Spiritual formation through direction at Fuller Theological Seminary School of Psychology.

Strawn, Brad D. ; Hammer, Miyoung Yoon

It is a unique opportunity for us to contribute an article on spiritual formation at the School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. It is unique because (a) we are alumni, and (b) we have recently joined the faculty as Professors in the Departments of Clinical Psychology and Marriage and Family. Brad Strawn is a Professor of Integration and on faculty in the clinical psychology department and Miyoung Yoon Hammer is an Assistant Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy. Our experiences as students were powerfully formative and now returning as faculty members many years later, we are in the interesting positions of viewing the program with what we call "inside--outside" eyes.

History of Fuller Theological Seminary School of Psychology

Fuller School of Psychology (SOP) is one of three schools at Fuller Theological Seminary located in Pasadena, California. The SOP has two departments: clinical psychology and marriage and family. The clinical department offers two APA--accredited programs in clinical psychology: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Clinical Psychology and the Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) in Clinical Psychology. The department of marriage and family offers programs at both the Pasadena campus and the regional campus in Phoenix, Arizona. The Pasadena campus offers a Masters of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy (MSMFT) and a Masters of Arts in Family Studies (MAFS). The Phoenix campus offers the MSMFT. Because both clinical psychology and marriage and family departments operate within the SOP and have some overlap, both will be described in this article.

The clinical PhD follows the scientist-practitioner model while the clinical PsyD follows the local clinical scientist model. The MSMFT is a clinical Master's degree focusing on clinical practice and eventual licensure. The MAFS degree is a non-clinical degree geared toward family life education. Both departments require students to take varying theology units taught by faculty in the School of Theology (SOT) and/or the School of Intercultural Studies (SIS). PhD students obtain either a Masters degree in Theology, Christian Leadership, Intercultural Studies or a Masters of Divinity degree. PsyD students are encouraged, but not required, to obtain a theology degree. MSMFT students do not obtain a degree in theology but take 20 units of theology and the MAFS students take 24 units. Regarding courses devoted to the integration of psychology and theology, PhD and PsyD clinical psychology students take 20 units which are taught by SOP faculty members or co-taught with faculty from the SOT or SIS. Students in the MSMFT program take four units that are taught by faculty in the Marriage and Family Department.

Fuller SOP Today

One of the hallmarks of Fuller SOP that we experienced as students was the remarkable amount of heterogeneity that cut across almost every area of the programs. This reality continues to be true today as there is heterogeneity among faculty emphases regarding research, clinical training or both. There is theoretical heterogeneity among faculty clinicians, ranging from psychoanalysis to family systems and everything in-between. There is denominational heterogeneity and even heterogeneity in how faculty conceptualize the integration between faith and psychology. Among the Fuller SOP faculty, one can find at least three, or perhaps even four, of the "viewpoints" as discussed in Johnson (2010). Some faculty would be best represented by a mixture of several of these viewpoints while others would resist these categories altogether. In spite of the diversity, it is probably safe to say that SOP Fuller faculty would not consider integration to be a distinct model or viewpoint but would ascribe to the long-held tradition of understanding the term as an overarching description of the personal and professional processes of relating psychology and Christian faith, while allowing for various means in accomplishing that.

There are pros and cons to this kind of institutional heterogeneity. Fuller students are exposed to a variety of ways to think about and conceptualize psychology in general, clinical work, theology, and integration. While some students flourish in an atmosphere of options, others become frustrated that they are not being taught in a systematic way to do any of these things. As faculty members, it seems that this is actually an important part of the Fuller identity. The SOP is situated in a multi-denominational seminary and our graduates enter into a myriad of careers ranging from work in foreign countries, Veterans Affairs facilities, public hospital settings, academia (both secular and Christian), full-time ministry, missions, and various clinical settings (e.g., classic private practice to community mental health). Therefore, the heterogeneity within the SOP fits the explicit commitment of the Seminary as a whole to embrace diversity while recognizing that for the same reasons it is challenging to delineate a "Fuller way," particularly in regards to spiritual formation.

