Has Psychology infiltrated the Church?

[Bsakowski118]

The scripture is clear that Christ is our teacher, healer and so on, yet there are many Christian/Psychology dvds and audio clips out there that cover a variety of issues. I've listened many of these lectures myself early on in my christian walk. These teachings cover a wide range of topics- Our relationship with our earthly dad before coming to Christ and it having an impact on how we relate to God, the subconscious mind and how we react to "triggers" in our day to day life.. The list goes on and on.
Now after sifting through plenty of this material, I've found that (at least for myself) it can very easily become a fruitless journey of psychological root digging if you will. The problem I see with this is that God is our ultimate remedy, weather we are struggling with sin or our relationship with Him, He is the One who guides us through. Don't get me wrong! The Bible says we must renew our minds but in my opinion, this happens through reading the scripture/doing it and seeking the Lord with all we have! Focusing of Jesus as God transforms us. Not by searching our own sinful minds to "understand" why we can't get out of a certain sin, but rather just flat out repenting of what ever it may be and turning to the Lord for His grace. I totally understand that many people have been through some traumatic stuff, but isn't it God who redeems us, heals us and transforms us along our way? I almost find it a bit dangerous to search in this way for answers.

Opinions??
Blessings, Bill

[dwilkins]

I run into mentally ill people on a regular basis at work. After these experiences and some training on the topic I have become more aware of how many mentally ill people we have in the church. I have considered from time to time how appropriate the normal concept of the renewal of a Christian's mind should be when presented with what these days is called mental illness. The problem that I think you have brought up is whether or not we see sanctification as a sort of 12 step program to fix our personalities. We'd like to say that there is a wall there (between normal people being sanctified and mentally ill people being professionally treated), but sometimes there is a gray area. It seems to me that if someone is clinically depressed (meaning that their brain can't produce neurotransmitters of the right amount, possibly through drug abuse such as ecstasy) and can be helped by mediation then we should embrace this. However, we shouldn't see this as the same thing as being sanctified, only that we are trying to get the mind back to a centered point from which that person can focus on their sanctification. On the other hand, we don't want to view sanctification as a sort of self-help system to improve personalities (being nicer, doing few crimes, etc.) without any spiritual growth. This is a tough subject that I rarely hear people talking about. Thanks for bringing it up.

Doug

[Bsakowski118]

Thanks Doug...I probably should have named the thread " has "pop" psychology infiltrated the church". I agree, there are people who most definitely need to be on medication within the Church, according to their mental condition. On the other hand, I fear there are many people who are on medication, due to a false diagnosis, that should not be whatsoever. It can be a touchy subject on the medical end of it, I agree.

Bill