Psychology and Christianity

Throughout history, Christian thinkers have reflected deeply on psychological questions, long before the birth of modern psychology. However, the interest of Christians in psychology has literally exploded over the last fifty years. Christians have published countless works that describe our personality, our limitations, our dysfunctional development, our relationships and their problems, and so on. They have adopted different positions regarding their attitude toward modern psychology: some accepting it without reservation, others rejecting it with equally categorical vehemence, and many choosing an intermediate position.

However, Christians have had few opportunities to dialogue publicly regarding these different positions. This present book provides the opportunity to understand the intellectual crisis shaking the Church in the area concerning psychology and counseling, and it does so by presenting five major evangelical views regarding the link between psychology and the Christian faith. It specifically addresses the value of psychology in general for Christians as well as the problems related to psychological study and the practice of counseling for believers.

Each of the contributors responds to the other essayists, noting the points on which they agree as well as the problems they observe. Here are the five points of view that are defended:

• the transformational psychology view (John Coe and Todd Hall);
• the biblical counseling view (David Powlison);
• the levels-of-explanation view (David G. Myers);
• the integration view (Stanton L. Jones);
• the Christian psychology view (Robert C. Roberts and Paul J. Watson).

Author: Eric L. Johnson

ISBN: 9782924743157