The two departments within the Fuller SOP differ in the way they approach spiritual formation with their students. Whereas in the clinical psychology department spiritual formation is a process-oriented, implicit undertaking rather than something that can be categorized or "curricularized", the MSMFT program within the MF department has a cohesive spiritual formation curriculum that is explicitly organized around the primary vocational impetus of peacemaking and four clinical virtues, namely: humility, hope, compassion, and Sabbath rest.

Spiritual Formation, Direction and Liturgy

Amidst the different approaches within the Fuller SOP, what faculty share in common is a vision of being meaningfully involved in the professional and personal formation of our students. In this sense, the "Fuller way" is akin to spiritual direction. Henri Nouwen (2006) describes direction as analogous to a trainer or coach. He suggests we need spiritual friends to help us with our capacity for self-deception, to help us distinguish our own voice from God's, to make suggestions on what to read and what spiritual disciplines/practices to engage in, to provide accountability, wise counsel and prayerful presence. Spiritual formation then is the goal with direction being the means to that end. Perhaps, then, faculty in the SOP are more akin to spiritual friends or what Howard (2008) calls spiritual agents.

   More specifically still, there are those
   who take initiative in the formation
   of an individual or community; we
   speak of these as the agents of Christian
   spiritual formation. These agents
   of Christian spiritual formation can be
   individuals (such as a spiritual director
   or pastor) or groups (such as the
   way a Presbyterian session may plan
   for spiritual formation as part of congregational
   life). (p. 273)

Although faculty involvement in spiritual direction varies between departments, all SOP faculty may be considered spiritual agents. It is important to note that (a) the Holy Spirit is the primary agent of spiritual formation and (b) that the telos of formation is to be conformed to and united with Christ (Howard, 2008).

The idea of a telos of formation has recently been taken up in the work of James K. A. Smith (2009, 2013) who argues that for too long Christian education has worked with an assumed anthropology of persons as thinking beings. The assumption is that if persons think correctly they will act correctly. For this reason, education is aimed at the head or mind of the student. Professors lecture to students, have them read texts, write papers, and most of all think about things. But Smith, availing himself of philosophical phenomenology and recent advances in cognitive neuroscience and social psychology, argues that humans, at their core, are not primarily thinking beings. Rather humans are desiring creatures or what he calls, "liturgical animals" (2009, p. 40). His argument is that human desire is formed at the deepest precognitive level through engagement with liturgies, which provide practices that direct persons toward a particular telos or kingdom. Therefore, liturgies are cultural artifacts that carry within them issues of ultimacy (e.g., virtues, ethics and norms, images of the good life, etc.). This anthropology is deeply embodied in the actual physicality of human personhood and embedded in the social context of human relatedness (see Brown & Strawn, 2012).

As humans engage in these liturgical practices, secular or religious, they are formed in precognitive ways toward particular ends. For Smith all liturgies have a telos of love. Humans will love (or worship) something, the question is what? The what is a direct outcome of the formation of the practices as established through the liturgies. For this reason, it behooves Christians to engage in exegetical work on the surrounding cultural liturgies to examine if and how they square with the Gospel. To borrow an example from Smith (2009), while Christians may be cognitively trained in the way of Christ, they are also being consistently bombarded by the liturgy of capitalism and consumerism. The practices of this cultural liturgy may in fact be counterformational to the Gospel but because it is affective and precognitive it is so subtle that Christians not only engage in them (without reflection) but may even Christianize the practices and the larger liturgy (e.g., Capitalism is a Christian concept).

Smith (2009) then argues that it is equally important for Christian educators to aim their pedagogical efforts, liturgical formation efforts if you will, at the practices that will form habits whose telos is the Kingdom of God. Smith does not disparage the importance of thinking but he wants us to recognize that in emphasizing humans primarily as "thinkers" we may have inadvertently created "bobble-headed Christians" (p. 42) in which cognitivist anthropology dominates. Again, Smith wants us to reflect on the actual embodied practices (even educational practices) that we engage in and ask how these are, or are not, forming us into the image and likeness of Christ.

