Page 61 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 15

Eric L. Johnson (USA)
Comment to

„Attachment Quality and Eric L. John-

Relevance of the Different son, PhD,
is professor
Social Agents in the Deve- of Christian
Psychology
lopment of Healthy, Resi- at Houston

lient, Civic, and Spiritual Baptist Uni-
versity. He
Citizens.” taught psychology for 10 years at Uni-
versity of Northwestern and counseling
for 17 years at Southern Baptist Theo-
Attachment, Communion, and Agape Love logical Seminary. In addition to writing
I appreciate the opportunity to respond to this more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed
fine summary of some of the latest research and journals, he edited Psychology and
theory on the attachment bond, one of the great Christianity: Five Views, and was a
discoveries of modern psychology. Christian co-editor of Marriage: Its Foundation,
psychologists have much to be thankful for in Theology, and Mission in a Changing
this body of research, since it shows that hu- World. He has written “Foundations
mans are universally wired by God and evoluti- for Soul Care: A Christian Psychology
on to form an affective bond with their earliest Proposal” and “God and Soul Care: The
caregivers that contributes significantly to the Therapeutic Resources of the Christian
constitution of their relationality, and therefore Faith.” He was the first director of the
profoundly affects their wellbeing and relation- Society for Christian Psychology and
ships, for the rest of their lives on earth, inclu- has been doing pastoral counseling for
ding their relationship with God. 20 years.

In my response, however, I would like to ap- Former contributions in our eJournal
proach attachment from a Christian philoso- by Eric you can see here:
phy of psychological science (Johnson, 2007b), http://emcapp.ignis.de/1/#/96
rather than observe the secular rules of scienti- http://emcapp.ignis.de/6/#/8
fic discourse that regulate the texts (and theory http://emcapp.ignis.de/2/#/4
and research) on the modern attachment mo- http://emcapp.ignis.de/8/#p=8
del. For one reason, Christians need to have https://emcapp.ignis.de/11/#p=22
places like this journal, where we can discuss
psychological topics among ourselves, using
all the intellectual and therapeutic resources worldview assumptions to regulate our psycho-
available to us within the Christian tradition, logical discourse.
without feeling the pressure of the naturalistic To begin with, while the attachment bond, as
worldview assumptions that currently dictate understood by modern psychology, is a rich
modern psychology discourse. In addition, the and productive psychological concept, as far as
worldview of naturalism is intrinsically reduc- it goes, its scope with regard to human beings
tionist, compared with a Christian worldview is limited, since it focuses on a relational bond
(Goetz & Taliaferro, 2008). So we would expect that human infants have in common with the
that a modern psychology model of attachment infants of other higher primates, interpreted
will leave out relevant, higher-order dynamics according to the assumptions of naturalistic
that are only recognizable if we allow Christian evolution. Given that paradigmatic context, the

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