There is a massive and heated debate over the mingling of Christian theory with psychology. One side argues that Christianity and psychology are not compatible at all while others argue that they are completely compatible. Some counselors are somewhere in the middle, and the number of individuals in this category seems to be growing substantially each year.

There are a total of four positions that Christians take regarding the mingling of psychology and religion.

There are those that believe in the ideology of separate but equal. This states that the bible is valid in the areas in which it covers, and psychology is valid in the areas that the bible does not cover or leaves room for expansion. Counselors who believe in the separate but equal theology will often switch back and forth between theology and psychology. Generally the counselors will try to use each discipline separately, using only one at a time.

The second approach is the “tossed salad” approach. Crabb suggests that this approach is like a salad bowl in which a variety of ingredients are thrown into the bowl and tossed about. The problem with the tossed salad approach is that psychological notions are often accepted uncritically and without an understanding of the conflicting world views (i.e., humanism, existentialism, modernism, etc.) which are often represented in psychology. Consequently a number of unbiblical ideas may creep into this counseling.
The third category that Crabb refers to is the “nothing buttery.” In this approach the Christian counselor accepts nothing but the scripture as the basis for Christian counseling. The writing of Jay Adams would fall in to this category. Adams suggests that psychology has nothing to offer the Christian counselor, and psychology is always in conflict with biblical ideas. If one is true to this position there is never a need to study any counseling approaches, medicine or psychology.

The fourth approach and the approach that Larry Crabb takes is the position he calls “spoiling the Egyptians.” In the spoiling the Egyptian’s position the Christian counselor is first thoroughly grounded in the Word of God. Just as God made provision for the Israelites carried out of Egypt the spoils the Christian counselor critiques the findings of modern psychology and takes from them tools which are consistent with our biblical perspective. The Word of God is absolute in authority, and the only truly and fully reliable source of knowledge. Psychology on the other hand is a field that attempts to use the scientific method to investigate a variety of man’s problems, and seeks to determine what works in helping people resolve their problems. This approach recognizes that scripture is “ALL TRUTH,” but may not contain “all truth”. Knowledge exists beyond the scripture about many subjects including psychology, medicine, family life, etc. The Christian counselor operating from this approach takes what is useful and consistent with scripture while discarding the rest.

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