In an analogic way this may be framed therapeutically as the difference between content and process. Therapists listen for content (what their clients say), but they also watch for process (what is actually communicated and how). Process is a bit like liturgy in that it operates below the level of cognition but is deeply formational. Therapy that only monitors content, or only traffics in the realm of cognition, will miss not only how being a part of a cultural liturgy has formed a client (i.e., family, community, larger society), but also how the actual process of therapy (the liturgy of therapy) can shape a person. It is our contention that the "Fuller SOP way" of spiritual formation is more process than content, more liturgical than cognitive and although the MF department teaches spiritual formation at the curricular level, the process and practice of formation is central to the curriculum. Therefore, spiritual formation is a kind of heterogeneous cultural liturgy that we hope students will internalize and provide them with practices that will shape their love toward the Kingdom of God.

Spiritual Direction at Fuller

So how does Fuller SOP direct spiritual formation? We began by talking to our colleagues at one of our Integration Lunches held in winter quarter of 2013. Three times a year SOP faculty gather over lunch to discuss integrative topics. In the winter quarter the topic was "How do we do formation, direction, and integration?" Not surprisingly what emerged was a fantastic heterogeneity across faculty and departments. Nevertheless, the following three areas rose to prominence: mentoring, pedagogy and experiential. These three areas are best understood as liturgies that provide students with experiences/practices that shape their telos.

Mentoring

Sorenson, Derflinger, Bufford and McMinn's (2004) work on how students at integrative graduate programs reported learning integration demonstrated that students primarily learned integration "through relational attachments with mentors who model that integration for students personally" (p. 363). This kind of mentoring at Fuller SOP happens informally in a number of locations including spiritual formation groups and research labs.

MFT faculty-led spiritual formation groups. During the first two quarters of the program, groups of six to ten students meet weekly for faculty-led spiritual formation groups. Although the formation groups are not spiritual direction groups, per se, they have in common the purpose of promoting personal growth and formation in a relational context. The group process facilitates intrapersonal and interpersonal connections for students that promote a deeper level of knowledge of themselves and others that can be sustaining throughout the program. As the author and educator, Parker Palmer (1993) writes, "But a knowledge that springs from love will implicate us in the web of life; it will wrap the knower and the known in compassion... it will call us to involvement, mutuality, accountability" (p. 9). This is precisely what we strive for when we invite our students to know themselves and one another authentically in the fullness of Christ's love.

During the first quarter, the focus of the formation group is sharing personal and spiritual narratives as a means to begin exploring issues of vocation and identity and to create intimacy with one another. In the first meeting the faculty leader shares her or his story and by doing so, models the process of sharing, models vulnerability, and perhaps most importantly, demonstrates her or his own ongoing journey of spiritual formation. Formation groups during the second quarter build on the teaching students receive in the first quarter about peacemaking and the four clinical virtues.

An important process that takes place during the formation groups is building relationships through storytelling--both telling and listening. Telling and listening to personal narratives is a powerful experience by which students deepen their knowledge of others, including their faculty mentors, and themselves. Sorenson (as cited in Moriarty, 2010) stated that "The integration of psychology and Christianity is caught, not taught" (p. 23) and Moriarty goes on to explain how personal stories teach lessons of integration in a way that a theory or textbook readings fall short. Human stories are sacred as they provide opportunities for people to connect, discover meaning, and be known. The story becomes the intersection at which the storyteller and the listener become connected and a second story begins.

Doctoral research labs. Students meet weekly in groups with their research advisor. A major part of these meetings is to discuss ongoing research, but part of the time is also for vocational and personal support. Several of our colleagues talked about using this time to take an interest in their students' spiritual lives (e.g., asking students how they were doing, spending time in prayer with them, etc.) and to share their own faith journey. While it is difficult to clearly identify what exactly are the practices being "caught" during this liturgy it seems safe to suggest that spiritual candor, wrestling with one's faith, faithful consistency and the importance of religious community are a few practices that are modeled during this time.

