Page 84 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 20

volve ques�ons about who we trust, what sorts �on networks, or where strong par�san sen�-
of evidence are permi�ed, and what sorts of
stories are deemed plausible within a given
community. In a Chris�an understanding of
knowing, evidence is highly valued (the Bible
shows this clearly), but evidence never speaks
for itself. One must, as it were, first make a
commitment. Beyond this, I now define rumors
as shared informa�on and stories a) that some
persons or communi�es consider false, b) are
embedded within a narra�ve about God’s
goodness or his badness, c) have a spiritual di-
mension that relates to the heavenly realms in
conflict, and d) are (non-determinis�cally) em-
braced or rejected (for more on this, please see
DiFonzo, 2019, „A Chris�an psychology of ru-
mor,“ Journal of Psychology and Chris�anity,
38(1), 3-21).
Did you get any results that you would especi-
ally like to emphasize?
I think one of my favorite discoveries was that
there are some situa�ons where rumors tend
to become more accurate (e.g., when people in
established friendship networks want the
truth, and credible sources are available to
check the rumor) and some in which they beco-
me less accurate (e.g., in high-anxiety natural
disaster situa�ons with disrupted communica-
84
ments outweigh a fair-minded outlook).
This work was perhaps significant to me becau-
se it dovetails what we know about the accura-
cy of the New Testament documents. Suffice to
say that there is good reason to trust in the ba-
sic accuracy of the stories about Jesus that
were being circulated at the �me of the early
church, and good reason to rely on their trans-
mission accuracy once these stories were
wri�en down in the gospels and the book of
Acts.
Why would you call yourself a Chris�an psy-
chologist?
I have begun to see that „doing psychology“
whether teaching, researching, or serving is re-
ally a forma�ve spiritual discipline in Christ
both for me and for those with whom I do psy-
chology. If you will doing psychology is an act of
worship.
An example of this is how my teaching of „re-
search methods“ (and my own research ap-
proach) has changed. The aim of research as a
Chris�an psychologist is not just theore�cal
knowledge, but poe�c knowledge. That is, to
love God through loving the thing encountered.
I first teach students basic ways of studying the
Bible (many have never actually done this), and
ask them to study the Scripture with respect to
the psychological concept we are interested in
(e.g., we recently studied the fruit of the Spirit,
and each of the nine students involved focused
on one of these expressions of the fruit: agapé
love, joy, peace, pa�ence, kindness, goodness,
gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control; see
Gal. 5:22-23). In addi�on, I try to point to what
Chris�ans (e.g., Augus�ne, Aquinas, Kierke-
gaard) have said on the ma�er.
But this Scripture study is not to be only infor-
ma�ve, it is to be spiritually forma�ve: I ask
them to meditate and pray on these Scriptures,
and we meet regularly to share insights. It feels
much like a biblical word study and indeed the
Word studies us! Once the contours of the con-
cept are known personally within a Biblical
worldview, I teach them how to conduct a stan-
dard literature review, and these texts then add
to their wisdom.