Author Henry Cloud “If you remember from the Preface (Jun 24 post and subsequent posts on June 25 -27) this book began as a desire to talk to my friends about God … and help them understand how I could be “one of those?” And from that initial desire, I decided to treat it like a real book and share it with a larger audience. And to write it in a way that other believers who want to share their faith with their friends could pass it on and begin their own conversations.”
Merlin now, I envision this book may be an integral component in training others to share their faith and facilitate the vibrant underground discipleship modules now being envisioned by churches, fellowships and various Christian service organizations struggling to once again attempt to integrate (or revitalize) “His message” with “their mission.” Reminds me a bit of the bottom line from the Bethany House 2015 book Mission Drift: The Unspoken Crisis Facing Leaders, Charities, & Churches by Chris Horst, Peter Greer, & George W Sarris. I’m thinking perhaps the Plain Community Business Exchange (PCBE) folk understand and practice the book’s tenants best!
Christ Followers today possess such an inexpensive availability of life-giving resources today, and to what avail? Why are we allowing ourselves to be so stifled and deceived on so many fronts, while precious countdown hours are being wasted and the planets disintegrate as the Scriptures predict?
Here is Chapter 12. Psychology and Faith. Enjoy.
I have been in the field of psychology for many decades now; including being a student, decades of clinical practice, conducting research, being a clinical director for an entire system of hospital units and treatment centers, and decades of performance and leadership consulting. Add to that continuing education through out that time to stay current with the latest research and findings in psychology and neuroscience. It has been a long journey, and it is interesting to look back at the path and see how psychology proved the Bible to be true for me. And the proving grounds did not begin with the science. Actually, surprisingly, it was the Bible that had to rescue me from the “psychology” that I was learning from the church. My first few years of faith, as a psychology graduate student and “churchgoer” and treader of many Christian “psychology” books, I learned all the models of how the two go together. I did not know enough at that time to see their deficiencies. So I accepted what they were saying. Many in the faith world saw secular psychology as being antithetical to faith, coming from a humanistic worldview having little to offer. Others integrated it somewhat, picking and choosing what they liked.
There were models that taught that clinical issues all came from sins that were in need of repentance, or not knowing enough Bible to have in your heads to order your thinking to wellness, spiritual, or supernatural experiences of emotional healing, or deliverance from demons and spiritual oppression, for example.
Certainly, there is some truth in all of those arenas. Our own “sins” can cause a lot of suffering … think of wrecked homes, for example, from bad behavior, or lives destroyed through addiction and characteristic disorders. Of course, self-destructive thinking can cause a lot of pain, as the science in cognitive therapy has proven. And for sure, the need for God to touch our broken hearts and trauma is real, and He does; there are countless testimonies of that reality, including my own. You can wonder about the existence of the supernatural and other areas if you are a materialist, but many psychologists will attest to some “wicked” stuff they have seen that they cannot explain, which certainly at least seems supernatural at the time.
But s much as I saw some truth in all of those models, as I gained more and more clinical experience, the Christian models began to fall short of both my scientific understanding of the bigger picture, as well as my clinical experience. And here was the experience that threw me into a mini crisis of faith: what I was learning to be true clinically, and scientifically, was not what many of the “Christian “ models proposed.
Mostly because I saw them fall short … people were not getting well a lot of times when they had much treatment in those models of the “Christian way” of treating mental health issues. And all of these were touted as the “biblical” way, even though much within those models disagreed with each other. I chuckle at how many people call their system of change to be “God’s“ way, while disagreeing with the other “God’s “ way. Makes God look confused as to what His way is, it seems to me.
And, past that … here is what really threw me: I was learning that there were real clinical modalities and interventions and approaches to therapy that worked. I was seeing eating disorders healed, depression healed, anxiety states overcome, thought disorders “cured” trauma healed, and the like. I was falling in love with my field as I saw the fruits of clinical practice. I loved my clinical work. But in falling in love with all that, I felt as if I was an adulterer … my new love seemingly was not the love I was supposed to have with my faith and the Bible. It was a spiritual crisis almost as severe as my first one of “where is God?” I saw people getting well … but where was the faith as I understood it in all of this? I was beginning to feel like two people : one who believed in my Christian faith, and one who believed in the truth that I was seeing before me that seemed to be in conflict with my Christian faith. Did I have to be a “science denier”? It felt like it. I was still using prayer and the Bible and knew that helped, but not in the ways that some of the systems of “Christian” counseling was espousing.
NEXT UP:
So, I decided to resolve this dilemma no matter what it took! Part II Thursday morning, early!