Page 22 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

Christian Psychology as a Challenge

include a section dedicated to qualitative me- The complexity and richness of human experi-
thods (the new Society for Qualitative Inquiry ence cannot be captured by any one method. So
in Psychology). I think Christian psychology should be metho-
dologically plural, and should avoid the quest
One more point should be made, I think: A wea- for the One True Method. At the same time, we
kness of the Christian psychology movement need to be fully engaged with psychological sci-
in its early years was a perceived ambivalence ence.
toward empirical methods. I’ve mentioned
Robert Roberts classic and seminal chapter on Werner May: You’ve talked about the soil and
Christian psychology in the first edition of Psy- roots of the tree of Christian psychology. How
chology and Christianity, where he argued that do you understand the rest of the tree?
we need to retrieve the psychological thought
of the Scriptures and of Christian tradition. As Russ Kosits: This is another question where I’d
inspiring and exciting is that chapter still is, it be tempted to go on and on! But I do think it’s a
was hard to sell such an approach thus stated to nice way to tie some of these ideas together, so
existing psychology departments in Christian let me try to be brief. The tree metaphor is in-
colleges and universities because all of our de- spired by the thought of Abraham Kuyper (and
partments were and are committed to psycholo- a bit by Craig Bartholomew, as well). Kuyper
gical science . Although he didn’t intend it, the also likened scholarship to a tree, and imagined
chapter may have been interpreted to mean that that the trunk of that tree has to do with those
Christian psychology wants to move beyond areas of inquiry where worldview differences
mainstream psychological science and focus in- do not get in the way of collaboration, i.e., those
stead on, say, the Bible and St. Augustine. Now domains of science tied to measurable and re-
it is certainly true that psychology departments plicable observations. But when we move bey-
at Christian colleges and universities need the ond measurement and replication and begin to
Bible and St. Augustine, but we needed to be provide ultimate-level interpretations or narra-
careful not to give the impression that it’s an eit- tions of these observations, then we have bran-
her/or proposition. ches of science. It’s a pretty elegant model and,
I think, might be a good way to briefly describe
Thankfully, Christian psychology’s commit- the entirety and inclusiveness of Christian psy-
ment to empirical methods—and to at least chology. We’ve already described the roots—the
some parts of psychological science—is now psychology of the Scriptures and of Christian
well-established. We’ve published empirical tradition, nourished by the soil of faith and
work in Christian Psychology, and the second the church. We’ve already discussed Christian
edition of Psychology and Christianity included psychology’s commitment to psychological sci-
psychological scientist PJ Watson as Roberts ence, i.e., to the trunk of the tree. And I’ve also
co-author, where they argue for expanded use been repeatedly talking about a distinctively
of empirical methods. But even in that chapter, Christian narrative or ultimate-level interpre-
the sense is that empirical methods are useful tation and integration of the best psychological
to Christian psychology only insofar as they thought, i.e., the Christian branch of psycholo-
address religion and morality. In the future, we gical science.
need to do a better job of showing how all of
psychological science fits into a Christian psy- This maps fairly well on to the way Christian
chology framework. psychology was described in 2010 in Psychology
& Christianity: Five Views by Roberts and Wat-
So I guess this is the bottom line for me: the son. There they described the psychology of the
Christian worldview and anthropology is big Scriptures and of Christian tradition as “step
enough to accommodate quantitative methods, one.” That’s the “roots.” “Step two,” as they de-
qualitative methods, exegetical methods, histo- scribed it, created a (limited) space for psycho-
rical methods, literary approaches, and more. logical science (which I would hope to expand).

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