Page 26 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

Empirical steps toward a Christian Psychology

of scholars committed to a specific theological gy could supply information useful in helping
framework, or an organization of professional all communities of understanding evaluate wh-
Christians in the social sciences like ENCAPP ether and how their faithful Christian rationa-
in Europe and the Society for Christian Psycho- lity supports faithful Christian communication.
logy and the Christian Association of Psycholo-
gical Studies in the United States. Conclusion
All self-identified Christian rationalities will Perhaps this is too simplistic. But, at least from
name God as described in the Bible as the stan- some perspectives, Christian rationality may be
dard and will assume that this standard will in its best position in over 400 years. Postmo-
never change. On the other hand, complexities dern critique has made it clear that modernism
can still occur in the relationships that can exist does not and indeed cannot supply objective
between meta-perspectives and the standard. foundations for evaluating all forms of social
For some communities of understanding, not life. This postmodern observation cannot and
only will the standard never change, but the should not support a wholesale rejection of
further assumption may also be that the me- modernism as irrelevant and unimportant. Ra-
ta-perspectival vision of that standard is fully tionalities calibrated to the standard of nature
adequate and can never change as well. Within make invaluable contributions to human exi-
this system of rationality, the task of the meta- stence, as the professional disciplines of psy-
perspective always will be to look “down” and chology, psychotherapy, and the other social
ensure faithful communication across the per- sciences make amply clear.
spectives “below.” At the same time, however, modernist reason
For other Christian communities, however, the turns out to be yet one more, albeit powerful,
assumption will be that sometimes the meta- form of “subjectivity” that can never “objec-
perspectival vision of the standard must be refi- tively” falsify Christian rationality. Christian
ned in order to deepen faithfulness. To mention rationality confronts a Babel of incommensu-
only a very few out of a myriad of possibilities, rable rationalities in which it must compete.
arguments might suggest that faithful readings Successful competition will be essential in or-
of the Bible require an awareness of the Jewish der to recruit the enthusiasm and talent of fu-
apocalyptic prophet literature (Wright, 1996), ture generations needed to advance the faithful
the situation of Israel within the Roman Empire communication of Christian rationality. That
(Horsely, 2003), or the manner in which early rationality will presumably want to use whate-
Christian interpretations of the crucifixion as ver approaches it can to expand the “interests”
a victory of Christ over Satan offer important of Christ, including but of course not limited to
insights to the nature of God (Weaver, 2001). an empirical Christian Psychology.
Within these systems of rationality, the task of
a meta-perspective will be “bidirectional” in-
volving efforts to enhance faithful vision of the
standard “above” and faithful communication
of that standard to the perspectives “below.”
Conflicts can arise, of course, over whether the
relationship between a meta-perspective and a
standard is in fact faithful. A divide may beco-
me so wide that one community of understan-
ding may complain that another is no longer
committed to the same Christian standard. In
other words, incommensurable rationalities can
also exist within the Church itself (Watson, in
press). It would be naïve to assume that social
scientific evidence could easily resolve such
conflicts; yet, an empirical Christian Psycholo-

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