Pedagogy

Faculty also emphasized in-class experiences. Several faculty use beginning-of-class devotionals in thoughtful and creative ways and weave these into the topic of that day's class. This creates not only an "integrative moment" but also a model of a practice for approaching psychology and theology. Other faculty members discussed incorporating spiritual disciplines into the overall course experience. These practices are overtly linked to the content of the course in a variety of ways. Excellent pedagogical examples of this approach are reported in Smith and Smith (2011). Faculty members who have utilized this approach interestingly reported initial student resistance to assigned spiritual disciplines but also reported that by the end of the course students expressed gratitude and desire to continue with the practices.

Finally, the impact of taking graduate courses in theology must not be underestimated. While not all SOP students emerge with a degree in theology, they all take courses that expose them to issues such as systematics, theodicy, hermeneutics, and so on. World-renown scholars from the School of Theology and School of Intercultural Studies teach these courses. Students learn theology for theology's sake with its own epistemology and methodology. It is our belief, and hope, that the study of scripture and theology instills new kinds of practices in students that impact how they approach scripture and think theologically in the world.

Experiential

Fuller SOP makes use of a number of process-oriented experiences that we believe underlie a kind of spiritual direction leading to formation. In addition to the faculty-led formation groups, the MFT faculty host four community meetings during which faculty members reflect upon each of the clinical virtues and facilitate interactive discussions with students. The faculty-led formation groups and community meetings culminate in a daylong spiritual formation retreat during the spring. Faculty, administrators, and students in the MFT department participate in individual and group processes as they reflect on peacemaking and the four clinical virtues. Anecdotally, faculty and students report a meaningful (integrative) coherence in their training that permeates the totality of their two-year program.

In year two, clinical psychology PhD and PsyD students are placed in Consultation Groups led by faculty members where they are trained to conceptualize case material in integrative ways. SOP students can also voluntarily join a Professional Development group led by outside clinicians hired and overseen by a former and current Fuller faculty member. These groups tend to focus on vocational and developmental issues and their relationship to clinical work.

Outcomes

So while we have hope that there is a kind of implicit spiritual direction taking place in this heterogeneous cultural liturgy leading toward spiritual formation, it is difficult to quantify. As posited above, cultural liturgies provide practices that shape one's telos toward particular kinds of "loves" and they do this at a precognitive or "gut" level. But even the practices are hard to operationalize. Perhaps no one has captured this as succinctly as Pierre Bourdieu. In The Logic of Practice (1980), Bourdieu argues that there is a logic of practice that can't be grasped by an impartial observer attempting to interpret action from the outside. There is a "feel for the game" that only those that know how to play the game can grasp, probably because it is deeper than cognitive mentation, and it is this feel that gives the game or the practice its sense (p. 82). If this is true then perhaps the only way to really know what is going on in terms of spiritual formation is to spend time listening to those that are "in the game."

While Fuller SOP has not conducted any school-wide empirical outcome studies to determine the impact of this heterogeneous spiritual direction approach to formation, a program evaluation of the MFT integration curriculum will be concluding in the spring of 2014. In the meantime, we informally queried several current students and past alums with the questions posed by the co-editors of this special issue. Although no definitive conclusions can be made from this data it was the hope that by listening to those "in the game" we might hear echoes of what might be happening.

Student Observations

To current students we posed the question, "How is training influencing your spiritual journey?"

Clinical Training Kept My Faith Alive

A male student in his fifth year of the clinical psychology program offered this observation:

   Seminary is sometimes jokingly referred to as cemetery. This play
   on words calls attention to the irony that theological education
   can become so dry and challenging that it kills the faith of those
   who embark on it. Though challenges have been aplenty, I have found
   my spiritual and faith life to be deepened throughout my clinical
   training. Who is God? What shall I do given who God is? Why do we
   suffer? Though these questions may well go neglected by most
   clinical psychology students, they are confronted head-on at
   Fuller. In turn, I see my clients not merely as people with whom I
   work collaboratively to address existential and psychological
   issues but also as glimpses into and instantiations of God's active
   story of love, peace, healing, and reconciliation. Clinical
   training has kept my faith alive, not killed it.

