By: Dr. Eric L Johnson
How the Rules of Late Modern Discourse Have Shaped the Concept/Practice of Integration
As modern evangelicalism awoke from its fundamentalist slumbers in the mid-20th century, it encountered a post-secular-revolutionary intellectual world where belief in God was being ridiculed as nonscientific and irrational, and in psychology, as infantile or even a pathological delusion . The evangelical concept of integration arose, in part, to help Christians study and contribute to psychology, and practice therapy within a dominant secular culture that was relatively antagonistic to religious faith.
The Great Psychology-Theology Disciplinary Divide
One of the striking changes in the Western intellectual landscape fostered by modernism has been the fragmentation of human knowledge. The analytic solvent of modern scientific reason that had so successfully broken down chemical reality into its constituent elements was being used on everything. This, combined with the explosion of scientific knowledge, led to the formation of new disciplines and subdisciplines, and ever greater specialization. Generally speaking more knowledge is good. However, the abandonment of a Christian worldview in favor of a secular, naturalist one gave late modern thinkers no way to order and relate knowledge beyond its aggregation according to mere empirical similarities and differences. Pre-modern Christians distinguished theology (the study of the Scriptures) from other sciences, but they understood it to be their queen, which together with philosophy (the queen’s handmaiden) provided an ultimate framework within which all knowledge is interrelated. In contrast, modernism markedly circumscribed theology’s role, eventually relegating it to a poor sister discipline in the late modern university: in secularized universities, it became the study of the world’s religions; and in Christian universities, it became the study of the Bible or Christian doctrine, separated from other disciplines. Psychology in turn was redefined in the late modern era to be a natural science (see James, 1890, p. 183; for a Christian model of psychology in the mid-1800’s that was deeply informed by Scripture, see Kierkegaard, 1848/1980). (Mainstream psychology still maintains it is a natural science. See arguments for its being considered a STEM discipline (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) (http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/stem-discipline.aspx). As a result, the rules of late modern discourse led to two sharply demarcated disciplines.
The evangelical concept of integration arose in the late modern era to join together that which had already been put asunder. Though attempting to bridge the contemporary disciplinary division, the concept of integration simultaneously assumes and so reinforces it. Carter and Narramore (1979), for example, wrote that “Theology represents the distillation of God’s revelation of Himself to humanity in a linguistic, conceptual, and cultural medium people can understand,” and “Psychology is primarily concerned with the mechanisms by which people function and the methods to assess and influence that functioning,” (p. 49). Then, according to Bouma-Prediger (1990), interdisciplinary integration is supposed “to compare and contrast, and if possible, reconcile and unite the assumptions, conclusions, methods, and so forth, of two distinct disciplines so as to combine them in some fruitful way” (p. 24). One of the main reasons that late modern integration arose in the late 20th century was the God-inspired desire in the hearts of Christians to repair the breach that existed between biblical and theological truth and the deliverances of modern autonomous disciplines that they encountered in secular graduate schools. Nonetheless, one has to ask why, after over 50 years of integration writing, so little distinctively Christian scholarship has arisen from this movement? By assuming a rigid disciplinary division between Scripture study and other disciplines, late modern integration has paradoxically claimed to be the solution, while simultaneously keeping alive that separation.
There are many reasons, however, for Christians to question this dichotomous assumption and the rules of discourse that underlie it (see chapter four of Johnson, 2007a). To begin with, the omniscient God (the Christian’s scientific ideal) understands everything fully on its own terms and in relation to similar entities (relations which disciplines study) and thoroughly interrelated with everything else, so the kind of rigid disciplinary boundaries common in late modern thought are foreign to the unity of God’s understanding and his word that sustains created reality (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). Moreover, according to Christianity, Scripture is God’s inspired discourse about God and humanity. The integration task is made immeasurably more difficult if one begins with the assumption of a fundamental divide between a psychology based on natural science methods and an unrelated discipline of Scripture study, virtually guaranteeing that Scripture will have limited influence in the education of Christians studying psychology. Far more important than the distinction between two essential sources of information about human beings, Scripture and empirical research, is the redemptive difference between a human science derived from the Spirit’s work of regeneration (possible only for Christians) and one based solely on naturalism. Consequently, if one defines psychology in a non-modern way, simply as the study of the immaterial aspect of individual human beings, one can envision a single, more comprehensive, human science transdiscipline with different rules of discourse that permit the use of all sources of psychological knowledge that Christians consider valid (biblical/theological, empirical, and philosophical; see Johnson, 2007b).
