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will be somewhere in between, requiring some      mental health systems. So Christians are free to
             Christian  modification  before  being  brought   wisely consider how and where they might par-
             in. Consider, for example, the concept of self-   ticipate as Christian minorities in fields that are
             esteem. A Christian orientation will vary greatly   currently dominated by a modern majority.
             from a modern approach, since Christians be-
             lieve that value is ultimately established by God   The Christians who have done the best at such
             (and not the self). Nonetheless, there are many   participation  tend  to  call  themselves  “inte-
             findings  in  the  modern  self-esteem  literature   grationists,”  since  they  believe  that  Christians
             that are helpful. Modern theorists, for examp-    should integrate their faith with contemporary
             le,  have  postulated  that  self-esteem  is  related   psychology. Though we are more critical of the
             to  interpersonal  dynamics.  Such  an  insight  is   secular worldview influences in contemporary
             thoroughly compatible with Christian ideas of     psychology, we greatly appreciate their work. In
             relationship, community, and interdependence.     some cases they have contributed to the shape
                                                               of contemporary psychology, using modern ru-
             Finally, a Christian psychology should also de-   les with a Christian agenda (e.g., Everett Wort-
             velop a literature that is constructively critical of   hington  on  forgiveness  and  Robert  Emmons
             the distortions evident in modern psychology      on  gratitude).  Moreover,  significant  changes
             (as well as in other psychologies, e.g., Buddhist   have been occurring in contemporary psycho-
             psychology). Exemplary work with this agenda      logy over the past two decades that should ex-
             includes Vitz’s critique of Freud (1988) and of   cite all Christians (e.g., a growing openness to
             humanism in personality and clinical psycho-      generic  spirituality  and  religion  and  positive
             logy  (1994),  Adams’  critique  of  Freudian  and   psychology’s investigations of human virtue).
             humanistic therapy, and deterministic psychia-
             try (1970), and various analyses of therapeutic   A Pluralist Set of Psychologies
             and personality models (Jones & Butman, 1991;     In the future it seems likely that pluralist, de-
             Roberts, 1994; Browning & Cooper, 2004).          mocratic cultures like ours, helped by the post-
                                                               modern critique of modernism, will no longer
             Christian psychology might seem to be out of      view the human sciences as universalizing dis-
             step with contemporary psychology. However,       ciplines based on a single worldview. Instead,
             when the discussion broadens to include philo-    it  will  be  widely  acknowledged  that  human
             sophy of science, it becomes apparent that mo-    sciences like psychology require that their sci-
             dern psychology is out of step, for contempora-   entists  utilize  their  worldview  assumptions  in
             ry philosophy of science by and large rejected    their work, so they should make explicit those
             modernist assumptions  decades  ago  (Ratzsch,    assumptions.  This  is  necessarily  the  case,  be-
             1986). Indeed, Christian psychology is simply     cause human beings are socioculturally-consti-
             taking its cue from Christian philosophy (see     tuted, so, contrary to the “neutral” modernist
             Plantinga,  2000),  which  has  been  paving  the   agenda, it is impossible to remove one’s world-
             way for a renewal of radical Christian scholar-   view  assumptions  from  one’s  human  science
             ship in all the disciplines for some time now.    work and duplicitous to try. This will result in a
                                                               pluralist set of psychologies (modern, feminist,
             Working with Modern Psychologists                 Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and so on), agreeing
             Nonetheless, Christians should not hesitate to    where they can (in many areas of psychology,
             work with modern psychologists wherever they      see  above),  but  articulating  different  approa-
             can.  This  will  be  easy  in  areas  of  psychology   ches in those areas of psychology that are more
             where worldview assumptions make little dif-      worldview-dependent  (e.g.,  personality,  psy-
             ference  in  understanding  human  nature  (e.g.,   chopathology, therapy, and social psychology).
             neuropsychology,  animal  learning,  and  basic
             psychological  structures,  like  cognitive  and   This is not as controversial as it sounds, since
             emotion systems). Moreover, all members of a      even now modern psychology is not as unified
             culture ought to participate in its university and   as  is  commonly  supposed.  The  field  is  com-

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