By: Dr. Eric L Johnson
The Face of a Minority: Strategic Integration
Most previous discussions of the contemporary challenge of integration have tended to view it as a disciplinary and conceptual problem that is the responsibility of the individual Christian. One goal of this article is to frame it as more cultural than disciplinary, more social than individual, and more linguistic than conceptual. Let us consider the following: Christians in the field form a minority subculture within a majority secular culture, and each has its own self-constituting discourse rules.
If so, such Christians experience dual allegiances that affect their identity. Such tension is inevitable whenever one has more than one role in life. However, as human science research has taught us, being a minority can be traumatic and contribute to certain pathological effects, for example, the undermining of one’s subcultural identity and “voice” and the defense of “identification with the oppressor.” Recall the Clarks’ studies of African-American children in the 1940’s (since repeatedly replicated) who were found to prefer white dolls over black, and viewed the color of their skin as lighter than it actually was (see http://www.apa.org/research/action/segregation.aspx). Dissociative integration is likely fostered in part by minority pressures, which can lead to dual identities that are “split off” from each other.
Developing a Strong and Healthy Minority Identity. Different Christians appear to respond differently to such pressures. For example, highly committed undergraduate Christians in secular universities can actually be strengthened in theirChristian faith (see Hunter, 1993). Intriguingly, a few decades ago racial integration became a cultural ideal. In contrast to assimilation, which encourages the cultural subjugation of one culture to another, eventuating in the loss of minority identity (analogous to syncretism at the worldview and conceptual levels), the social concept of integration encourages the interaction of minority and majority cultures while allowing all peoples to retain their cultural identity. The development of “black power” in the 60’s and 70’s was part of a black subculture rejection of majority domination and oppression and the reassertion of its own subcultural identity. Being a minority can be a formative experience. Perhaps the Christian intellectual community would be helped by developing its own “identity politics,” in which they self-consciously embrace and legitimate their minority identity, strengthen their voice, and seek to enhance their distinctive influence within their larger culture.
Such considerations are especially relevant for those who work in or seek to contribute to the public square, for example, in a public mental health facility, a public university, or the American Psychological Association. Outsiders to a community have to earn the right to participate in and speak to it. This only occurs if the outsiders are willing to adopt the customs of those to whom they wish to relate and live according to their rules. To impact contemporary science, Christians must learn how to do this, without subverting their own identity and highest loyalty. Other Christians not living in such tension must interpret the actions of those who do with charity, barring flagrant assimilation, appreciating how much more difficult it is to do so, than to work solely within one’s own community.
Strategic Integration and the Science of Psychology. Strategic integrationists live and work within the majority culture and use its rules of discourse in order to remain active communicative participants, but also to subtly advance a Christian agenda, as much as the majority secular culture will allow. There are many examples of this kind of minority influence in psychology where Christians have impacted the contemporary field of psychology for good while playing by late modern discourse rules, in some cases making important contributions to the current field, in areas like the relation between religion and psychology (Jones, 1994), religion and psychotherapy (Aten, McMinn, & Worthington, forthcoming; Hathaway & Walker, forthcoming), and religion and health (Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001), Freudian studies (Vitz, 1988), psychoanalysis (Sorenson, 2004), values in psychotherapy (Tjeltveit, 1999), same-sex attraction (Yarhouse, 2001), and psychology of religion (Emmons, 1999); and in other cases helping to bring new psychological topics into the field, like forgiveness (Enright, 2001; Worthington, 2006), gratitude (Emmons & McCullough, 2004), humility (Worthington, 2007), advanced cognitive development (Reich, 2010), theistic psychology (Slife & Reber, 2010), and even Christian therapy (Wade, Worthington, & Vogel, 2007), and many others not listed Christians are consciously shaping the contemporary field of psychology in accord with implicit Christian values, while adhering to late modern rules of discourse. It is strategic precisely because it is both conscious and implicit.
This means, of course, strategic integration (SI) will not use distinctly Christian discourse, for example, making reference to the psychological activity of the Holy Spirit or appealing to Scripture to justify its claims. As a result, SI ought not to be considered the exemplary model of conceptual (or discursive) integration, because what integrationof that sort it does is so constrained by the rules of late modern discourse. Rather, SI is more akin to racial integration. It is a discerning kind of living with and loving one’s secular neighbors, done consciously unto God.
Strategic Integration and Psychotherapy and Counseling. Christians need to conform to the ethics and rules of the majority community, when working in public mental health settings with persons who are not members of the Christian community. However, in contrast to the dissociated integrationist, the strategic integrationist is willing to use Christian discourse and bring up Christian beliefs appropriately and respectfully. For example, one can ask about religious and spiritual issues on intake forms, make clear one’s Christian orientation on informed consent forms, and if the client is willing, “sensitively point clients to Christ” in therapy (Tan, 2010, p. 334).
Pursuing an SI agenda in public mental health should also include promoting greater worldview awareness, recognition of the biases of late modernism and its discriminatory practices, and the legitimacy of referral when working with counselees on issues in which their values are seriously at odds. The most important long-term goal should be to help the field move beyond the current, modernist system that demands universal values and uniform practice, towards a principled pluralism that more truly respects the worldview beliefs of all Americans (see Johnson, in press; Skillen, 2009).
Critics should keep in mind that SI exemplifies many Christian virtues, like wisdom, courage, and patience, and it manifests the glory of God by contributing to the creation grace activity of science and advancing the field in the direction of greater conformity to the mind and heart of God.
Distinguishing Dissociative Integration and Strategic Integration. Both DI and SI participate in majority secular psychology and label what they do as integration. How can they be distinguished?
- SI is evident by its subtle interjection of distinctly Christian values, beliefs, or practices into the public square, where possible, whereas DI is more content with the status quo.
- Conscious awareness of one’s strategic activity done for God can help to distinguish SI from DI.
- DI may be evident when one unconsciously avoids sources of information that might bring to light one’s dissociation, for example, reading relevant theology or philosophy books, or biblical counseling or healing prayer materials; or when one experiences confusion, anxiety, anger, or other emotional discomfort when encountering Christians who are more skilled or interested in explicit integration than oneself; or when one ignores or derides them.
- Strategic integrationists are perhaps most clearly distinguished from dissociated integrationists by how they conduct themselves in Christian contexts, where they no longer have to submit to late modern rules of discourse. Dissociated academics still make little substantive reference to Christian beliefs in their teaching or scholarly work even when teaching in Christian environments, and dissociated therapists make little substantive reference to Christian beliefs or practices even when working with Christian counselees. Strategic integrationists, by contrast, are eager to bring in Christ and the Christian faith to whatever extent possible.
Eric founded the Christian Psychology Institute a decade ago while serving in Christian higher education. Since retiring from Houston Christian University in May 2024, he has devoted himself to building CPI into a national hub for training, scholarship, and certification in Christ-Centered Therapy.
An accomplished author and editor, Eric is widely respected for his work at the intersection of theology and psychology. He brings over 25 years of pastoral counseling experience and is a frequent speaker at conferences and academic events.
Eric is married to Rebekah and cherishes time with their two children and three grandchildren. In his free time, he enjoys hiking and bike riding.
