Daniel and Psychology

In the process of my own thinking regarding the pursuit of a career in psychology it was a “light bulb” moment when I remembered Daniel.  God had Daniel trained in all the “wisdom” of his day – the equivalent of today’s psychology in our culture.  Not only was Daniel trained in the pagan wisdom of his time but he excelled and was a leader in his field.  He accomplished this without compromising his beliefs and his relationship with God.  He also was used by God to influence several kings and the culture of his day.  There is no indication at all in the Word that Daniel served his own people; he served the pagan king from within the framework of that culture’s wisdom.

So often we want to put God in a little box.  Psychology is “evil” and therefore no “real” Christian will have anything to do with it.  But God is bigger than our boxes and we do Him an injustice when we put limitations on what He can and can’t do using which tools.

Why Christians Can Benefit from Psychology

This is an excerpt from my article of the same name.

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The state of the modern church has made psychology a field of value to Christians. Unfortunately, the church has abandoned its understanding of practical living, issues of human behavior, and how the Bible applies to real, day-to-day life. That is a broad generalization and over-simplification but basically true. The church does attempt to apply the Bible to daily life, but tends to stick to simplistic and easy issues. When Christians face issues deeper than whether or not to homeschool and why, how to be a good Christian wife, and how to manage personal finances the church suddenly draws a blank, or worse yet, attempts to bring inadequate information and misapplied Scripture to bear…

…Christians dealing with Tourette Syndrome, Aspergers, borderline personality disorder, etc. will find no help in the church because the church either wants to vilify what it does not understand or leaders lacks the professional training to address these situations since they are medical, developmental and/or psychological conditions beyond the church’s grasp. Christians dealing with incest, sexual abuse in marriage, pedophilia, covert abuse, etc. will find little or no help in the church because the church either clings to naivety and would prefer to turn a blind eye, or because they want to apply tiny Biblical bandaids to gushing severed arteries.

At the same time, more and more Christians are turning outside the church for help because they have been wounded by the church when they sought answers… just as most Christians do not spurn medical doctors (who are trained in the same oppositional world views [as psychologists]) when they need help for a broken leg or an appendectomy, Christians need not spurn the help of psychologists when they need concrete help with issues relating to the function of the human brain, human development, and human behavior…