While I am non-denominational and lean towards the simple church, I must give credit to the Seventh Day Adventists for taking a lead in innovative thinking and research regarding any correlations between spiritual gifts and personality types or temperaments. Possibly the first document in this tradition is an unpublished and undated manuscript of which I have been unable to obtain a copy. It is cited by two dissertations and is housed at the Andrews University Library. It is called Relationship Between Personality Types and Nineteen Spiritual Gifts by Ray Ammon, an elder in the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
The other candidate for first mention comes from a 1981 article by Repicky in Review for Religious. My source is the 1992 dissertation by Nathaniel P. Lewis on correlating MBTI types and Naden's spiritual gift clusters.
"Repicky refers to a lecture given at Berkely, California on April 28, 1977 by Donald Gelpi on “Jungian Personality Theory and the Theology of Gifts.” He explains: “Gelpi maintains that the Christian experience is the experience of the Jesus event and the pentecostal experience which came out of it...The overall effect of living within this experience is that one’s natural gifts and potentialities are raised to a new level and become ‘spiritualized’ by attaining new dimensions in the realm of meaning.”
Using Gelpi’s notion as a springboard, Repicky elaborates his position by proposing that the Pauline teaching of spiritual giftedness is a “spiritualization of natural potentialities.” These potentialities are demonstrated in the Jungian types of introversion, extraversion, intuition, sensing, thinking, and feeling. He maintains that a “proper understanding of these basic dispositions of the personality...will contribute greatly to a healthy understanding and directing of one’s personal giftedness...and spirituality in general.” He postulates, therefore, a theory of spiritual gifts whick integrates gifts and types. He states that “personality types enable the individual to see that the transformation of the ego through faith does yield certain gifts or talents which are in accord with the natural bent of his personality.” (Lewis, 1992, p.51-52)
Repicky's insights are interesting, but may not be useful for future researchers. Repicky includes four gifts that I have never seen anywhere: Simplicity, prudence, practicality, and presence. He also comes from the Jungian 8 type perspective rather than the Myers-Briggs 16 type perspective.
The first major empirical study in this vein, which also comes from the Seventh Day Adventist tradition, is the 1984 dissertational study by Ronald Joachim titled "Relationship Between Temperament Types and Nineteen Spiritual Gifts." In it he compares the results of 1067 Christian graduate students and church members who took both the "Temperament Inventory" (Cruise and Blitchingtion, 1977) and the "Spiritual Gifts Inventory" (Naden and Cruise, 1981). A summary of the significant findings are:
1. There is a significant correlation between the sanguine temperament and the gifts of administration, leadership, and hospitality.
2. There is a significant correlation between the choleric temperament and the gifts of leadership, wisdom, and helps.
3. There is a correlation between the melancholic temperament and the gift of evangelism.
4. There is a correlation between the phlegmatic temperament and the gift of wisdom.
Joachim qualifies that the "choleric tendency had the major weight for the leadership gift, and the sanguine for the hospitality gift." He also notes a relationship with the "blending of phlegmatic and melancholic for the gifts of pastoring and teaching."
Other interesting conclusions were
• "Helps and hospitality are different gifts. When they appear in the same function, they are always of opposite tendencies."
•"There is a positive correlation among the males between sanguine and prophecy, but no such correlation among the females."
•"As a whole, males and females appear to have the same gift if they have the same temperament. The correlation between temperament and spiritual gifts is very similar for Blacks, Caucasions, and Hispanics. For a given position, temperament is more important than sex and ethnic background."
References
Ronald L. Joachim, “Relationship Between Four Temperament Types and Nineteen Spiritual Gifts” PhD. Dissertation, Andrews University: Dissertation Abstracts International. (University Microfilms No. 85-15550). 1985.
The other candidate for first mention comes from a 1981 article by Repicky in Review for Religious. My source is the 1992 dissertation by Nathaniel P. Lewis on correlating MBTI types and Naden's spiritual gift clusters.
"Repicky refers to a lecture given at Berkely, California on April 28, 1977 by Donald Gelpi on “Jungian Personality Theory and the Theology of Gifts.” He explains: “Gelpi maintains that the Christian experience is the experience of the Jesus event and the pentecostal experience which came out of it...The overall effect of living within this experience is that one’s natural gifts and potentialities are raised to a new level and become ‘spiritualized’ by attaining new dimensions in the realm of meaning.”
Using Gelpi’s notion as a springboard, Repicky elaborates his position by proposing that the Pauline teaching of spiritual giftedness is a “spiritualization of natural potentialities.” These potentialities are demonstrated in the Jungian types of introversion, extraversion, intuition, sensing, thinking, and feeling. He maintains that a “proper understanding of these basic dispositions of the personality...will contribute greatly to a healthy understanding and directing of one’s personal giftedness...and spirituality in general.” He postulates, therefore, a theory of spiritual gifts whick integrates gifts and types. He states that “personality types enable the individual to see that the transformation of the ego through faith does yield certain gifts or talents which are in accord with the natural bent of his personality.” (Lewis, 1992, p.51-52)
Repicky's insights are interesting, but may not be useful for future researchers. Repicky includes four gifts that I have never seen anywhere: Simplicity, prudence, practicality, and presence. He also comes from the Jungian 8 type perspective rather than the Myers-Briggs 16 type perspective.
The first major empirical study in this vein, which also comes from the Seventh Day Adventist tradition, is the 1984 dissertational study by Ronald Joachim titled "Relationship Between Temperament Types and Nineteen Spiritual Gifts." In it he compares the results of 1067 Christian graduate students and church members who took both the "Temperament Inventory" (Cruise and Blitchingtion, 1977) and the "Spiritual Gifts Inventory" (Naden and Cruise, 1981). A summary of the significant findings are:
1. There is a significant correlation between the sanguine temperament and the gifts of administration, leadership, and hospitality.
2. There is a significant correlation between the choleric temperament and the gifts of leadership, wisdom, and helps.
3. There is a correlation between the melancholic temperament and the gift of evangelism.
4. There is a correlation between the phlegmatic temperament and the gift of wisdom.
Joachim qualifies that the "choleric tendency had the major weight for the leadership gift, and the sanguine for the hospitality gift." He also notes a relationship with the "blending of phlegmatic and melancholic for the gifts of pastoring and teaching."
Other interesting conclusions were
• "Helps and hospitality are different gifts. When they appear in the same function, they are always of opposite tendencies."
•"There is a positive correlation among the males between sanguine and prophecy, but no such correlation among the females."
•"As a whole, males and females appear to have the same gift if they have the same temperament. The correlation between temperament and spiritual gifts is very similar for Blacks, Caucasions, and Hispanics. For a given position, temperament is more important than sex and ethnic background."
References
Ronald L. Joachim, “Relationship Between Four Temperament Types and Nineteen Spiritual Gifts” PhD. Dissertation, Andrews University: Dissertation Abstracts International. (University Microfilms No. 85-15550). 1985.
powered by performancing firefox
No comments:
Post a Comment