Suffering and Spiritual Formation

A female student in her third year in the clinical psychology program observed:

   My faith has been influenced in many surprising ways during my
   training at Fuller Theological Seminary. Fuller consists of
   knowledgeable professors dedicated to helping students learn about
   the Christian faith. Through sophisticated courses I have been able
   to better understand my faith through knowledge of Christianity's
   history and ways in which to read and understand scripture. Though
   teaching has been a considerable part of forming my faith, the most
   significant ways in which my training has affected my spiritual
   journey is through my experiences in practicing psychotherapy. In
   these beginning years of my training, I have found my faith as most
   present in the implicit nature of my work with clients. In
   practicing psychotherapy, therapists are often placed face to face
   with the darkness of humanity. We are constantly exposed to broken
   people and relationships and are placed in the midst of pain and
   suffering. This specifically has challenged me to consider the
   nature of God and God's role in humanity: compelling me to wrestle
   with my faith. As my awareness of suffering has increased, so has
   my sense of humility. I am aware that I am limited in my capacity
   to help those who seek my care and I have found there is a space
   for recognizing true change comes from our creator. My prayer life
   has been transformed into a space where I seek the Lord's guidance
   in session and his blessing over my clients. In many ways, my faith
   has taken on a role in transforming me into the therapist I am and
   thus, pouring out into my work as a psychologist. My experiences
   have helped me to become more comfortable with wrestling with ideas
   of suffering and uncertainty. As a result, I feel I am better
   prepared to walk with others through their own journeys of pain due
   to my own wrestling with pain and confusion.

The Confluence of Training and Spiritual Formation

A male student in his fourth year in the clinical psychology program observed:

   My studies at Fuller (both within
   the SOP and without) have guided
   me to a basic, yet foundational,
   conclusion regarding my training
   and my spiritual journey. Ultimately,
   they are one in the same. Like
   much of psychology and much of
   the Christian life, I have historically
   operated under that Platonic and
   Cartesian assumption that body and
   mind/spirit are not only bifurcated,
   but are in competitive hierarchy as
   well. Consequently, my assigned
   readings, my papers, and my clinical
   practica were all to be of lesser
   importance than those often less-tangible
   measures of spiritual
   growth. But with an understanding
   of mutual bindedness, and ultimate
   unification of body and soul/mind,
   all of a sudden my clinical training
   is of utmost importance. In this
   way, those immaterial elements
   once only associated with my spiritual
   journey are not relegated on
   the hierarchy to the vanity of earthly
   professional pursuits, but instead
   they are joined on their pedestal by
   those academic and professional
   practices that now enjoy "spiritual
   importance."

Internalizing the Practice of Peace Making

A male student in his second year of the MSMFT program wrote this:

   Training at Fuller Theological Seminary
   has influenced my spiritual
   journey through the encouragement
   to become a peacemaker and to
   promote shalom, or human flourishing
   and wholeness. Scripture urges
   us to be peacemakers (Romans
   14:19, Ephesians 4:3) and through
   my training at Fuller I have recognized
   the opportunity to be a
   peacemaker as a marriage and family
   therapist. My eyes have been
   opened to the abuses, disorders,
   addictions, and relational struggles
   that plague many families. My professors,
   the coursework, and training
   opportunities available through
   this MFT program are preparing me
   to ameliorate such issues for the
   purposes of healing emotional and
   spiritual pains and restoring relationships.
   Our anticipation as Christians
   is for shalom and a restored
   Earth that lacks pain and tears (Revelation
   21:4) and the restoration
   being done in the lives of our
   clients offers a beautiful glimpse
   into the restorative love and power
   of our God.

