The Society for Christian Psychology is an division of the American Association for Christian Counselors. The Society has recently started a web log; the guest blogger for January 2008 has beenDr. Edward T. Welch (Westminster Seminary; Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation). Ed has offered four short posts of interest:
The Power and Weakness of Christian Identity Statements
Let’s Keep Talking (“some important (but hidden) reasons biblical counselors and integrationist counselors have had differences”)
The problem I have after reading these posts is that I can’t tell how Dr. Welch is defining biblical counseling or integration. He writes:
I am not saying that secular observations are useless. Sometimes they are useful, sometimes they aren’t. What I am saying is that the prominence of the psychotherapeutic may be connected to our own deficiencies in accessing and applying Scripture rather than inadequacies in Scripture.
Here is a challenge for us. Let’s take data – especially data that tends to be overseen by the category of psychotherapy – and brainstorm on how Scripture accounts for it, goes much deeper, and guides actual ministry.
Isn’t that integration? Taking “data” (that part of psychological theory that is validated by research) and running it through the filter of a Christ-centered, biblical world view IS how I would define an integrationist theory of counseling.
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