Customer Reviews

Who We Are is How We Pray: Matching Personality and Spirituality

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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Keating takes the Myers-Brigg personality test to a practical level in the field of spirituality. He relates the four major personality types to the four major spiritualities of western Christianity. Reading this book was a revelation of my own response to prayer styles and types. As a preacher of the Gospel, the book made me aware of others response to prayer styles also and the need to include each type of pray-er in my instructions. I have begun using this book in spiritual direction and recommend it highly to all who work in group ministry of any sort.

This last work of Keating's is a combination of his work on spirituality with Myers-Briggs personality type theory. I had the feeling that if the author had lived longer, he might have been able to flesh it out more and give it a different organization. He does not presuppose a detailed understanding of Myers-Briggs terminology but gives his own, more or less workable, definitions of the terms. The bulk of the book is a set of capsule descriptions of different actual individuals falling into each of the sixteen types, and what they found useful as spiritual practice and what they did not, according to their personality. Each personality type is covered multiple times, focusing on the E-I, N-S, T-F, and J-P functions separately. There was also a table summarizing each of the sixteen types. I would have liked a companion table describing a reading list for each of the different spiritual teachers (Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, etc.) considered with a summary of which kinds of believers would find them helpful or non-helpful. I have not run across another book with this particular emphasis though, so if you are interested I think it could well be worth a look.

I enjoyed this book very much but also have some reservations in giving it a high rating.

POSITIVE: I liked the way that the author showed introverts are complex and often don't know themselves since their dominant function is not expressed outwardly. Since spirituality is also inward, he looks at the judging/perceiving of the dominant function for introverts, not the auxiliary function as most personality studies do. This was very enlightening to me as an introvert who has also not known myself well (INTJ).

CRITICAL: This author seems to have excluded my type of spirituality - the form of naturalism that does not look at supernatural explanations but appreciates the beauty, wonder, and complexity of the natural world. This is a type of spirituality that is outside of organized religion and doesn't use the traditional Christian/Jewish/Muslim concept of a unitary individualistic God.

It is nice that the author is ecumenical in including not just Catholic (although predominantly Catholic) spiritual guides but also some Protestant ones, although as stated he does come with the assumption that God exists as in the Abrahamic religious traditions. I wonder if the book will be very useful to very many people as most people are not Ecumenical Christians - most people seem follow a specific denomination and open-minded spiritual seekers often are outside of organized religion. I wish he had included some observations about these latter people, but it seems that was outside of his own ministry.

Since I am studying this also as an academic and as the author is certainly knowledgeable and has considerable experience, overall this was a good book for me to gain some understanding of what the author had learned through his study. As to others seeking personal spiritual guidance, I would only recommend it to those who are institutional believers in the God of the Bible.

Great insight into why we pray the way we do. Gave me patience with those that do not agree with how I pray.