Enneagram: The Road Back to You, Or to Somewhere Else?

If you haven’t heard of the Enneagram yet, it won’t be long before you do.

After being used for several decades in Catholic retreats and seminars, the nine-type personality tool has seen an explosion of popularity in evangelical circles. Since 2016, evangelical publishers have released at least three-full length books on the Enneagram: The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery(IVP 2016), The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth (Zondervan 2017), and Mirror for the Soul: A Christian Guide to the Enneagram (IVP 2017). A new book—The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships (IVP)—is set to release in April.

Beyond books, the Enneagram (pronounced any-a-gram) continues to receive a warm reception on a number of blogs and evangelical media outlets with articles like: “What All Christians Need to Know About the Enneagram” and “The Never Ending Quest to Know Ourselves.” In particular, Christianity Today has been a frequent advocate of the Enneagram, touting what the Enneagram has to offer Christians, how evangelicals can use it, and, just recently, how it can be a tool for pastors. On a personal note, I have good friends who swear by the Enneagram as the means by which God showed them their blindspots and helped them overcome weaknesses in their personality.

So what should we make of this new (or ancient?) personality wheel with a strange name? Read More

Earlier this week I passed over the most recent Christianity Today article on the enneagram. "The Enneagram for Pastors," in which Suzanne Stabile who co-authored The Road Back to You with Ian Morgan Cron promotes the enneagram as a self-assessment tool for pastors and wannabe pastors. The article included a link to a 2016 Christianity Today article on the enneagram, "An Evangelical's Guide to the Enneagram." I tend to be leery of such tools due to my past experience with the human potential movement in 1970s and 1980s and the quasi-therapeutic language used in promoting them. The underlying message is discover your personality type and in doing so maximize your potential, which is the "gospel" of the human potential movement. I decided to post a link to Kevin DeYoung's article because it also points out the spiritual dangers associated with this increasingly popular self-assessment tool. I am inclined to classify enneagrams with labyrinths and the practice of labyrinth-walking, a spiritual practice that, in the words of Kevin DeYoung, "presents an approach to spirituality that is alien to, and often at odds with, the language and contours of Scripture." See The Living Church article, "Walking the Labyrinth" I wrote on labyrinths and labyrinth walking in 2000.

Image: The Gospel Coalition