Larry Crabb and Success
Christian Psychologist uses Desirable Disadvantages and Family Background to Instill Meaning into his Work
By: Brittanie Blume | Psychology Major
Larry Crabb and his parents turned to leave the room after visiting his coma-stricken grandfather in the hospital. After assuring his wife that her father would soon be in the comforting presence of their savior, his father added, “If it’s all true.” 15-year old Crabb pulls on his father’s arm, baffled at his remark. He had grown up a Christian and had never heard his father ponder such a thought. “Sometimes I just wonder,” he tells his son.
From this event forward, Crabb began to pursue a degree in epistemology in order to distinguish whether his beliefs were based on facts, not just on his opinions. For a period of two years, Crabb gave up Christianity altogether, unable to prove his beliefs. Meanwhile, he still attended church, not to worship, but to figure out the flaws within the religion (Tennant 54). These resulting actions set Crabb apart from the typical Christian psychologist, for they provided him with a unique perspective on various aspects of Christianity. The position he developed on these seemingly uncontroversial topics has intrigued varying people from Bible scholars to the everyday Christian. Crabb was directly influenced by his father. Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Outliers: The Story of Success, “Who we are cannot be separated from where we’re from” (221). Larry Crabb demonstrates Gladwell’s ideas of desirable difficulties, meaningful work, and family background to succeed as an influential Christian psychologist.
A tap on his shoulder. Larry turned to look at an elder standing behind his pew he and his wife were sitting at in church. “There’s a phone call for you, an emergency.” Larry Crabb picked up the phone in the church office to hear his father on the other line, “Bill’s plane crashed.” A rush of anxiety shot through him over his brother’s unknown condition. “C’mon, we have to go. It’s Bill,” he whispered to his wife, Rachael. The two rushed to the Colorado Springs airport where his brother was supposed to land later that day.
“The usual airport bustle seemed more frantic…people were everywhere” Crabb wrote. He stopped to ask an administrator at the airport who informed him of the deaths of all 25 passengers on flight 585. “An emptiness I had never known before descended like a heavy weight on my heart” (Crabb, Finding God 152–159). Little did Crabb know, his brother’s death would spark a chain of inspirations that he would use to build a foundation for his later success.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, he argues that kids with dyslexia have a desirable disadvantage. It means exactly what it sounds like; dyslexia makes for a challenging learning experience for many kids, but something about the attitude of someone with dyslexia sets them apart from others. “You wouldn’t wish dyslexia on your child, or would you?” (Gladwell, David and Goliath). Gladwell went on to write that kids diagnosed with dyslexia have been observed to be more determined and concentrated on what they do and that it carries over to many aspects of their life, setting them up for success. Dyslexia instilled these favorable traits into those kids that their classmates might not have had.
Writer Katelyn Beaty also transformed a seemingly awful situation into the first major step in her career. After breaking off her engagement with her fiancé over breakfast, she was devastated. Little did she know at the time that she would later have a meeting with her boss over lunch where she would be offered the position that would lead to her first published book (Beaty). She would not have been able to receive this position and possibly not have published her book had she went through with the marriage.
Beaty used her broken engagement as an opportunity to take a step toward a dream she has had her whole life similar to how the dyslexic kids used the skills achieved through the perseverance of their condition to put just enough more effort than their peers to become successful. Likewise, Larry Crabb funneled his devastation from his brother’s death into his major “paradigm shift” (100Huntley pt. 3 0:00–0:07), which pushed him to write many books. An apparent tragic moment in his life led to a thought change which would both baffle his followers as well as introduce many new thoughts and perspectives into the minds of Christians and psychologists.
Ten-year-old Larry Crabb patiently waited on the chair in the living room for his father so they could watch their weekly television series, The Red Skelton Show. Crabb always looked forward to this time they got to spend together, but when he wasn’t there when their show started, young Crabb went searching for his dad. “Dad, the show’s on!” Crabb shouted as he came upon his father’s office. There he was, face buried in his Bible as if he had not heard a peep. Curious, he snuck up behind his dad to read over his shoulder. Leviticus? Why Leviticus? Crabb pondered.
Concluding that there must have been a reason his dad was skipping their show to read this book, Crabb scampered to his room to dig into his own Bible. Instead of feeling enriched by this seemingly important read, he shut his Bible after only a few minutes, confused with his father’s decision to skip their show. Turns out, Leviticus was pretty boring, but there was something about his father’s persistence that intrigued Crabb. Why skip our show for such a boring book in the Bible? What’s the point? “And ever since then I think there’s been just a determination to grasp what’s going on in the Bible” (100Huntley pt. 2 1:50–3:05).
In Gladwell’s Outliers: A Story of Success, he writes a story about a Jewish couple who fled to America from the Nazis in Germany in hopes of a better life. They promptly started a business in which they would sew children’s aprons and sell them on the streets. Initially, they had virtually nothing, but because of the love and determination they had for their work, their work was meaningful. They were so successful that they were eventually able to own their own factory (Gladwell, Outliers 139–149). Journalist Maddie DeBilzan’s application of meaning to her work helped her not in the marketing and manufacturing industry, but in the publishing industry. “I realized that by going into journalism, you have a real opportunity to make a difference… truth matters,” (DeBilzan). DeBilzan, during a personal interview, expressed the hardships that came with having to publish some of the stories she was assigned, though, with her mindset that people need to hear the truth, she was able to overcome this obstacle and publish her stories.
This aspect of her story proves to be strikingly similar to Crabb’s as well as the Jewish couple in the sense that they were all motivated by meaningful work to do an unfavorable task. When he initially came out with a striking proposition that psychotherapy should not have a role in the life of a Christian, he was “on the verge of bewildering more than a few of his followers” (Miller 1). Crabb defended his position during this interview, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more directly led by the Lord. It leaves me feeling more scared than I’ve ever felt in my life, but also more excited” (Miller 4). Crabb expressed the motivation driving his courage to publicly proclaim an idea he knew would be unfavorable to many. It was the meaning he held behind the reason for what he was doing; a calling from God.
