Secular Psychology: What'S the Problem?

Abstract

Although both psychology and religion are concerned with many similar issues (e.g., health and well-being, meaning and purpose) and treat them in some analogous ways (e.g., counseling) they have long been formally separated. This formal separation due, in part, to secularization of modern society, which, according to most definitions, means that ideas, practice, and organizations lose their influence in face of scientific and other (McLeish, 1995, p. 668). For many secularists, relying on faith in supernatural beings or processes tantamount to primitive superstitions of undeveloped societies (de la Chaumiere, 2004). In these societies, argue secularists, practice of religious superstition often subjugates members of society to an unseen authority and an unjustified dogma in a way that works against free exercise of thought and results in closed-mindedness and developmental stagnation. For secularist, notes Gunton (1993), the worship of God takes place necessarily at expense of human individuality and freedom (p. 26). Moreover, because power typically held and wielded those few individuals who claim a privileged relationship to supernatural beings and forces--such as priests, shaman, and like--the common person has little choice but to obey their commands. Upon consideration of historical and current repercussions of these conditions, modern day secularists, including secular psychologists, have concluded that religious authorities and ideas ought to be rejected as a basis for society and treated academics as oppressive and/or irrelevant holdovers from an earlier, more primitive stage of society (de la Chaumiere, 2004). In this sense, secularization stands for more than simply separating scientific disciplines like psychology from religion. It also relegates religion to a second-class status because religion relies on faith for its truth claims and as a result simply cannot be in same class as disciplines like psychology that rely on knowledge gained through proper scientific inquiry (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2001). Faith, asserts research psychologist, Gary Heiman (1998), is acceptance of truth of a statement without questions or needing proof (p. 7). Scientists, on other hand, he argues, question and ask for proof (p. 7), by obtaining empirical, objective, systematic, and controlled observations that allow them to describe, explain, predict, and control behavior. Each finding rigorously evaluated in a skeptical yet open-minded manner, so that an accurate understanding of laws of behavior can be developed (p. 11). For secularist, scientific epistemologies are not only different from, but also superior to religious ones. At first blush, we may want to applaud state of affairs secularization seems to have brought about. After all, many scientists and laypeople alike believe that secularization helped bring us out of dark ages and into bright glow of enlightenment successfully extricating academic disciplines--particularly those in natural and social sciences--from religious control (Sagan, 1997). But religion has not been altogether left behind in wake of an evermore scientific and secularized society. A number of psychologists, for example, are religious people who attend church and espouse a religious worldview (at least in their personal spiritual life), as do many of students in their classes, participants in their research, and clients on their couches (Bilgrave & Deluty, 1998; Galllup & Lindsey, 1999; Larsen, 1996). Several psychology departments in America are housed within Universities that are sponsored churches and guided mission statements with explicitly religious objectives. Many psychologists also recognize religion as a viable psychological research topic (Emmons, 1999; Spilka, Hood, & Gorusch, 1985), and for psychologists who are therapists, sensitivity to their own and their clients' religious beliefs and practices not only a necessary component of multicultural awareness but it has also helped therapists develop a number of techniques that can be applied to religious and nonreligious clients alike (Bergin, 1980; D'Souza & Rodrigo, 2004; Genia, 1994). …

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