Participating with God

A female second-year student in the MFT program observed:

   The rewards and challenges of
   training in the MFT program at
   Fuller have been numerous. Not
   only have I gotten to work personally
   with professors and supervisors
   who are experts in their field, I
   have also been especially challenged
   in my spiritual journey. In
   practicum I have been immersed in
   the world of therapy and have had
   to learn what it means to be a therapist.
   And not only a therapist, but a
   therapist who is first and foremost a
   Christian. This is most evidenced by
   my philosophy as I approach doing
   therapy and also my personal
   actions before and after a session. I
   do not particularly relate to being a
   "Christian therapist" or a "therapist
   who is a Christian"; I rather would
   be called "a Christian who practices
   therapy." This kind of title keeps my
   priorities and ego in check. For
   example, there have been many
   times when I have been tempted to
   let my own attitude and emotions
   take over a session with a client,
   and I have had to step back and
   pray that the Holy Spirit work
   instead--humbly admitting to
   myself and to God that this is
   Christ's work and not my own. In
   these situations I can rest confident
   that God is always working. Other
   times, I have been tired and irritable
   and have not wanted my clients to
   show up, only to find that God
   moves mountains in my session
   where I was not even motivated to
   face molehills. God's work in the
   lives of my clients is a constant
   reminder of my priorities as a Christian
   and as a therapist. I am reminded
   that I entered this work to
   participate in God's kingdom, and
   not the other way around.

We would suggest that there is evidence in each of these narratives of a kind of internalized liturgy (complete with practices) that have in fact shaped these students' telos of love. They have begun to develop a "feel for the game."

Alumni Observations

To alums of the clinical program I (Strawn) posed the following question, "How did you grow spiritually during clinical psychology training at Fuller?" In the first quote we see the importance of mentoring, in the second we see the role of pedagogy and in the third we see the impact of experience.

The Mentoring Impact

A male alum who graduated within the last five years wrote:

   I attribute the spiritual growth that
   took place during my clinical psychology
   training at Fuller to two consistent
   and interpenetrating contexts
   of experience. First, I was forced to
   take theology classes in the School of
   Theology (SOT) and integration classes
   in the SOP that deconstructed and
   radically stretched my concept of
   who God is and what it might mean
   to be faithful. But, and this is the integral
   part, many of these classes were
   taught by people who clearly took
   great care to live out the faithfulness
   of which they spoke. Their words
   and intellects were formative, but it
   was the embodied modeling that
   most shaped me. It was as though
   they were saying with their actions,
   "Yes, it is difficult to have all of these
   big questions floating like a black
   cloud over one's head... I know
   because I have been there... Sometimes
   I am still there... but I have
   found ways to be faithful amidst the
   disorientation that life and theological
   studies inevitably bring." Second, I
   was part of a little local body of
   believers that was flexible enough to
   hold the questions and doubts and
   insights that I was wrestling with. This
   little local body continued to be faithful
   in the midst of disorientation too.

The Impact of Teaching

A male alum who graduated between 15 and 20 years ago observed:

   I sometimes joke that I became a
   Christian while at Fuller. While that is
   not entirely true, what I mean by that
   is that I shifted from a legalistic and
   more fundamentalist understanding of
   Christianity into an understanding that
   focused on the embodiment of the
   character, virtues, and practices of
   Christianity. From a psychological perspective,
   one could say that I shifted
   from being a radical behaviorist into a
   psychoanalytic orientation. The catalyst
   for this move was being required to
   complete not only a PhD in Clinical
   Psychology, but also an M.A. in Theology
   and to do so on theology's terms.
   Taking New Testament, Old Testament,
   Greek, Practical theology, and
   Systematic theology courses at the
   same time as my psychology classes
   forced me to always keep theology
   and psychology in dialogue. The two
   questions I tried to keep in mind were:
   1) What does psychology look like in
   light of theology? and 2) What does
   theology look like in light of psychology?
   While I am still on a journey
   regarding how to fully answer these
   questions, wrestling with these questions
   throughout my time at Fuller was
   enlivening and life-giving as it drove
   me to deepen both my faith and psychological
   understandings of life, as
   well as to search for ways to embody
   those understandings.

