Wondering if you should use the Enneagram as a Christian? Here’s what you need to know
I’ve seen a multitude of Enneagram-crazed posts lately amongst people from within the church. From average, everyday Christians to Christian bloggers and mega-influencers, it seems as though the Enneagram has begun to play a major role in Christianity as we know it.
But is that really a bad thing? I mean, there are so many strong Christians who say it’s a useful tool and a harmless instrument. But when I tested the Enneagram against the truth of the scriptures, I quickly found an abundant number of reasons why it acts as a distraction, takes away from our trust in God, and ultimately, is not a practice that is holy in the eyes of the Holy God.
I originally wanted to write this post as an analysis of Christopher Heuertz’s book titled The Sacred Enneagram, but after finishing this book (spoiler alert: it did not sit well with me) I couldn’t help but embark on the journey of continuing to research the Enneagram and figure out why I felt overwhelmingly led to reject it as a “holy” or “Christian” “tool”. So, I’ll be composing multiple posts that dive into different aspects of the Enneagram and why I believe it is not biblical nor necessary to use.
I want to preface this post by saying that I know many people will not fully agree with the stance I am taking on this; it is a widely debated topic within Christian circles. But I don’t want anyone to take my word for it anyways. Please, put everything you learn about the Enneagram to the test through prayer and God’s Word, which cuts through bone and marrow and is always truthful because God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 4:12). I’m going to be addressing certain claims Heuertz makes in his book, and in subsequent posts I’ll be answering many common “Bible vs. Enneagram” questions that I’ve heard from the Christian community, of which I have spent the last several weeks researching, praying about, thinking about, and seeking answers from God’s Word.
What is the Enneagram and its History?
I’m not going to go into what the Enneagram is or its history in this post, but if you don’t know what the Enneagram is, linked here is a thorough breakdown as provided by The Enneagram Institute, or you can click here to see a video that breaks it down quickly and clearly.
In terms of the history of the Enneagram, I’m not going to get into that here either for two main reasons. The first reason is that there are other people who have already done a great, thorough job of breaking down the history of the Enneagram which, in my opinion, makes it almost blindingly clear why the Enneagram is not a godly practice. But I don’t think history is proof in itself that Christians shouldn’t use the Enneagram. I do think it’s relevant to people who have used parts of the Enneagram’s history to justify their use of it; for example, I’ve heard many people say, “Well, it’s Christian because it was created and used by Christian monks.” First of all, this does not make it Biblical. Second of all, this is not the full truth nor the full history of how the Enneagram that we use today came to be. If you are using the aforementioned reason as a justification for your use of the Enneagram, it is critical that you understand the full history so that you are not using a partial truth or presenting a poorly educated case to convince yourself that the Enneagram is a Christian tool.
That being said, here are two videos with well-researched information that break down the history of the Enneagram as well as give some warnings to Christians about using it.
Popular (And Problematic) Enneagram Views as Intimated by Heuertz
The first red flag about the Enneagram that I read in Heuertz’s book is one that I afterwards actually began to see other Christians saying. It is a viewpoint that I can’t find any Biblical evidence for and I would even go as far as saying that it’s the complete opposite of the truth we see being taught in the Bible. Here are two quotes from Heuertz’s book that I’ll proceed to address:
“…for those willing to persevere, the Enneagram offers a sacred map for our souls; a map that, when understood, leads us home to our true identity and to God.”
The Sacred Enneagram, page 26
“We wake up when we stop fuelling our own self-preoccupation and allow self-realization to serve as an invitation to deep union with ourselves and God…” (The Sacred Enneagram, page 32).
The Sacred Enneagram, page 32
Here, Heuertz explicitly calls the Enneagram “a sacred map for our souls” and says that self-realization “leads us home” to God. To this I say, we need to establish what “home” is according to scripture.
“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling…. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”
2 Corinthians 5:1-2, 6-8 NIV
The Bible clearly shows us that our true home is our eternal house in heaven with the Lord. Currently, our homes are our earthly bodies, but this scripture refers to our earthly home as a “tent” which implies the reality that it is not eternal. It is not our mission as Christians on this earth to return to ourselves, or our earthly home, which is what Heuertz is encouraging us to do by focusing on seeking “spiritual freedom” through self-realization. It is our duty as Christians to look towards our heavenly home and seek to know God alone (Col. 3:1-2).
I know a lot of people will want to respond to this by saying, “Okay, but can’t I seek to know God and also use the Enneagram to try and understand myself? Why is it a bad thing to know myself?”
