Welcome to the Society for Christian Psychology!

Learn about about our mission to work out a distinctly Christian psychology. Inside the website you’ll find:

• 1. A weekly Blog. Our blogger for May is Mike Wilkerson. Mike is a pastor and director of Biblical Counseling at Mars Hill Church. He leads the Redemption Groups ministry, wrote Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry, and co-authored a chapter on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in counseling in Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling. (The chapter is available as a free download.)
• 2. A growing list of resources, including information about Christian psychology, ancient and contemporary Christian psychologists, sample articles, recommended books, sister organizations and institutions, and .pdf copies of our journal, Edification, and copies of our newsletter, Soul & Spirit
• 3. Conferences of the SCP and other related organizations
• 4. Grant and research opportunities
• 5. Information on how to become a member of the Society. Consider partnering with us in the project of a radically Christian vision and practice of psychology.

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News & Announcements:

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A call for papers has gone out for the Christian Scholars’ Conference 2013 on the subject “Crises in Psychology – When People Researching People Goes Wrong,” to be held June 6-8, 2013, at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN. For more information, see our conference page.

AACC has sent out a call for papers for the 2013 World Conference, to be held Sept. 11-14. The Society for Christian Psychology will be holding a preconference workshop on the subject of shame (Sept 11), and will also be sponsoring a conference track on Christian psychology.

The SCP will be holding its next academic conference concurrently with the 2013 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture “Kierkegaard: A Christian Thinker for Our Time?” held at Baylor University, Oct 30-Nov 2. Speakers at the Symposium include Richard Bauckham, C. Stephen Evans, Eric Gregory, Paul Griffiths, Kathleen Norris, Christian Smith, Sylvia Walsh, and Merold Westphal. For information contact the Institute for Faith and Learning at Baylor University at ifl@baylor.edu. Speakers at the Society’s conference events include Simon Podmore, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Liverpool Hope University, the author of Kierkegaard and the Self Before God: Anatomy of the Abyss, and Mark Tietjen, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at University of West Georgia, author of Kierkegaard, Communication, and Virtue: Author as Edification.Those interested in exploring the contributions of Kierkegaard to a Christian psychology will soon be able to submit a proposal for our conference.

A call for papers has also been issued for the 2013 CAPS conference in Portland OR. For more information go to www.caps.net.

A call for papers has been sent out for a “Conference on the Theological Virtues” on the 2013 theme of “Love.” It will be held at Vitterbo University, La Crosse, WI, on March 14-16.

Research Participants Needed!

A research team at the University of Louisville is conducting a study about the association between well-being and prayer. Please take 20—25 minutes to complete this online survey. You will not be asked to divulge your name and responses will be kept completely confidential. To access the survey, simply click here http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/prayerC_Wave1.

This research is being conducted under the supervision of Dr. Patrick Pössel, and any questions about the study should be directed to him (Patrick.possel@louisville.edu).

The Society for Christian Psychology held an academic conference on the theme Towards a Christian Positive Psychology at Regent University on October 18-20, 2012. We had an incredible time hearing from a stellar group of Christian scholars from psychology, philosophy, theology, and psychiatry, including Robert Roberts, Ellen Charry, David Myers, Julie Exline, Rebecca DeYoung, James Spiegel, Kevin Timpe, Warren Kinghorn, Charles Hackney, Eric Johnson, Jonathan Pennington, and Craig Steven Titus. We hope that CD’s from the conference will be available in coming months.

The Society for Christian Psychology also held its Division Day on Sept 27, 2012 at the AACC National Conference at Branson, MO, on the topic  “A Christian Approach to Neuropsychology, Psychopathology, and Psychotherapy.” We benefitted from a terrific discussion by Matthew Stanford, professor of neuropsychology at Baylor University, and author of The Biology of Sin and Grace for the Afflicted: A Biblical and Clinical Perspective on Mental Illness, and Curt Thompson, a psychiatrist in private practice, director of Being Known, and author of Anatomy of the Soul. Thanks also to the two respondents, Jason Kanz, a neuropsychologist in private practice and Shannon Wolf, Assistant Professor of Counseling at Dallas Baptist University.

Bryan Institute for Critical Thought & Practice and Richmont Graduate University sponsored a symposium on November 2-3, 2012, based on the new book “Christianity and Counseling: Five Views.” Speakers will include Thomas Plante (levels-of-explanation), Mark McMinn (integration), Gary Moon (transformational psychology), Stuart Scott (biblical counseling), and the editors Stephen Greggo and Timothy Sisemore. Timothy Sisemore represented the Christian psychology position, since the author of that chapter, Diane Langberg, fell ill. For information see www.bryan.edu/facc.

The Society of Catholic Social Scientists held its 20th annual national conference in Uniondale, NY on October 26-27, 2012. We trust it went well!

The biblical counseling leader David Powlison has recently written an article in the on-line Journal of Biblical Counseling advocating the “redeeming of psychology,” an agenda at the forefront of the Society’s mission. It’s called “How Does Scripture Teach Us to Redeem Psychology.” You can find it at http://www.ccef.org/.

Check out the winter, 2011 issue of the CAPS journal, the Journal of Psychology and Christianity. The special issue is focused entirely on Christian psychology. It contains articles by a number of our members, and Tim Sisemore, one of the editors of our journal, Edification, supervised the special issue. Congratulations Tim, and thanks to CAPS for becoming a clearinghouse for all Christian approaches

A Christian psychology conference was held at Donetsk Christian University in the Ukraine at http://slavahalanskiy.blogspot.com/2012/04/church-meets-new-challenges-of-society.html

Interdisciplinary Residential Research Opportunity: “Religious Experience and Moral Identity”

The Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI) in Princeton, New Jersey, has selected “Religious Experience and Moral Identity” as the topic of its 2013-2014 resident research year. Offering eight Research Fellowships of up to $70,000 and two Postdoctoral Fellowships of $40,000, provided with support from the John Templeton Foundation, the Center will welcome proposals from scholars in theology, philosophy, and ethics, as well as scientists working in psychology and neuroscience. For more information, visit http://www.ctinquiry.org/news/newsstory.aspx?id=79&hide=true.

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Our Blog was one of the top 25 Psychology blogs of 2011 on www.thebestcolleges.org!

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