard Butt knows that biblical teaching is revealed wisdom, that God's identity is one of tripersonal love, that light and power flow from this tri-unity for the healing of human relationships that sin has put out of joint, and that North American society at every level needs the radical relational reconstruction that only Trinitarian faith can supply. Thinker, philanthropist, and businessman, Butt has the mind and style of a prophet, and it is fascinating to follow his visionary opening up of the tremendous themes with which he deals. This is a book for repeated reading; it grows on you, with renewing force."

J. Keith Miller, Author of The Taste Of New Wine and Ten Minute Magic

"In Renewing America's Soul, Howard Butt, coming out of a strong Evangelical background, gives us, with great integrity and vulnerability, a painful, poignant but ultimately happy picture of the renewing of his own mind and soul through the insights of psychiatry and biblical theology. "Then he blends these insights and uses them as a lens to help us see how we in the church and other institutions in America can begin to understand the paradoxes, denial, and dysfunctional teaching which has so often caused us to become stuck in our personal and family relationships, and in ever-widening circles, in our relations to the people we work with and try to influence--to the ends of the earth. "This is not an easy book to read, but I strongly suspect that if a number of leaders in the Evangelical Church would read these pages and take their content seriously, a spiritual renewal of hope and reconciliation could be born in the midst of the great sea of pain, fear, and alienation in which many of us in America are floundering." -- Philip Yancey, Editor-at-Large, Christianity Today

"From effective parenting to the psychology of suffering, to biblical wisdom, Howard Butt renews the reader's soul in a deeply refreshing way."

Robert H. Schuller, D.D. The Crystal Cathedral

"Howard Butt has given us a wonderful insight into the blending of theology and psychology. Listen and learn from him--you will be lifted and well led!"

Fred Smith, Board of Directors, Christianity Today

"Reading Renewing America's Soul I shared in a few hours the lifelong broad Christian thinking of an outstanding lay scholar. I was lifted on emotional waves high above my normal experience. He showered me with metaphors I shall long remember. Thank you, Howard. I have been blessed by your suffering and resurrection." -- Charles W. Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries

If the book's title sounds a bit optimistic, readers will quickly realize that it is not optimistic enough. By outlining the incredible power of personal relationships rooted in God's truths, Butt has stumbled upon more than the cure for America's ills--it is the cure for all humanity's problems. This book should be required reading for anyone who has a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a son, a daughter, a friend.

Christian Retailing, April 8, 1996

Renewal is a hot subject in many churches today. In Renewing America's Soul by Howard E. Butt, we learn how to open the door of renewal and let it flood our most intimate relationships. At first, I was slightly bothered by Butt's repeated use of psychology, but as I read further, I began to appreciate how he blends psychology with sound biblical teaching.

San Antonio Express News, March 17, 1996

I've always been impressed with Howard's ability to apply biblical truths to individual lives, family relationships and other relationships. It would be good to read not only individually, but in Bible study groups, all groups of every kind. It's not a textbook for theologians; it's a guidebook and handbook for sincere Christians.

Dallas Morning News, April 27, 1996

Renewing America's Soul is an original, thoughtful work.

Kerrville Daily Times, April 12, 1996

Renewing America's Soul is an insightful guide for anyone who is going through difficult times, as well as those who are concerned with personal and national healing and renewal. -- Robert Liparulo, A Closer Look, May 1996

About the Author

Howard E. Butt, Jr. President of the H. E. Butt Foundation and Vice Chairman of one of the nation's largest privately held grocery companies, Howard Butt founded the internationally known Texas Hill Country retreat center, Laity Lodge. A unique oasis of spiritual vitality, Laity Lodge serves congregations, pastors, writers, business and professionals, as well as others interested in lay leadership. He was the speaker for one of the early Presidential Prayer Breakfasts, for President Eisenhower. President Kennedy named him to the nation's first Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. With Billy Graham, he launched the Layman's Leadership Institutes. He organized the North American Congress of the Laity in Los Angeles, whose Honorary Chairman was President Ford. His writings made him one of the nation's earliest contemporary advocates of servant leadership. Since his student days at Baylor, continuing as a businessman, now as a foundation executive--for fifty years as a layman--he has been a widely heeded spokesman for spiritual renewal. In his work at the Foundation, he carries on the vision of his parents by providing a free camping experience to more than sixteen thousand people in 1996 alone. At Laity Lodge, Howard carries out his vision of "the priesthood of all believers" in a setting dedicated to relational theology. The Laity Lodge Youth Camp is an outgrowth of that vision, perhaps best summed up by the mission statement of the Foundation: "Renewal of society through the renewal of the Church; Church renewal through renewal of the family; family renewal through renewed individuals." This mission statement is at the heart of Howard's book, Renewing America's Soul.

Frederick Buechner said of Laity Lodge, "It is a bit like the land of Oz - some come looking for courage, some a new heart, some a new mind, and many seeking the goal Dorothy had - finding home." As a novelist, Buechner captures the emotional appeal of Laity Lodge.

The intellectual appeal is perhaps best summed up by Professor Dale Bruner who wrote: "Billy Graham goes wider than anyone else in Christendom. Does anyone go deeper than Howard Butt's Laity Lodge? I don't think so; I really don't think so."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group; 1St Edition edition (April 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082640880X
• ISBN-13: 978-0826408808
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,737,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Howard E. Butt, Jr., has dedicated his life to both the family business and Christian leadership. His vision for the vital role of the laity in the church and daily life has led him to write several books and produce one-minute radio spots entitled The High Calling of Our Daily Work(R). This site is an effort to provide you with a tool to delve deeper into the concepts introduced in those messages.