This week in community psychology...

This week’s readings on the Christian rationale for community and preventive psychology make a strong case for the utilization of such approaches not only by psychology professionals, but also by all members of Christian faith communities. As discussed by Wolterstorff in Until Justice and Peace Embrace, Christians are called to “uncover systemic causes of poverty and then work at eliminating those causes.” Pohl’s concept of Christians extending hospitality to the disenfranchised is key to achieving such revolutionary systemic change as suggested by Wolterstorff. However, understanding faith and allowing the church a central place in community interventions is valuable to all psychologists, not only those of faith. Kloos & Moore make a strong defense of the centrality of faith communities of all types in the social fabric of life and subsequently, the acknowledgement of such communities as legitimate arenas for psychological intervention.

Christians practicing in the field of psychology must answer the call for hospitality to the disenfranchised in order to return psychology to its roots of service. For such an endeavor to be undertaken, it must permeate all domains of practice for the psychologist of faith. Incorporating the suggestions put forth by Canning, Pozzi, McNeil, & McMinn for integrative training requires a thorough examination of the training philosophies, faculty, practicum experiences and course work of psychology programs. Moreover, this dedication to the “least of these” needs to also be reflected in the research and publications of Christians in psychology as recommended by Canning, Case, & Kruse.

The community perspective and focus on social justice within these articles evokes a strong supportive response from me. Ever since my undergraduate studies in sociology, I feel have been searching for the thread that unites all of these ideas, and feel some relief at having found it. Just this morning at church, I felt an undeniable stirring of the Holy Spirit within me to re-vision psychology and my own call to ministry. However, rather than abandon my training, I feel it is my calling to utilize psychology in a manner within the Church that champions God’s call to social justice and peace. Oddly enough, the words of Kloos & Moore, legitimizing the Church as a venue for psychological intervention, are what I needed to hear the most. For the past several years I had dismissed working professionally with churches because congregations that I had been a part of were not amenable to such radical ideas as social justice and ministering to the least of these.

Since coming to Wheaton College, and joining Community Christian Church in Naperville, God has placed key exemplars in my life whose motivations for justice and peace are inextricably tied to their faith in Christ. Having seen such integration in practice, the ideas of hospitality as subversive or the support for transforming the systemic causes of poverty, add a conceptual framework that helps to hem in the experiences, emotions, and the work of God in my own life for the past few years.

Thinking back to the first time that I watched The Color of Fear or stood on the football field in Diversity class seeing all my classmates of color behind me, I did not quite know what to do with the feelings of fear, anger, and guilt that I felt. I remember distinctly the triangle Derek drew on the board with each of those emotions at an apex. In light of today’s readings and that knowledge, it becomes clear that one of my callings as a Christian psychologist is to move my brothers and sisters in Christ away from the corners of fear, anger, and guilt toward communities that hold all of those emotions in tension by offering hospitality to the least of these. Moreover, I feel called to facilitate making a place for different people groups to learn from one another via reciprocity in our faith communities. As said by Pohl, we are to “move away from a charity model that reinforces ‘the donor’s distance and the recipients’ dependency.’” However, I want not to relegate justice to the state, or else we lose the crux of justice and peace, which is community and relationship with one another.

Specific, concrete ideas for how I can work in a ministry setting and convey these ideas is elusive to me at this point. For me, I know that it involves ministering to children and adolescents using my psychology training and conveying the ideas about peace and justice, hospitality, and the like to them. I am drawn back to last week’s reading by Durlak and Wells discussing the effectiveness of prevention. This uncertainty is what keeps me searching for God and in prayer, because I have few answers.