As a dedicated Christian and a student of psychology and counseling, I am daily faced with a conflict. Much of Christian tradition shies away from the social sciences, claiming the sufficiency of Christ, while psychology tends to view faith as a sometimes-useful placebo, valuable for the mindsets it can create but containing no inherent truth. How am I to walk that line? As a person who believes in both the power of Christ and the usefulness of tested psychological theory and practice, and who believes that God is able and willing to both work through and transcend traditional counseling practices, is it possible to live in the balance of these two worldviews? As a person who will likely spend a lifetime practicing psychological counseling within the context of Christian ministry, I see it as necessary. Rather than choosing one and rejecting the other, I see the value in both. I see them as complementary, able to be combined for a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. And so I step with excitement into a combined field that has largely (and lamentably) been ignored thus far.
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"How should biblical counselors view psychological information? Bring it on! It is the stuff of life that only the Christian faith weighs properly. Bring on all sorts of documents, portrayals of life that also need interpretation through faith’s eyes: imaginative literature, history, cross-cultural studies, film, popular music, cultural anthropology, the daily newspaper, and lots of other things whose epistemological status is the same as modern psychologies. With a well-trained ability to think from faith’s point of view (Heb. 5:14), we can learn from, and interact with, anything."
ReplyDeleteHaven't read the whole thing yet myself, but heres the full article.
http://www.equip.org/articles/faith-s-psychology-and-the-psychological-faiths
His Book "Seeing Through New Eyes" you might find interesting. He's been doing this stuff for years, and heres a page with links to mp3s and links to a couple of his books.
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Audio-and-Multimedia/All-Speakers-Lectures-and-Sermons/David-Powlison/
I also must lend myself to Psychology because Lord willing I'll be aiming at getting a degree in Criminal Psychology, so yeah. I'm kinda in the same boat as you trying to understand these issues through the eyes of faith, and not ignore them because of the blinders of "faith". Keep it up sister, hopefully you enjoy and profit form those resources.