Can Christianity and Psychology Be Friends?

Can psychology and Christianity truly coexist, or are they irreconcilable at their core? Join me as I tackle this provocative question and challenge the very foundation of what it means to be a "Christian psychologist." With a background that shifted from liberal ideologies to a firm Christian worldview, I share my unique perspective as a self-proclaimed heretic psychologist. This episode questions the compatibility of secular psychological theories with biblical principles, highlighting the philosophical nature of psychology and its often unproven claims. By scrutinizing the concept of Christian psychology, I aim to reveal the contradictions between these two worlds and suggest a re-evaluation of where we seek our truths.

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Chapters

• 0:13 The Truth About Christian Psychologists
• 21:04 The Authority of Biblical Truth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

You Got Yourself Some Children Driving you crazy. They're keeping you up all night long. You better turn on your radio Dial up to John Goldman's show, because I said so. Well, hello out there in Cyberland. I'm John Rosemond, the mind you, and allow me to clarify and emphasize I am the not a, but the burr in the side of America's mental health professions. I'm a psychologist who thinks psychology is a bunch of hoo-ha baloney, twaddle. And if you don't know what twaddle means, it means hoo-ha baloney to the 10th power. Yes, I am a psychologist, a heretic psychologist, and this is Because I Said so.

Speaker 1: 1:27

The one and only podcast on the entirety of the World Wide Web where you will hear the unvarnished truth about children and the one and only proper way to get them to move out of your house and love you for giving them the wonderful gift of emancipation. Here from moi, you will also hear the unvarnished truth about the mental health professions, the existence of which, go to prove you can, in fact, fool almost all the people for a long, long time. I'm broadcasting atop Rosemond Towers in historic downtown New Bern, north Carolina, arguably the most historic town in North Carolina. I'm sitting in our broadcast studios, from which I can see nothing but my neighbor's house. If you've never been to New Bern, north Carolina, I highly recommend it. Just don't, please don't, move here from the Northeast and then vote for the party that most people in the Northeast vote for. We love our freedom here in North Carolina.

Speaker 1: 2:39

Okay, so the question we begin with today comes from a regular listener, whose name is redacted so as not to give her PTSD. She asks John, why do you hate liberals? Oh, redacted one. Where did you ever come up with that? I don't hate liberals. I can't come up with anyone, much less any group of people, whom I hate. I may not have respect for some folks, I may not want to be around them, I may think some people are idiots, but I don't hate anyone. Furthermore, redacted one. I was a far-left liberal in my previous life, which I left behind in 1997 or thereabouts. Because of my background, I understand the liberal mindset. It isn't worth hating. It's irrational, illogical and if it weren't so destructive, it would be a laughingstock. It takes a lot of emotional energy to hate someone or something. I prefer to dispense my emotional energy in more productive ways, believe me. Okay, now that we've dispensed with that pressing issue, on with the show.

Speaker 1: 4:07

The question that will consume the remainder of this podcast is what is a Christian psychologist? What is a Christian psychologist? Does the term mean that the individual in question is both a Christian and a psychologist? In other words, does a person licensed to practice psychology, who regularly attends a Southern Baptist church and that describes me and professes Christ as Lord and Savior of all and that describes me, does that person qualify as a Christian psychologist, or is there more to it than that? Does the term Christian psychologist imply that there is a subset of psychology known as Christian psychology? I will answer those questions and then I will explain my answers. The answer, as it is commonly used the term Christian psychologist, psychologist implies there is something called Christian psychology, which is supposedly a mixture of Christian philosophy and secular psychology, sort of like someone put one cup of Christianity and one cup of psychology in a Cuisinart and made a puree of them. The reality is the terms Christian psychology and Christian psychologist are oxymorons, like the hypothetical term humble narcissist. Both terms are internally contradictory, as recent research has proven.

