Page 83 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

Church Traditions for a Christian Psychology

taught” (Chesterton, 1995, p. ly about human behavior (in
136). So with Chesterton, let us the final analysis, even secular
ask what is it that (Eastern Or- psychology makes normative
thodox) Christianity teaches? statements about behavior, see
Answering this requires that for example van Kaam, 1966)
we take seriously the negative but about the end, the teleos, of
effects of secularism has had human life. This requires that I
not only on psychology but also reject the position of those “qui-
Christian thought and practice. te numerous today, who cons-
It is an open question whether ciously or unconsciously reduce
or not, under the influence of Christianity to either intellectu-
secular ideology, Christian psy- al (‘future of belief’) or socio-
chologists aren’t overly willing ethical (‘Christian service to
to see a deeper convergence the world’) categories and who
between Christian and non- therefore think it must be pos-
Christian thought where it may Fr. Gregory Jensen recei- sible to find not only some kind
not exist or exist to the degree ved his doctorate at Du- of accommodation, but even a
we might hope. A. Schmemann quesne University‘s Insti- deeper harmony between our
(1997, p. 118), argues that secu- tute of Formative Spiritua- ‘secular age’ on the one hand
larism “is above all a negation lity in 1995, an ecumenical and worship in the other hand”
of worship.” Such a negation of and interdisciplinary pro- (Schmemann, pp. 118-119).
worship does not, he stresses, gram in personality theo- This is not to say that there is no
require a negation “of God’s ry, religion and ministry. relationship between an Ortho-
existence, … of some kind of In 1996 he was ordained to dox Christian and a secular visi-
transcendence and therefore priesthood in the Ortho- on of psychology. Schmemann’s
some kind of religion.” Rather, dox Church. Currently, in observations about worship are
“secularism in theological addition to research and equally applicable to our con-
terms is a heresy” and speci- writing in the convergence cern for a psychology that is not
fically it is an anthropological of Christian spirituality only Christian in the themes it
heresy since what it negates or and psychology, he is also explores but also in its anthro-
denies is that the human person affiliated with the Acton pology and teleology. “It is in-
is “a worshiping being, as homo Institute in Grand Rapids, deed extremely important for
adorans: the one for whom wor- MI where he writes about us to remember that the uni-
ship is the essential act which the anthropological and queness, the newness of Chri-
both ‘posits’ [our] humanity ethical implications of stian worship is not that it has
and fulfills it.” Moreover he says economics and public po- no continuity with worship ‘in
secularism “is the rejection as licies decisions in the light general,’ . . . but that in Christ
ontologically and epistemolo- of Eastern Orthodox theo- this very continuity is fulfilled,
gically ‘decisive,’” of the Gospel, logy and Catholic Social receives its ultimate and truly
of those “words which ‘always, Teaching. new significance so as to truly
everywhere and for all’ were the frgregoryj@gmail.com bring all ‘natural’ worship to an
true ‘epiphany’ of man’s relati- end” (p. 122). Liturgically we
on to God, to the world and to see this in one of the hymns for
himself.” the feast of the conception of St.
For Orthodox Christianity, a John the Baptist. Non-Christian
true Christian psychology is worship is described as bar-
more than descriptive (though ren—of making a promise that
it certainly would be at least it cannot realize.
this); it must also be prescrip-
tive and normative not simp-

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