Page 181 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 3

Letters to the Editor grams have been going for some decades and have now
produced tens of thousands of clinical psychologists and
counselors operating from a Christian perspective. Ex-
amples include, Fuller Theological Seminary (the very
first to pioneer a Christian approach), Rosemead School
I deeply appreciate Werner and his work with the online of Psychology, Regent University, Wheaton College,
journal, Christian Psychology Around the World. Speci- Azusa Pacific University, and George Fox University. (I
fically, I have been enjoying reading about topics from a hope I didn’t miss any.) Journals such as the Journal of
variety of worldviews, disciplines, and perspectives re- Psychology and Theology; the Journal of Psychology and
presented by the authors and their unique backgrounds. Christianity and the recent journal Edification, spearhea-
I consistently come across new insights and illumination ded by Eric Johnson, are important signs of this primarily
into subject matter from the diversity present in the back- Protestant contribution. Perhaps the most notable con-
grounds and disciplines of the writers. I believe this is a tribution of this group has been the conceptualization of
unique publication in our world, as it combines the com- the forgiveness process as a genuine aid to psychotherapy.
monality of our faith with the spectrum of disciplines and The major founders of the new forgiveness psychology
cultures that we are operating in. This approach aids in being Everett Worthington, a Protestant and Robert En-
expanding on traditionally constrained works come from right, a Catholic.
a “one discipline” or a “one culture” point-of-view. Recently, (since about 2000), The Institute for the Psy-
Diversity always expands my knowledge and awareness chological Sciences (IPS) has been developing a Catholic/
of reality and truth. To me, there is nothing more plea- Christian understanding of a Christian psychology. I am
sing than to have an anthropologist present information privileged to be on the faculty here. (For over 25 years
that is similar to a finding I just came across in a research I was connecting the Faith with psychology in the very
project I just concluded. I believe it to be confirmation secular Psychology Department at New York University.)
of the Holy Spirit movement in our disciplines; where At IPS we award the Psy. D. and M.S. degrees in clini-
we discover the same truths, although we are applying cal psychology. We now have about 85 students in the
different methods to the search. It is always confirming program and a full-time faculty of 11-12. Here, working
and validating when God influences my thinking about a from a framework known as Catholic anthropology, we
specific topic and then later find out from a fellow colle- have developed what we call the IPS Model. The model
ague in Beijing China that she was encountering the same integrates theology, philosophy and psychology from a
thing. That is what it is like reading this journal. Thank Christian/Catholic perspective. Much of the earliest em-
you Werner for you and your staff’s work. Truly, the most phasis was on the more theoretical levels of theology and
common theme in the entire world is diversity. When philosophy but we are now very actively addressing ap-
these points of view are honored and directed to address plications to specific case histories. The IPS model and
a single issue, we are all blessed from a more complete our other works are available upon request; we welcome
and thorough understanding of what we are studying and comments, contributions and helpful criticisms.
trying to understand. May God richly bless this impor- Indeed, we certainly expect that there will be lively dis-
tant and relevant work. cussion and debate about aspects of what properly cons-
titutes a Christian psychology. Some of this will no doubt
Dr. Kenneth Logan (USA) be facilitated by this new e-journal. Theoretical contro-
Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Psychology, Wil- versy is, however, a sign of life in any field. I have already
liam Jessup University, Sacramento, CA experienced some of this both with secular psychologists,
e. g. my work on Freud and the claim that within a psy-
choanalytic framework Jesus can be understood as the
anti-Oedipus as well as my critique of Carl Rogers; and
with Christian psychologists with my critique of self-for-
giveness. But, it is out of this kind of discussion and de-
Many, many thanks and congratulations to this internet bate that a better understanding of psychology develops.
journal: Christian Psychology around the World. (Spe- There are many more positive consequences to expect
cial kudos to Werner May.) The journal provides an im- from Christian Psychology around the World and the
portant forum for the now large numbers of us who are global community which it will create but for now we
looking for and often contributing to the development of must each contribute and wait.
a Christian based psychology. The ideas of today’s secu-
lar and modern/postmodern world are pretty much ex- Paul C. Vitz (USA)
hausted, including those of contemporary psychology. Ph. D. Senior Scholar/Professor, Institute for the Psycho-
Unknown to most of secular psychology a new approach logical Sciences, Arlington, VA, USA
incorporating morality and the virtues, God and the Gos-
pels is both needed and emerging. However, we need the
help that comes from interacting with each other on a
world-wide basis.
In the US various evangelical Christian psychology pro-

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