What is the main effect of this? Accepting a rigid psychology-theology dichotomy has paradoxically maintained their separation and led to the production of integrative work that has been shaped far more by secular psychology than by biblical and theological teachings on human beings.
The Great Secularism/Science Confound
The deleterious effects of the above dichotomy are amplified by the fact that the psychology that Christians have sought to integrate with their theology (or faith or values) is thoroughly secular. Late modern psychology is discourse about human beings that is already a secular interpretation in which their intrinsic relation to God is not even considered. What has proved to be one of the most strategic moves in the founding of late modern psychology was the implicit confounding of secularism and science. “To the facts themselves,” was the cry, but embedded within this agenda were positivist rules that excluded reference to God and his activity in humans. Such rules are not themselves scientific, and their validity cannot be proven empirically. On the contrary, if God is indeed relevant to and active in human life, as theists believe, a science of human beings should presumably be keenly interested in describing that relation, regardless of whether natural science methods can measure it (Slife & Reber, 2010).
Consider that, for Christians, being made in God’s image is the most defining feature of human beings. Calvin (1559/1960), for example, argued that one’s knowledge of oneself is fundamentally related to one’s knowledge of God (pp. 1-8). As a result, a Christian approach envisions humans as essentially related to God, and therefore they are impossible to fully understand psychologically apart from him. So, from a Christian standpoint, the self-representation, identity, and personality of human beings is incomplete and even distorted without reference to their intrinsic relationship to God. Christians are rightly encouraged that generic discourse about spirituality has become more accepted in the field in recent years. However, most of the field of psychology is as yet unaffected by this openness, and its generic nature still precludes consideration of religious distinctives (like the differences between theism and monism).
The challenge for Christians would be much lessened if late modernism did not posit itself officially as an “religiously-neutral” framework and its discourse included explicit religious statements that could be easily identified, because the absence of something good (e.g., the self’s relation to God) is far more difficult to identify than the presence of something bad (Worship yourself!). Such absence requires a disposition to ask continually what might be missing in late modern psychology from a Christian standpoint.
The main effect: Integration that accepted the science-secular confound has had implicit limits on the degree to which the Christian faith could be integrated with the received psychology, if it was to be considered scientific.
The Great Secular-Individualist Therapy Rule
It has become widely recognized in the field that therapists inevitably and legitimately have values pertaining to general mental health and therapy and that these values affect therapy (Bergin, 1991; Beutler, 1979; Kelly & Strupp, 1992; Tjeltveit, 1999; Woolfolk, 1998). However, it remains an ideal of contemporary mental health that therapists are supposed to be worldview neutral and not advocate any values that are community-specific (i.e., unique to one worldview community). Evidence for this charge can be found in therapist training programs and textbooks, where they are taught to work solely within the ethical, value, and religious systems of their counselees (except on those narrowly restricted occasions when the counselee could cause harm to self or others) and not to “proselytize,” “coerce,” or “impose” their own ethics, values, or religious beliefs on their counselees (e.g., Corey, Corey, & Calahan, 2010; Frame, 2003; Richards & Bergin, 2005).
This rule of late modern psychotherapy is so widely (but implicitly) accepted today that it merits a detailed examination of its weaknesses. First, the values that contemporary therapists have unsurprisingly tend to accord with a late modern worldview: self-awareness, self-determination, psychological well-being, self-realization, autonomy, and self-expression, among others (see Johnson & Sandage, 1999, for citations). Second, such values are not worldview neutral but are defined differently by different worldview communities. Consider self-determination. A late modern model views the self individually as the ultimate source of his or her action (Ryan & Deci, 2000), whereas a Christian model assumes that human agency is a gift of God and is fundamentally relational (in relation to God and others), so even these generic-sounding values are not as universal and cross-communal as it might seem. So rather than being worldview neutral, contemporary psychotherapy actually assumes and promotes a secular-individualist ethical and value system (see Johnson & Sandage, 1999; Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999).
