Church Psychology

We've seen the news stories and heard the rumors. Maybe we ourselves have been hurt by a narcissistic church leader. It's easy to throw the term around and diagnose others from afar. But what is narcissism, really? And how does it infiltrate the church?

As a psychotherapist and professor of marriage and family therapy and sexuality at a Christian University, Tina Schermer Sellers, PhD, has spent a career listening deeply to the often untold, most tightly held, shame-filled stories of people’s lives. Over the last 30 years in particular, these stories have revealed the devastating effects of abstinence education, the purity movement of the evangelical church, and the simultaneous removal of media regulations that allowed for an influx of sexual violence against women to enter all forms of commercial media beginning in the 1980s.

Hey you! Do you have wildly eclectic taste in rock and pop music? Do you like to sing? Dance? Maybe learn some no-bullshit techniques for communicating with the deity of your choice--and getting a response? Then you, my friend, may be interested in joining the First Church of David Bowie, Phonomancer. Is the FCDB an elaborate prank? An alternative reality game? The world's first start-up religion? Who's to say! STGHTFCDB is the astounding true story of the weirdest four years of my life.

Revolt Against Maturity is a study of biblical psychology. Biblical psychology contrasts sharply with a science of the mind based on the religious presuppositions of humanism, which regards man as having no constant nature. A science of the mind based on humanism views the mind as a clean slate and man's nature as plastic to be molded by men and institutions in the image of man for the new order he will establish. The biblical view sees psychology as a branch of theology; theology is a study of all that the scriptures declare about God.

Mental Illness is real. Will the Church get real? This book is a collection of essays from various authors: men and women, pastors and congregants, counselors and nurses, parents and children. All have a unique view of how mental health conditions affect people, and how the church has responded to these circumstances. Whispers in the Pews tackles how the mentally ill have been, and still are, treated in the church at large by sharing stories. This is not fundamentally a teaching book, but a book of moments and lives, knitted together by the common theme of mental health.

O poder tem uma função concedida por Deus nas relações humanas e nas instituições; porém, pode se tornar abuso quando empregado de maneira danificadora. Abordando conversas atuais sobre os hashtags #MeToo e #ChurchToo, este livro mostra que o corpo de Cristo precisa, desesperadamente, entender as formas que o poder assume, como este é abusado e como reagir a abusos de poder.

A Discordant String in God’s Harp investigates Satan’s attempts to disrupt or harm God’s people and God’s church in modern day times. This is not an exhaustive study, but I do try to pinpoint how church members who lack money, power, and social influence can be cut off from church leadership by Flatters who have more influence in church operations and in church dealings with the community. Besides talking about the poor, I also discuss in much more detail the various influences and disruptions mental illness can have on Christians.

En 2001, Kathy Baldock, una cristiana evangélica conservadora y heterosexual, conoció a Netto Montoya, una aborigen americana lesbiana, mientras estaba haciendo senderismo en las caminerias cercanas a su casa en las montañas de Sierra Nevada. Su amistad desafió las creencias culturales y religiosas de Baldock sobre las personas gay, lesbianas, bisexuales y transgénero.

Have you struggled with past abuse? Do you know someone who has? Chances are one of these questions is true. There is help today. This audiobook tells a story of how to break free from the pain that lingers when all the blows have ceased. In this short two-hour-long audiobook, Doug Gilford tells his story starting from the age of four, until present. He shares the many ways God intervened dramatically in his life that would completely change the outcome, and final verdict, for his successful ministry of more than 20 years.