Integrative Position
The Psychology Department attempts to train students in the content knowledge of the discipline, while providing a distinctively Christian worldview in the study of psychology. This is done on a practical level by choosing a secular text to teach the content knowledge, plus an integrative text that explores the integrative issues in that area of the discipline.
Thinking Christianly about psychology involves how we view God (God-view), how we treat and respect His Word (Bible-view), and the unique lens we use to view the world around us (world-view). A proper perspective and faith understanding of God and His Word is necessary in developing a Christian worldview. Psychology without God is like watching a 3-D movie without glasses; it is fuzzy at best.
The Psychology Department’s Theme Verse is:
"The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught". (Isaiah 50:4)
This theme verse highlights the department's assumption that God’s Word provides the framework for our personal pain. Integration sees the Bible as a sifting grid. Psychology is then poured through that sifting grid. Whatever falls through agrees with Biblical principles and is thus good for use in counseling. Whatever does not fall through the grid, does not agree with biblical principles, and therefore should not be used in counseling, or applied to one's life.
Jesus stated in Matthew 22:37-39, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself."
This command encapsulates the entire discipline of psychology at Bryan College. The Bryan College Department of Psychology's mission is to aid students in their journey of loving and developing eternally meaningful relationships with God, others, and self.
This journey takes a lifetime to complete. Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." The healthy personality flows out of the work of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Holy Spirit is an active agent in personal growth" (Walker, 2003). Human beings must rely on God's provision and the "body" for enabling them to become what we could never become through our own effort. "He is the head of the body, the church" (Galatians 1:18), and He wants to work in and through us.
The Psychology department is about equipping its students to help God's people on the journey. Larry Crabb puts it this way: "It's about learning a language that has the power to pull back the curtains on our soul, to move through the mess, and to help each other discover that what we really want is God" (Soul Talk, p. 9).
God's children are fallen image bearers who struggle with how to reflect that image more accurately. We are fallen creatures in a fallen world who desperately want to avoid the pain of this world's fallenness. Pain in life is inevitable; misery is optional. Misery is our fleshly attempt to make this life work without complete dependency on God. Our lust for control, waywardness and sinful self-reliance block the Spirit's desire to appropriate God’s grace in each of life's circumstances.
A theology of suffering is how to spiritually respond to the fallenness of this world without increasing our pain and without dishonoring our Lord. Counselors have the unique privilege of teaching this theology of suffering to clients that come to them with shattered lives and dreams. Counseling is the surgical application of God's Truth to a particular person’s need at a particular time in their lives. That discernment requires God dependency and a knowledge of the human heart. Psychology can help prepare the heart to receive the Word of truth but it does not add to or otherwise augment God's Truth.
We encourage our majors to minor in Bible to better develop this necessary dual competency in God's Word and the discipline of psychology. Finally, psychology and counseling are envisioned by this department to be servants of the church to inspire and instruct towards greater Christ likeness for God’s ultimate glory. To quote John Piper, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."