Jesus Creed
UPDATE: Heath Lambert issued a statement in response to the controversy over Eric Johnson, SBTS, and the conflict between biblical counseling and Christian psychology.
In sum, Lambert denies any pressure on SBTS to get Johnson fired. He does acknowledge that he spoke unkindly about Johnson in the video which is embedded in the original post below. Finally, Lambert continues to believe his view of Christian counseling is superior to Dr. Johnson’s.
The petition remains unchanged. Lambert contradicts the petition on the point about Johnson’s departure from SBTS. I think the ball is now in the hands of the petition writer to respond.
I am working on my response to Lambert’s 95 Theses.
For as long as I can remember, there has been conflict between psychologists and theologians. Representing different ways of approaching knowledge, religion depends on revelation and scientifically informed psychology depends on research. For me as a psychology professor at a Christian college, the tension is just another day at work.
One way that tension shows up is in the practice and teaching of counseling. Some counselors insist that the Bible is all that should be used in counseling whereas other Christians believe that psychological research should inform selection of techniques. A skirmish in that conflict appears to be taking place at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
According to a petition gathering steam, Christian psychologist Eric Johnson was fired from his position as a professor at SBTS (see also this Twitter thread). The petition claims that Johnson was on the wrong side of an ideological dispute with Heath Lambert, executive director of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. The petition begins….
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