Well, it probably doesn’t help that homosexuality is no longer considered a mental illness. There are other reasons why a Fundamentalist Christian might oppose psychology, but their feelings toward the feel might be a little warmer if they at least agreed that there was something seriously wrong with the gays.
Anything that offers or seeks an alternative (and incompatible) natural explanation for a phenomenon that fundamentalists consider to be spiritual/divine in nature (in this case, mental illness, the nature of mind and self, etc), is likely to attract their opposition.
Many years ago a large group of Catholic priests went through psychoanalysis. A big chunk of them quit the priesthood. The boss said it was good because the ones left would be better priests. I believe it was in California.
There are several Christian counselors (I don’t know if LaHaye is one or not) who are not licensed psychologists. There’s also the case of Paul Cameron, the most diabolical man in America where gay rights is concerned: he has a Ph.D. in psychology but was expelled from the American Psychological Association along with several other professional organizations and all for ethical violations/fraudulent research yet his ‘research’ and ‘findings’ are still admitted in courts throughout the land.
Tim LaHaye has been a pastoral counselor who applies “four temperments” theory, which his anti-psych Fundy detractors see as a blend of secular psychology and pagan fatalism.
So his detractors are not just against psychology but against non APA counseling?
Does anybody remember the big “APA says Pedophilia is Good” scandal many years back (probably early 90s or so)? Used to be referenced on TBN and other Fundy shows.
Short version: the American Psychological Association (APA) stated that research indicated that adults who had been sexualized as children were, so long as they had confronted the issue and had counseling, often not just well adjusted as adults but often moreso than most other adults due to the counseling. This led to the interpretation that “The APA says that being sexually molested as children makes people better adjusted as adults”, a gross distortion of the actual wording, but I have heard it repeated on TV by Paul Crouch, Jimmy Swaggart and John Hagee and I’m guessing others have as well. It’s possible this could play into the uneducated dislike of psychology as well- it’s about didlin’ the chirren’.
I went to a fundie college as an undergrad, and they had a strong psychology department. I went to several fundie churches until I was around 28, and I never heard anyone in those churches speak against psychology. So not all . . .
Which college? For instance to some any religious college might be “fundie” but to me only colleges like say Pensacola Christian College would be “fundie”.
Assuming fundamentalists do oppose psychology in large numbers it is likely because psychology is based on materialism, which would reject the ‘mind/body’ dichotomy and by proxy the concept of an etherical soul disconnected from the brain, which would devalue the entire Christian faith. The idea that feelings, ambitions, hopes, etc are due to material chemicals rather than an etherical soul is threatening to their worldview. That is likely the reason.
Here is something interesting, psychiatrists are the least religious physicians.
“Ever since Freud described religious faith as an illusion and a neurosis there has been tension and at times hostility between religion and psychiatry. Psychiatrists are less religious on average than other physicians, according to previously published data from the same survey, and non-psychiatrist physicians who are religious are less willing to refer their patients to psychiatrists.”
“Although 61 percent of all American physicians were either Protestant (39%) or Catholic (22%), only 37 percent of psychiatrists were Protestant (27%) or Catholic (10%). Twenty-nine percent were Jewish, compared to 13 percent of all physicians. Seventeen percent of psychiatrists listed their religion as “none,” compared to only 10 percent of all doctors”
However, I think many people who aren’t fundamentalists oppose it for the same reason. Many people do not like the idea that a person’s behavior or taste in politics or religion may be due to genetics rather than free will, or the idea that a pill can change the way you think about yourself and the world.
I tend to believe its the same reason fundamentalists oppose evolution. If evolution via natural selection is real, there was no Adam and Eve. If Adam and Eve never existed, then there was no original sin that needed to be rectified. W/o original sin the entire story of Jesus falls apart since that is why he was crucified. Point is, fundamentalists hate evolution but they really don’t seem to care about the universe being 13.7 billion years old.
Psychology - the therapeutic aspect anyway - tends to focus on what’s best for the individual. Often that involves putting the individual before society’s sanctions, opinions and taboos. To a fundamentalist, that is unambiguously bad, because their idea of God intends the individual to be subordinate to outer control in every way. Not submitting to control - wherever, however, for any reason - constitutes the sin of pride.
I know the feeling. The Catholic Church doesn’t exactly warm to Universalist leanings either, although I have a feeling they’re a bit less hostile than AoG.
I think a couple years before he passed away, it was reported that JPII said that while the Catholic faith teaches an eternal Hell, the question of whether anyone goes there forever is an open one.
