This summer Emma House will be conducting summer practica (practicums for those of you who don't know Latin plurals). I am looking forward to interacting with participants in some more advanced spiritual direction preparation. Besides more opportunities to learn, practice, and receive the benefits of spiritual friendship, I anticipate thorough discussions with the practicum on the issue of transference as idolatry. Perhaps more problems in the church than we realize are brought about by people who obsess about either the virtues or flaws of Christian leaders and seek either to put them on a pedestal or destroy them utterly, even using a spiritual veneer to justify what is, in theological terms, a form of idolatry. 
Why do I call it idolatry? Because too often we seek to have others meet needs in our lives that only Christ can meet. If Christian leaders, for example, fail to provide what the obsessive want from them (and they will fail sooner or later) then they may experience accusations and rejections. This outcome is so prevalent in relationships where there is a compassionate people helper who initiates reaching out to a needy person with deprivation or abuse issues from their childhood, that everyone who is considering entering the ministry needs to be able to recognize the issue of transference. In the Emma House class we will be reading several books about this issue: Sheep in Wolves' Clothing by
Valerie J McIntyre is one of these.
