What is Christian Psychology?
Christian Psychology & Counseling
Christianity has long ministered to the deepest needs of human beings, believing that the God who created us also loves us, seeks our good, and wants us to flourish in a relationship with him of worship, love, and grateful receptivity. However, Christianity also teaches that humanity has turned from its Creator to find fulfillment without him, so that humans are disordered by sin, suffering, and damage. Nevertheless, God has revealed in the Bible a new way of spiritual and psychological healing through Jesus Christ. We also discover in the Bible the inspired beginnings of a psychology focused on the most important things in life: God as the ultimate beauty, goodness, and truth of the universe; what’s most wrong with human beings; what divine restoration looks like; the basics of ethics and spirituality; and communion with God and neighbor as the highest goals of life. And these themes have been elaborated on by later Christian pastoral and monastic leaders, theologians, and philosophers into an even richer psychology.
God has revealed in the Bible a new way of spiritual and psychological healing through Jesus Christ.
However, God knows many more things about human beings than he revealed in the Bible. Over the past 150 years, researchers have discovered much about the brain, human development, causes of psychological and relational problems, and medical and therapeutic interventions that can improve lives. Unfortunately, these discoveries have been wedded to a secular agenda that understands and heals the human soul/brain without God. Yet, “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (Ja 1:17). The Christian community needs to bring together these two psychology traditions into a more complex and comprehensive model of understanding and caring for people, for the glory of God and the flourishing of humanity.
Christian Psychology & Counseling is a movement that seeks to promote the development of distinctly Christian psychological theory, research, and practice, based on a Christian worldview.
A Christian understanding of human beings will be shaped primarily by the Christian Scriptures, and secondly by Christianity’s intellectual and ecclesial traditions. A Christian psychology therefore includes biblical studies, Christian theology, and Christian philosophy within its boundaries, as well as its own psychological reflection, research, and practice. Christian psychology also welcomes knowledge from other worldview traditions (especially modern psychology, given its enormous contributions), but interprets it according to Christian worldview assumptions. Though we hold strongly to a Christian worldview, we advocate that the field of psychology becomes a more pluralistic “family of psychologies,” insofar as worldview makes a difference, believing this would be more valid and just than the current secular hegemony.
Finally, the Christian psychology movement seeks to promote dialogue, cooperation, and collaboration within the Christian community and between all worldview communities committed to promoting the common good.