Third, all well-developed religions and psychotherapies posit some non-empirically demonstrable ideal of the flourishing human life (Roberts, 1987), and adherents who work with others to enhance their wellbeing inevitably promote their own ideal, whether consciously or not. Fourth, psychotherapy often addresses topics in which modern and other worldview values come into direct conflict (regarding marriage, family, work, ethics, and ultimate concerns). To say nothing about such matters is still to take a stance regarding issues that have great ethical and spiritual significance. As a result, psychotherapists and counselors cannot really avoid taking a stance regarding such issues.
The rule in question also creates an artificial and distorted relational context. As object relations advocates have pointed out, therapy involves two fully engaged persons, not just the client (Mitchell, 1988). How can therapists model healthy selfhood, relational skills, and mutual dialogue, if only the therapant is free to express life’s most important values? If both counselor and counselee were full-fledged dialogue partners, both would be free to initiate respectful exploration of important values. The rule shows that late modern therapy is still essentially client-centered, and its latent individualism unwittingly maintains what some consider to be a biased and unhealthy therapeutic environment.
Finally, by so privileging the counselee’s values, late modern therapy subtly underscores the centrality of the autonomous Self and the impossibility that there could be important values outside the counselee’s current commitments to which the counselee ought to be introduced. This remarkably untherapeutic stance is at root no more worldview-neutral or empirically-based than the theistic. Tragically, the rule requires all therapists to practice therapy that way.
The foregoing analysis suggests that only secular therapists are being allowed to practice therapy fully in accordance with their worldview and ultimate values (e.g., treating people without ever mentioning God conveys implicitly the message, “God is not needed for your psychological condition to improve”). In fact the system allows secular therapists implicitly to proselytize freely and promote their secular views. As a result, the late modern prohibition on therapists sharing their own community-specific values imposes an unfair and unjust burden on adherents of worldviews that are more explicit about their ultimate values. Christianity, for example, teaches that humans cannot resolve their most important psychological problem (alienation from their Creator) without God’s help and optimal psychological wellbeing is only available through faith in Christ.
Consequently, from a Christian standpoint, to be prevented from talking about such matters is profoundly untherapeutic.
To put the problem most sharply: the rules of late modern psychotherapy forbid the advocacy of community-specific worldview values (like theistic), yet that prohibition itself exemplifies the advocacy of a community-specific, non-universally-shared, and non-empirically demonstrable value. While this would seem to be obviously self-contradictory and self-refuting, few in the mental health field seem to be aware of that fact (a blind spot of modernism that many postmoderns have identified. For example, see Levinas, 1980; and Lyotard, 1979. For Christian consideration of these issues see Clouser, 2005; Griffiths, 1991; MacIntyre, 1984; and Moreland & Craig, 2003).
The avowed late modern concern has to do with the “imposition” of therapist values on the vulnerable therapant. Christians know that is a valid concern, since their own history provides abundant evidence that the Church frequently misunderstood the implications of its own worldview values regarding human dignity and freedom. The possibility of insensitive and immature counselors misusing therapy to force “conversions” or otherwise inappropriately guide counselees to accept values they are not ready to is a legitimate concern. However, the potential for values coercion in therapy is common to all worldviews, even the late modern—just watch a therapy video of Albert Ellis or Fritz Perls! Special vigilance regarding coercive religious therapy, at least in the West, is for the most part a red herring. The next step is the development of guidelines and texts that help train counselors to respect both counselee and their own values within the therapeutic dialogue.
To be sure, therapists can address many clinical problems and strategies without focusing on issues of ultimate significance (e.g., communication skills in marriage, substance abuse, psychosis, and so forth). In addition, the increasing openness to the discussion of spiritual and religious issues in therapy in our day is moving the field in the right direction. The quandary highlighted in this section is that late modern psychotherapy discourse rules prevent therapists from carefully and gently advocating community-specific ultimate values, and this requirement is self-refuting, unfair, and ultimately untherapeutic.
The main effect: Integration that accepted the secular-individualist therapy rule has inclined therapists to inhibit the appropriate expression of their faith in their clinical practice.
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.
