Psychology is an extremely divisive topic for Christians today. Yet despite it being one of the most commonly-taken college courses, many homeschool students never study it before encountering it in the university setting. While they may be prepared to answer the questions and accusations of humanism, evolution, relativism and naturalism, psychology classes may be the hardest battlefield of all. This text was designed to introduce students to psychology's concepts, underlying worldview assumptions, and the Christian criticism of psychology, while still providing suggestions for Christians joining the contemporary psychological conversation. Divided into two sections, Section I features information to help Christian homeschoolers with the worldview challenges of modern psychology; Section II presents an overview of crucial, commonly-taught concepts that will provide a deeper understanding of the discipline. Assignments include defining vocabulary, visiting listed websites, reviewing applicable scripture; essays and more. 164 non-reproducible pages, softcover.
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5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Christine Phinney (Bozeman, MT), October 23, 2008
This is a one of a kind resource. Great for both a homeschool co-op or on your own study. Very readable and user friendly. I am teaching it to a group and parents have been very pleased with the quality of the assignments and the Christian worldview.
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Author: Dr. Tim Rice
Submitted: March 08, 2008
Tell us a little about yourself. Dr. Tim Rice earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Montana State University, a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Kennesaw State University, and a Doctorate of Ministry in Family Counseling from Region’s
University. Dr. Tim spent 12 years working with adults and children with mental health and substance abuse problems in a secular, public sector mental health center. Dr. Tim believes that it is dangerous that most Christian home school students get their first exposure to modern psychology in college.
What was your motivation behind this project? As our oldest daughter prepared to leave home for college, my wife and I realized that the measure of success for our home school efforts would be more than her character, social skills, knowledge, GPA, SAT scores, and her acceptance to a good college and scholarships. The real measure of our success would be how prepared she was to face the challenges to her world view that the college experience will bring.
Almost 30 years ago as a young Christian I left home for a large state University. One of the first courses I took was Psychology 101. I was not ready to refute the world view assumptions hidden deep in the theories I learned. Under the banner of “science,” the psychology professor challenged or ridiculed everything I held dear. I was part of the majority of Christians who “walk away” from their faith within 12 months of starting college.
I don’t think that psychology professors have changed very much in 30 years, so we wanted to be sure that my daughter was prepared for Psychology 101. We searched the catalogs in vain for an introduction to psychology for Christian home school students. We searched the web only to discover that many Christian home school families reject psychology completely.
We think it is important that she study psychology in college. We think that the study of the human mind, brain and behavior is part of what it means to love the Lord with your mind. We just wanted help teasing apart the science of psychology from the secular and humanistic worldview assumptions that are such a part of “modern” psychology.
I decided to do something about it.
I dedicated a big chunk of the last 3 years to understanding the relationship of a Christian worldview and the assumptions of modern psychology. I earned a Doctorate of Ministry along the way. The result of the effort is Homeschool Psych: Preparing Christian Homeschool Students for Psychology 101.
What do you hope folks will gain from this project? Our children should learn about the brain, behavior, learning, personality, consciousness, dreams, and more. However, Christian parents should prepare their children to recognize the world view assumptions underlying modern psychology’s approach to those topics. Christian parents should (as they do with the evolutionary assumptions underlying most university-level instruction in biology) be sure their students can approach psychology’s content from a Christian perspective.
Anything else you'd like readers / listeners to know: Some Christian home schoolers accept psychology wholesale, some reject it entirely, and some wrestle with which aspects to accept and which to reject. I article suggests that whatever you believe about psychology, the time to address academic psychology is BEFORE your student leaves home for college.
In Homeschool Psych: Preparing Christian Home school Students for Psychology 101, I compare and contrast a Christian world view with the theories and assumptions of modern psychology and provide an overview of introductory psychology though a Christian world view.
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