The Impact of Experience

A female alum who graduated between 10 and 15 years ago wrote:

   Becoming a good clinician required
   intense personal honesty--about my
   own perspectives, assumptions,
   motives, judgments, and values.
   Fuller emphasized the importance of
   using one's self as the therapeutic tool
   and cultivated awareness of how
   intrapersonal dishonesty could be
   harmful to one's clients. Clinical psychology
   examines the delicate interweaving
   of human pain, frailty, and
   resilience. My simple answers and
   superstitions deflated in the face of
   such complexity. When we truly
   respect the complexity of another
   person's situation, we must also face
   our own helplessness and the crucial
   role God plays in human healing and
   growth. Through the process of
   examining my own biases, wounds,
   and human frailty, I became more
   open to the God's power in my life
   and the lives of others. I think students
   often expect integration of faith
   and psychology to involve acquiring
   knowledge, but in my experience it is
   a process of personal transformation
   ... a process that involves facing the
   limited power of knowledge.

Conclusion

In surveying Fuller SOP faculty three areas of direction seemed to emerge that are a part of a larger Fuller SOP cultural liturgy that may be spiritually forming students: mentoring, pedagogy, and experience. While it is challenging to clearly quantify the impact of these areas it is posited that these provide the opportunity for students to engage in a cultural liturgy where they internalize various practices that form them hopefully toward Kingdom ethics.

Even with the difficulty of measuring or understanding the logic of practice (Bourdieu, 1980), work is underway in the MSMFT program to assess their curriculum and work is being discussed on the clinical psychology side as well. But while there may still remain drawbacks to the heterogeneous approach of Fuller, it is our hope that students take away a deep love for the complexity and diversity of this world, created by a God who always has creation in mind.

References

Bourdieu, P. (1980). The logic of practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Brown, W. S., & Strawn, B. D. (2012). The physical nature of Christian life: Neuroscience, psychology & the church. New York, NY: Cambridge.

Howard, E. B. (2008). The Brazos introduction to Christian spirituality. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.

Johnson, E. L. (Ed.) (2010). Psychology & Christianity: Five views. Downer's Grove, IL: IVP Academic.

Moriarty, G. (Ed.). (2010). Integrating faith and psychology: Twelve psychologists tell their stories. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.

Nouwen, H. (2006). Spiritual direction: Wisdom for the long walk of faith. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco.

Palmer, P. (1993). To know as we are known: Education as spiritual journey. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Smith, J. K. A. (2009). Desiring the kingdom: Worship, worldview, and cultural cultural formation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Smith, J. K. A. (2013). Imagining the kingdom: How worship works. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Smith, D. I. & Smith J. K. A. (Eds.) (2011). Teaching and Christian practices: Reshaping faith & learning. Grand Rapids, MI: Eardmans.

Sorenson, R. L., Derflinger, K. R., Bufford, R. K., & McMinn, M. R. (2004). National collaborative research on how students learn integration: Final report. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 23, 355-365.

Brad D. Strawn

Miyoung Yoon Hammer

Fuller Theological Seminary

Correspondence concerning this article can be sent to Brad D. Strawn, 180 N. Oakland Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101; bradstrawn@fuller.edu

Brad D. Strawn, (PhD Clinical Psychology, M.A. Theology, Fuller Theology Seminary) is Evelyn and Frank Freed Professor of the Integration of Psychology and Theology at Fuller Theology Seminary. His research interests include integration of faith and psychology, psychoanalysis, clinical integration, physical embodiment, and philosophical psychology. Brad is a licensed psychologist.

Miyoung Yoon Hammer (PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy, Syracuse University) is Assistant Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Theological Seminary (CA). Her clinical and research interests include medical family therapy: the intersection of illness and family systems, personal and professional formation of students and practitioners.