Crabb kissed his mother on the cheek after feeling uplifted by the tv show he was watching. She nodded toward him as if she was “acknowledging a stranger on the street,” Crabb described (Tennant 57). He explained that she never really conveyed her affection towards her son, even here at age eight. When asked in the interview how it affected him, he replied with, “It encouraged a grasping after affirmation, dependency on getting what I didn’t get from her” (Tennant 57). As a result of these feelings Crabb retained from his mother's lack of empathy, he began to omit any rehearsal of the first five minutes of his speeches. He conjectured it was to surprise the audience in an attempt to receive the acceptance and approval he never received from his mother (Tennant 57).
Gladwell would credit Crabb’s mother’s effect on him to concerted cultivation, though a little less on the “concerted” side, as well as his family background. A man named Chris Langan, according to Gladwell, obtained obstacles caused by his mother as well. While Langan was incredibly smart, despite his unfavorable circumstances, and was offered and accepted a full scholarship to Reed College in Oregon. After starting school, he was informed that is scholarship had expired and it was at his mother’s indiscretion. Because she misunderstood the stipulations, Langan was forced to drop out, unable to complete the semester. As a result, he returned to Montana to work as a laborer (Gladwell, Outliers 93).
While Langan’s mother could be argued as a setback in his success, Crabb’s instilled a unique mindset that left an impact on the people he interacted with. Because of his unrehearsed introductions to his speeches, they suggested being whimsical, which awed his audiences at the insight and information he was able to give. This, as a result, set Crabb up for his speeches to leave a more standing impact than the typical sermon.
Gladwell also wrote on behalf of concerted cultivation defining it as “an attempt to actively ‘foster and assess a child’s talents, opinions, and skills,’” (Outliers 104). Although it may not have been intentional to cause Crabb to feel the need to grasp for acknowledgment and admiration from others, these feelings were evidently caused by his mother’s actions or lack thereof. He demonstrated this by striving to thrill his audience in an attempt to receive a fragment of what he missed out on as a child.
Crabb looked nine stories down from his hospital bedroom to see a car pull out of a line of traffic into a Starbucks parking lot. He imagined sitting down enjoying a hot latte instead of waiting in that room for a life-threatening surgery.
Just a few nights earlier, there was a knock at the door. “I’ll get it, Larry,” Crabb’s wife Rachael yelled from the other room. Larry was lying in bed swept in immense pain from an unknown cause. His good friend, who was a physician, was at the door with a prayer team to visit him, but when she saw him, she told him that she was bringing him to the hospital immediately because of his sickly appearance. After arriving at the hospital and having a series of tests run, he discovered his incredible luck to be alive at that moment. Had they waited any longer to bring Crabb to the doctor, he would have passed. The tests uncovered cancer that had stemmed from four years of symptoms gone undiagnosed and a surgery was ordered shortly thereafter (100Huntley pt. 3 3:10–4:20). This near-death experience has contributed to the compassionate, caring psychologist that he became where he would prefer his patients call him Larry as opposed to Dr. Crabb so that they would feel more comfortable with him (100Huntley pt. 2 0:20–0:45).
“There is no greater tragedy in human existence is an unexplored life,” (100Huntley pt 2. 6:26–6:31). Gladwell would consider Crabb’s life an explored life as he achieved success as an influential Christian psychologist through Gladwell’s ideas concerning the installation of meaning into his work by his parents and through the overcoming of devastating circumstances.
Works Cited
Beaty, Katelyn. Personal interview. 5 Oct. 2018.
Crabb, Larry. “What’s Really in the Bible.” Youtube, uploaded by 100Huntley, 13 Apr 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI4U_y.
DeBilzan, Maddie. Personal Interview. 21 Sept. 2018.
Gladwell, Malcolm. David and Goliath. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013. Print.
— -. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print.
Miller, Kevin Dale. “Putting an end to Christian Psychology.” Christianity Today, vol. 39, no. 9, 24 Aug. 1995.
Tennant, Agnieszka. “A Shrink Gets Stretched.” Christianity Today, vol. 47, no. 5 May 2003, pp. 52–59.
About the author: BRITTANIE BLUME
Brittanie Blume, a freshman psychology major from Grantsburg, Wisconsin, is pursuing a career in therapy, specializing in childhood development. Blume enjoys spending time with her daughter, sipping coffee, and eating McDonald’s fries.
What I’ve learned:
Choices are necessary to embrace individuality. Though having too many choices can often lead to a desire for perfection, they provide a chance to be unique and develop a more personally tailored path.
Give of yourself in your writing in hopes of engaging your reader and becoming a more personable writer.
A split second decision can determine the continuation or termination of something. The hunch judgments we have, if informed, can be the difference between life or death.
Keep options open as a plan B in case things don’t end up working out how you intend them to.
People don’t care what you’re saying when you’re giving a speech, so there is no need to be nervous about messing up.
Be specific about what you are talking about by including as much detail as possible. This will paint a picture and help to show a story instead of telling.
Tie the end of the story back to the very beginning to demonstrate its completeness.
Put in hours that your competition might not be putting in. Show up earlier and leave later than your competition. Work harder than your competition.
Find meaning in everything you do in hopes that you can become passionate about what you are doing and are more motivated to do it.
It was 11:00 pm on a school night, a sleeping baby in one arm and a computer on my lap. I had a six-page paper due the next morning and quite a bit of work ahead. Unable to find prior time to work on it because of my busy day, I only had time after Adelynn fell asleep.