The short answer: It’s not a bad thing to know yourself. But the problem with Heuertz’s position is that he’s saying that by growing in self-realization, we grow to know God more, and this could not be more backwards. The way we get to know and understand ourselves is not through any earthly means, and it is definitely not through mere self-reflection. God defines our identity; we don’t get to. God knows us fully, more than we could ever know ourselves, so the way to understand ourselves and the way we operate as human beings is to understand God and allow Him to reveal to us what He wants us to know.
The following are a few verses that specifically communicate this to us as truth.
“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”
James 1:5 NIV
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:9 NIV
“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in — behind and before, you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”
Psalm 139:1-6 NIV
I’m going to take this a step further by also pointing out that getting to know ourselves is not how we experience spiritual freedom. First of all, let’s define this vague concept of “spiritual freedom” that Heuertz refers to. As I mentioned earlier, Heuertz uses the term “spiritual freedom” to refer to returning to the “True Self”. But this is not scripturally accurate nor relevant. Biblically speaking, spiritual freedom is forgiveness and deliverance from our sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ so that we can live eternally with Him. That is the gospel. Nothing else really matters. We do not need to understand ourselves to experience spiritual freedom; we need to understand and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And make no mistake, both the deliverance of our sins as well as the understanding of our identity, come not through any outside source but through Jesus alone.
“Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
John 14:6
No one comes to their home with the Father in eternity through self-realization, through the identity that the Enneagram gives us, or through any means other than Jesus Christ Himself.
The Conclusion (For Now)
Before I conclude this post, I want to raise one of the biggest red flags that jumped out at me from The Sacred Enneagram. This is a longer excerpt, so bear with me.
“Craig was my first Enneagram guide. As he explained the Enneagram to me, I was immediately curious but simultaneously suspicious…. If I’m honest, the symbol threw me. It looked super evil, like two demonic pentagrams having sex, and I was immediately concerned that it might not be congruent with my Christian faith.
“But it had captivated my attention, and I found myself returning to Craig’s introduction over and over again. I found several free online tests, took quite a few of them, and then aggregated the various results on a spreadsheet that I emailed to Craig, asking him to help translate what they meant.
“More than once, friends bought me copies of Riso and Hudson’s The Wisdom of the Enneagram, only for me to quietly return those new copies of the book because much of the interspiritual language felt uncomfortable to me at the time. But the Enneagram is relentless, and once it finds you, it doesn’t let go — truth and light are like that. I did give in eventually, delving deeper and deeper into all the material I could find on my type….
“As is typical of young converts to anything, I started promoting Enneagram among my friends and professional community.”
The Sacred Enneagram, page 82-83
The whole book, I was waiting for Heuertz to back up his use of the Enneagram biblically. It’s what I would expect any Christian to do. But instead, he justified it by saying that he eventually gave in and as quoted here, he even refers to himself as a “young convert”. This is such a weak argument to me. You simply cannot claim anything as truth without testing it through the lens of God’s Word because God’s Word is the only truth. Heuertz calls the Enneagram truth on the basis that it is “relentless” — so is temptation. We will always experience temptation on this earth and there are many specific temptations that gnaw at us again and again, daily. This does not mean it’s justified for us to give in. We are called to expose darkness by bringing it to the light, which is, God and His Word (Eph. 5:11, 2 Cor. 4:2). Heuertz did not test the Enneagram through the lens of God’s Word. He simply gave in.
I pray that you take away from this post the truth that there is nothing the Enneagram offers that is better than Jesus or of better guidance than the Word of God itself and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us as Christians. The Enneagram is not a “tool” because God has not set it apart as a holy source of truth for us to rely on. We should not dabble in it because as we can see, the mindsets that accompany the Enneagram are not biblical and do not bring us closer to God, but rather bring us closer to a version of our identity that was not written by God.
I know there will be people tempted to dismiss this but please know that this is not all God has put on my heart to communicate about the Enneagram. I invite you to return here to view subsequent posts about the Enneagram where I will be answering questions and assumptions that I have seen Christians commonly using in favour of the Enneagram. I will once again bring them to God’s Word and we will see how they measure up. For example, we’ll talk about questions like,
“Can’t God redeem the Enneagram so it can be used for holiness?”
“What about Myers-Briggs? Lots of Christians use that, why isn’t it as controversial?”
So please, don’t stop here. Bring this to God. Bring it to prayer, to His Word, to Christian friends and mentors that you know and trust. I also welcome you to email me or message me on a social platform and we can discuss and bring this to God together.
Bless you and see you back here soon!
Thanks for sharing. I’ve never heard of this before. But it is good to know.
Thanks for reading! It’s interesting how it’s popular in some churches but not so much in others. God bless.