Speaker 1: 6:11

Psychology is, as I've been saying for quite some time, without the proof that we now have, psychology is the most atheistic profession in America, possibly the world. I've been a psychologist for 45 years and counting and I can count on one hand with fewer than five fingers, the number of psychologists I've met during that 45 years who profess Christ as Lord and Savior. There is not one psychological theory of human nature and behavior that's compatible with any biblical principle. In other words, what one reads in the Bible concerning human nature and what a person like myself was taught as a graduate student in psychology are oil and water. They can't be mixed. They are as different as night and day. A person who claims to be a Christian, who professes Christ and believes that the Bible in its entirety is the inerrant word of God that is me and also claims to believe in psychological theories concerning human beings, has been deceived and is unwittingly deceiving himself and his clients or is just plain lying through his pearly whites. The term Christian psychologist, which has been around since the mid-1970s, is, as I said earlier, an oxymoron One word O-X-Y-M-O-R-O-N, no-transcript, unbeknownst to most people.

Speaker 1: 8:18

Psychology is not a science. You're hearing this from a psychologist. It parades as a science, but it is a philosophy. As such, it is a fake science. Psychology is a fake science with fake theories concerning human nature, fake theories concerning human behavior, fake theories concerning human motivation, fake therapies, none of which work, not at any reliable level. Fake tests which fail to accurately measure what they claim to measure. And fake diagnoses, none of which possess a shred of scientific validity.

Speaker 1: 9:09

Psychology is thorough fakery. It's a set of falsehoods, one after another. The Bible is the truth, the whole truth. Nothing but the truth. Let me ask you, how can a set of lies be compatible with the whole truth? Well, it can't. Therefore, people who call themselves Christian psychologists are deceived.

Speaker 1: 9:38

Christian psychologists are deceived, and they're deceiving the people they take money from. There is no logical argument to the contrary. For example, the Bible clearly says that human beings are born in a state of sin. None of the major schools of psychology respect that point of view. They all believe humans are born with moral blank slates and that sin is the result of bad parenting or bad life experiences or bad biochemicals. Jesus himself identified self-esteem as a sin that prevented authentic relationship with him. Psychology believes that high self-esteem is a good thing. The Bible says sinfulness is inherent to our nature and that only relationship with Christ Jesus can absolve us of the natural consequences of that inherency. Behavior modification theory proposes that sinful behavior is learned and can be unlearned. The Bible explains human nature. Humanistic psychology claims that human beings can be understood without acknowledging our Creator, those opposites, folks. They can't be reconciled. Therefore, there is no such thing as Christian psychology. Therefore, there is no such thing as a Christian psychologist, any more than there is such a thing as a humble narcissist.

Speaker 1: 11:27

As I said, psychology is not a science, it's a pack of falsehoods. You just heard that from a guy who, from 1979 to October of this year when I voluntarily resigned it and was told, by the way, that I could reinstate it whenever I choose held a license to practice psychology issued by the North Carolina Psychology Board. I was the 375th such person to be licensed in the state. I know what I'm talking about when I say psychology is not a science. It's an ideology, it's a worldview, it's a philosophy. Psychology consists of a set of propositions concerning human nature. Furthermore, there are at least three major schools of psychological theory, and each of them holds a different set of propositions concerning human nature. The three schools in question are the humanist school, the behaviorist school and the Freudian school. They're not slightly different schools, they're radically different. Psychologists don't even agree with themselves. All three of these schools of psychological theory were founded and originally described by atheists.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Abraham Maslow, the founder of humanistic psychology, actually felt that psychology offered salvation, a sort of secular salvation, mind you, not salvation as we Christians think of it. He termed the state of secular salvation self-actualization, which meant the realization of one's human potential. Humanism denies that man is sinful. In the humanist view, a human is born good and then is corrupted by bad influence in his or her life bad parenting. Mostly Humanists believe man is capable of perfecting himself through proper mental discipline. Believe man is capable of perfecting himself through proper mental discipline. Humanists believe man is the ultimate product of evolution. Most humanists view Jesus as a great teacher about whom much fanciful myth developed after he was executed for being a rabble rouser executed for being a rabble-rouser. Humanists believe man is entitled to high self-esteem. The Bible says high self-esteem is a corruption, that humility and modesty are the ideals. I could go on, but I think I've proven incontrovertibly that there is no way to be a Christian humanist.

