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{"id":933,"date":"2006-01-11T06:13:24","date_gmt":"2006-01-11T11:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2006\/01\/11\/the-evangelical-giveaway-8\/"},"modified":"2006-01-11T06:13:24","modified_gmt":"2006-01-11T11:13:24","slug":"the-evangelical-giveaway-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/01\/11\/the-evangelical-giveaway-8\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evangelical Giveaway 8"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The seventh chp in David Fitch\u2019s The Great Giveaway<\/em> concerns spiritual formation. The primary direction of the chp is to return counseling to the church and to get more church in the psychologist\u2019s office. [Now he\u2019s meddling with my wife\u2019s vocation.] He challenges the authority inherent to Christian therapy and the narrative structure that many derive from therapists to explain their life. Do you think what we now call \u201cChristian therapy\u201d belongs in the local church or in a (parachurch) professional office setting?
\nFitch contends that postmodernist critiques have devastated the legitimacy of therapy. But, when evangelicals send their folks to the therapist\u2019s office they are giving away spiritual formation. Here is his point of view: \u201cTherapists train the patient to look constantly inward and to center oneself on one\u2019s emotions. Therapists ask constantly, \u2018What does that say about you?\u2019 \u201d (184). Underneath Fitch\u2019s chp is a belief that modernity\u2019s values are inherent to the therapeutic process. This chp in Fitch reminds of James Houston\u2019s book, The Mentored Life<\/em>. See the response of Brad Bergfalk and me<\/a>.
\nHe begins with a simplistic summary that evangelicals accept psychology as a science and that therapists superficially harmonize Scripture and psychology. [At this point I\u2019ve almost put the book down, because I know far too many theologically-sophisticated therapists and psychologists and books.] He contends, accurately and now I\u2019m back on board with him, that postmodernity demonstrates that psychology is an \u201cinterpretive enterprise\u201d (184). As such, it is only one explanation.
\nAs such, psychology may not be in line with Christian truths and genuine spiritual formation. Will it treat \u201cdysfunction\u201d or \u201csin\u201d? Will it be Jungian murderous psychodrama or will it be cross-based forgiveness? He sees them as \u201ctwo different ways of interpreting our reality\u201d (187). \u201cPsychology aims for satisfaction in one\u2019s self while Christianity aims for a satisfaction in Christ\u201d (187). \u201cPsychology and Christ therefore form two different kinds of people\u201d (187).
\nHe provides a more extensive look at a Jungian approach to \u201csin\u201d vs. \u201cshadow.\u201d
\nTherapy needs preaching about repentance and restoration. Here are his suggestions for returning the work of therapy as part of the church\u2019s spiritual formation:
\n1. Recapture the confessional as a \u201csafe and confidential\u201d place. [Frankly, this can be in a therapist\u2019s office or in the local Starbuck\u2019s.] Fitch has \u201ctriads\u201d in his church: groups of three who are accountable to one another.
\n2.Practice therapist agreements within the church: work to get closer connections of the therapist and the local church. [He admits this has not been able to be worked out in his local church.]
\nMy response to this chp?
\n1. Fitch simplifies psychology into an either-or world, which is unfair to thoughtful Christian psychology and psychologists. It is just as easy to do this to his field (pastor, professor, writer) as it is to psychologists \u2014 but it does not help to simplify or take eggregious examples. The single most important source, perhaps, for Christian evangelicals is the Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology<\/em> ed. by David Benner, and there are others \u2014 he needs to interact with the best of the approaches not the stereotypes.
\n2. I agree that more psychologists need theological training and they need to work out the practices of repentance and penance in the therapist\u2019s office; and I believe that many pastors need more sophisticated training on what psychology, in a Christian mode, looks like. And confession to one another is a good thing.
\n3. We need to ask why it is that Christian psychology has developed as a parachurch enterprise and is not found as often inside the walls of a local church? (And here I would contend, once again, that parachurch is a label \u2014 \u201cchurch\u201d is not just inside the walls of a local congregation.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"