From “The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action” by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson
Dr. David Wang, a professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, received funding from the Templeton Foundation to coordinate a global study on how seminary education affects the spiritual development of students. An early empirical piece of data revealed that 45 percent of seminary students are engaged in “impression management.” They spend emotional energy trying to shape and mold the kind of impression they make on others. Left undiscovered or denied, it’s easy to imagine how such a student becomes a pastor or priest habituated to a grandiosity that shapes an external image alienated from his or her true self. Beware. For that’s the soil from which the abuse of power grows.