Speaker 1: 14:23

The second school of psychological thought, the behavioral school, was founded by BF Skinner. Like Maslow, skinner was an atheist. He was what I would call an angry atheist. In fact he was angry toward the very idea of God. He thought people who believed in God were stupid. If they weren't stupid before they began believing in God, they became stupid as a result of believing in something as stupid, in Skinner's view, as an omnipotent, supernatural, master, musician, magician in the sky.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Bf Skinner believed human beings came about through the undirected process of evolution. He believed in Darwin. Skinner was in fact, trying to prove Darwin's theory through psychological experimentation on human beings. His fundamental proposition, skinner's, was that this listen to this carefully the same principles that govern the behavior of animals like dogs and horses also govern the behavior of human beings, skinner felt. If he could prove that obviously evolutionary link, he would prove Darwin's evolutionary theory. The Bible clearly says God created the entire universe, that he spoke it into existence, that he created stars, planets, black holes, earth, and then, on the earth, plants, animals and human beings.

Speaker 1: 16:07

Skinner never proved what he set out to prove and no psychologist has ever proven what he set out to prove. What has been proven. Proven is that behavior modification does not work on human beings. Why? Because of free will, which means a human has the ability to deny the power of a consequence in his life, to say. Dogs don't have that ability. Horses, amoeba, planaria, pigeons, rats none of them possess that ability to deny the power of a consequence in their lives. By the way, if you're a parent, you've seen that defiance, the I don't care what you do-me defiance at work, in a child as young as 15 months.

Speaker 1: 17:13

Again, I could go on, but suffice to say one cannot be a Christian behaviorist. And then there's Freud, sigmund that is, I prefer to call him Sigmund Fraud, the so-called father of modern psychology. Fraud believed that belief in a supernatural, omnipotent, omniscient creator was a mental illness, a form of psychosis. Do you believe that psychosis? Do you believe that, in Freud's view, the Jesus of the New Testament was a megalomaniacal madman? Need I go on? No, I need not. One cannot be a Christian Freudian and folks, if it's impossible to be a Christian humanist, christian behaviorist or a Christian Freudian, then it's impossible to be a Christian psychologist. Period.

Speaker 1: 18:20

There is no overlap between a Christian worldview and a psychological worldview. You are either a Christian or you are a psychologist, but the twain ain't never going to meet, no matter how hard you try to get it to meet. In the final analysis, people who call themselves Christian psychologists are psychologists first and Christians second. They are, in effect, guilty of trying to serve two masters, they're also guilty of idolatry. Furthermore, because they believe that the biblical and psychological worldviews can be reconciled, they are highly conflicted Christians. Their salvation may not be compromised, but their ability to help others is seriously compromised. So my recommendation stay away from people who call themselves Christian psychologists. Stay away from people who call themselves Christian psychologists. In addition, stay away from people who call themselves Christian counselors but who use terms like high self-esteem, who use the diagnostic language of psychology and who have no problem recommending that people take medication. Lastly, I highly recommend that people stay away from people who are members of the American Association of Christian Counselors.

Speaker 1: 20:00

That organization, to which I once belonged, belonged to it for a couple of years, realized what was going on and resigned. That organization promotes a psycho-medical approach. If you're seeking help for personal issues, see a person who calls himself a biblical counselor, but first make sure the person in question employs what is known as a newthetic approach to counseling. So a person who calls themselves a biblical or newthetic N-O-U-T-H-E-T-I-C newthetic approach. To simplify, that simply means the person employs biblical principles rather than psychological theory in his or her dealings with clients. Newthetic counselors make no compromises with psychological theory. That's what you want.

Speaker 1: 21:04

If you take one thing away from this, take this from this. Take this the Bible is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Psychological theory has yet to prove it contains any truths whatsoever. You can never lose if you go to the Bible. If you rely on psychology, on the other hand, you're eventually going to lose. Psychology, on the other hand, you're eventually going to lose. Take it from a guy who was a psychologist for 45 years and that, folks, is a wrap. Please check out my websites at rosemancom, johnrosemancom and parentgurucom. Please read my latest book, the Bible Parenting Code, which is hands down the best book I've ever written. Please check out my weekly essay on substackcom and please check out the good work that's going on at cleartruthmediacom. Last but not least, have a great day, a great Thanksgiving and a great Christmas. Please make sure your kids know that Christmas celebrates the birth of our Lord and Savior, not the arrival of Santa Claus.