The Mind Redeemed, Episode 1
In the Greek myth of the twin dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, Odysseus had to find a way through a narrow strait of water marked by dangers on either side. Scylla was a rock shoal stylized as a six-headed sea monster that could snatch sailors away from a ship. Charybdis was a dangerous whirlpool that could swallow up entire ships. The more one tried to avoid the first, the more he was in danger of the other. Homer’s story has come down to us as a great metaphor for having to navigate threats on either side of a situation. In more contemporary terms, we sometimes must navigate between a rock and a hard place.
I find modern Christians facing a similar challenge as we navigate through the dangers of excessive avoidance of the potential perils of psychology to fall into the dangers of neglecting an avenue of God’s general revelation in the name of biblicism. The number of Christians who completely deny the value of modern scientific psychology has declined, but many still find psychology and its associated counseling professions as entirely heretical and a threat to the church. They thereby cut themselves off from helpful knowledge that God has provided through general revelation.
On the other hand, the numbers of those who blithely accept ideas from psychology as truth has grown exponentially. Psychological ideas and categories have infiltrated the church to where it at times seems more therapeutically driven than gospel driven.
What’s at Stake
As in Homer’s myth, lives are at stake either way. In my decades as a Christian psychologist, I have seen dear people reject God and the church when obvious mental illness was treated by Christian leaders and lay people as if it were totally sin and a sign of unrepentance in their lives, being told that the only reason they suffered is because of the stubbornness of their hearts.
Conversely, and more commonly, I have observed Christians drawn into seeing the world through the eyes of psychological theories and commit themselves to feeling better rather than being better – that is, comfort is valued over sanctification. Prodded by therapeutic sermons, minimally Christian counselors, and the aggressive marketing of medications by big pharma, lives are lived to enjoy this world more than to prepare for the next.
We thus face the twin dangers of minimizing God’s resources from the careful study of people made in his image and crashing upon the rocks of temporal comfort-seeking that causes professing Christians to be plucked from their seeking of God’s kingdom and hope of eternity with him to join the masses in living for the moment.
A Brief History of the Dilemma
Christians have been about the business of soul care since biblical times. Old Testament counselors offered inspired wisdom on how to weave through the maze of life. The Bible does not shy from sharing the foibles of the saints as they struggled with depression and anxiety, offering hope and peace rooted in a vision of God’s Kingdom here and hereafter. So it continued for most of church history. After all, psychology means the study of the soul.
The Enlightenment brought (false) hope that humans could figure out the world for themselves without needing a deity, going into battle brandishing the new sword of empirical science. This new approach soon moved from observing the world “out there” to studying our internal worlds, and the scientific discipline of psychology was born – ironically using a term that purports to study the soul while not believing in it.
I am convinced we can use the observational strategies of psychology to learn about people and that this information can be helpful. But tensions flared in the early 20th Century when the legendary Sigmund Freud made psychology clinical, aimed at understanding and curing our emotional ills. In Freud’s thinking, belief in a God is a symptom of illness. Suddenly the faith of many people was transformed from a source of comfort to being part of what is wrong with us. His follower, Carl Jung, reinstated belief in the supernatural but via a modern form of Gnosticism. Thoughtful Christians were appalled at how prejudicial such thinking was toward the faith, and rightly sounded an alarm.
Many of the early psychologists were less hostile to true Christian faith, but believers were still skeptical of a profession that takes away the soul and turns spiritual seeking into a part of mental illness.
During the second half of the 20th Century, voices arose that sought to navigate the dangers more carefully and a movement often called “integration” arose. Writers like Gary Collins and Larry Crabb saw good in what secular psychological research had to offer, and endeavored to find ways to bring Christian doctrine and psychological knowledge into a coherent mix. Numerous theories on how to do so arose, and documented in the first edition of Eric Johnson’s Psychology and Christianity: Four Views in 2000, expanding to five views in the next edition.
State Endorsed Psychology and Counseling
Meanwhile on the applied side of psychological knowledge, “psychologist” became a publicly recognized profession when applied to mental health problems, followed by social workers, professional counselors, and marriage and family therapists. This was vital if those with such training were to earn a living doing this. Professionalization separated those with specific credentials from lay, or even biblical counselors, and charted a course to being reimbursed by insurance companies. Since it was “health” insurance that would pay, there had to be an illness that they were treating, so these folks were credentialed to diagnose and treat mental illness under the umbrella of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Once depression and its kin became “official” illnesses, their treatment was entrusted to state-approved providers of therapy.
Where do the credentials come from? States varied, but in the end, professional organizations like the American Psychological Association and American Counseling Association stepped in and laid out highly specific criteria for training programs if they wanted their approval. By and large, the states then deferred to these agencies, saying in order to be licensed one has to graduate from a program that is accredited by the appropriate professional association.
So here is the conundrum: to earn a living as a counselor (particularly to be reimbursed by insurance), Christian or not, one must be licensed by a secular state, and go to a program approved by a secular professional organization that dictates in great detail the training to be received. Given these training standards are influenced by ideology and politics, a counselor or psychologist must receive this indoctrination to be licensed, even if in many ways it negates or contradicts Christian beliefs. And one more thing: many Christian counseling programs are housed in seminaries, so that control of these programs was largely handed over to these accrediting agencies so that students will enroll and then be able to get licenses after graduation. But there is much room for conflict between the theological positions of many seminaries and the things accredited counseling and psychology programs must teach. Yes, Christian takes on psychology can be taught in this context, but only in any time left over after meticulous secular standards are taught.
In all of this, there is much room for confusion and concern.
Why This Blog
As already observed, there are high stakes in this debate, and as Christian counseling programs become more eager to appease accreditors, they easily can become more compromising in teaching what Christian counseling should look like when done biblically and from roots in the biblical tradition.
I am a product of this situation. I received my PhD in Clinical Psychology from the first Christian program ever accredited by the American Psychological Association. I have spoken into this narrow strait between psychology and Christianity while pointing out dangers on both sides and to Christians and even to the American Psychological Association itself. After 40 years of watching this Homeric danger increase, I have determined to offer a place to share some insights on the good in these areas and on the dangers in these waters.
Goals of the Blog
I believe the waters between Scylla and Charybdis can be navigated, but that it must be done with great care and awareness. In my effort to do so, I hope to speak to particular groups:
· Christian counselors and psychologists: to help them think through their work and chart a course to God-centered soul care.
· Pastors and church leaders: to help them chart a course sensitive to the mental health needs of their congregations while focusing on building godly believers.
· Persons who are considering or currently receiving counseling: to give them insights to help them choose wisely who to seek for counsel and to be discerning in what they take away from it.
· Christians in general: to offer some bits of encouragement and challenge on these issues and to help them think through psychology and counseling in a biblical and God-honoring way.
· For all of these groups, I hope to provoke thought and offer useful tools for helping redeemed minds to flourish to the glory of God.
I hope you join me on this journey as we sail between Scylla and Charybdis guided by the compass of God’s Word.