Dear Rhoni

[Rhoni]

Dear Rhoni is turning over her shingle...closed indefinitely. Been thinking about a lot of things and making a few changes in my life that need altered.

Blessings, Rhonda

[chosenbyone]

Rhoni,

Only you know what's best for you and I want you to know I support you and will continue praying for you.

I'm looking forward to seeing you later this month.

Sincerely,

Chosen

[Tina]

Originally Posted by Rhoni

Dear Rhoni is turning over her shingle...closed indefinitely. Been thinking about a lot of things and making a few changes in my life that need altered.

Blessings, Rhonda

This thread has been reopened tonight at Rhoni's request.

[Rhoni]

Originally Posted by Tina

This thread has been reopened tonight at Rhoni's request.

There is a subject that I know others will have an opinion about which I need to sharpen my skills on...so we will try to keep it respectful and listen to each others opinions.

Blessings, Rhoni

[Rhoni]

Originally Posted by Rhoni

There is a subject that I know others will have an opinion about which I need to sharpen my skills on...so we will try to keep it respectfull and listen to each others opinions.

Blessings, Rhoni

Disclaimer*: There are many Chrisitans, such as myself, who look to the study of psychology for new insights to relieve personal discomfort or despair. I feel that may things are not specifically addressed in the Bible. Those, like myself who have searched outside the covers of the KJV Bible for help, has /have experienced guilt for turning outside the church for help they/I have needed.

Many, including myself, have been told that my problems were entirely 'spiritual' and that what I really need is more faith, more Bible study, more prayer, and a deeper commitment to Christ...definitely not psychotherapy. But the truth of my situation was that I was committed to Christ, I had done all the studying, and Bible reading, along with fasting that I could do without becoming Madam Guyon, and still...psychotherapy was the only thing that could help me understand myself, my human condition, and make efforts at repairing the damage to the imago dei in myself that I needed. To repair this I did have to turn to the spiritual disciplines for sustainence.

Because of my past experiences...I needed what I got from the study of social work, as well as psychology to enable me to understand my world and the people in it. I also needed it to understand myself. If I were alone in this quest for the "Unity of Truth", I would not have reopened this thread, but I am not alone and the questions have been PM'd e-mailed, and telephoned in to me for months.

The question is:

Dear Rhoni,

Is there any way to integrate secular psychology into theology to help acheive wholeness for Christians?

Christian Counselors Everywhere

[Rhoni]

Dear CCE,

This question opens up a great number of other questions that have to be answered to get to this basic question...

Pastors & other full time Christian workers are caught up in an impasse of sorts. Pastors, some of which have come to me saying, "God has called me to be a Pastor, not a counselor, and I have some deeply emotionally troubled saints who I just don't know what to do or how to counsel them...will you help me?" These Pastors are searching for a deeper understanding of the human personaility and better principles for counseling. {I know that I went into counseling because of a situation arising in our local church, which we were pastoring}. I knew the sterotypical spiritual answers were inadequate to meet the needs of all the victims as well as the perpetrator of abuse.

Like many, I struggled with the belief that the Bible contains all the answers to the dilemma of humanity, and I thought that looking to psychology, I was admitting that the Bible was inadequate, and feared being disloyal to God and to His word. This caused me, and causes much anxiety, in many Christian workers.

[chosenbyone]

Good morning,

I was glad this morning to see Dear Rhoni back on AFF.

chosen

[Rhoni]

The Possibility of Integration:

Definition: For my purposes here I will use the definition of integration to refer to the interaction between, or "interface" of, the discipline of psychology and the discipline of theology. The efforts I will use to explain, not validate or defend, but explain...my view regarding "The Unity of Truth", is my belief, as well as the belief of others that all truth is God's truth, wherever it is found.

Christianity [regardless of denomination] affirms that God is the creator of all things and that this establishes a basic unity of all truth, whether found in scriptural revelation or scientific experimentation (Gaebelein, 1968; Holmes, 1977). Given this unity of truth as my premise, it will be possible to integrate truth arrived at from many different sources, and with different methods for getting there.

Truth, as it has prgressed through the generations was at times rejected or ignored by Christianity, as well as ignored by society as a whole. Gaebelein (1968) speaks of the churches failure to participate in meaningful integration as he writes:

We have been too prone to set up a false dichotomy in our thinking and thus in our education. We have rightly enthroned the Word of God as the ultimate criterion of truth; we have rightly given pre-eminience to the Lord Jesus Christ as the incarnation of the God of all truth. But at the same time, we have fallen into the error of failing to see as clearly as we should that there are areas of truth not fully explicated in Scripture and that these, too, are a part of God's truth. Thus we have made the misleading distinction between sacred and secular, forgetting that, as Cervantes said in those flashes of wisdom that punctuate the strange doings of Don Quixote, "Where the truth is, in so far as it is truth, there God is." (p.21)

[Rhoni]

Originally Posted by chosenbyone

Good morning,

I was glad this morning to see Dear Rhoni back on AFF.

chosen

Good morning Chosen! Thank-you.... I was not ready to continue until I got myself somewhat together, but with the help of friends, some prayer, as well as some psychotherapy I think I can handle it again. Maybe!

Have a Blessed day my friend,
Rhoni

[Rhoni]

It is suggested by some that the integration of psychology and theology is either impossible, unnecessary, or both. Many argue that the two disciplines are competing against each other for supremecy that their sources of knowledge are totally different, and do not address the same issues...

Two who have studied such things are Sutherland and Poelstra. They issue a warning and I agree with them in this: we should not force integration of the two disciplines. Many take a theory that is proposed by a secular psychologist and add a scripture or two to it and try to pass it off as a "Christian" Theory. This is NOT a good thing. There is no distinctly Christian Theory or model or research. Just like there is no need to integrate theology into dentistry, surgery, law, or auto mechanics...there is no need to integrate psychology into theology or vica versa.

While there are many competent Christians who practice law, surgery, dentistry, and auto mechanics, there are also very competent Non-Christians who practice law, surgery, dentistry, and auto mechanics.
There are many incompetent practioners of of each also.

Both the Bible and psychology have much subject matter in common. Both study the attitudes and behaviors of the human race. In one sense they can both be considered anthropologies. While the scriptures do not include revealed truths regarding auto mechanics or dentistry, God certainly deals with a vast amount of truth regarding the nature and functioning of the human personality.

While acknowledging the fact that a forced or artificial integration of psychology and theology violates the truth of devine revelation, it is unacceptable to some that it would minimize the possibility or the necessity of integrating our psychological understanding of persons with our understanding of the revealed truths of scripture.

By this I mean: If God is the author of all truth, we need not be afraid to examine what might be considered competing truths.If issues such as; personal adjustment, motivation, determinism, and the handling of negative emotions are not common to both psychology and theology, then we have either a truncated gospel, or a very narrow psychology.

It is imperative, in my opinion, that every Christian who works with people - be it from the pulpit, or in the classroom, laboratory, or counseling office - to come to grips with an understanding of the human being/human condition as comprehensively as we can.