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EMCAPP



             And at the same time, there is no good reason that Chris-  in their dialogue and reading of modern psychology with
             tians should not continue to co-labor with modernists   greater hermeneutic sophistication, careful to do so more
             and postmodernists on research, theory-building, and   critically, interpreting modern psychological discourse
             practice in areas where their world-views do not conflict.  more Christianly, in terms of and in light of another set
             Contrary to the opinion of fundamentalists, Christian   of texts: primarily Christian Scripture, and secondarily, the
             psychologists will want to read and dialogue with modern   Christian tradition and contemporary Christian psycholo-
             and postmodern psychologists, since they have produced   gical literature. Is there any place here for integration? Of
             such a great volume of valid psychological information,   course. However, in order for it to contribute to a Christi-
             and good Christian psychological science will be promo-  an psychology, such integration must be subordinate to a
             ted through such stimulation. While, from a Christian   higher agenda: the construction of a Christian psychology,
             standpoint, contemporary modern psychology has its li-  guided throughout by Christian world-view assumptions.
             mitations and blind spots, a fair assessment will apprecia-  It is of course possible that the project of a Christian psy-
             te its great erudition and rich vocabulary for describing an   chology will come to nothing. However, without attempt-
             enormous amount of psychological detail lacking in eve-  ing anything, we will never know. What would happen if
             ryday speech (including the everyday speech of the Bible   Christians in psychology were to spend a couple decades
             and the Christian tradition). This scientific sophistication   taking the Scriptures and the Christian tradition more
             has greatly furthered our understanding of some features   seriously than any other texts, and develop a psychology
             of human nature that were previously understood only in   based on those resources, doing research and theory-buil-
             broad outline in the Christian tradition (like reason and   ding and developing counseling practices accordingly? Of
             emotion), but it has also discovered many other features   course, we cannot pretend that modern psychology does
             basically unrecognized by humans of any age (like neural   not exist—nor should we—but it will undoubtedly require
             networks, attributions, and separation anxiety). Without   considerable energy to break free of our Babylonian capti-
             such dialogue and reading, a Christian psychology would   vity to modernity, in order to real progress in understan-
             be immeasurably and unnecessarily impoverished (a pro-  ding human nature from a Christian standpoint (in cont-
             blem that one would think would concern God, since he   rast to the more traditional Christian approach of simply
             is the Creator of these phenomena!).             baptizing secular psychological models with, at best, a
                                                              meager reference to some Christian considerations). This
             On the other hand, many Christians in psychology in re-  more radical project seems worthy of our efforts. Given
             cent decades began their work with a modern psychology   the distinctiveness of Christian world-view assumptions
             already developed by secularists, and then sought to in-  and the fact that a Christian psychology should be able to
             tegrate faith to that version. However, because of the way   incorporate all the valid insights that modern psychology
             the task was set up (e.g., the psychology was already pre-  can make, we should expect that a Christian psychology
             formulated according to secular standards of rationality),   will yield a rich and novel version of psychology, but one
             it was not really permissible to develop Christian models   that is ultimately more valid and comprehensive than that
             that were qualitatively different from the secular versi-  which modernism alone can yield. Let‘s give this project a
             ons. In contrast, Christian psychologists should engage   few decades and find out.



             References
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             Stroud, B. (1992). Logical positivism. In J. Dancy & E. Sosa     Eric Johnson, Ph.D., is Professor of
             (Eds.), A companion to epistemology (pp. 262-265). London:       Pastoral Care at Southern Baptist
             Blackwell.                                                       Theological Seminary and the director
             Watson, P. J. (1993). Apologetics and ethnocentrism: Psycholo-   of the Society for Christian Psychology.
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                                                                                             ejohnson@sbts.edu

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